play as this, we
shall find it some day in our business."
Now when Pisistratus, having wounded himself, was brought into the
market-place in a chariot, and stirred up the people, as if he had been
thus treated by his opponents because of his political conduct, and a
great many were enraged and cried out, Solon, coming close to him, said,
"This, O son of Hippocrates, is a bad copy of Homer's Ulysses; you do,
to trick your countrymen, what he did to deceive his enemies." After
this, the people were eager to protect Pisistratus, and met in an
assembly, where one Ariston made a motion that they should allow
Pisistratus fifty clubmen for a guard to his person. Now, the people,
having passed the law, were not nice with Pisistratus about the number
of his clubmen, but took no notice of it, though he enlisted and kept as
many as he would, until he seized the Acropolis. When that was done, and
the city in an uproar, Megacles, with all his family, at once fled; But
Solon, though he was now very old, and had none to back him, yet came
into the market-place and made a speech to the citizens, partly blaming
their inadvertency and meanness of spirit, and in part urging and
exhorting them not thus tamely to lose their liberty; and likewise then
spoke that memorable saying, that, before, it was an easier task to
stop the rising tyranny, but now the greater and more glorious action
to destroy it, when it was begun already, and had gathered strength.
But all being afraid to side with him, he returned home, and, taking his
arms, he brought them out and laid them in the porch before his door,
with these words: "I have done my part to maintain my country and my
laws," and then be busied himself no more.
But Pisistratus, having got the command, so extremely courted Solon, so
honored him, obliged him, and sent to see him, that Solon gave him
his advice, and approved many of his actions; for he retained most of
Solon's laws, observed them himself, and compelled his friends to obey.
And he added other laws, one of which is that the maimed in the wars
should be maintained at the public charge, following Solon's example in
this, who had decreed it in the case of one Thersippus, that was maimed.
Solon lived after Pisistratus seized the government a long time. But
the story that his ashes were scattered about the island Salamis is too
strange to be easily believed, or be thought anything but a mere
fable; and yet it is given, among other good
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