ermippus to have been told by Pataikos,
he who said that he had inherited the soul of Aesop.

VII. It is a strange and unworthy feeling that prompts a man not to
claim that to which he has a right, for fear that he may one day lose
it; for by the same reasoning he might refuse wealth, reputation, or
wisdom, for fear of losing them hereafter. We see even virtue, the
greatest and most dear of all possessions, can be destroyed by disease
or evil drugs; and Thales by avoiding marriage still had just as much to
fear, unless indeed he ceased to love his friends, his kinsmen, and his
native land. But even he adopted his sister's son Kybisthus; for the
soul has a spring of affection within it, and is formed not only to
perceive, to reflect, and to remember, but also to love. If it finds
nothing to love at home, it will find something abroad; and when
affection, like a desert spot, has no legitimate possessors, it is
usurped by bastard children or even servants, who when they have
obtained our love, make us fear for them and be anxious about them. So
that one may often see men, in a cynical temper, inveighing against
marriage and children, who themselves shortly afterwards will be plunged
into unmanly excesses of grief, at the loss of their child by some slave
or concubine. Some have even shown terrible grief at the death of dogs
and horses; whereas others, who have lost noble sons, made no unusual or
unseemly exhibition of sorrow, but passed the remainder of their lives
calmly and composedly. Indeed it is weakness, not affection, which
produces such endless misery and dread to those who have not learned to
take a rational view of the uncertainty of life, and who cannot enjoy
the presence of their loved ones because of their constant agony for
fear of losing them. We should not make ourselves poor for fear of
losing our property, nor should we guard ourselves against a possible
loss of friends by making none; still less ought we to avoid having
children for fear that our child might die. But we have already dwelt
too much upon this subject.

VIII. After a long and harassing war with the Megarians about the
possession of the Island of Salamis, the Athenians finally gave up in
sheer weariness, and passed a law forbidding any one for the future,
either to speak or to write in favour of the Athenian claim to Salamis,
upon pain of death. Solon, grieved at this dishonour, and observing that
many of the younger men were eager for an e