disputes by the
letter of the law were obliged to have recourse to juries of the people,
and to refer all disputes to them, as being to a certain extent above
the laws. He himself notices this in the following verses:

"I gave the people all the strength they needed,
Yet kept the power of the nobles strong;
Thus each from other's violence I shielded,
Not letting either do the other wrong."

Thinking that the weakness of the populace required still further
protection, he permitted any man to prosecute on behalf of any other who
might be ill-treated. Thus if a man were struck or injured, any one else
who was able and willing might prosecute on his behalf, and the
lawgiver by this means endeavoured to make the whole body of citizens
act together and feel as one. A saying of his is recorded which quite
agrees with the spirit of this law. Being asked, what he thought was the
best managed city? "That," he answered, "in which those who are not
wronged espouse the cause of those who are, and punish their
oppressors."

XIX. He established the senate of the Areopagus of those who had held
the yearly office of archon, and himself became a member of it because
he had been archon. But in addition to this, observing that the people
were becoming turbulent and unruly, in consequence of their relief from
debt, he formed a second senate, consisting of a hundred men selected
from each of the four tribes, to deliberate on measures in the first
instance, and he permitted no measures to be proposed before the general
assembly, which had not been previously discussed in this senate. The
upper senate he intended to exercise a general supervision, and to
maintain the laws, and he thought that with these two senates as her
anchors, the ship of the state would ride more securely, and that the
people would be less inclined to disorder. Most writers say that Solon
constituted the senate of the Areopagus, as is related above; and this
view is supported by the fact that Drakon nowhere mentions or names the
Areopagites, but in all cases of murder refers to the Ephetai. However,
the eighth law on the thirteenth table of the laws of Solon runs thus:--

"All citizens who were disfranchised before the magistracy of Solon
shall resume their rights, except those who have been condemned by the
Areopagus, or by the Ephetai, or by the king--archons, in the prytaneum,
for murder or manslaughter, or attempts to overthrow the government a