or by
administration of drugs to the testator, or by imprisonment and
violence, or by the solicitations of his wife, as he rightly considered
that to be persuaded by one's wife against one's better judgment is the
same as to submit to force. For Solon held that a man's reason was
perverted by deceit as much as by violence, and by pleasure no less than
by pain.

He regulated, moreover, the journeys of the women, and their mournings
and festivals. A woman was not allowed to travel with more than three
dresses, nor with more than an obolus' worth of food or drink, nor a
basket more than a cubit in length; nor was she to travel at night,
except in a waggon with a light carried in front of it. He abolished the
habits of tearing themselves at funerals, and of reciting set forms of
dirges, and of hiring mourners. He also forbade them to sacrifice an ox
for the funeral feast, and to bury more than three garments with the
body, and to visit other persons' graves. Most of these things are
forbidden by our own laws also; with the addition, that by our laws
those who offend thus are fined by the gynaeconomi, or regulators of the
women, for giving way to unmanly and womanish sorrow.

XXII. Observing that the city was filled with men who came from all
countries to take refuge in Attica, that the country was for the most
part poor and unproductive, and that merchants also are unwilling to
despatch cargoes to a country which has nothing to export, he encouraged
his countrymen to embark in trade, and made a law that a son was not
obliged to support his father, if his father had not taught him a trade.
As for Lykurgus, whose city was clear of strangers, and whose land was
"unstinted, and with room for twice the number," as Euripides says, and
who above all had all the Helots, throughout Lacedaemon, who were best
kept employed, in order to break their spirit by labour and hardship, it
was very well that his citizens should disdain laborious handicrafts and
devote their whole attention to the art of war.

But Solon had not the power to change the whole life of his countrymen
by his laws, but rather was forced to suit his laws to existing
circumstances, and, as he saw that the soil was so poor that it could
only suffice for the farmers, and was unable to feed a mass of idle
people as well, he gave great honour to trade, and gave powers to the
senate of the Areopagus to inquire what each man's source of income
might be, and to punish the