Vitae philosophorum

Nor are my laws nor all my enactments any better; but the popular leaders did the commonwealth harm by permitting licence, and could not hinder Pisistratus from setting up a tyranny. And, when I warned them, they would not believe me. He found more credit when he flattered the people than I when I told them the truth. I laid my arms down before the generals’ quarters and told the people that I was wiser than those who did not see that Pisistratus was aiming at tyranny, and more courageous than those who shrank from resisting him. They, however, denounced Solon as mad. And at last I protested: My country, I, Solon, am ready to defend thee by word and deed; but some of my countrymen think me mad. Wherefore I will go forth out of their midst as the sole opponent of Pisistratus; and let them, if they like, become his bodyguard. For you must know, my friend, that he was beyond measure ambitious to be tyrant.

He began by being a popular leader; his next step was to inflict wounds on himself and appear before the court of the Heliaea, crying out that these wounds had been inflicted by his enemies; and he requested them to give him a guard of 400 young men. And the people without listening to me granted him the men, who were armed with clubs. And after that he destroyed the democracy. It was in vain that I sought to free the poor amongst the Athenians from their condition of serfdom, if now they are all the slaves of one master, Pisistratus.

Solon to Pisistratus

I am sure that I shall suffer no harm at your hands; for before you became tyrant I was your

You are, I admit, of all tyrants the best; but I see that it is not well for me to return to Athens. I gave the Athenians equality of civil rights; I refused to become tyrant when I had the opportunity; how then could I escape censure if I were now to return and set my approval on all that you are doing?

Solon to Croesus

I admire you for your kindness to me; and, by Athena, if I had not been anxious before all things to live in a democracy, I would rather have fixed my abode in your palace than at Athens, where Pisistratus is setting up a rule of violence. But in truth to live in a place where all have equal rights is more to my liking. However, I will come and see you, for I am eager to make your acquaintance.

Chilon, son of Damagetas, was a Lacedaemonian. He wrote a poem in elegiac metre some 200 lines in length; and he declared that the excellence of a man is to divine the future so far as it can be grasped by reason. When his brother grumbled that he was not made ephor as Chilon was, the latter replied, I know how to submit to injustice and you do not. He was made ephor in the 55th Olympiad; Pamphila, however, says the 56th. He first became ephor, according to Sosicrates, in the archonship of Euthydemus.

As Herodotus relates in his first Book, when Hippocrates was sacrificing at Olympia and his cauldrons boiled of their own accord, it was Chilon who advised him not to marry, or, if he had a wife, to divorce her and disown his children.

The tale is also told that he inquired of Aesop what Zeus was doing and received the answer: He is humbling the proud and exalting the humble. Being asked wherein lies the difference between the educated and the uneducated, Chilon answered, In good hope. What is hard? To keep a secret, to employ leisure well, to be able to bear an injury. These again are some of his precepts: To control the tongue, especially at a banquet.

Not to abuse our neighbours, for if you do, things will be said about you which you will regret. Do not use threats to any one; for that is womanish. Be more ready to visit friends in adversity than in prosperity. Do not make an extravagant marriage. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Honour old age. Consult your own safety. Prefer a loss to a dishonest gain: the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time. Do not laugh at another’s misfortune. When strong, be merciful, if you would have the respect, not the fear, of your neighbours. Learn to be a wise master in your own house. Let not your tongue outrun your thought. Control anger. Do not hate divination.

Of his songs the most popular is the following: By the whetstone gold is tried, giving manifest proof; and by gold is the mind of good and evil men brought to the test. He is reported to have said in his old age that he was not aware of having ever broken the law throughout his life; but on one point he was not quite clear. In a suit in which a friend of his was concerned he himself pronounced sentence according to the law, but he persuaded his colleague who was his friend to acquit the accused, in order at once to maintain the law and yet not to lose his friend.

He became very famous in Greece by his warning about the island of Cythera off the Laconian coast. For, becoming acquainted with the nature of the island, he exclaimed: Would it had never been placed there, or else had been sunk in the depths of the sea.

And this was a wise warning; for Demaratus, when an exile from Sparta, advised Xerxes to anchor his fleet off the island; and if Xerxes had taken the advice Greece would have been conquered. Later, in the Peloponnesian war, Nicias reduced the island and placed an Athenian garrison there, and did the Lacedaemonians much mischief.

He was a man of few words; hence Aristagoras of Miletus calls this style of speaking Chilonean. . . . is of Branchus, founder of the temple at Branchidae. Chilon was an old man about the 52nd Olympiad, when Aesop the fabulist was flourishing. According

I have written an epitaph on him also, which runs as follows[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 88.):

I praise thee, Pollux, for that Chilon’s son
1. By boxing feats the olive chaplet won.
2. Nor at the father’s fate should we repine;
3. He died of joy; may such a death be mine.

Here Chilon stands, of Sparta’s warrior race,
1. Who of the Sages Seven holds highest place.

Chilon to Periander

You tell me of an expedition against foreign enemies, in which you yourself will take the field. In my opinion affairs at home are not too safe for an absolute ruler; and I deem the tyrant happy who dies a natural death in his own house.

Pittacus was the son of Hyrrhadius and a native of Mitylene. Duris calls his father a Thracian. Aided by the brothers of Alcaeus he overthrew

At the time, however, the people of Mitylene honoured Pittacus extravagantly and entrusted him with the government. He ruled for ten years and brought the constitution into order, and then laid down his office. He lived another ten years after his abdication and received from the people of Mitylene a grant of land, which he dedicated as sacred domain; and it bears his name to this day Sosicrates relates that he cut off a small portion for himself and pronounced the half to be more than the whole. Furthermore, he declined an offer of money made him by Croesus, saying that he had twice as much as he wanted; for his brother had died without issue and he had inherited his estate.

Pamphila in the second book of her Memorabilia narrates that, as his son Tyrraeus sat in a barber’s shop in Cyme, a smith killed him with a blow from an axe. When the people of Cyme sent the murderer to Pittacus, he, on learning the story, set him at liberty and declared that It is better to pardon now than to repent later. Heraclitus, however, says

Among the laws which he made is one providing that for any offence committed in a state of intoxication the penalty should be doubled; his object was to discourage drunkenness, wine being abundant in the island. One of his sayings is, It is hard to be good, which is cited by Simonides in this form: Pittacus’s maxim, Truly to become a virtuous man is hard.

Plato also cites him in the Protagoras[*](345d.): Even the gods do not fight against necessity. Again, Office shows the man. Once, when asked what is the best thing, he replied, To do well the work in hand. And, when Croesus inquired what is the best rule, he answered, The rule of the shifting wood, by which he meant the law. He also urged men to win bloodless victories. When the Phocaean said that we must search for a good man, Pittacus rejoined, If you seek too carefully, you will never find him. He answered various inquiries thus: What is agreeable? Time. Obscure? The future. Trustworthy? The earth. Untrustworthy? The sea. It is the part of prudent men, he said, before difficulties arise, to provide against their arising;

and of courageous men to deal with them when they have arisen. Do not announce your plans beforehand; for, if they fail, you will be laughed at. Never reproach any one with a misfortune, for fear of Nemesis. Duly restore what has been entrusted to you. Speak no ill of a friend, nor even of an enemy. Practise piety. Love temperance. Cherish truth, fidelity, skill, cleverness, sociability, carefulness.

Of his songs the most popular is this:

With bow and well-stored quiver
1. We must march against our foe,
2. Words of his tongue can no man trust,
3. For in his heart there is a deceitful thought.

He also wrote poems in elegiac metre, some 600 lines, and a prose work On Laws for the use of the citizens.

He was flourishing about the 42nd Olympiad. He died in the archonship of Aristomenes, in the third year of the 52nd Olympiad,[*](570b.c.) having lived more than seventy years, to a good old age. The inscription on his monument runs thus[*](Anth. Plan. ii. 3.):

Here holy Lesbos, with a mother’s woe,
1. Bewails her Pittacus whom death laid low.

There was another Pittacus, a legislator, as is stated by Favorinus in the first book of his Memorabilia, and by Demetrius in his work on Men of the Same Name. He was called the Less.

To return to the Sage: the story goes that a young man took counsel with him about marriage, and received this answer, as given by Callimachus in his Epigrams[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 89.):

A stranger of Atarneus thus inquired of Pittacus, the son of Hyrrhadius:
1. Old sire, two offers of marriage are made to me; the one bride is in wealth and birth my equal;
2. The other is my superior. Which is the better? Come now and advise me which of the two I shall wed.
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3. So spake he. But Pittacus, raising his staff, an old man’s weapon, said, See there, yonder boys will tell you the whole tale.
4. The boys were whipping their tops to make them go fast and spinning them in a wide open space.
5. Follow in their track, said he. So he approached near, and the boys were saying, Keep to your own sphere.
6. When he heard this, the stranger desisted from aiming at the lordlier match, assenting to the warning of the boys.
7. And, even as he led home the humble bride, so do you, Dion, keep to your own sphere.

The advice seems to have been prompted by his situation. For he had married a wife superior in birth to himself: she was the sister of Draco, the son of Penthilus, and she treated him with great haughtiness.

Alcaeus nicknamed him σαράπους and σάραπος because he had flat feet and dragged them in walking; also Chilblains, because he had chapped feet, for which their word was χειράς; and Braggadocio, because he was always swaggering; Paunch and Potbelly, because he was stout; a Diner-in-the-Dark, because he dispensed with a lamp; and the Sloven, because he was untidy and dirty. The exercise he took was grinding corn, as related by Clearchus the philosopher.

The following short letter is ascribed to him:

Pittacus to Croesus

You bid me come to Lydia in order to see your prosperity: but without seeing it I can well believe that the son of Alyattes is the most opulent of kings. There will be no advantage to me in a journey to

Bias, the son of Teutames, was born at Priene, and by Satyrus is placed at the head of the Seven Sages. Some make him of a wealthy family, but Duris says he was a labourer living in the house. Phanodicus relates that he ransomed certain Messenian maidens captured in war and brought them up as his daughters, gave them dowries, and restored them to their fathers in Messenia. In course of time, as has been already related, the bronze tripod with the inscription To him that is wise having been found at Athens by the fishermen, the maidens according to Satyrus, or their father according to other accounts, including that of Phanodicus, came forward into the assembly and, after the recital of their own adventures, pronounced Bias to be wise. And thereupon the tripod was dispatched to him; but Bias, on seeing it, declared that Apollo was wise, and refused to take the tripod.

But others say that he dedicated it to Heracles in Thebes, since he was a descendant of the Thebans who had founded a colony at Priene; and this is the version of Phanodieus.

A story is told that, while Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened two mules and drove them into the camp, and that the king, when he saw them, was amazed at the good condition of the citizens actually extending to their beasts of burden. And he decided

It is also stated that he was a very effective pleader; but he was accustomed to use his powers of speech to a good end. Hence it is to this that Demodicus of Leros makes reference in the line:

If you happen to be prosecuting a suit, plead as they do at Priene;

This was the manner of his death. He had been pleading in defence of some client in spite of his great age. When he had finished speaking, he reclined his head on his grandson’s bosom. The opposing counsel made a speech, the judges voted and gave their verdict in favour of the client of Bias, who, when the court rose, was found dead in his grandson’s arms.