stand the rise of the freedom, for want of which the burning spirits of other regions were soon exhausted.

The city which Theseus ruled was not only at the centre of Greece, but, as its children fondly believed, of the whole world. 109 Its position, perhaps, in a territory barren of the richer productions of surrounding lands, had saved it from the invasions and the migrations by which other nations were wellnigh exterminated in the early periods. 110 All the more precious was it to its own people, who labored in its cultivation, and who, without laboring, beheld in the sea encircling its mountain shores, and in the sky adorning it with glorious hues, the sublimest images with which any of the Greeks could attempt to bring themselves into harmony. If there were any spot in Greece where Minerva might still prevail against Mars, it was Athens. But the consecration of the city to the goddess of wisdom yet waited its fulfilment, when Solon was born.

Some two centuries after Theseus, his successor, Codrus, sacrificed himself in the defence of his kingdom against the invading Dorians. In grateful admiration of their preserver, if not for reasons less pleasing to be told, the Athenians resolved to have no other king. A supreme magistracy, the Archonship, was established for the elder branch of Codrus's family; from whom there was successively ap

109 Xen., de Vectig., Cap. 1. 110 Thucyd., I. 2. Herod., I. 56. So Aristoph., Vesp., 1076 :

̓Αττικοὶ μόνοι . . . . . αὐτόχθονες.

111 As of old, in the Iliad, XXI. 391 et seq.

pointed a single Archon who ruled the state for life. The power of the Archons afterwards became responsible, of course to the nobles, and was limited to a term of ten years, while, later still, the office was opened to all the noble families, and was finally divided among nine annual Archons of various functions and different names. 112 Besides these superior magistrates, the ancient tribunal of the Areopagus, composed of retired Archons, was undoubtedly in existence, judg ing in all cases of public importance 113 as well as in the criminal trials for which it may have been originally constituted. A senate, and an assembly also, as is probable, shared in part the management of national and local affairs; both these bodies, like the Areopagus and the Archonship, being in the possession of the higher orders alone. The lower classes make no appearance in the histories, until the mention of the embarrassments amongst the nobles conjures up, as it were, the image of a people insisting upon some rights, at least, that should protect them against the capriciousness of their superiors.

Three figures succeed one another in this confusion. The first is that of Draco, who, a noble him

112 The first change took place in A. C. 752, the second in 714, the third in 683. Of the nine Archons established at this later date, the first, called 'Eπóvupos, was what we should call the chief-justice.

The

second, Bariλeus, was the pontiff; the third, Пoλépapɣos, the generalin-chief; and the other six, DeσμoOéral, were judges.

113 Which is rather a matter of inference, however, than of positive certainty. Pausanias relates the proposal of the king of Messenia, before the first war with Sparta, to refer the quarrel to the Areopagus. IV. 5. 1.

self, and an Archon, appears to have attempted to relieve the aristocracy of the evils it had brought upon itself by its government or its dissensions. He attempted no sufficient reforms; but simply introduced some apparent checks upon the judicial powers of the Archons, 114 at the same time that he increased the severity of punishments, as if to resist any encroaching spirit on the part of the people. 115 But the troubles he vainly endeavoured to overcome continued in the midst of sedition and discord. Another noble, Cylon, seized the Acropolis and attempted to make himself tyrant; but, defeated by the resolution of the people, he was, with his followers, put to death. Soon followed a famine, which no resolution could avert, but which Epimenides, a poet and a seer of Crete, was summoned to drive away, by saving the city from its disorders, and purifying it from its real or imaginary crimes. Epimenides was rewarded, as if he had been successful; but the divisions between the higher and the lower classes remained unhealed at his departure; and it was evident that ceremonies or sacrifices were no longer able to confirm the power of the nobles or to content the determined ambition of their inferiors. The time had come when the base of the statue was to be chiselled into forms of living

energy.

114 See Hermann, Pol. Antiq., says expressly, Hoλireia dè vπарSect. 103, and note 10.

115 So his reported laws concerning obedience to parents and worship of the gods; but Aristotle still

χούσῃ τοὺς νόμους ἔθηκεν, “ He adapted his laws to the actual constitution of the state." Pol., II. 9.9.

Every native and freeborn inhabitant of Attica 116 was admitted, as he grew up, to the privileges of the Genos, or Name, in which he had been born, and afterwards to one of the twelve Fraternities, of which the Names were the component members, 117 and which themselves made up four Tribes. Besides these general distinctions, there were those, already noticed, of nobles, husbandmen, and artisans, with others, according to the mountains, plains, or coasts on which the three different classes 118 were supposed to have their separate abodes. The great division, however, of the Athenian people was that, increased in Solon's time to an alarming point, between the rich and the poor. Throughout the states of antiquity, especially those nearest to our own era, the power, which the high-born, next after the strong, possessed, passed, at a certain period, into the hands of the wealthy, as if according to common principles of succession. But as the first stages in any revolution are the most difficult, so at the moment when the rich were gaining upon the noble, it would happen that the poor, behindhand, were bound to the heaviest afflictions.

116 Only of the highest class, that is, the Eupatridæ, according to Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, Vol. II. p. 142, Amer. edit.

117 The Greek name of the Tribe is pun, that of the Fraternity, paTpía, and that of the Name or Gens (sometimes called family, sometimes clan), Γένος. "As to the real political import," remarks Hermann concerning these divisions," their

object was the preservation of legitimacy and purity of descent among the citizens," etc. Pol. Antiq., Sect. 100.

118 These were the Aiákpio, the farmers or shepherds of the mountains; the Пediato, the nobles of the lowlands; and the Пápaλo, the traders and artisans of the coast. Plut., Sol., 13.

It was thus in Athens, where the nobles, at the period referred to, were absorbed in their own defence, and the rich, that is, those not nobles likewise, were struggling for their own elevation. It may be gravely doubted if far the larger majority of the nobles were not rich, and far the larger majority of the rich were not noble; but the extent of the suffering in which they who were neither rich nor noble had become involved appears to be unquestionable.19 The first result of increased wealth, in Attica, was increased oppression; and the poor, separated from those of their own order who had acquired wealth and were striving to acquire power, were not only more exposed to injury, but were more excited to take justice into their own hands, and "turn up the whole state," 120 so that they might be relieved.

In this breach, between revenge on the one side, and oppression on the other, Solon placed himself, as none but the earnest and the courageous would have dared. Like many another of the truer heroes of antiquity, this one has been too often robbed of the humane and eager nature that was warm within him; and in the zeal to make him a universal lawgiver, he has been denied the feelings of an active and an ar

.....

119The city was in great danger," says Plutarch; "for all the common people were sore indebted to the rich. . . . . If they were unable to pay, they were then delivered over to their creditors, who kept them as bondsmen in their houses, or else sent them away to

be sold in foreign lands. Many were even forced to sell their own children and to forsake their homes." Plut., Sol., 13. On the other hand, Diodorus mentions the luxuries in which the rich were plunged. Reliq., IX. 1, ed. Müller.

120 Plut., Sol., 13.