Famous Men of Ancient Times

SOLON

Solon, one of the seven wise men of Greece, was born at Salamis, 637 B. C. and educated at Athens. His father was one of the descendants of king Codrus, and, by his mother's side, he reckoned among his relations the celebrated Pisistratus. After he had devoted part of his time to philosophical and political studies, Solon travelled over the greatest part of Greece; but at his return home he was distressed at beholding the dissensions among his countrymen.

All now fixed their eyes upon him as a deliverer, and he was unanimously elected archon. He might have become absolute, but he refused the dangerous office of king of Athens, and, in the capacity of lawgiver, he began to make a reform in every department of the government. The complaints of the poorer citizens found redress; all debts were remitted, and no one was permitted to seize the person of his debtor, if he was unable to make payment. After he had established the most salutary regulations in the state, and bound the Athenians by a solemn oath that they would faithfully observe his laws for the space of one hundred years, Solon resigned the office of legislator, and removed himself from Athens. He visited Egypt, and the court of Crœsus,14 king of Lydia – celebrated for his wealth, and the vanity of desiring to be esteemed the happiest of mankind. He here declared to the monarch that an Athenian, who had always seen his country flourish – who had virtuous children, and who fell in defence of his native land, had a happier career than the proudest emperor on the globe.

After ten years' absence, Solon returned to Athens; but he had the mortification to find the greatest part of his regulations disregarded, through the factious spirit of his countrymen and the usurpation of Pisistratus. Not to be longer a spectator of the divisions that reigned in his country, he retired to Cyprus, where he died at the court of king Philocyprus, in the eightieth year of his age. The laws of Solon became established in Athens, and their salutary consequences can be discovered in the length of time they were in force in the republic. For above four hundred years they flourished in full vigor, and Cicero, who was himself a witness of their benign influence, passes the highest encomiums upon the legislator, whose superior wisdom framed such a code of regulations.

It was the intention of Solon to protect the poorer citizens; and by dividing the whole body of the Athenians into four classes, three of which were permitted to discharge the most important offices and magistracies of the state, and the last to give their opinion in the assemblies, but not have a share in the distinctions and honors of their superiors; the legislator gave the populace a privilege, which, though at first small and inconsiderable, soon rendered them masters of the republic, and of all the affairs of government. He made a reformation in the Areopagus, increased the authority of the members, and permitted them yearly to inquire how every citizen maintained himself, and to punish such as lived in idleness, and were not employed in some honorable and lucrative profession. He also regulated the Prytaneum, and fixed the number of its judges to four hundred.

The sanguinary laws of Draco were all cancelled except that against murder; and the punishment denounced against every offender was proportioned to his crime; but Solon made no law against parricide or sacrilege. The former of these crimes, he said, was too horrible to human nature for a man to be guilty of it, and the latter could never be committed, because the history of Athens had never furnished a single instance. Such as had died in the service of their country, were buried with great pomp, and their families were maintained at the public expense; but such as had squandered away their estates, such as refused to bear arms in defence of their country, or paid no attention to the infirmity and distress of their parents, were branded with infamy. The laws of marriage were newly regulated; it became an union of affection and tenderness, and no longer a mercenary contract. To speak with ill language against the dead, as well as against the living, was made a crime; for the legislator wished that the character of his fellow-citizens should be freed from the aspersions of malevolence and envy. A person that had no children was permitted to dispose of his estates as he pleased; females were not allowed to be extravagant in their dress or expenses; licentiousness was punished; and those accustomed to abandoned society, were deprived of the privilege of addressing the public assemblies. These celebrated laws were engraved on several tables; and that they might be better known and more familiar to the Athenians, they were written in verse.

If we consider the time in which Solon lived, we shall see occasion to regard him as a man of extraordinary wisdom and virtue. Nearly all the systems of government around him were despotic. That government should be instituted and conducted for the benefit of the governed; and that the people are the proper depositories of power – principles recognised in his institutions – were truths so deeply hidden from mankind, as to demand an intellect of the highest order for their discovery.

Nor are his virtues and humanity less conspicuous than his sagacity. While repealing the bloody code of Draco, he substituted mild and equitable laws; he shunned the harsh and savage system of Lycurgus, which sacrificed all the best feelings of the heart, and the most refined pleasures of life, in order to sustain the martial character of the state; and while he sought to soften the manners, he strove to exalt the standard of public and private virtue, not only by his laws, but by his conversation and example. He was thus, not only the benefactor of Athens and of Greece, but – as one of the great instruments of civilization throughout the world, and especially as one of the leaders in the establishment of free government – mankind at large owe him a lasting debt of gratitude.

LYCURGUS

This Spartan lawgiver is supposed to have been born about 900 B. C. He was the youngest son of king Eunomus, and was entitled to the throne upon the death of his brother, Polydectes; but he relinquished it in behalf of his unborn son, and administered the government in his name. By the wisdom of his measures, he won general esteem; and his noble disinterestedness raised his glory to a height which awoke envy against him in the minds of some of the most distinguished Spartans, who now conspired against him. Partly to escape the danger which threatened him, and partly to gratify the desire of seeing foreign nations, and learning their manners, he left Sparta, and travelled in various countries.

After visiting Crete, and admiring the wise laws of Minos, he went to Iona. The effeminate and luxurious life of the inhabitants, and the feebleness of their laws, which formed a striking contrast with the simplicity and vigor of those of Crete, made a deep impression upon him. Here, however, he is said to have become acquainted with the poems of Homer, which he collected and carried to Greece. From hence he is said to have travelled into Egypt, India, and Spain; but this seems improbable.

In the meanwhile, the two kings who succeeded him at Sparta, Archelaus and Charilaus, were esteemed neither by the people nor by the nobility; and, as there were no laws sufficient to maintain the public tranquillity, the confusion passed all bounds. In this dangerous situation, Lycurgus was the only man from whom help and deliverance could be expected. The people hoped from him protection against the nobles, and the kings believed that he would put an end to the disobedience of the people. More than once, ambassadors were sent to entreat him to come to the assistance of the state.

He long resisted, but at last yielded to the urgent wishes of his fellow-citizens. At his arrival in Sparta, he found that not only particular abuses were to be suppressed, but that it would be necessary to form an entirely new constitution. The confidence which his personal character, his judgment, and the dangerous situation of the state, gave him among his fellow-citizens, encouraged him to encounter all obstacles. The first step which he took, was to add to the kings a senate of twenty-eight persons, venerable for their age, without whose consent the former were to undertake nothing. He thus established a useful balance between the power of the kings and the licentiousness of the people. The latter at the same time obtained the privilege of giving their voice in public affairs. They had not, however, properly speaking, deliberative privileges, but only the limited right of accepting or rejecting what was proposed by the kings or the senate.

The Spartans conformed in general to the institutions of Lycurgus; but the equal division of property which he effected, excited among the rich such violent commotions, that the lawgiver fled to the temple, to save his life. On the way, he received a blow, which struck out one of his eyes. He merely turned round, and showed to his pursuers his face streaming with blood. This sight filled all with shame and repentance; they implored his pardon, and led him respectfully home. The person who had done the deed, a young man of rank, and of a fiery character, was given up to him. Lycurgus pardoned him, and dismissed him, covered with shame.

After having thus formed a constitution for Sparta, Lycurgus endeavored to provide for its continuance. He made all the citizens take a solemn oath that they would change nothing in the laws which he had introduced, before his return. He then went to Delphi, and asked the gods whether the new laws were sufficient for the happiness of Sparta. The answer was, "Sparta will remain the most prosperous of all states as long as it observes these laws." He sent this answer to Lacedæmon, and left his country forever. He died of voluntary starvation, and ordered his body to be burned, and the ashes scattered in the sea, lest they should be carried to Sparta, and his countrymen be released from their oath.

Though the patriotism of Lycurgus appears to have been of the most exalted nature, his institutions were exceedingly barbarous, in many respects. He cherished no such thing as family ties, but required everything to yield to the good of the state. The children did not belong to the parents; feeble children were destroyed; meals were all taken in common; unmarried men were punished. Thus the private liberty of the people was taken away, and they were made slaves, in their daily habits, thoughts and feelings, to that power which was called the state. The design of the lawgiver seemed to be to rear up a nation of soldiers – not for conquest, but for defence. He would not permit Sparta to be encircled with walls, preferring that its defence should depend on the arms of the citizens. The men were wholly trained for martial life. Sensibility to suffering, and the fear of death, were treated with contempt. Victory or death, in battle, was their highest glory; cowardice was attended with the most deadly shame.

The difference between the institutions of Lycurgus and those of Solon, may be seen in their results. The Spartans became a stern and haughty nation of soldiers; but they have left nothing behind but their story, to instruct mankind; while the Athenians, exalted by the genial breath of liberty, continue to this very hour to be the admiration of the world, for their literature, their arts, and their institutions.

HOMER

The Iliad is often spoken of as the greatest production of the human mind; yet it has been seriously questioned whether such a person as Homer ever lived! This paradox is to be explained by admitting, that, although the Iliad is a wonderful performance for the time and circumstances of its composition, still, it is by no means entitled to the supremacy which scholastic fondness assigns to it; and that the doubts thrown upon its authorship are but the mists engendered in the arena of hypercriticism.

By Homer, we mean the author of the Iliad, whatever may have been his true name. The period at which he flourished is matter of doubt, but it is fixed by the Arundelian Marbles,15 at 907 B. C., which is probably not far from the true date. A great many tales are handed down to us, in relation to him, which are mere fictions. The only well established facts, in his life, are that he was a native of Asiatic Greece, and a wandering poet, or rhapsodist, who went about the country reciting his compositions, according to the custom of those times. The story of his being blind is without authority.

Such are the meagre facts which can be gathered amid the obscurity of that remote age in which Homer lived. There is something painful in this barrenness, – and we almost feel that the critics, in exploding the fond fictions which antiquity has woven around the name of the great poet, have performed an ungracious office. They have indeed dissipated fables, but they have left us little but darkness or vacuity in their place. Such is the yearning of the mind, in respect to those who have excited its emotions, and created an interest in the bosom, that it will cherish even the admitted portraitures of fiction and fancy, rather than content itself with the blank canvass of nothingness. The heart, as well as nature, abhors a vacuum.

The fictitious history of Homer – which, however, is of some antiquity, and has passed current for centuries – is briefly as follows. His mother was named Critheis: she was married to Mæon, king of Smyrna, and gave birth to a child, on or near the banks of the river Meles, from which circumstance he was called Meles genes. The mother soon died, and he was brought up and educated under the care of Mæon. The name of Homer was afterwards given to him, on account of his becoming blind.

The legends proceed in general to state that Homer himself became a schoolmaster and poet of great celebrity, at Smyrna, and remained there till Mentes, a foreign merchant, induced him to travel. That the author of the Iliad and Odyssey must have travelled pretty extensively for those times, is unquestionable; for besides the accurate knowledge of Greece which these works display, it is clear that the poet had a familiar acquaintance with the islands both in the Ægean and the Ionian seas, the coasts of Asia Minor, Crete, Cyprus, and Egypt – which still bear the names he gave them – and possessed also distinct information with respect to Lybia, Æthiopia, Phœnicia, Caria and Phrygia.

In his travels, as the legends say, Homer visited Ithaca, and there became subject to a disease in his eyes, which afterwards terminated in total blindness. From this island he is said to have gone to Italy, and even to Spain; but there is no sign, in either of the two poems, of his possessing any definite knowledge westward of the Ionian sea. Wherever he went, Homer recited his verses, which were universally admired, except at Smyrna, where he was a prophet in his own country. At Phocæa, a schoolmaster, of the name of Thestorides, obtained from Homer a copy of his poetry, and then sailed to Chios, and there recited these verses as his own. Homer went soon after to the same place, and was rescued by Glaucus, a goatherd, from the attack of his dogs, and brought by him to Bolissus, a town in Chios, where he resided a long time, in the possession of wealth and a splendid reputation.

According to Herodotus, Homer died at Io, on his way to Athens, and was buried near the sea-shore. Proclus says he died in consequence of falling over a stone. Plutarch tells a different story. He preserves two responses of an oracle to the poet, in both of which he was cautioned to beware of the young men's riddle; and relates that the poet, being on a voyage to Thebes, to attend a musical or poetical contest at the feast of Saturn, in that city, landed in the island of Io, and, whilst sitting on a rock by the sea-shore, observed some young fishermen in a boat. Homer asked them if they had anything, and the young wags, who, having had no sport, had been diligently catching and killing as many as they could, of certain personal companions of a race not even yet extinct, answered, – "As many as we caught, we left; as many as we could not catch, we carry with us." The catastrophe of this absurd story is, that Homer, being utterly unable to guess the riddle, broke his heart, out of pure vexation; and the inhabitants of the island buried him with great magnificence, and placed the following inscription on his tomb: —

The general theory in regard to the poems of Homer, is that they were composed and recited by him, to the people living upon the islands and the main land along the coasts of Asia Minor. At that time books were unknown, and it is a question whether even the art of writing was then practised. Homer, therefore, published his poems in the only way he could do it – by oral delivery. Whether his verses were sung, or only recited, we cannot determine; but there is no doubt that he obtained both fame and maintenance by his performances.

So deep was the impression made by the poet, that his verses were learned by heart, and preserved in the memories of succeeding rhapsodists and minstrels. His reputation was diffused over all Greece; and Lycurgus, who had heard of his compositions, is supposed to have taken pains, during his travels, to have them written down, and to have brought them in a collected form to Greece. They were, however, still in fragments, and the task of arranging and uniting them was performed by Pisistratus, with the help of the poets of his time. In this way, they received nearly the form they now possess; the division of each of the two epics into twenty-four books, corresponding with the letters of the Greek alphabet, being the work of the Alexandrian critics, some centuries after. It must be remembered, however, that although the poems of Homer were thus committed to writing in the time of Pisistratus, they continued to be recited by the rhapsodists, who were much favored in Greece, and in this way alone, for several centuries, were popularly known. It is probable that in these recitations, there was a good deal of dramatic action, and that they possessed something of the interest which belongs to theatrical representation.

The vicissitudes to which Homer's reputation and influence have been subject, deserve notice. From the arrangement of the Iliad and Odyssey, in the time of the Pisistratidæ, to the promulgation of Christianity, the love and reverence with which the name of Homer was regarded, went on constantly increasing, till at last public games were instituted in his honor, statues dedicated, temples erected, and sacrifices offered to him, as a divinity. There were such temples at Smyrna, Chios, and Alexandria; and, according to Ælian, the Argives sacrificed to, and invoked the names and presence of, Apollo and Homer together.

But about the beginning of the second century of the Christian era, when the struggle between the old and the new religions was warm and active, the tide turned. Heathenism, says Pope, was then to be destroyed, and Homer appeared to be the father of those fictions which were at once the belief of the Pagan religion, and the objections of Christianity against it. He became, therefore, deeply involved in the question, not with that honor which had hitherto attended him, but as a criminal, who had drawn the world into folly. These times, however, are past, and Homer stands on the summit of the ancient Parnassus, the boast and glory of Greece, and the wonder and admiration of mankind.

The Iliad, with the exception of the Pentateuch and some others of the books of the Old Testament, is the most ancient composition known. It is interesting not only as a splendid poem, but also on account of the light it throws upon the history and manners of the remote ages in which it was written. We are struck with the similarity of the customs of the Asiatic Greeks to those of the Hebrews, as set forth in the Bible; and also with the fact that the Jupiter of Homer rises to that unchecked omnipotence assigned to Jehovah.

The design of the Iliad seems to be to set forth the revenge which Achilles took on Agamemnon, for depriving him of his mistress, Briseis, while engaged in the siege of Troy – with the long train of evils which followed. The admirers of Homer have pretended to discover in the work the most profound art in the construction of the poem, and have hence deduced rules for the formation of the epic poem; but nothing is more clear than that, in the simple lines of Homer, the poet had no other guide than a profound knowledge of human nature and human sympathies; and that he only sought to operate on these by telling a plain story, in the most simple, yet effective manner. The absence of all art is one of the chief characteristics of the Iliad; – its naturalness is the great secret of its power.