he laws not to be altered was this power of
amending and revising the laws. And, therefore, the enactment in
dispute would only imply that the constitution was not to be altered
except through the constitutional channel which Solon had appointed.

[222] See Fast. Hell., vol. ii., 276.

[223] Including, as I before observed, that law which provided for
any constitutional change in a constitutional manner.

[224] "Et Croesum quem vox justi facunda Solonis
Respicere ad longae jussit spatia ultima vitae."
Juv., Sat. x., s. 273.

The story of the interview and conversation between Croesus and Solon
is supported by so many concurrent authorities, that we cannot but
feel grateful to the modern learning, which has removed the only
objection to it in an apparent contradiction of dates. If, as
contended for by Larcher, still more ably by Wesseling, and since by
Mr. Clinton, we agree that Croesus reigned jointly with his father
Alyattes, the difficulty vanishes at once.

[225] Plutarch gives two accounts of the recovery of Salamis by
Solon; one of them, which is also preferred by Aelian (var. c. xix.,
lib. vii.), I have adopted and described in my narrative of that
expedition: the second I now give, but refer to Pisistratus, not
Solon: in support of which opinion I am indebted to Mr. Clinton for
the suggestion of two authorities. Aeneas Tacticus, in his Treatise
on Sieges, chap. iv., and Frontinus de Stratagem., lib. iv., cap.
vii.--Justin also favours the claim of Pisistratus to this stratagem,
lib. xi., c. viii.

[226] The most sanguine hope indeed that Cicero seems to have formed
with respect to the conduct of Cesar, was that he might deserve the
title of the Pisistratus of Rome.

[227] If we may, in this anecdote, accord to Plutarch (de Vit. Sol.)
and Aelian (Var. lib. viii., c. xvi.) a belief which I see no reason
for withholding.

[228] His own verses, rather than the narrative of Plutarch, are the
evidence of Solon's conduct on the usurpation of Pisistratus.

[229] This historian fixes the date of Solon's visit to Croesus and
to Cyprus (on which island he asserts him to have died), not during
his absence of ten years, but during the final exile for which he
contends.

[230] Herod., l. i., c. 49.

[231] The procession of the goddess of Reason in the first French
revolution solves the difficulty that perplexed Herodotus.

[232] Mr. Mitford cons