The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers Diogenes LaĆ«rtius (first ebook reader .TXT) š
- Author: Diogenes Laƫrtius
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Solon to Pisistratus
I am well assured that I should suffer no evil at your hands. For before your assumption of the tyranny I was a friend of yours, and now my case is not different from that of any other Athenian who is not pleased with tyranny. And whether it is better for them to be governed by one individual, or to live under a democracy, that each person may decide according to his own sentiments. And I admit that of all tyrants you are the best. But I do not judge it to be good for me to return to Athens, lest anyone should blame me for, after having established equality of civil rights among the Athenians, and after having refused to be a tyrant myself when it was in my power, returning now and acquiescing in what you are doing.
Solon to Croesus
I thank you for your goodwill towards me. And, by Minerva, if I did not think it precious above everything to live in a democracy, I would willingly prefer living in your palace with you to living at Athens, since Pisistratus has made himself tyrant by force. But life is more pleasant to me where justice and equality prevail universally. However, I will come and see you, being anxious to enjoy your hospitality for a season.
ChiloChilo was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses in elegiac meter to the number of two hundred: and it was a saying of his that a foresight of future events, such as could be arrived at by consideration, was the virtue of a man. He also said once to his brother, who was indignant at not being an ephor, while he himself was one: āThe reason is because I know how to bear injustice, but you do not.ā And he was made ephor in the fifty-fifth Olympiad; but Pamphila says that it was in the fifty-sixth. And he was made first ephor in the year of the archonship of Euthydemus, as we are told by Sosicrates. Chilo was also the first person who introduced the custom of joining the ephors to the kings as their counsellors, though Satyrus attributes this institution to Lycurgus. He, as Herodotus says in his first book, when Hippocrates was sacrificing at Olympia, and the cauldrons began to boil of their own accord, advised him either to marry, or, if he were married already, to discard his wife, and disown his children.
They tell a story, also, of his having asked Aesop what Jupiter was doing, and that Aesop replied, āHe is lowering what is high, and exalting what is low.ā Being asked in what educated men differed from those who were illiterate, he said: āIn good hopes.ā Having had the question put to him, āWhat was difficult?ā he said: āTo be silent about secrets; to make good use of oneās leisure, and to be able to submit to injustice.ā And besides these three things he added further: āTo rule oneās tongue, especially at a banquet, and not to speak ill of oneās neighbors; for if one does so one is sure to hear what one will not like.ā He advised, moreover: āTo threaten no one; for that is a womanly trick. To be more prompt to go to oneās friends in adversity than in prosperity. To make but a moderate display at oneās marriage. Not to speak evil of the dead. To honor old age.ā āTo keep a watch upon oneself.ā āTo prefer punishment to disgraceful gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for oneās whole life.ā āNot to laugh at a person in misfortune.ā āIf one is strong to be also merciful, so that oneās neighbors may respect one rather than fear one.ā āTo learn how to regulate oneās own house well.ā āNot to let oneās tongue outrun oneās sense.ā āTo restrain anger.ā āNot to dislike divination.ā āNot to desire what is impossible.ā āNot to make too much haste on oneās road.ā āWhen speaking not to gesticulate with the hand; for that is like a madman.ā āTo obey the laws.ā āTo love quiet.ā
And of all his songs this one was the most approved:
Gold is best tested by a whetstone hard,
Which gives a certain proof of purity;
And gold itself acts as the test of men,
By which we know the temper of their minds.
They say, too, that when he was
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