nd
who were in exile when this law was made."

This again proves that the senate of the Areopagus existed before the
time of Solon; for who could those persons be who were condemned by the
court of the Areopagus, if Solon was the first who gave the senate of
the Areopagus a criminal jurisdiction; though perhaps some words have
been left out, or indistinctly written, and the law means "all those
who had been condemned on the charges which now are judged by the court
of the Areopagus, the Ephetai, or the Prytanies, when this law was made,
must remain disfranchised, though the others become enfranchised?" Of
these explanations the reader himself must consider which he prefers.

XX. The strangest of his remaining laws is that which declared
disfranchised a citizen who in a party conflict took neither side;
apparently his object was to prevent any one regarding home politics in
a listless, uninterested fashion, securing his own personal property,
and priding himself upon exemption from the misfortunes of his country,
and to encourage men boldly to attach themselves to the right party and
to share all its dangers, rather than in safety to watch and see which
side would be successful. That also is a strange and even ludicrous
provision in one of his laws, which permits an heiress, whose husband
proves impotent, to avail herself of the services of the next of kin to
obtain an heir to her estate. Some, however, say that this law rightly
serves men who know themselves to be unfit for marriage, and who
nevertheless marry heiresses for their money, and try to make the laws
override nature; for, when they see their wife having intercourse with
whom she pleases, they will either break off the marriage, or live in
constant shame, and so pay the penalty of their avarice and wrong-doing.
It is a good provision also, that the heiress may not converse with any
one, but only with him whom she may choose from among her husband's
relations, so that her offspring may be all in the family. This is
pointed at by his ordinance that the bride and bridegroom should be shut
in the same room and eat a quince together, and that the husband of an
heiress should approach her at least thrice in each month. For even if
no children are born, still this is a mark of respect to a good wife,
and puts an end to many misunderstandings, preventing their leading to
an actual quarrel.

In other marriages he suppressed dowries, and ordered the bride to bring
to