her husband three dresses and a few articles of furniture of no great
value; for he did not wish marriages to be treated as money bargains or
means of gain, but that men and women should enter into marriage for
love and happiness and procreation of children. Dionysius, the despot of
Syracuse, when his mother wished to be married to a young citizen, told
her that he had indeed broken the laws of the state when he seized the
throne, but that he could not disregard the laws of nature so far as to
countenance such a monstrous union. These disproportioned matches ought
not to be permitted in any state, nor should men be allowed to form
unequal loveless alliances, which are in no sense true marriages. A
magistrate or lawgiver might well address an old man who marries a young
girl in the words of Sophokles: "Poor wretch, a hopeful bridegroom you
will be;" and if he found a young man fattening like a partridge in the
house of a rich old woman, he ought to transfer him to some young maiden
who is without a husband. So much for this subject.

XXI. Besides these, Solon's law which forbids men to speak evil of the
dead is much praised. It is good to think of the departed as sacred, and
it is only just to refrain from attacking the absent, while it is
politic, also, to prevent hatred from being eternal. He also forbade
people to speak evil of the living in temples, courts of justice, public
buildings, or during the national games; and imposed a fine of three
drachmas to the person offended, and two to the state. His reason for
this was that it shows a violent and uncultivated nature not to be able
to restrain one's passion in certain places and at certain times,
although it is hard to do so always, and to some persons impossible; and
a legislator should frame his laws with a view to what he can reasonably
hope to effect, and rather correct a few persons usefully than punish a
number to no purpose.

He gained credit also by his law about wills. Before his time these were
not permitted at Athens, but the money and lands of a deceased person
were inherited by his family in all cases. Solon, however, permitted any
one who had no children to leave his property to whom he would,
honouring friendship more than nearness of kin, and giving a man
absolute power to dispose of his inheritance. Yet, on the other hand, he
did not permit legacies to be given without any restrictions, but
disallowed all that were obtained by the effects of disease