Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/163

SOLUN QUITS HIS NATIVE CITY 147 that there was no harm in saying and doing such things merely for amusement, Solon indignantly exclaimed, striking the ground with his stick, 1 " If once we come to praise and esteem such amusement as this, we shall quickly find the effects of it in our daily transactions." For the authenticity of this anecdote it would be rash to vouch, but we may at least treat it as the pro- test of some early philosopher against the deceptions of the drama ; and it is interesting, as marking the incipient struggles of that literature in which Athens afterwards attained such un- rivalled excellence. It would appear that all the laws of Solon were proclaimed, inscribed, and accepted without either discussion or resistance. He is said to have described them, not as the best laws which he could himself have imagined, but as the best which he could have induced the people to accept ; he gave them validity for the space of ten years, for which period 2 both the senate collectively and the archons individually swore to observe them with fidelity, under penalty, in case of non-observance, of a golden statue, as large as life, to be erected at Delphi. But though the acceptance of the laws was accomplished without difficulty, it was not found so easy either for the people to understand and obey, or for the framer to explain them. Every day, persons came to Solon either with praise, or criticism, or suggestions of various improve- ments, or questions as to the construction of particular enact- ments ; until at last he became tired of this endless process of reply and vindication, which was seldom successful either in re- moving obscurity or in satisfying complainants. Foreseeing that, if he remained, he would be compelled to make changes, he obtained leave of absence from his countrymen for ten years, trusting that before the expiration of that period they would have become ac- customed to his laws. He quitted his native city, in the full certainty that his laws would remain unrepealed until his return ; for, says Herodotus, " the Athenians could not repeal them, since they were bound by solemn oaths to observe them for ten years." The unqualified manner in which the historian here speaks of an oath, as if it created a sort of physical necessity, and shut out all 1 Plutarch, Solon, 29 ; Diogen. La6rt. i, 59. 'Plutarch, Solon, 15.