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Title: Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4)

Author: Plutarch

Translator: George Long
Aubrey Stewart

Release date: November 12, 2004 [eBook #14033]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLUTARCH'S
LIVES, VOLUME 1 (OF 4) ***

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4), by
Plutarch, et al, Translated by Aubrey Stewart and George Long

PLUTARCH'S LIVES.
Translated from the Greek.

WITH

NOTES AND A LIFE OF PLUTARCH.

BY

AUBREY STEWART, M.A.,
Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge;

AND THE LATE

GEORGE LONG, M.A.,
Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN, AND NEW
YORK.
1894.

LONDON:
REPRINTED FROM STEREOTYPE PLATES BY WM. CLOWES &
SONS, LTD., STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.
PREFACE TO THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME.
LIFE OF PLUTARCH.
LIFE OF THESEUS.
LIFE OF ROMULUS.
COMPARISON OF THESEUS AND ROMULUS.
LIFE OF LYKURGUS.
LIFE OF NUMA.
COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYKURGUS.
LIFE OF SOLON.
LIFE OF POPLICOLA.
COMPARISON OF SOLON AND POPLICOLA.
LIFE OF THEMISTOKLES.
LIFE OF CAMILLUS.
LIFE OF PERIKLES.
LIFE OF FABIUS MAXIMUS.
COMPARISON OF PERIKLES AND FABIUS MAXIMUS.
LIFE OF ALKIBIADES.
LIFE OF CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS.
COMPARISON OF ALKIBIADES AND CORIOLANUS.
LIFE OF TIMOLEON.
LIFE OF AEMILIUS.
COMPARISON OF PAULUS AEMILIUS AND TIMOLEON.

PREFACE.
No apologies are needed for a new edition of so favourite an author as
Plutarch. From the period of the revival of classical literature in Europe
down to our own times, his writings have done more than those of any other
single author to familiarise us with the greatest men and the greatest events
of the ancient world.
The great Duke of Marlborough, it is said, confessed that his only
knowledge of English history was derived from Shakespeare's historical
plays, and it would not be too much to say that a very large proportion of
educated men, in our own as well as in Marlborough's times, have owed
much of their knowledge of classical antiquity to the study of Plutarch's
Lives. Other writers may be read with profit, with admiration, and with
interest; but few, like Plutarch, can gossip pleasantly while instructing
solidly; can breathe life into the dry skeleton of history, and show that the
life of a Greek or Roman worthy, when rightly dealt with, can prove as
entertaining as a modern novel. No one is so well able as Plutarch to dispel
the doubt which all schoolboys feel as to whether the names about which
they read ever belonged to men who were really alive; his characters are so
intensely human and lifelike in their faults and failings as well as in their
virtues, that we begin to think of them as of people whom we have
ourselves personally known.
His biographies are numerous and short. By this, he avoids one of the
greatest faults of modern biographers, that namely of identifying himself
with some one particular personage, and endeavouring to prove that all his
actions were equally laudable. Light and shade are as necessary to a
character as to a picture, but a man who devotes his energies for years to the
study of any single person's life, is insensibly led into palliating or
explaining away his faults and exaggerating his excellencies until at last he
represents him as an impossible monster of virtue. Another advantage
which we obtain by his method is that we are not given a complete
chronicle of each person's life, but only of the remarkable events in it, and
such incidents as will enable us to judge of his character. This also avoids

what is the dreariest part of all modern biographies, those chapters I mean
which describe the slow decay of their hero's powers, his last illness, and
finally his death. This subject, which so many writers of our own time seem
to linger lovingly upon, is dismissed by Plutarch in a few lines, unless any
circumstance of note attended the death of the person described.
Without denying that Plutarch is often inaccurate and often diffuse; that his
anecdotes are sometimes absurd, and his metaphysical speculations not
unfrequently ridiculous, he is nevertheless generally admitted to be one of
the most readable authors of antiquity, while all agree that his morality is of
the purest and loftiest type.
The first edition of the Greek text of Plutarch's Lives appeared at Florence
in the year 1517, and two years afterwards it was republished by Aldus.
Before this, however, about the year 1470, a magnificent Latin version by
various hands appeared at Rome. From this, from the Greek text, and also
from certain MSS. to which he had access, Amyot in the year 1559
composed his excellent translation, of which it has been well said:
"Quoique en vieux Gaulois, elle a un air de fraicheur qui la fait rejeunir de
jour en jour."
Amyot's spirited French version was no less spiritedly translated by Sir
Thomas North. His translation was much read and admired in its day; a
modern reviewer even goes so far as to say that it is "still beyond
comparison the best version of Parallel Lives which the English tongue
affords." Be this as it may, the world will ever be deeply indebted to North's
translation, for it is to Shakespeare's perusal of that work that we owe
'Coriolanus,' 'Antony and Cleopatra,' and 'Julius Caesar.'
North's translation was followed by that known as Dryden's. This work,
performed by many different hands, is of unequal merit. Some Lives are
rendered into a racy and idiomatic, although somewhat archaic English,
while others fall far short of the standard of Sir Thomas North's work.
Dryden's version has during the last few years been re-edited by A.H.
Clough, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford.
The translation by which Plutarch is best known at the present day is that of
the Langhornes. Their style is certainly dull and commonplace, and is in
many instances deserving of the harsh epithets which have been lavished

upon it. We must remember, however, before unsparingly condemning their
translation, that the taste of the age for which they wrote differed materially
from that of our own, and that people who could read the 'Letters of
Theodosius and Constantia' with interest, would certainly prefer Plutarch in
the translation of the Langhornes to the simpler phrases of North's or
Dryden's version. All events, comic or tragic, important or commonplace,
are described with the same inflated monotony which was mistaken by
them for the dignity of History. Yet their work is in many cases far more
correct as a translation, and the author's meaning is sometimes much more
clearly expressed, than in Dryden's earlier version. Langhorne's Plutarch
was re-edited by Archdeacon Wrangham in the year 1819.
In 1844, thirteen Lives were translated by that eminent scholar the late Mr.
George Long; and it is by way of complement to these Lives that the
present version was undertaken with his consent and his approval.
Those translated by Mr. Long were selected by him as illustrating a period
of Roman history in which he was especially interested, and will therefore
be found to be more fully annotated than the others. It has seemed to me
unnecessary to give information in the notes which can at the present day be
obtained in a more convenient form in Dr. Smith's Classical Dictionary and
Dictionary of Antiquities, many of the articles in which are written by Mr.
Long himself. The student of classical literature will naturally prefer the
exhaustive essays to be found in these works to any notes appended to
Plutarch's text, while to those who read merely "for the story," the notes
prove both troublesome and useless.
In deciding on the spelling of the Greek proper names, I have felt great
hesitation. To make a Greek speak of Juno or Minerva seems as absurd as to
make a Roman swear by Herakles or Ares. Yet both Greek and Roman
divinities are constantly mentioned. The only course that seemed to avoid
absolute absurdity appeared to me to be that which I have adopted, namely
to speak of the Greek divinities by their Greek, and the Latin ones by their
Latin names. In substituting a k for the more usual c, I have followed the
example of Grote, who in his History spells all Greek names exactly as they
are written, with the exception of those with which we are so familiar in
their Latin form as to render this practically impossible; as for instance in

the case of Cyprus or Corinth, or of a name like Thucydides, where a return
to the Greek k would be both pedantic and unmeaning.
The text, which I have followed throughout, is that of C. Sintenis, Leipsic,
1873.
AUBREY STEWART.

PREFACE TO THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME. [1]
Among the extant Lives of Plutarch there are thirteen Lives of Romans
which belong to the most eventful period of Roman history. They are the
lives of the brothers Tiberius and Caius Sempronius Gracchus, of Caius
Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Quintus Sertorius, Marcus Licinius
Crassus, Cneius Pompeius Magnus, Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger,
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, Caius Julius Caesar,
Marcus Junius Brutus, and Marcus Antonius. From the year of the death of
Tiberius Gracchus, B.C. 133, to the death of Marcus Antonius, B.C. 30, a
period of about one hundred years, the Roman State was convulsed by
revolutions which grew out of the contest between the People and the
Nobility, or rather, out of the contests between the leaders of these two
bodies. This period is the subject of Appian's History of the Civil Wars of
the Romans, in Five Books. Appian begins with the Tribunate and
legislation of Tiberius Gracchus, from which he proceeds to the
Dictatorship of Sulla, and then to the quarrels between Pompeius and
Caesar, and Caesar's Dictatorship and assassination. He then proceeds to the
history of the Triumvirate formed after Caesar's death by his great nephew
Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Marcus Antonius, and Lepidus, the
quarrels of the Triumviri, the downfall of Lepidus, who was reduced to the
condition of a private person, and the death of Sextus Pompeius, the last
support of the party in whose cause his father, Cneius Pompeius, lost his
life. The remainder of this History, which is lost, carried the narration down
to the quarrels of Octavianus and Marcus Antonius, which ended in the
defeat of Antonius in the battle of Actium, B.C. 31, and his death in Egypt,
B.C. 30. The victory over Antonius placed all the power in the hands of
Octavianus, who, in the year B.C. 27, received from the Roman Senate the
title of Augustus, or the Sacred, by which name he is commonly known as
the first of the long series of Roman Emperors. "He made himself," says
Appian (Civil Wars, i. 5), "like Caius Julius Caesar, and still more than
Caesar, governor of his country and of all the nations under it, without
needing either election or the popular votes, or any show of such things.
After his government had subsisted for a long time, and been maintained

with vigour, fortunate in all his measures, and feared, he left behind him
descendants and successors who kept the power that he transmitted to them.
In this way, after various civil commotions, the Roman State was restored
to tranquillity, and the government became a Monarchy. And how this came
about I have explained, and brought together all the events, which are well
worth the study of those who wish to become acquainted with ambition of
men unbounded, love of power excessive, endurance unwearied, and forms
of suffering infinite." Thus, the historian's object was to trace the
establishment of the Imperial power in Rome back to its origin, to show that
the contests of the rival heads of parties involved the State in endless
calamities, which resulted in a dissolution of all the bonds that held society
together, and rendered the assumption of supreme power by one man a
healing and a necessary event.
As already observed, it happens that thirteen of Plutarch's extant Lives are
the lives of the most distinguished of the Romans who lived during this
eventful period; and though Plutarch's Lives severally are not histories of
the times to which they respectively refer, nor collectively form a History of
any given time, yet they are valuable as portraits of illustrious men, and
help us to form a better judgment of those who make so conspicuous a
figure in History.
Plutarch was a native of the town of Chaeroneia, in Boeotia; the times of his
birth and death are not exactly known, but we learn from his own works
that he was a young student at Delphi, in the thirteenth year of the reign of
the Emperor Nero, A.D. 66. He visited both Italy and Rome, and probably
resided at Rome for some time. He wrote his Life of Demosthenes, at least
after his return to Chaeroneia: he says (Life of Demosthenes, c. 2), that he
had not time to exercise himself in the Latin Language during his residence
at Rome, being much occupied with public business, and giving lessons in
philosophy. Accordingly it was late before he began to read the Latin
writers; and we may infer from his own words that he never acquired a very
exact knowledge of the language. He observes that it happened in his case,
that in his study of the Latin writers he did not so much learn and
understand the facts from the words, as acquire the meaning of the words
from the facts, of which he had already some knowledge. We may perhaps
conclude from this, that Plutarch wrote all his Roman lives in Chaeroneia,
after he had returned there from Rome. The statement that Plutarch was the

preceptor of the Emperor Trajan, and was raised to the consular rank by
him, is not supported by sufficient evidence. Plutarch addressed to Trajan
his Book of Apophthegms, or Sayings of Kings and Commanders; but this
is all that is satisfactorily ascertained as to the connection between the
Emperor and Philosopher. Trajan died A.D. 117.
"The plan of Plutarch's Biographies is briefly explained by himself in the
introduction to the Life of Alexander the Great, where he makes an apology
for the brevity with which he is compelled to treat of the numerous events
in the Lives of Alexander and Caesar. 'For,' he says, 'I do not write
Histories, but Lives; nor do the most conspicuous acts of necessity exhibit a
man's virtue or his vice, but oftentimes some slight circumstance, a word, or
a jest, shows a man's character better than battles with the slaughter of tens
of thousands, and the greatest arrays of armies and sieges of cities. Now, as
painters produce a likeness by a representation of the countenance and the
expression of the eyes, without troubling themselves about the other parts
of the body, so I must be allowed to look rather into the signs of a man's
character, and thus give a portrait of his life, leaving others to describe great
events and battles.' The object then of Plutarch in his Biographies was a
moral end, and the exhibition of the principal events in a man's life was
subordinate to this his main design; and though he may not always have
adhered to the principle which he laid down, it cannot be denied that his
view of what biography should be, is much more exact than that of most
persons who have attempted this style of composition. The life of a
statesman or of a general, when written with a view of giving a complete
history of all the public events in which he was engaged, is not biography,
but history. This extract from Plutarch will also in some measure be an
apology for the want of historical order observable in many of his Lives.
Though altogether deficient in that critical sagacity which discerns truth
from falsehood, and distinguishes the intricacies of confused and
conflicting statements, Plutarch has preserved in his Lives a vast number of
facts which would otherwise have been unknown to us. He was a great
reader, and must have had access to large libraries. It is said that he quotes
two hundred and fifty writers, a great part of whose works are now entirely
lost." (Penny Cyclopaedia, art. "Plutarch," by the writer of this Preface.)
The lively portraitures of men drawn in Plutarch's Lives have made them
favourite reading in all ages. Whether Plutarch has succeeded in drawing

the portraits true, we cannot always determine, because the materials for
such a judgment are sometimes wanting. But when we can compare his
Lives with other extant authorities, we must admit, that though he is by no
means free from error as to his facts, he has generally selected those events
in a man's life which most clearly show his temper, and that on the whole, if
we judge of a man by Plutarch's measure, we shall form a just estimate of
him. He generally wrote without any predilections or any prejudices. He
tells us of a man's good and bad acts, of his good and bad qualities; he
makes no attempt to conceal the one or the other; he both praises and
blames as the occasion may arise; and the reader leaves off with a mixed
opinion about Plutarch's Greeks and Romans, though the favourable or the
unfavourable side always predominates. The benevolent disposition of
Plutarch, and his noble and elevated character, have stamped themselves on
all that he has written. A man cannot read these Lives without being the
better for it: his detestation of all that is mean and disingenuous will be
increased; his admiration of whatever is truthful and generous will be
strengthened and exalted.
The translation of these Lives is difficult. Plutarch's text is occasionally
corrupted; and where it is not corrupted, his meaning is sometimes obscure.
Many of the sentences are long and ill-constructed; the metaphors often
extravagant; and the just connection of the parts is sometimes difficult to
discover. Many single words which are or ought to be pertinent in Plutarch,
and which go towards a description of character in general or of some
particular act, can hardly be rendered by any English equivalent; and a
translator often searches in vain for something which shall convey to the
reader the exact notion of the original. Yet Plutarch's narrative is lively and
animated; his anecdotes are appropriately introduced and well told; and if
his taste is sometimes not the purest, which in his age we could not expect it
to be, he makes amends for this by the fulness and vigour of his expression.
He is fond of poetical words, and they are often used with striking effect.
His moral reflections, which are numerous, have the merit of not being
unmeaning and tiresome, because he is always in earnest and has got
something to say, and does not deal in commonplaces. When the reflection
is not very profound, it is at least true; and some of his remarks show a deep
insight into men's character.

I have attempted to give Plutarch's meaning in plain language; to give all
his meaning, and neither more nor less. If I have failed in any case, it is
because I could do no better. But, though I have not always succeeded in
expressing exactly what I conceive to be the meaning of the original, I have
not intentionally added to it or detracted from it. It may be that there are
passages in which I have mistaken the original; and those who have made
the experiment of rendering from one language into another, know that this
will sometimes happen even in an easy passage. A difficult passage attracts
more than usual of a translator's attention, and if he fails there, it is either
because the difficulty cannot be overcome, or because he cannot overcome
it. Mere inadvertence or sleepiness may sometimes cause a translator to
blunder, when he would not have blundered if any friend had been by to
keep him awake.
The best thing that a man can do to avoid these and other errors is to
compare his translation, when he has finished it, with some other. The
translation which I have compared with mine is the German translation of
Kaltwasser, Magdeburg, 1799, which is generally correct. Kaltwasser in his
Preface speaks of the way in which he used the German translations of two
of his predecessors, J. Christopher Kind, Leipzig, 1745-1754, and H. v.
Schirach, 1776-1780, and some others. He says, "These two translations,
with the French translations above mentioned, I have duly used, for it is the
duty of a translator to compare himself with his predecessors; but I lay my
labour before the eyes of the public, without fearing that I shall be accused
of copying or of close imitation. First of all, I carefully studied the text of
my author and translated him as well as I could: then, and not before, I
compared the labour of my predecessors, and where I found a more suitable
expression or a happier turn, I made use of it without hesitation. In this way,
every fault, every deviation of the old translators must be apparent; the most
striking of them I have remarked on in the notes, but I have more frequently
amended such things silently, as a comparison will show the reader." The
translator has not compared his version with any English version. The
translation of North, which has great merit in point of expression, is a
version of Amyot's French version, from which, however, it differs in some
passages, where it is decidedly wrong and Amyot's version is right. Indeed,
it is surprising to find how correct this old French translation generally is.
The translation of 'Plutarch's Lives from the Greek by several hands,' was

published at London in 1683-86. It was dedicated by Dryden to James
Butler, the first Duke of Ormond, in a fulsome panegyric. It is said that
forty-one translators laboured at the work. Dryden did not translate any of
the Lives; but he wrote the Life of Plutarch which is prefixed to this
translation. The advertisement prefixed to the translation passes under the
name and character of the bookseller (Jacob Tonson), but, as Malone
observes, it may from internal evidence be safely attributed to Dryden. The
bookseller says, "You have here the first volume of Plutarch's Lives turned
from the Greek into English; and give me leave to say, the first attempt of
doing it from the originals." This is aimed at North's version, of which
Dryden remarks in his Life of Plutarch: "As that translation was only from
the French, so it suffered this double disadvantage; first, that it was but a
copy of a copy, and that too but lamely taken from the Greek original;
secondly, that the English language was then unpolished, and far from the
perfection which it has since attained; so that the first version is not only
ungrammatical and ungraceful, but in many places almost unintelligible."
There is another English version, by the Langhornes, which has often been
reprinted; there is an edition of it with notes by Wrangham. I have
compared my translation carefully with the German of Kaltwasser, and
sometimes with the French of Amyot, and I have thus avoided some errors
into which I should have fallen. There are errors both in the versions of
Amyot and Kaltwasser which I have avoided; but I may have fallen into
others.
The translation of Kaltwasser contains some useful notes. Those which I
have added to this translation are intended to explain so much as needs
explanation to a person who is not much acquainted with Roman history
and Roman usages; but they will also be useful to others. The notes of
Kaltwasser have often reminded me of the passages where some note would
be useful, and have occasionally furnished materials also. But as I have
always referred to the original authorities, I do not consider it necessary to
make more than this general acknowledgment. The notes added to this
translation are all my own, and contain my own opinions and observations.
This translation has been made from the edition of C. Sintenis, Leipzig,
1839, and I have compared the text of Sintenis with that of G.H. Schaefer,
Leipzig, 1826, which has been severely criticized: this edition contains,
however, some useful notes. I have very seldom made any remarks on the

Greek text, as such kind of remark would not have suited the plan and
design of this version, which is not intended for verbal critics.
I shall explain by two brief extracts what is my main design in this version
and in the notes, which must be my apology for not affecting a learned
commentary, and my excuse to those who shall not find here the kind of
remarks that are suitable to a critical edition of an ancient author. I have had
another object than to discuss the niceties of words and the forms of
phrases, a labour which is well in its place, if it be done well, but is not
what needs to be done to such an author as Plutarch to render him useful. A
man who was a great reader of Plutarch, a just and solid thinker above the
measure of his age, and not surpassed in his way by any writer in our own,
Montaigne, observes in his 'Essay of the Education of Children'—"Let him
enquire into the manners, revenues, and alliances of princes, things in
themselves very pleasant to learn, and very useful to know. In this
conversing with men, I mean, and principally those who only live in the
records of history, he shall by reading those books, converse with those
great and heroic souls of former and better ages. 'Tis an idle and vain study,
I confess, to those who make it so, by doing it after a negligent manner, but
to those who do it with care and observation, 'tis a study of inestimable fruit
and value; and the only one, as Plato reports, the Lacedaemonians reserved
to themselves. What profit shall he not reap as to the business of men, by
reading the Lives of Plutarch? But withal, let my governor remember to
what end his instructions are principally directed, and that he do not so
much imprint in his pupil's memory the date of the ruin of Carthage, as the
manners of Hannibal and Scipio; not so much where Marcellus died, as why
it was unworthy of his duty that he died there. That he do not teach him so
much the narrative part, as the business of history. The reading of which, in
my opinion, is a thing that of all others we apply ourselves unto with the
most differing and uncertain measures."[2] North, in his address to the
Reader, says: "The profit of stories, and the praise of the Author, are
sufficiently declared by Amiot, in his Epistle to the Reader: so that I shall
not need to make many words thereof. And indeed if you will supply the
defects of this translation, with your own diligence and good understanding:
you shall not need to trust him, you may prove yourselves, that there is no
prophane study better than Plutarch. All other learning is private, fitter for
Universities than Cities, fuller of contemplation than experience, more

commendable in students themselves, than profitable unto others. Whereas
stories are fit for every place, reach to all persons, serve for all times, teach
the living, revive the dead, so far excelling all other books, as it is better to
see learning in Noblemen's lives, than to read it in Philosophers' writings."
GEORGE LONG.

LIFE OF PLUTARCH.
Plutarch was born probably between A.D. 45 and A.D. 50, at the little town
of Chaeronea in Boeotia. His family appears to have been long established
in this place, the scene of the final destruction of the liberties of Greece,
when Philip defeated the Athenians and Boeotian forces there in 338 B.C. It
was here also that Sulla defeated Mithridates, and in the great civil wars of
Rome we again hear, this time from Plutarch himself, of the sufferings of
the citizens of Chaeronea. Nikarchus, Plutarch's great-grandfather, was,
with all the other citizens, without any exception, ordered by a lieutenant of
Marcus Antonius to transport a quantity of corn from Chaeronea to the
coast opposite the island of Antikyra. They were compelled to carry the
corn on their shoulders, like slaves, and were threatened with the lash if
they were remiss. After they had performed one journey, and were
preparing their burdens for a second, the welcome news arrived that Marcus
Antonius had lost the battle of Actium, whereupon both the officers and
soldiers of his party stationed in Chaeronea at once fled for their own
safety, and the provisions thus collected were divided among the inhabitants
of the city.
When Plutarch was born, however, no such warlike scenes as these were to
be expected. Nothing more than the traditions of war remained on the
shores of the Mediterranean. Occasionally some faint echo of strife would
make itself heard from the wild tribes on the Danube, or in the far Syrian
deserts, but over nearly all the world known to the ancients was established
the Pax Romana. Battles were indeed fought, and troops were marched
upon Rome, but this was merely to decide who was to be the nominal head
of the vast system of the Empire, and what had once been independent
cities, countries, and nations submitted unhesitatingly to whoever
represented that irresistible power. It might be imagined that a political
system which destroyed all national individuality, and rendered patriotism
in its highest sense scarcely possible, would have reacted unfavourably on
the literary character of the age. Yet nothing of the kind can be urged
against the times which produced Epictetus, Dio Chrysostom and Arrian;

while at Rome, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Martial, and Juvenal were
reviving the memories of the Augustan age.
From several passages in Plutarch's writings we gather that he studied under
a master named Ammonius, at Athens. For instance, at the end of his Life of
Themistokles, he mentions a descendant of that great man who was his
fellow-student at the house of Ammonius the philosopher. Again, he tells us
that once Ammonius, observing at his afternoon lecture that some of his
class had indulged too freely in the pleasures of the table, ordered his own
son to be flogged, "because," he said, "the young gentleman cannot eat his
dinner without pickles," casting his eye at the same time upon the other
offenders so as to make them sensible that the reproof applied to them also.
By way of completing his education he proceeded to visit Egypt. The
"wisdom of the Egyptians" always seems to have had a fascination for the
Greeks, and at this period Alexandria, with its famous library and its
memories of the Ptolemies, of Kallimachus and of Theokritus, was an
important centre of Greek intellectual activity. Plutarch's treatise on Isis and
Osiris is generally supposed to be a juvenile work suggested by his
Egyptian travels. In all the Graeco-Egyptian lore he certainly became well
skilled, although we have no evidence as to how long he remained in Egypt.
He makes mention indeed of a feast given in his honour by some of his
relatives on the occasion of his return home from Alexandria, but we can
gather nothing from the passage as to his age at that time.
One anecdote of his early life is as follows:—"I remember," he says, "that
when I was still a young man, I was sent with another person on a
deputation to the Proconsul; my colleague, as it happened, was unable to
proceed, and I saw the Proconsul and performed the commission alone.
When I returned I was about to lay down my office and to give a public
account of how I had discharged it, when my father rose in the public
assembly and enjoined me not to say I went, but we went, nor to say that I
said, but we said, throughout my story, giving my colleague his share."
The most important event in the whole of Plutarch's pious and peaceful life
is undoubtedly his journey to Italy and to Rome; but here again we know
little more than that he knew but little Latin when he went thither, and was
too busy when there to acquire much knowledge of that tongue. His

occupation at Rome, besides antiquarian researches which were afterwards
worked up into his Roman Lives, was the delivery of lectures on
philosophical and other subjects, a common practice among the learned
Greeks of his day. Many of these lectures, it is conjectured, were afterwards
recast by him into the numerous short treatises on various subjects now
included under the general name of Moralia. Plutarch's visit to Rome and
business there is admirably explained in the following passage of North's
'Life of Plutarch':—"For my part, I think Plutarch was drawn to Rome by
meanes of some friends he had there, especially by Sossius Senecio, that
had been a Consull, who was of great estimation at that time, and namely
under the Empire of Trajan. And that which maketh me think so, is because
of Plutarch's own words, who saith in the beginning of his first book of his
discourse at the table, that he gathered together all his reasons and
discourses made here and there, as well in Rome with Senecio, as in Greece
with Plutarch and others. Not being likely that he would have taken the
pains to have made so long a voyage, and to have come to such a city where
he understood not their vulgar tongue, if he had not been drawn thither by
Senecio, and such other men; as also in acknowledgement of the good
turnes and honour he had received by such men, he dedicated diverse of his
bookes unto them, and among others, the Lives unto Senecio, and the nine
volumes of his discourse at the table, with the treaty, How a man may know
that he profiteth in vertue. Now for the time, considering what he saith in
the end of his book against curiosity, I suppose that he taught in Rome in
the time of Titus and of Domitian: for touching this point, he maketh
mention of a nobleman called Rusticus, who being one day at his lecture,
would not open a letter which was brought him from the Emperor, nor
interrupt Plutarch, but attended to the end of his declamation, and until all
the hearers were gone away; and addeth also, that Rusticus was afterwards
put to death by the commandment of Domitian. Furthermore, about the
beginning of the Life of Demosthenes, Plutarch saith, that whilst he
remained in Italy and at Rome, he had no leizure to study the Latine tongue;
as well for that he was busied at that time with matters he had in hand, as
also to satisfie those that were his followers to learne philosophie of him."[3]
A list of all Plutarch's writings would be a very long one. Besides the Lives,
which is the work on which his fame chiefly rests, he wrote a book of 'Table
Talk,' which may have suggested to Athenaeus the plan of his 'Symposium.'

The most remarkable of his minor works is that 'On the Malignity of
Herodotus.' Grote takes this treatise as being intended seriously as an attack
upon the historian, and speaks of the "honourable frankness which Plutarch
calls his malignity." But it is probably merely a rhetorical exercise, in which
Plutarch has endeavoured to see what could be said against so favourite and
well-known a writer.
He was probably known as an author before he went to Rome. Large
capitals have always had a natural attraction for literary genius, as it is in
them alone that it can hope to be appreciated. And if this be the case at the
present day, how much more must it have been so before the invention of
printing, at a time when it was more usual to listen to books read aloud than
to read them oneself? Plutarch journeyed to Rome just as Herodotus went to
Athens, or as he is said to have gone to the Olympian festival, in search of
an intelligent audience of educated men. Whether his object was merely
praise, or whether he was influenced by ideas of gain, we cannot say. No
doubt his lectures were not delivered gratis, and that they were well
attended seems evident from Plutarch's own notices of them, and from the
names which have been preserved of the eminent men who used to frequent
them. Moreover, strange though it may appear to us, the demand for books
seems to have been very brisk even though they were entirely written by
hand.
The epigrams of Martial inform us of the existence of a class of slaves
whose occupation was copying books, and innumerable allusions in Horace,
Martial, &c., to the Sosii and others prove that the trade of a bookseller at
Rome was both extensive and profitable. Towards the end of the Republic it
became the fashion for Roman nobles to encourage literature by forming a
library, and this taste was given immense encouragement by Augustus, who
established a public library in the Temple of Apollo on the Mount Palatine,
in imitation of that previously founded by Asinius Pollio. There were other
libraries besides these, the most famous of which was the Ulpian library,
founded by Trajan, who called it so from his own name, Ulpius. Now
Trajan was a contemporary of our author, and this act of his clearly proves
that there must have been during Plutarch's lifetime a considerable reading
public, and consequent demand for books at Rome.

Of Plutarch's travels in Italy we know next to nothing. He mentions
incidentally that he had seen the bust or statue of Marius at Ravenna, but
never gives us another hint of how far he explored the country about which
he wrote so much. No doubt his ignorance of the Latin language must not
be taken as a literal statement, and probably means that he was not skilled
in it as a spoken tongue, for we can scarcely imagine that he was without
some acquaintance with it when he first went to Rome, and he certainly
afterwards became well read in the literature of Rome. In some cases he has
followed Livy's narrative with a closeness which proves that he must have
been acquainted with that author either in the original or in a translation,
and the latter alternative is, of the two, the more improbable.
It seems to be now generally thought that his stay at Rome was a short one.
Clough, in his excellent Preface, says on this subject, "The fault which runs
through all the earlier biographies, from that of Rualdus downwards, is the
assumption, wholly untenable, that Plutarch passed many years, as many
perhaps as forty, at Rome. The entire character of his life is of course
altered by such an impression." He then goes on to say that in consequence
of this mistaken idea, it is not worth while for him to quote Dryden's 'Life
of Plutarch,' which was originally prefixed to the translations re-edited by
himself. Yet I trust I may be excused if I again quote North's 'Life of
Plutarch,' as the following passage seems to set vividly before us the quiet
literary occupation of his later days.
"For Plutarch, though he tarried a long while in Italy, and in Rome, yet that
tooke not away the remembrance of the sweet aire of Greece, and of the
little towne where he was borne; but being touched from time to time with a
sentence of an ancient poet, who saith that,

"'In whatsoever countrey men are bred
(I know not by what sweetnesse of it led),
They nourish in their minds a glad desire,
Unto their native homes for to retire,'

"he resolved to go back into Greece againe, there to end the rest of his daies
in rest and honour among his citizens, of whom he was honourably
welcomed home. Some judge that he left Rome after the death of Trajan,
being then of great yeares, to leade a more quiet life. So being then at rest,

he earnestly took in hand that which he had long thought of before, to wit,
the Lives, and tooke great pains with it until he had brought his worke to
perfection, as we have done at this present; although that some Lives, as
those of Scipio African, of Metellus Numidicus, and some other are not to
be found. Now himselfe confesseth in some place, that when he began this
worke, at the first it was but to profit others; but that afterwards it was to
profit himselfe, looking upon those histories, as if he had looked in a glasse,
and seeking to reform his life in some sort, and to forme it in the mould of
the vertues of these great men; taking this fashion of searching their
manners, and writing the Lives of these noble men, to be a familiar
haunting and frequenting of them. Also he thought, [said he himselfe] that
he lodged these men one after another in his house, entering into
consideration of their qualities, and that which was great in either of them,
choosing and principally taking that which was to be noted, and most
worthy to be knowne in their sayings and deeds."[4]
Of Plutarch in his domestic relations we gather much information from his
own writings. The name of his father has not been preserved, but it was
probably Nikarchus, from the common habit of Greek families to repeat a
name in alternate generations. His brothers Timon and Lamprias are
frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, where Timon is spoken of
in the most affectionate terms. Rualdus has ingeniously recovered the name
of his wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A
touching letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her
not give way to excessive grief at the death of their only daughter, who was
named Timoxena after her mother. The number of his sons we cannot
exactly state. Autobulus and Plutarch are especially spoken of as his sons,
since the treatise on the Timaeus of Plato is dedicated to them, and the
marriage of his son Autobulus is the occasion of one of the dinner-parties
recorded in the 'Table Talk.' Another person, one Soklarus, is spoken of in
terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarch's son, but this is nowhere
definitely stated. His treatise also on Marriage Questions, addressed to
Eurydike and Pollianus, seems to speak of her as having been recently an
inmate of his house, but without enabling us to form an opinion whether she
was his daughter or not. A modern writer well describes his maturer years
by the words: "Plutarch was well born, well taught, well conditioned; a self-
respecting amiable man, who knew how to better a good education by

travels, by devotion to affairs private and public; a master of ancient
culture, he read books with a just criticism: eminently social, he was a king
in his own house, surrounded himself with select friends, and knew the high
value of good conversation; and declares in a letter written to his wife that
'he finds scarcely an erasure, as in a book well written, in the happiness of
his life.'"
He was an active member of the little community of Chaeronea, being
archon of that town. Whether this dignity was annual or for life we do not
know, but it was probably the former, and very likely he served it more than
once. He speaks of his devotion to the duties of his office as causing him to
incur the ridicule of some of his fellow-citizens, when they saw him
engaged in the humblest duties. "But," he says, in Clough's version, "the
story told about Antisthenes comes to my assistance. When some one
expressed surprise at his carrying home some pickled fish from market in
his own hands, It is, he answered, for myself. Conversely, when I am
reproached with standing by and watching while tiles are measured out, and
stone and mortar brought up, This service, I say, is not for myself, it is for
my country."
Plutarch was for many years a priest of Apollo at Delphi. The scene of some
of his 'Table Talk' is laid there, when he in his priestly capacity gives a
dinner party in honour of the victor in the poetic contest at the Pythian
games. Probably this office was a source of considerable income, and as the
journey from Chaeronea to Delphi, across Mount Parnassus, is a very short
one, it interfered but little with his literary and municipal business. In his
essay on "Whether an old man should continue to take part in public life,"
he says, "You know, Euphanes, that I have for many Pythiads (that is,
periods of four years elapsing between the Pythian festivals), exercised the
office of Priest of Apollo: yet I think you would not say to me,'Plutarch, you
have sacrificed enough; you have led processions and dances enough; it is
time, now that you are old, to lay aside the garland from your head, and to
retire as superannuated from the oracle.'"
Thus respected and loved by all, Plutarch's old age passed peacefully away.
"Notwithstanding," as North says, "that he was very old, yet he made an
end of the Lives.... Furthermore, Plutarch, having lived alwaies honourably
even to old age, he died quietly among his children and friends in the city of

Chaeronea, leaving his writings, an immortal savour of his name, unto
posterity. Besides the honour his citizens did him, there was a statue set up
for him by ordinance of the people of Rome, in memory of his virtues. Now
furthermore, though time hath devoured some part of the writings of this
great man, and minished some other: neverthelesse those which remaine,
being a great number, have excellent use to this day among us."

PLUTARCH'S LIVES.

LIFE OF THESEUS.
I. As in books on geography, Sossius Senecio, the writers crowd the
countries of which they know nothing into the furthest margins of their
maps, and write upon them legends such as, "In this direction lie waterless
deserts full of wild beasts;" or, "Unexplored morasses;" or, "Here it is as
cold as Scythia;" or, "A frozen sea;" so I, in my writings on Parallel Lives,
go through that period of time where history rests on the firm basis of facts,
and may truly say, "All beyond this is portentous and fabulous, inhabited by
poets and mythologers, and there is nothing true or certain."
When I had written the lives of Lykurgus the lawgiver and Numa the king,
it appeared to me natural to go back to Romulus also, as I was engaged on
the history of times so close to his. So when I was reflecting, in the words
of Aeschylus,

"Against this chieftain, who can best contend?
Whom shall I match in fight, what trusty friend?"

it occurred to me to compare the founder of the fair and famous city of
Athens with him, and to contrast Theseus with the father of unconquered
glorious Rome. Putting aside, then, the mythological element, let us
examine his story, and wherever it obstinately defies probability, and cannot
be explained by natural agency, let us beg the indulgence of our readers,
who will kindly make allowance for tales of antiquity.
II. Theseus appears to have several points of resemblance to Romulus. Both
were unacknowledged illegitimate children, and were reputed to descend
from the Gods.

"Both warriors, well we all do know,"

and both were wise as well as powerful. The one founded Rome, while the
other was the joint founder of Athens; and these are two of the most famous
of cities. Both carried off women by violence, and neither of them escaped
domestic misfortune and retribution, but towards the end of their lives both

were at variance with their countrymen, if we may put any trust in the least
extravagant writings upon the subject.
III. Theseus traced his descent on the father's side from Erechtheus and the
original Autochthones,[5] while on the mother's side he was descended from
Pelops. For Pelops surpassed all the other princes of the Peloponnesus in
the number of his children as well as in wealth; and of these he gave many
of his daughters in marriage to the chief men of the country, and established
many of his sons as rulers in various cities. One of these, Pittheus, the
grandfather of Theseus, founded Troezen, which is indeed but a little state,
though he had a greater reputation than any man of his time for eloquence
and wisdom. The nature of this wisdom of his seems to have been much of
the same kind as that which made the reputation of Hesiod, in the collection
of maxims known as the 'Works and Days.' One of these maxims is indeed
ascribed to Pittheus:

"Let promised pay be truly paid to friends."

At any rate, this is what Aristotle the philosopher has recorded; and also
Euripides, when he speaks of Hippolytus as "child of holy Pittheus," shows
the prevailing opinion about Pittheus. Now Aegeus desired to have children,
and the Oracle at Delphi is said to have given him the well-known response,
forbidding him to have intercourse with any woman before he reached
Athens, but not appearing to explain this clearly. Consequently, on his way
home, he went to Troezen, and asked the advice of Pittheus about the
response of the God, which ran thus:

"Great chief, the wine-skin's foot must closed remain,
Till thou to Athens art returned again."

Pittheus clearly perceived what the oracle must mean, and persuaded or
cheated Aegeus into an intrigue with Aethra. Afterwards, when he
discovered that he had conversed with the daughter of Pittheus, as he
imagined that she might prove with child, he left behind him his sword and
sandals hidden under a great stone, which had a hollow inside it exactly
fitting them. This he told to Aethra alone, and charged her if a son of his
should be born, and on growing to man's estate should be able to lift the
stone and take from under it the deposit, that she should send him at once

with these things to himself, in all secrecy, and as far as possible concealing
his journey from observation. For he greatly feared the sons of Pallas, who
plotted against him, and despised him on account of his childlessness, they
themselves being fifty brothers, all the sons of Pallas.
IV. When Aethra's child was born, some writers say that he was at once
named Theseus, from the tokens placed under the stone; others say that he
was afterwards so named at Athens, when Aegeus acknowledged him as his
son. He was brought up by his grandfather Pittheus, and had a master and
tutor, Konnidas, to whom even to the present day, the Athenians sacrifice a
ram on the day before the feast of Theseus, a mark of respect which is much
more justly due to him, than those which they pay to Silanion and
Parrhasius, who have only made pictures and statues of Theseus.
V. As it was at that period still the custom for those who were coming to
man's estate to go to Delphi and offer to the god the first-fruits of their hair
(which was then cut for the first time),[6] Theseus went to Delphi, and they
say that a place there is even to this day named after him. But he only cut
the front part of his hair, as Homer tells us the Abantes did, and this fashion
of cutting the hair was called Theseus's fashion because of him. The
Abantes first began to cut their hair in this manner, not having, as some say,
been taught to do so by the Arabians, nor yet from any wish to imitate the
Mysians, but because they were a warlike race, and met their foes in close
combat, and studied above all to come to a hand-to-hand fight with their
enemy, as Archilochus bears witness in his verses:

"They use no slings nor bows,
Euboea's martial lords,
But hand to hand they close
And conquer with their swords."

So they cut their hair short in front, that their enemies might not grasp it.
And they say that Alexander of Macedon for the same reason ordered his
generals to have the beards of the Macedonians shaved, because they were a
convenient handle for the enemy to grasp.
VI. Now while he was yet a child, Aethra concealed the real parentage of
Theseus, and a story was circulated by Pittheus that his father was

Poseidon. For the people of Troezen have an especial reverence for
Poseidon; he is their tutelar deity; to him they offer first-fruits of their
harvest, and they stamp their money with the trident as their badge. But
when he was grown into a youth, and proved both strong in body and of
good sound sense, then Aethra led him to the stone, told him the truth about
his father, and bade him take the tokens from beneath it and sail to Athens
with them. He easily lifted the stone, but determined not to go to Athens by
sea, though the voyage was a safe and easy one, and though his mother and
his grandfather implored him to go that way. By land it was a difficult
matter to reach Athens, as the whole way was infested with robbers and
bandits. That time, it seems, produced men of great and unwearied strength
and swiftness, who made no good use of these powers, but treated all men
with overbearing insolence, taking advantage of their strength to overpower
and slay all who fell into their hands, and disregarding justice and right and
kindly feeling, which they said were only approved of by those who dared
not do injury to others, or feared to be injured themselves, while men who
could get the upper hand by force might disregard them. Of these ruffians,
Herakles in his wanderings cut off a good many, but others had escaped him
by concealing themselves, or had been contemptuously spared by him on
account of their insignificance. But Herakles had the misfortune to kill
Iphitus, and thereupon sailed to Lydia and was for a long time a slave in
that country under Omphale, which condition he had imposed upon himself
as a penance for the murder of his friend. During this period the country of
Lydia enjoyed peace and repose; but in Greece the old plague of brigandage
broke out afresh, as there was now no one to put it down. So that the
journey overland to Athens from Peloponnesus was full of peril; and
Pittheus, by relating to Theseus who each of these evildoers was, and how
they treated strangers, tried to prevail upon him to go by sea. But it appears
that Theseus had for a long time in his heart been excited by the renown of
Herakles for courage: he thought more of him than of any one else, and
loved above all to listen to those who talked of him, especially if they had
seen and spoken to him. Now he could no longer conceal that he was in the
same condition as Themistokles in later times, when he said that the trophy
of Miltiades would not let him sleep. Just so did the admiration which
Theseus conceived for Herakles make him dream by night of his great
exploits, and by day determine to equal them by similar achievements of his
own.

VII. As it happened, they were connected, being second cousins; for Aethra
was the daughter of Pittheus, and Alkmena the daughter of Lysidike, and
Lysidike and Pittheus were brother and sister, being the children of Pelops
and Hippodameia. So Theseus thought that it would be a great and
unbearable disgrace to him that his cousin should go everywhere and clear
the sea and land of the brigands who infested them, and he should refuse to
undertake the adventures that came in his way; throwing discredit upon his
reputed father by a pusillanimous flight by sea, and upon his real father by
bringing him only the sandals and an unfleshed sword, and not proving his
noble birth by the evidence of some brave deed accomplished by him. In
this spirit he set out on his journey, with the intention of doing wrong to no
one, but of avenging himself on any one who offered wrong to him.
VIII. And first in Epidaurus he slew Periphetes, who used a club as his
weapon, and on this account was called the club-bearer, because he laid
hands upon him and forbade him to proceed farther on his way. The club
took his fancy, and he adopted it as a weapon, and always used it, just as
Herakles used his lion's skin; for the skin was a proof of how huge a beast
the wearer had overcome, while the club, invincible in the hands of
Theseus, had yet been worsted when used against him. At the Isthmus he
destroyed Sinis the Pine-bender by the very device by which he had slain so
many people, and that too without having ever practised the art, proving
that true valour is better than practice and training. Sinis had a daughter, a
tall and beautiful girl, named Perigoune. When her father fell she ran and
hid herself. Theseus sought her everywhere, but she fled into a place where
wild asparagus grew thick, and with a simple child-like faith besought the
plants to conceal her, as if they could understand her words, promising that
if they did so she never would destroy or burn them. However, when
Theseus called to her, pledging himself to take care of her and do her no
hurt, she came out, and afterwards bore Theseus a son, named Melanippus.
She afterwards was given by Theseus in marriage to Deïoneus, the son of
Eurytus of Oechalia. Ioxus, a son of Melanippus, and Theseus's grandchild,
took part in Ornytus's settlement in Caria; and for this reason the
descendants of Ioxus have a family custom not to burn the asparagus plant,
but to reverence and worship it.
IX. Now the wild sow of Krommyon, whom they called Phaia, was no
ordinary beast, but a fierce creature and hard to conquer. This animal he

turned out of his way to destroy, that it might not be thought that he
performed his exploits of necessity. Besides, he said, a brave man need only
punish wicked men when they came in his way, but that in the case of wild
beasts he must himself seek them out and attack them. Some say that Phaia
was a murderous and licentious woman who carried on brigandage at
Krommyon, and was called a sow from her life and habits, and that Theseus
put her to death.
X. Before coming to Megara he slew Skeiron by flinging him down a
precipice into the sea, so the story runs, because he was a robber, but some
say that from arrogance he used to hold out his feet to strangers and bid
them wash them, and that then he kicked the washers into the sea. But
Megarian writers, in opposition to common tradition, and, as Simonides
says, "warring with all antiquity," say that Skeiron was not an arrogant
brigand, but repressed brigandage, loved those who were good and just, and
was related to them. For, they point out, Aeakus is thought to have been the
most righteous of all the Greeks, and Kychreus of Salamis was worshipped
as a god, and the virtue of Peleus and Telamon is known to all. Yet Skeiron
was the son-in-law of Kychreus, and father-in-law of Aeakus, and
grandfather of Peleus and Telamon, who were both of them sons of Endeis,
the daughter of Skeiron and his wife Chariklo. It is not then reasonable to
suppose that these, the noblest men of their time, would make alliances with
a malefactor, and give and receive from him what they prized most dearly.
But they say that Theseus slew Skeiron, not when he first went to Athens,
but that afterwards he took the town of Eleusis which belonged to the
Megarians, by dealing treacherously with Diokles, who was the chief
magistrate there, and that on that occasion he killed Skeiron. This is what
tradition says on both sides.
XI. At Eleusis Theseus overcame Kerkyon of Arcadia in wrestling and
killed him, and after journeying a little farther he killed Damastes, who was
surnamed Prokroustes, by compelling him to fit his own body to his bed,
just as he used to fit the bodies of strangers to it. This he did in imitation of
Herakles; for he used to retort upon his aggressors the same treatment
which they intended for him. Thus Herakles offered up Busiris as a
sacrifice, and overcame Antaeus in wrestling, and Kyknus in single combat,
and killed Termerus by breaking his skull. This is, they say, the origin of the
proverb, "A Termerian mischief," for Termerus, it seems, struck passers-by

with his head, and so killed them. So also did Theseus sally forth and
chastise evildoers, making them undergo the same cruelties which they
practised on others, thus justly punishing them for their crimes in their own
wicked fashion.
XII. As he proceeded on his way, and reached the river Kephisus, men of
the Phytalid race were the first to meet and greet him. He demanded to be
purified from the guilt of bloodshed, and they purified him, made
propitiatory offerings, and also entertained him in their houses, being the
first persons from whom he had received any kindness on his journey. It is
said to have been on the eighth day of the month Kronion, which is now
called Hekatombeion, that he came to his own city. On entering it he found
public affairs disturbed by factions, and the house of Aegeus in great
disorder; for Medea, who had been banished from Corinth, was living with
Aegeus, and had engaged by her drugs to enable Aegeus to have children.
She was the first to discover who Theseus was, while Aegeus, who was an
old man, and feared every one because of the disturbed state of society, did
not recognise him. Consequently she advised Aegeus to invite him to a
feast, that she might poison him. Theseus accordingly came to Aegeus's
table. He did not wish to be the first to tell his name, but, to give his father
an opportunity of recognising him, he drew his sword, as if he meant to cut
some of the meat with it, and showed it to Aegeus. Aegeus at once
recognised it, overset the cup of poison, looked closely at his son and
embraced him. He then called a public meeting and made Theseus known
as his son to the citizens, with whom he was already very popular because
of his bravery. It is said that when the cup was overset the poison was spilt
in the place where now there is the enclosure in the Delphinium, for there
Aegeus dwelt; and the Hermes to the east of the temple there they call the
one who is "at the door of Aegeus."
XIII. But the sons of Pallas, who had previously to this expected that they
would inherit the kingdom on the death of Aegeus without issue, now that
Theseus was declared the heir, were much enraged, first that Aegeus should
be king, a man who was merely an adopted child of Pandion, and had no
blood relationship to Erechtheus, and next that Theseus, a stranger and a
foreigner, should inherit the kingdom. They consequently declared war.
Dividing themselves into two bodies, the one proceeded to march openly
upon the city from Sphettus, under the command of Pallas their father,

while the other lay in ambush at Gargettus, in order that they might fall
upon their opponents on two sides at once. But there was a herald among
them named Leos, of the township of Agnus, who betrayed the plans of the
sons of Pallas to Theseus. He suddenly attacked those who were in ambush,
and killed them all, hearing which the other body under Pallas dispersed.
From this time forth they say that the township of Pallene has never
intermarried with that of Agnus, and that it is not customary amongst them
for heralds to begin a proclamation with the words "Acouete Leo," (Oyez)
for they hate the name of Leo[7] because of the treachery of that man.
XIV. Now Theseus, who wished for employment and also to make himself
popular with the people, went to attack the bull of Marathon, who had
caused no little trouble to the inhabitants of Tetrapolis. He overcame the
beast, and drove it alive through the city for all men to see, and then
sacrificed it to Apollo of Delphi. Hekale, too, and the legend of her having
entertained Theseus, does not seem altogether without foundation in fact;
for the people of the neighbouring townships used to assemble and perform
what was called the Hekalesian sacrifice to Zeus Hekalus, and they also
used to honour Hekale, calling her by the affectionate diminutive Hekaline,
because she also, when feasting Theseus, who was very young, embraced
him in a motherly way, and used such like endearing diminutives. She also
made a vow on Theseus's behalf, when he was going forth to battle, that if
he returned safe she would sacrifice to Zeus; but as she died before he
returned, she had the above-mentioned honours instituted by command of
Theseus, as a grateful return for her hospitality. This is the legend as told by
Philochorus.
XV. Shortly after this the ship from Crete arrived for the third time to
collect the customary tribute. Most writers agree that the origin of this was,
that on the death of Androgeus, in Attica, which was ascribed to treachery,
his father Minos went to war, and wrought much evil to the country, which
at the same time was afflicted by scourges from Heaven (for the land did
not bear fruit, and there was a great pestilence and the rivers sank into the
earth). So that as the oracle told the Athenians that, if they propitiated
Minos and came to terms with him, the anger of Heaven would cease and
they should have a respite from their sufferings, they sent an embassy to
Minos and prevailed on him to make peace, on the condition that every nine
years they should send him a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens.

The most tragic of the legends states these poor children when they reached
Crete were thrown into the Labyrinth, and there either were devoured by the
Minotaur or else perished with hunger, being unable to find the way out.
The Minotaur, as Euripides tells us, was

"A form commingled, and a monstrous birth,
Half man, half bull, in twofold shape combined."

XVI. Philochorus says that the Cretans do not recognise this story, but say
that the Labyrinth was merely a prison, like any other, from which escape
was impossible, and that Minos instituted gymnastic games in honour of
Androgeus, in which the prizes for the victors were these children, who till
then were kept in the Labyrinth. Also they say that the victor in the first
contest was a man of great power in the state, a general of the name of
Taurus, who was of harsh and savage temper, and ill-treated the Athenian
children. And Aristotle himself, in his treatise on the constitution of the
Bottiaeans, evidently does not believe that the children were put to death by
Minos, but that they lived in Crete as slaves, until extreme old age; and that
one day the Cretans, in performance of an ancient vow, sent first-fruits of
their population to Delphi. Among those who were thus sent were the
descendants of the Athenians, and, as they could not maintain themselves
there, they first passed over to Italy, and there settled near Iapygium, and
from thence again removed to Thrace, and took the name of Bottiaeans. For
this reason, the Bottiaean maidens when performing a certain sacrifice sing
"Let us go to Athens." Thus it seems to be a terrible thing to incur the hatred
of a city powerful in speech and song; for on the Attic stage Minos is
always vilified and traduced, and though he was called "Most Kingly" by
Hesiod, and "Friend of Zeus" by Homer, it gained him no credit, but the
playwrights overwhelmed him with abuse, styling him cruel and violent.
And yet Minos is said to have been a king and a lawgiver, and
Rhadamanthus to have been a judge under him, carrying out his decrees.
XVII. So when the time of the third payment of the tribute arrived, and
those fathers who had sons not yet grown up had to submit to draw lots, the
unhappy people began to revile Aegeus, complaining that he, although the
author of this calamity, yet took no share in their affliction, but endured to
see them left childless, robbed of their own legitimate offspring, while he
made a foreigner and a bastard the heir to his kingdom. This vexed Theseus,

and determining not to hold aloof, but to share the fortunes of the people, he
came forward and offered himself without being drawn by lot. The people
all admired his courage and patriotism, and Aegeus finding that his prayers
and entreaties had no effect on his unalterable resolution, proceeded to
choose the rest by lot. Hellanikus says that the city did not select the youths
and maidens by lot, but that Minos himself came thither and chose them,
and that he picked out Theseus first of all, upon the usual conditions, which
were that the Athenians should furnish a ship, and that the youths should
embark in it and sail with him, not carrying with them any weapon of war;
and that when the Minotaur was slain, the tribute should cease. Formerly,
no one had any hope of safety; so they used to send out the ship with a
black sail, as if it were going to a certain doom; but now Theseus so
encouraged his father, and boasted that he would overcome the Minotaur,
that he gave a second sail, a white one, to the steersman, and charged him
on his return, if Theseus were safe, to hoist the white one, if not, the black
one as a sign of mourning. But Simonides says that it was not a white sail
which was given by Aegeus, but "a scarlet sail embrued in holm oak's
juice," and that this was agreed on by him as the signal of safety. The ship
was steered by Phereklus the son of Amarsyas, according to Simonides.
But Philochorus says that Theseus had one Nausithous sent him from Skirus
of Salamis, to steer the ship, and Phaeax to act as look-out, as the Athenians
had not yet turned their attention to the sea.
One of the youths chosen by lot was Menestheos the son of Skirus's
daughter. The truth of this account is attested by the shrines of Nausithous
and Phaeax, which Theseus built at Phalerum, and by the feast called the
Kybernesia or pilot's festival, which is held in their honour.
XVIII. When the lots were drawn Theseus brought the chosen youths from
the Prytaneum, and proceeding to the temple of the Delphian Apollo,
offered the suppliants' bough to Apollo on their behalf. This was a bough of
the sacred olive-tree bound with fillets of white wool. And after praying he
went to sea on the sixth day of the month Munychion, on which day even
now they send maidens as suppliants to the temple of the Delphian Apollo.
And there is a legend that the Delphian oracle told him that Aphrodite
would be his guide and fellow-traveller, and that when he was sacrificing a

she-goat to her by the seaside, it became a he-goat; wherefore the goddess
is called Epitragia.
XIX. When they reached Crete, according to most historians and poets,
Ariadne fell in love with him, and from her he received the clue of string,
and was taught how to thread the mazes of the Labyrinth. He slew the
Minotaur, and, taking with him Ariadne and the youths, sailed away.
Pherekydes also says that Theseus also knocked out the bottoms of the
Cretan ships, to prevent pursuit. But Demon says that Taurus, Minos's
general, was slain in a sea-fight in the harbour, when Theseus sailed away.
But according to Philochorus, when Minos instituted his games, Taurus was
expected to win every prize, and was grudged this honour; for his great
influence and his unpopular manners made him disliked, and scandal said,
that he was too intimate with Pasiphae. On this account, when Theseus
offered to contend with him, Minos agreed. And, as it was the custom in
Crete for women as well as men to be spectators of the games, Ariadne was
present, and was struck with the appearance of Theseus, and his strength, as
he conquered all competitors. Minos was especially pleased, in the
wrestling match, at Taurus's defeat and shame, and, restoring the children to
Theseus, remitted the tribute for the future. Kleidemus tells the story in his
own fashion and at unnecessary length, beginning much farther back. There
was, he says, a decree passed by all the Greeks, that no ship should sail
from any post with more than five hands on board, but Jason alone, the
master of the great ship Argo, should cruise about, and keep the sea free of
pirates. Now when Daedalus fled to Athens, Minos, contrary to the decree,
pursued him in long war galleys, and being driven to Sicily by a storm, died
there. When his son Deukalion sent a warlike message to the Athenians,
bidding them give up Daedalus to him, or else threatening that he would put
to death the children whom Minos had taken as hostages, Theseus returned
him a gentle answer, begging for the life of Daedalus, who was his own
cousin and blood relation, being the son of Merope, the daughter of
Erechtheus. But he busied himself with building a fleet, some of it in Attica,
in the country of the Thymaitadae, far from any place of resort of strangers,
and some in Troezen, under the management of Pittheus, as he did not wish
his preparations to be known. But when the ships were ready to set sail,
having with him as pilots, Daedalus himself and some Cretan exiles, as no
one knew that he was coming, and the Cretans thought that it was a friendly

fleet that was advancing, he seized the harbour, and marched at once to
Knossus before his arrival was known. Then he fought a battle at the gates
of the Labyrinth, and slew Deukalion and his body-guard. As Ariadne now
succeeded to the throne, he made peace with her, took back the youths, and
formed an alliance between the Cretans and the Athenians, in which each
nation swore that it would not begin a war against the other.
XX. There are many more stories about these events, and about Ariadne,
none of which agree in any particulars. Some say that she hanged herself
when deserted by Theseus, and some, that she was taken to Naxos by his
sailors, and there dwelt with Oenarus, the priest of Dionysus, having been
deserted by Theseus, who was in love with another.

"For Aegle's love disturbed his breast."

This line, we are told by Hereas of Megara, was struck out of Hesiod's
poems by Peisistratus; and again he says that he inserted into Homer's
description of the Shades,

"Peirithous and Theseus, born of gods,"

to please the Athenians. Some writers say that Theseus had by Ariadne two
sons, Staphylus and Oenopion, whom Ion of Chios follows when he speaks
of his own native city as that

"Which erst Oenopion stablished, Theseus' son."

The pleasantest of these legends are in nearly every one's mouth. But Paeon
of Amathus gives an account peculiar to himself, that Theseus was driven
by a storm to Cyprus, and that Ariadne, who was pregnant, suffered much
from the motion of the ship, and became so ill, that she was set on shore,
but Theseus had to return to take charge of the ship, and was blown off to
sea. The women of the country took care of Ariadne, and comforted her in
her bereavement, even bringing forged letters to her as if from Theseus, and
rendering her assistance during her confinement; and when she died in
childbirth, they buried her. Theseus, on his return, grieved much, and left
money to the people of the country, bidding them sacrifice to Ariadne; he
also set up two little statues, one of silver, and the other of brass. And at this

sacrifice, which takes place on the second day of the month Gorpiaeus, one
of the young men lies down on the ground, and imitates the cries of a
woman in travail; and the people of Amathus call that the grove of Ariadne
Aphrodite, in which they show her tomb.
But some writers of Naxos tell a different story, peculiar to themselves, that
there were two Minoses and two Ariadnes, of whom one, they say, was
married to Dionysus in Naxos, and was the mother of Staphylus and his
brother, while the younger was carried off by Theseus, and came to Naxos
after he deserted her; and a nurse called Korkyne came with her, whose
tomb they point out. Then Naxians also says that this Ariadne died there,
and is honoured, but not so much as the elder; for at the feast in honour of
the elder, there are merriment and revelry, but at that of the younger gloomy
rites are mingled with mirth.
XXI. Theseus, when he sailed away from Crete, touched at Delos; here he
sacrificed to the god and offered up the statue of Aphrodite, which Ariadne
had given him; and besides this, he and the youths with him danced a
measure which they say is still practised by the people of Delos to this day,
being an imitation of the turnings and windings of the Labyrinth expressed
by complicated evolutions performed in regular order. This kind of dance is
called by the Delians "the crane dance," according to Dikaearchus. It was
danced round the altar of the Horns, which is all formed of horns from the
left side. They also say that he instituted games at Delos, and that then for
the first time a palm was given by him to the victor.
XXII. As he approached Attica, both he and his steersman in their delight
forgot to hoist the sail which was to be a signal of their safety to Aegeus;
and he in his despair flung himself down the cliffs and perished. Theseus, as
soon as he reached the harbour, performed at Phalerum the sacrifices which
he had vowed to the gods if he returned safe, and sent off a herald to the
city with the news of his safe return. This man met with many who were
lamenting the death of the king, and, as was natural, with others who were
delighted at the news of their safety, and who congratulated him and wished
to crown him with garlands. These he received, but placed them on his
herald's staff, and when he came back to the seashore, finding that Theseus
had not completed his libation, he waited outside the temple, not wishing to
disturb the sacrifice. When the libation was finished he announced the death

of Aegeus, and then they all hurried up to the city with loud lamentations:
wherefore to this day, at the Oschophoria, they say that it is not the herald
that is crowned, but his staff, and that at the libations the bystanders cry out,
"Eleleu, Iou, Iou;" of which cries the first is used by men in haste, or raising
the paean for battle, while the second is used by persons in surprise and
trouble.
Theseus, after burying his father, paid his vow to Apollo, on the seventh day
of the month Pyanepsion; for on this day it was that the rescued youths
went up into the city. The boiling of pulse, which is customary on this
anniversary, is said to be done because the rescued youths put what
remained of their pulse together into one pot, boiled it all, and merrily
feasted on it together. And on this day also, the Athenians carry about the
Eiresione, a bough of the olive tree garlanded with wool, just as Theseus
had before carried the suppliants' bough, and covered with first-fruits of all
sorts of produce, because the barrenness of the land ceased on that day; and
they sing,

"Eiresione, bring us figs
And wheaten loaves, and oil,
And wine to quaff, that we may all
Host merrily from toil."

However, some say that these ceremonies are performed in memory of the
Herakleidae, who were thus entertained by the Athenians; but most writers
tell the tale as I have told it.
XXIII. Now the thirty-oared ship, in which Theseus sailed with the youths,
and came back safe, was kept by the Athenians up to the time of Demetrius
Phalereus. They constantly removed the decayed part of her timbers, and
renewed them with sound wood, so that the ship became an illustration to
philosophers of the doctrine of growth and change, as some argued that it
remained the same, and others, that it did not remain the same. The feast of
the Oschophoria, or of carrying boughs, which to this day the Athenians
celebrate, was instituted by Theseus. For he did not take with him all the
maidens who were drawn by lot, but he chose two youths, his intimate
friends, who were feminine and fair to look upon, but of manly spirit; these
by warm baths and avoiding the heat of the sun and careful tending of their

hair and skin he completely metamorphosed, teaching them to imitate the
voice and carriage and walk of maidens. These two were then substituted in
the place of two of the girls, and deceived every one; and when they
returned, he and these two youths walked in procession, dressed as now
those who carry boughs at the Oschophoria are dressed. They carry them in
honour of Dionysus and Ariadne, because of the legend, or rather because
they returned home when the harvest was being gathered in. And the
women called supper-carriers join in carrying them and partake of the
sacrifice, in imitation of the mothers of those who were drawn by lot; for
they used continually to bring their children food. Also, old tales are told,
because these women used to tell their children such ones, to encourage and
amuse them.
These things are related by the historian Demus. Moreover, a sacred
enclosure was dedicated to Theseus, and those families out of whom the
tribute of the children had been gathered were bidden to contribute to
sacrifices to him. These sacrifices were presided over by the Phytalidae,
which post Theseus bestowed upon them as a recompense for their
hospitality towards him.
XXIV. After the death of Aegeus, Theseus conceived a great and important
design. He gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica and made them
citizens of one city, whereas before they had lived dispersed, so as to be
hard to assemble together for the common weal, and at times even fighting
with one another.
He visited all the villages and tribes, and won their consent; the poor and
lower classes gladly accepting his proposals, while he gained over the more
powerful by promising that the new constitution should not include a king,
but that it should be a pure commonwealth, with himself merely acting as
general of its army and guardian of its laws, while in other respects it would
allow perfect freedom and equality to every one. By these arguments he
convinced some of them, and the rest knowing his power and courage chose
rather to be persuaded than forced into compliance. He therefore destroyed
the prytaneia, the senate house, and the magistracy of each individual
township, built one common prytaneum and senate house for them all on
the site of the present acropolis, called the city Athens, and instituted the
Panathenaic festival common to all of them. He also instituted a festival for

the resident aliens, on the sixteenth of the month, Hekatombeion, which is
still kept up. And having, according to his promise, laid down his sovereign
power, he arranged the new constitution under the auspices of the gods; for
he made inquiry at Delphi as to how he should deal with the city, and
received the following answer:

"Thou son of Aegeus and of Pittheus' maid,
My father hath within thy city laid
The bounds of many cities; weigh not down
Thy soul with thought; the bladder cannot drown."

The same thing they say was afterwards prophesied by the Sibyl concerning
the city, in these words:

"The bladder may be dipped, but cannot drown."

XXV. Wishing still further to increase the number of his citizens, he invited
all strangers to come and share equal privileges, and they say that the words
now used, "Come hither all ye peoples," was the proclamation then used by
Theseus, establishing as it were a commonwealth of all nations. But he did
not permit his state to fall into the disorder which this influx of all kinds of
people would probably have produced, but divided the people into three
classes, of Eupatridae or nobles, Geomori or farmers, Demiurgi or artisans.
To the Eupatridae he assigned the care of religious rites, the supply of
magistrates for the city, and the interpretation of the laws and customs
sacred or profane, yet he placed them on an equality with the other citizens,
thinking that the nobles would always excel in dignity, the farmers in
usefulness, and the artisans in numbers. Aristotle tells us that he was the
first who inclined to democracy, and gave up the title of king; and Homer
seems to confirm this view by speaking of the people of the Athenians alone
of all the states mentioned in his catalogue of ships. Theseus also struck
money with the figure of a bull, either alluding to the bull of Marathon, or
Taurus, Minos' general, or else to encourage farming among the citizens.
Hence they say came the words, "worth ten," or "worth a hundred oxen."
He permanently annexed Megara to Attica, and set up the famous pillar on
the Isthmus, on which he wrote the distinction between the countries in two
trimeter lines, of which the one looking east says,

"This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia,"

and the one looking west says,

"This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia."

And also he instituted games there, in emulation of Herakles; that, just as
Herakles had ordained that the Greeks should celebrate the Olympic games
in honour of Zeus, so by Theseus's appointment they should celebrate the
Isthmian games in honour of Poseidon.
The festival which was previously established there in honour of Melikerta
used to be celebrated by night, and to be more like a religious mystery than
a great spectacle and gathering. Some writers assert that the Isthmian games
were established in honour of Skeiron, and that Theseus wished to make
them an atonement for the murder of his kinsman; for Skeiron was the son
of Kanethus and of Henioche the daughter of Pittheus. Others say that this
festival was established in honour of Sinis, not of Skeiron. Be this as it may,
Theseus established it, and stipulated with the Corinthians that visitors from
Athens who came to the games should have a seat of honour in as large a
space as could be covered by a sail of the public ship which carried them,
when stretched out on the ground. This we are told by Hellanikus and
Andron of Halikarnassus.
XXVI. Besides this, according to Philochorus and other writers, he sailed
with Herakles to the Euxine, took part in the campaign against the
Amazons, and received Antiope as the reward for his valour; but most
historians, among whom are Pherekydes, Hellanikus, and Herodorus, say
that Theseus made an expedition of his own later than that of Herakles, and
that he took the Amazon captive, which is a more reasonable story. For no
one of his companions is said to have captured an Amazon; while Bion
relates that he caught this one by treachery and carried her off; for the
Amazons, he says, were not averse to men, and did not avoid Theseus when
he touched at their coast, but even offered him presents. He invited the
bearer of these on board his ship; and when she had embarked he set sail.
But one, Menekrates, who has written a history of the town of Nikaea in
Bithynia, states that Theseus spent a long time in that country with Antiope,
and that there were three young Athenians, brothers, who were his

companions in arms, by name Euneon, Thoas, and Soloeis. Soloeis fell in
love with Antiope, and, without telling his brothers, confided his passion to
one of his comrades. This man laid the matter before Antiope, who firmly
rejected his pretensions, but treated him quietly and discreetly, telling
Theseus nothing about it. Soloeis, in despair at his rejection, leaped into a
river and perished; and Theseus then at length learned the cause of the
young man's death. In his sorrow he remembered and applied to himself an
oracle he had received from Delphi. It had been enjoined upon him by the
Pythia that whenever he should be struck down with special sorrow in a
foreign land, he should found a city in that place and leave some of his
companions there as its chiefs. In consequence of this the city which he
founded was called Pythopolis, in honour of the Pythian Apollo, and the
neighbouring river was called Soloeis, after the youth who died in it. He left
there the brothers of Soloeis as the chiefs and lawgivers of the new city, and
together, with them one Hermus, an Athenian Eupatrid. In consequence of
this, the people of Pythopolis call a certain place in their city the house of
Hermes, by a mistaken accentuation transferring the honour due to their
founder, to their god Hermes.
XXVII. This was the origin of the war with the Amazons; and it seems to
have been carried on in no feeble or womanish spirit, for they never could
have encamped in the city nor have fought a battle close to the Pnyx and the
Museum unless they had conquered the rest of the country, so as to be able
to approach the city safely. It is hard to believe, as Hellanikus relates, that
they crossed the Cimmerian Bosphorus on the ice; but that they encamped
almost in the city is borne witness to by the local names, and by the tombs
of the fallen. For a long time both parties held aloof, unwilling to engage;
but at last Theseus, after sacrificing to Phobos (Fear), attacked them. The
battle took place in the month Boedromion, on the day on which the
Athenians celebrate the feast Boedromia. Kleidemus gives us accurate
details, stating that the left wing of the Amazons stood at the place now
called the Amazoneum, while the right reached up to the Pnyx, at the place
where the gilded figure of Victory now stands. The Athenians attacked them
on this side, issuing from the Museum, and the tombs of the fallen are to be
seen along the street which leads to the gate near the shrine of the hero
Chalkodus, which is called the Peiraeic gate. On this side the women forced
them back as far as the temple of the Eumenides, but on the other side those

who assailed them from the temple of Pallas, Ardettus, and the Lyceum,
drove their right wing in confusion back to their camp with great slaughter.
In the fourth month of the war a peace was brought about by Hippolyte; for
this writer names the wife of Theseus Hippolyte, not Antiope. Some relate
that she was slain fighting by the side of Theseus by a javelin hurled by one
Molpadia, and that the column which stands beside the temple of Olympian
Earth is sacred to her memory. It is not to be wondered at that history
should be at fault when dealing with such ancient events as these, for there
is another story at variance with this, to the effect that Antiope caused the
wounded Amazons to be secretly transported to Chalkis, where they were
taken care of, and some of them were buried there, at what is now called the
Amazoneum. However, it is a proof of the war having ended in a treaty of
peace, that the place near the temple of Theseus where they swore to
observe it, is still called Horeomosium, and that the sacrifice to the
Amazons always has taken place before the festival of Theseus. The people
of Megara also show a burying-place of the Amazons, as one goes from the
market-place to what they call Rhus, where the lozenge-shaped building
stands. It is said that some others died at Chaeronea, and were buried by the
little stream which it seems was anciently called Thermodon, but now is
called Haemon, about which we have treated in the life of Demosthenes. It
would appear that the Amazons did not even get across Thessaly without
trouble, for graves of them are shown to this day at Skotussa and
Kynoskephalae.
XXVIII. The above is all that is worthy of mention about the Amazons; for,
as to the story which the author of the 'Theseid' relates about this attack of
the Amazons being brought about by Antiope to revenge herself upon
Theseus for his marriage with Phaedra, and how she and her Amazons
fought, and how Herakles slew them, all this is clearly fabulous. After the
death of Antiope, Theseus married Phaedra, having a son by Antiope named
Hippolytus, or Demophoon, according to Pindar. As for his misfortunes
with this wife and son, as the account given by historians does not differ
from that which appears in the plays of the tragic poets, we must believe
them to have happened as all these writers say.
XXIX. However, there are certain other legends about Theseus' marriage
which have never appeared on the stage, which have neither a creditable
beginning nor a prosperous termination: for it is said that he carried off one

Anaxo, a Troezenian girl, and after slaying Sinis and Kerkyon he forced
their daughters, and that he married Periboea the mother of Ajax and also
Phereboea and Iope the daughter of Iphikles: and, as has been told already,
it was on account of his love for Aegle the daughter of Panopeus that he
deserted Ariadne, which was a shameful and discreditable action. And in
addition to all this he is charged with carrying off Helen, which brought war
upon Attica, and exile and destruction on himself; about which we shall
speak presently. But, though many adventures were undertaken by the
heroes of those times, Herodorus is of opinion that Theseus took no part in
any of them, except with the Lapithae in their fight with the Centaurs;
though other writers say that he went to Kolchis with Jason and took part
with Meleager in the hunt of the Kalydonian boar.
From these legends arises the proverb, "Not without Theseus;" also he by
himself without any comrades performed many glorious deeds, from which
the saying came into vogue, "This is another Herakles."
Theseus, together with Adrastus, effected the recovery of the bodies of
those who fell under the walls of the Cadmea at Thebes, not after
conquering the Thebans, as Euripides puts it in his play, but by a truce and
convention, according to most writers. Philochorus even states that this was
the first occasion on which a truce was made for the recovery of those slain
in battle. But we have shown in our 'Life of Herakles' that he was the first to
restore the corpses of the slain to the enemy. The tombs of the rank and file
are to be seen at Eleutherae, but those of the chiefs at Eleusis, by favour of
Theseus to Adrastus. Euripides's play of the 'Suppliants' is contradicted by
that of Aeschylus, the 'Eleusinians,' in which Theseus is introduced giving
orders for this to be done.
XXX. His friendship for Peirithous is said to have arisen in the following
manner: He had a great reputation for strength and courage; Peirithous,
wishing to make trial of these, drove his cattle away from the plain of
Marathon, and when he learned that Theseus was pursuing them, armed, he
did not retire, but turned and faced him. Each man then admiring the beauty
and courage of his opponent, refrained from battle, and first Peirithous
holding out his hand bade Theseus himself assess the damages of his raid
upon the cattle, saying that he himself would willingly submit to whatever
penalty the other might inflict. Theseus thought no more of their quarrel,

and invited him to become his friend and comrade; and they ratified their
compact of friendship by an oath. Hereupon, Peirithous, who was about to
marry Deidameia, begged Theseus to come and visit his country and meet
the Lapithae. He also had invited the Centaurs to the banquet; and as they in
their drunken insolence laid hands upon the women, the Lapithae attacked
them. Some of them they slew, and the rest they overcame, and afterwards,
with the assistance of Theseus, banished from their country. Herodorus,
however, says that this is not how these events took place, but that the war
was going on, and that Theseus went to help the Lapithae and while on his
way thither first beheld Herakles, whom he made a point of visiting at
Trachis, where he was resting after his labours and wanderings; and that
they met with many compliments and much good feeling on both sides. But
one would more incline to those writers who tell us that they often met, and
that Herakles was initiated by Theseus's desire, and was also purified before
initiation at his instance, which ceremony was necessary because of some
reckless action.
XXXI. Theseus was fifty years old, according to Hellanikus, when he
carried off Helen, who was a mere child. For this reason some who wish to
clear him of this, the heaviest of all the charges against him, say that it was
not he who carried off Helen, but that Idas and Lynkeus carried her off and
deposited her in his keeping. Afterwards the Twin Brethren came and
demanded her back, but he would not give her up; or even it is said that
Tyndareus himself handed her over to him, because he feared that
Enarsphorus the son of Hippocoon would take her by force, she being only
a child at the time. But the most probable story and that which most writers
agree in is the following: The two friends, Theseus and Peirithous, came to
Sparta, seized the maiden, who was dancing in the temple of Artemis
Orthia, and carried her off. As the pursuers followed no farther than Tegea,
they felt no alarm, but leisurely travelled through Peloponnesus, and made a
compact that whichever of them should win Helen by lot was to have her to
wife, but must help the other to a marriage. They cast lots on this
understanding, and Theseus won. As the maiden was not yet ripe for
marriage he took her with him to Aphidnae, and there placing his mother
with her gave her into the charge of his friend Aphidnus, bidding him watch
over her and keep her presence secret. He himself in order to repay his
obligation to Peirithous went on a journey with him to Epirus to obtain the

daughter of Aidoneus the king of the Molossians, who called his wife
Persephone, his daughter Kore, and his dog Cerberus. All the suitors of his
daughter were bidden by him to fight this dog, and the victor was to receive
her hand. However, as he learned that Peirithous and his friend were come,
not as wooers, but as ravishers, he cast them into prison. He put an end to
Peirithous at once, by means of his dog, but only guarded Theseus strictly.
XXXII. Now at this period Mnestheus, the son of Peteus, who was the son
of Orneus, who was the son of Erechtheus, first of all mankind they say
took to the arts of a demagogue, and to currying favour with the people.
This man formed a league of the nobles, who had long borne Theseus a
grudge for having destroyed the local jurisdiction and privileges of each of
the Eupatrids by collecting them all together into the capital, where they
were no more than his subjects and slaves; and he also excited the common
people by telling them that although they were enjoying a fancied freedom
they really had been deprived of their ancestral privileges and sacred rites,
and made to endure the rule of one foreign despot, instead of that of many
good kings of their own blood.
While he was thus busily employed, the invasion of Attica by the sons of
Tyndareus greatly assisted his revolutionary scheme; so that some say that it
was he who invited them to come. At first they abstained from violence, and
confined themselves to asking that their sister Helen should be given up to
them; but when they were told by the citizens that she was not in their
hands, and that they knew not where she was, they proceeded to warlike
measures. Akademus, who had by some means discovered that she was
concealed at Aphidnae, now told them where she was; for which cause he
was honoured by the sons of Tyndareus during his life, and also the
Lacedaemonians, though they often invaded the country and ravaged it
unsparingly, yet never touched the place called the Akademeia, for
Akademus's sake. Dikaearchus says that Echemus and Marathus, two
Arcadians, took part in that war with the sons of Tyndareus; and that from
the first the place now called Akademeia was then named Echedemia, and
that from the second the township of Marathon takes its names, because he
in accordance with some oracle voluntarily offered himself as a sacrifice
there in the sight of the whole army.

However, the sons of Tyndareus came to Aphidnae, and took the place after
a battle, in which it is said that Alykus fell, the son of Skeiron, who then
was fighting on the side of the Dioskuri. In memory of this man it is said
that the place in the territory of Megara where his remains lie is called
Alykus. But Hereas writes that Alykus was slain by Theseus at Aphidnae,
and as evidence he quotes this verse about Alykus,

"Him whom Theseus slew in the spacious streets of
Aphidnae,
Fighting for fair-haired Helen."

But it is not likely that if Theseus had been there, his mother and the town
of Aphidnae would have been taken.
XXXIII. After the fall of Aphidnae, the people of Athens became terrified,
and were persuaded by Mnestheus to admit the sons of Tyndareus to the
city, and to treat them as friends, because, he said, they were only at war
with Theseus, who had been the first to use violence, and were the saviours
and benefactors of the rest of mankind. These words of his were confirmed
by their behaviour, for, victorious as they were, they yet demanded nothing
except initiation into the mysteries, as they were, no less than Herakles,
connected with the city. This was permitted them, and they were adopted by
Aphidnus, as Herakles had been by Pylius. They received divine honours,
being addressed as "Anakes," either because of the cessation of the war, or
from the care they took, when they had such a large army within the walls
of Athens, that no one should be wronged; for those who take care of or
guard anything are said to do it "anakos," and perhaps for this reason kings
are called "Anaktes." Some say that they were called Anakas because of the
appearance of their stars in the heavens above, for the Attics called "above"
"anekas."
XXXIV. It is said that Aethra, the mother of Theseus, was carried off as a
captive to Lacedaemon, and thence to Troy with Helen, and Homer supports
this view, when he says that there followed Helen,

"Aithra the daughter of Pittheus and large-eyed Klymene."

Others reject this verse, and the legend about Mounychus, who is said to
have been the bastard son of Laodike, by Demophoon, and to have been
brought up in Troy by Aithra. But Istrus, in his thirteenth book of his
'History of Attica,' tells quite a different and peculiar story about Aithra, that
he had heard that Paris was conquered by Achilles and Patroklus near the
river Spercheius, in Thessaly, and that Hector took the city of Troezen by
storm, and amongst the plunder carried off Aithra, who had been left there.
But this seems impossible.
XXXV. Now Aidoneus the Molossian king chanced to be entertaining
Herakles, and related to him the story of Theseus and Peirithous, what they
had intended to do, and how they had been caught in the act and punished.
Herakles was much grieved at hearing how one had perished ingloriously,
and the other was like to perish. He thought that nothing would be gained
by reproaching the king for his conduct to Peirithous, but he begged for the
life of Theseus, and pointed out that the release of his friend was a favour
which he deserved. Aidoneus agreed, and Theseus, when set free, returned
to Athens, where he found that his party was not yet overpowered.
Whatever consecrated grounds had been set apart for him by the city, he
dedicated to Herakles, and called Heraklea instead of Thesea, except four,
according to Philochorus. But, as he at once wished to preside and manage
the state as before, he was met by factious opposition, for he found that
those who had been his enemies before, had now learned not to fear him,
while the common people had become corrupted, and now required to be
specially flattered instead of doing their duty in silence.
He endeavoured to establish his government by force, but was overpowered
by faction; and at last, despairing of success, he secretly sent his children to
Euboea, to Elephenor, the son of Chalkodous; and he himself, after
solemnly uttering curses on the Athenians at Gargettus, where now is the
place called Araterion, or the place of curses, set sail for Skyros, where he
was, he imagined, on friendly terms with the inhabitants, and possessed a
paternal estate in the island. At that time Lykomedes was king of Skyros; so
he proceeded to demand from him his lands, in order to live there, though
some say that he asked him to assist him against the Athenians. Lykomedes,
either in fear of the great reputation of Theseus, or else to gain the favour of
Mnestheus, led him up to the highest mountain top in the country, on the
pretext of showing him his estate from thence, and pushed him over a

precipice. Some say that he stumbled and fell of himself, as he was walking
after supper, according to his custom. As soon as he was dead, no one
thought any more of him, but Mnestheus reigned over the Athenians, while
Theseus's children were brought up as private citizens by Elephenor, and
followed him to Ilium. When Mnestheus died at Ilium, they returned home
and resumed their rightful sovereignty. In subsequent times, among many
other things which led the Athenians to honour Theseus as a hero or demi-
god, most remarkable was his appearance at the battle of Marathon, where
his spirit was seen by many, clad in armour, leading the charge against the
barbarians.
XXXVI. After the Persian war, in the archonship of Phaedo, the Athenians
were told by the Delphian Oracle to take home the bones of Theseus and
keep them with the greatest care and honour. There was great difficulty in
obtaining them and in discovering his tomb, on account of the wild and
savage habits of the natives of the island. However, Kimon took the island,
as is written in my history of his Life, and making it a point of honour to
discover his tomb, he chanced to behold an eagle pecking with its beak and
scratching with its talons at a small rising ground. Here he dug, imagining
that the spot had been pointed out by a miracle. There was found the coffin
of a man of great stature, and lying beside it a brazen lance-head and a
sword. These relics were brought to Athens by Kimon, on board of his
trireme, and the delighted Athenians received them with splendid
processions and sacrifices, just as if the hero himself were come to the city.
He is buried in the midst of the city, near where the Gymnasium now
stands, and his tomb is a place of sanctuary for slaves, and all that are poor
and oppressed, because Theseus, during his life, was the champion and
avenger of the poor, and always kindly hearkened to their prayers. Their
greatest sacrifice in his honour takes place on the eighth of the month of
Pyanepsion, upon which day he and the youths came back from Crete. But
besides this they hold a service in his honour on the eighth of all the other
months, either because it was on the eighth day of Hekatombeion that he
first arrived in Athens from Troezen, as is related by Diodorus the
topographer, or else thinking that number to be especially his own, because
he is said to have been the son of Poseidon, and Poseidon is honoured on
the eighth day of every month. For the number eight is the first cube of an
even number, and is double the first square, and therefore peculiarly

represents the immovable abiding power of that god whom we address as
"the steadfast," and the "earth upholder."

LIFE OF ROMULUS.
I. Historians are not agreed upon the origin and meaning of the famous
name of Rome, which is so celebrated through all the world. Some relate
that the Pelasgi, after wandering over the greater part of the world, and
conquering most nations, settled there, and gave the city its name from their
own strength in battle.[8] Others tell us that after the capture of Troy some
fugitives obtained ships, were carried by the winds to the Tyrrhenian or
Tuscan coast, and cast anchor in the Tiber. There the women, who had
suffered much from the sea voyage, were advised by one who was
accounted chief among them for wisdom and noble birth, Roma by name, to
burn the ships. At first the men were angry at this, but afterwards, being
compelled to settle round about the Palatine Hill, they fared better than they
expected, as they found the country fertile and the neighbours hospitable; so
they paid great honour to Roma, and called the city after her name. From
this circumstance, they say, arose the present habit of women kissing their
male relatives and connections; because those women, after they had
burned the ships, thus embraced and caressed the men, trying to pacify their
rage.
II. Some say that Roma, who gave the name to the city, was the daughter of
Italus and Leucaria, or of Telephus the son of Hercules, and the wife of
Aeneas, while others say that she was the daughter of Ascanius the son of
Aeneas. Others relate that Romanus, the son of Odysseus and Circe,
founded the city, or that it was Romus, the son of Hemathion, who was sent
from Troy by Diomedes; or Romis the despot of the Latins, who drove out
of his kingdom the Tyrrhenians, who, starting from Thessaly, had made
their way to Lydia, and thence to Italy. And even those who follow the most
reasonable of these legends, and admit that it was Romulus who founded
the city after his own name, do not agree about his birth; for some say that
he was the son of Aeneas and Dexithea the daughter of Phorbas, and with
his brother Romus was brought to Italy when a child, and that as the river
was in flood, all the other boats were swamped, but that in which the
children were was carried to a soft bank and miraculously preserved, from
which the name of Rome was given to the place. Others say that Roma, the

daughter of that Trojan lady, married Latinus the son of Telemachus and
bore a son, Romulus; while others say that his mother was Aemilia the
daughter of Aeneas and Lavinia, by an intrigue with Mars; while others give
a completely legendary account of his birth, as follows:
In the house of Tarchetius, the king of the Albani, a cruel and lawless man,
a miracle took place. A male figure arose from the hearth, and remained
there for many days. Now there was in Etruria an oracle of Tethys, which
told Tarchetius that a virgin must be offered to the figure; for there should
be born of her a son surpassing all mankind in strength, valour, and good
fortune. Tarchetius hereupon explained the oracle to one of his daughters,
and ordered her to give herself up to the figure; but she, not liking to do so,
sent her servant-maid instead. Tarchetius, when he learned this, was greatly
incensed, and cast them both into prison, meaning to put them to death.
However, in a dream, Vesta appeared to him, forbidding him to slay them.
In consequence of this he locked them up with a loom, telling them that
when they had woven the piece of work upon it they should be married. So
they wove all day, and during the night other maidens sent by Tarchetius
undid their work again. Now when the servant-maid was delivered of twins,
Tarchetius gave them to one Teratius, and bade him destroy them. He laid
them down near the river; and there they were suckled by a she-wolf, while
all sorts of birds brought them morsels of food, until one day a cowherd saw
them. Filled with wonder he ventured to come up to the children and bear
them off. Saved from death in this manner they grew up, and then attacked
and slew Tarchetius. This is the legend given by one Promathion, the
compiler of a history of Italy.
III. But the most credible story, and that has most vouchers for its truth, is
that which was first published in Greece by Diokles of Peparethos, a writer
whom Fabius Pictor has followed in most points. There are variations in
this legend also; but, generally speaking, it runs as follows:
The dynasty established by Aeneas at Alba Longa, came down to two
brothers, Numitor and Amulius. Amulius offered his brother the choice
between the sovereign power and the royal treasure, including the gold
brought from Troy. Numitor chose the sovereign power. But Amulius,
possessing all the treasure, and thereby having more power than his brother,
easily dethroned him, and, as he feared his brother's daughter might have

children who would avenge him, he made her a priestess of Vesta, sworn to
celibacy for ever. This lady is named by some Ilia, by others Rhea or Silvia.
After no long time she was found to be with child, against the law of the
Vestals. Her life was saved by the entreaties of Antho, the king's daughter,
but she was closely imprisoned, that she might not be delivered without
Amulius's knowledge. She bore two children of remarkable beauty and size,
and Amulius, all the more alarmed at this, bade an attendant take them and
expose them. Some say that this man's name was Faustulus, while others
say that this was not his name, but that of their rescuer. However, he placed
the infants in a cradle, and went down to the river with the intention of
throwing them into it, but seeing it running strong and turbulently, he feared
to approach it, laid down the cradle near the bank and went away. The river,
which was in flood, rose, and gently floated off the cradle, and carried it
down to a soft place which is now called Cermalus, but anciently, it seems,
was called Germanus, because brothers are called germani.
IV. Near this place was a fig-tree, which they called Ruminalius, either
from Romulus, as most persons imagine, or because cattle came to ruminate
in its shade, or, more probably, because of the suckling of the children there,
for the ancients called the nipple rouma. Moreover, they call the goddess
who appears to have watched over the children Roumilia, and to her they
sacrifice offerings without wine, and pour milk as a libation upon her altar.
It is said that while the infants were lying in this place, the she-wolf suckled
them, and that a woodpecker came and helped to feed and watch over them.
Now these animals are sacred to the god Mars; and the Latins have a
peculiar reverence and worship for the woodpecker. These circumstances,
therefore, did not a little to confirm the tale of the mother of the children,
that their father was Mars, though some say that she was deceived by
Amulius himself, who, after condemning her to a life of virginity, appeared
before her dressed in armour, and ravished her. Others say that the twofold
meaning of the name of their nurse gave rise to this legend, for the Latins
use the word lupa for she-wolves, and also for unchaste women, as was the
wife of Faustulus, who brought up the children, Acca Laurentia by name.
To her also the Romans offer sacrifice, and in the month of April the priest
of Mars brings libations to her, and the feast is called Laurentia.

V. The Romans also worship another Laurentia, for this reason: The priest
of Hercules, weary with idleness, proposed to the god to cast the dice on the
condition that, if he won, he should receive something good from the god,
while if he lost, he undertook to provide the god with a bountiful feast and a
fair woman to take his pleasure with. Upon these conditions he cast the
dice, first for the god, and then for himself, and was beaten. Wishing to
settle his wager properly, and making a point of keeping his word, he
prepared a feast for the god, and hired Laurentia, then in the pride of her
beauty, though not yet famous. He feasted her in the temple, where he had
prepared a couch, and after supper he locked her in, that the god might
possess her. And, indeed, the god is said to have appeared to the lady, and to
have bidden her go early in the morning into the market-place, and to
embrace the first man she met, and make him her friend. There met her a
citizen far advanced in years, possessing a fair income, childless, and
unmarried. His name was Tarrutius. He took Laurentia to himself, and loved
her, and upon his death left her heiress to a large and valuable property, the
greater part of which she left by will to the city. It is related of her, that after
she had become famous, and was thought to enjoy the favour of Heaven,
she vanished near the very same spot where the other Laurentia lay buried.
This place is now called Velabrum, because during the frequent
overflowings of the river, people used there to be ferried over to the market-
place; now they call ferrying velatura. Some say that the road from the
market-place to the circus, starting from this point, used to be covered with
sails or awnings by those who treated the people to a spectacle; and in the
Latin tongue a sail is called velum. This is why the second Laurentia is
honoured by the Romans.
VI. Now Faustulus, the swineherd of Amulius, kept the children concealed
from every one, though some say that Numitor knew of it, and shared the
expense of their education. They were sent to Gabii to learn their letters,
and everything else that well-born children should know; and they were
called Romulus and Remus, because they were first seen sucking the wolf.
Their noble birth showed itself while they were yet children, in their size
and beauty; and when they grew up they were manly and high-spirited, of
invincible courage and daring. Romulus, however, was thought the wiser
and more politic of the two, and in his discussions with the neighbours
about pasture and hunting, gave them opportunities of noting that his

disposition was one which led him to command rather than to obey. On
account of these qualities they were beloved by their equals and the poor,
but they despised the king's officers and bailiffs as being no braver than
themselves, and cared neither for their anger nor their threats. They led the
lives and followed the pursuits of nobly born men, not valuing sloth and
idleness, but exercise and hunting, defending the land against brigands,
capturing plunderers, and avenging those who had suffered wrong. And thus
they became famous.
VII. Now a quarrel arose between the herdsmen of Numitor and those of
Amulius, and cattle were driven off by the former. Amulius's men, enraged
at this, fought and routed the others, and recovered a great part of the booty.
They cared nothing for Numitor's anger, but collected together many needy
persons and slaves, and filled them with a rebellious spirit. While Romulus
was absent at a sacrifice (for he was much addicted to sacrifices and
divination), the herdsmen of Numitor fell in with Remus, accompanied by a
small band, and fought with him. After many wounds had been received on
both sides, Numitor's men conquered and took Remus alive. Remus was
brought before Numitor, who did not punish him, as he feared his brother's
temper, but went to his brother and begged for justice, saying that he had
suffered wrong at the hands of the king his brother's servants. As all the
people of Alba sympathised with Remus, and feared that he would be
unjustly put to death, or worse, Amulius, alarmed at them, handed over
Remus to his brother Numitor, to deal with as he pleased. Numitor took
him, and as soon as he reached home, after admiring the bodily strength and
stature of the youth, which surpassed all the rest, perceiving in his looks his
courageous and fiery spirit, undismayed by his present circumstances, and
having heard that his deeds corresponded to his appearance, and above all,
as seems probable, some god being with him and watching over the first
beginnings of great events, he was struck by the idea of asking him to tell
the truth as to who he was, and how he was born, giving him confidence
and encouragement by his kindly voice and looks. The young man boldly
said, "I will conceal nothing from you, for you seem more like a king than
Amulius. You hear and judge before you punish, but he gives men up to be
punished without a trial. Formerly we (for we are twins) understood that we
were the sons of Faustulus and Laurentia, the king's servants; but now that
we are brought before you as culprits, and are falsely accused and in danger

of our lives, we have heard great things about ourselves. Whether they be
true or not, we must now put to the test. Our birth is said to be a secret, and
our nursing and bringing up is yet stranger, for we were cast out to the
beasts and the birds, and were fed by them, suckled by a she-wolf, and fed
with morsels of food by a woodpecker as we lay in our cradle beside the
great river. Our cradle still exists, carefully preserved, bound with brazen
bands, on which is an indistinct inscription, which hereafter will serve as a
means by which we may be recognised by our parents, but to no purpose if
we are dead." Numitor, considering the young man's story, and reckoning
up the time from his apparent age, willingly embraced the hope which was
dawning on his mind, and considered how he might obtain a secret
interview with his daughter and tell her of all this; for she was still kept a
close prisoner.
VIII. Faustulus, when he heard of Remus being captured and delivered up
to Numitor, called upon Romulus to help him, and told him plainly all about
his birth; although previously he had hinted so much, that any one who paid
attention to his words might have known nearly all about it; and he himself
with the cradle ran to Numitor full of hopes and fears, now that matters had
come to a critical point. He was viewed with suspicion by the guards at the
king's gate, and while they were treating him contemptuously, and
confusing him by questions, they espied the cradle under his cloak. Now it
chanced that one of them had been one of those who had taken the children
to cast them away, and had been present when they were abandoned. This
man, seeing the cradle and recognising it by its make and the inscription on
it, suspected the truth, and at once told the king and brought the man in to
be examined. Faustulus, in those dire straits, did not altogether remain
unshaken, and yet did not quite allow his secret to be wrung from him. He
admitted that the boys were alive, but said that they were living far away
from Alba, and that he himself was bringing the cradle to Ilia, who had
often longed to see and touch it to confirm her belief in the life of her
children. Now Amulius did what men generally do when excited by fear or
rage. He sent in a great hurry one who was a good man and a friend of
Numitor, bidding him ask Numitor whether he had heard anything about the
survival of the children. This man on arrival, finding Numitor all but
embracing Remus, confirmed his belief that he was his grandson, and bade
him take his measures quickly, remaining by him himself to offer

assistance. Even had they wished it, there was no time for delay; for
Romulus was already near, and no small number of the citizens, through
hatred and fear of Amulius, were going out to join him. He himself brought
no small force, arrayed in companies of a hundred each. Each of these was
led by a man who carried a bundle of sticks and straw upon a pole. The
Latins called these manipla; and from this these companies are even at the
present day called maniples in the Roman army. Now as Remus raised a
revolt within, while Romulus assailed the palace without, the despot was
captured and put to death without having been able to do anything, or take
any measures for his own safety.
The greater part of the above story is told by Fabius Pictor and Diokles of
Peparethos, who seem to have been the first historians of the foundation of
Rome. The story is doubted by many on account of its theatrical and
artificial form, yet we ought not to disbelieve it when we consider what
wondrous works are wrought by chance, and when, too, we reflect on the
Roman Empire, which, had it not had a divine origin, never could have
arrived at its present extent.
IX. After the death of Amulius, and the reorganisation of the kingdom, the
twins, who would not live in Alba as subjects, and did not wish to reign
there during the life of their grandfather, gave up the sovereign power to
him, and, having made a suitable provision for their mother, determined to
dwell by themselves, and to found a city in the parts in which they
themselves had been reared; at least, this is the most probable of the various
reasons which are given. It may also have been necessary, as many slaves
and fugitives had gathered round them, either that they should disperse
these men and so lose their entire power, or else go and dwell alone
amongst them. It is clear, from the rape of the Sabine women, that the
citizens of Alba would not admit these outcasts into their own body, since
that deed was caused, not by wanton insolence, but by necessity, as they
could not obtain wives by fair means; for after carrying the women off they
treated them with the greatest respect. Afterwards, when the city was once
founded, they made it a sanctuary for people in distress to take refuge in,
saying that it belonged to the god Asylus; and they received in it all sorts of
persons, not giving up slaves to their masters, debtors to their creditors, or
murderers to their judges, but saying that, in accordance with a Pythian
oracle, the sanctuary was free to all; so that the city soon became full of

men, for they say that at first it contained no less than a thousand hearths.
Of this more hereafter. When they were proceeding to found the city, they at
once quarrelled about its site. Romulus fixed upon what is now called Roma
Quadrata, a square piece of ground, and wished the city to be built in that
place; but Remus preferred a strong position on Mount Aventino, which, in
memory of him, was called the Remonium, and now is called Rignarium.
They agreed to decide their dispute by watching the flight of birds, and
having taken their seats apart, it is said that six vultures appeared to Remus,
and afterwards twice as many to Romulus. Some say that Remus really saw
his vultures, but that Romulus only pretended to have seen them, and when
Remus came to him, then the twelve appeared to Romulus; for which
reason the Romans at the present day draw their auguries especially from
vultures. Herodorus of Pontus says that Hercules delighted in the sight of a
vulture, when about to do any great action. It is the most harmless of all
creatures, for it injures neither crops, fruit, nor cattle, and lives entirely
upon dead corpses. It does not kill or injure anything that has life, and even
abstains from dead birds from its relationship to them. Now eagles, and
owls, and falcons, peck and kill other birds, in spite of Aeschylus's line,

"Bird-eating bird polluted e'er must be."

Moreover, the other birds are, so to speak, ever before our eyes, and
continually remind us of their presence; but the vulture is seldom seen, and
it is difficult to meet with its young, which has suggested to some persons
the strange idea that vultures come from some other world to pay us their
rare visits, which are like those occurrences which, according to the
soothsayers, do not happen naturally or spontaneously, but by the
interposition of Heaven.
X. When Remus discovered the deceit he was very angry, and, while
Romulus was digging a trench round where the city wall was to be built, he
jeered at the works, and hindered them. At last, as he jumped over it, he was
struck dead either by Romulus himself, or by Celer, one of his companions.
In this fight, Faustulus was slain, and also Pleistinus, who is said to have
been Faustulus's brother and to have helped him in rearing Romulus and his
brother. Celer retired into Tyrrhenia, and from him the Romans call quick
sharp men Celeres; Quintus Metellus, who, when his father died, in a very

few days exhibited a show of gladiators, was surnamed Celer by the
Romans in their wonder at the short time he had spent in his preparations.
XI. Romulus, after burying Remus and his foster-parents in the Remurium,
consecrated his city, having fetched men from Etruria, who taught him how
to perform it according to sacred rites and ceremonies, as though they were
celebrating holy mysteries. A trench was dug in a circle round what is now
the Comitium, and into it were flung first-fruits of all those things which are
honourable and necessary for men. Finally each man brought a little of the
earth of the country from which he came, and flung it into one heap and
mixed it all together. They call this pit by the same name as the heavens,
Mundus. Next, they drew the outline of the city in the form of a circle, with
this place as its centre. And then the founder, having fitted a plough with a
brazen ploughshare, and yoked to it a bull and a cow, himself ploughs a
deep furrow round the boundaries. It is the duty of his attendants to throw
the clods inwards, which the plough turns up, and to let none of them fall
outwards. By this line they define the extent of the fortifications, and it is
called by contraction, Pomoerium, which means behind the walls or beyond
the walls (post moenia). Wherever they intend to place a gate they take off
the ploughshare, and carry the plough over, leaving a space. After this
ceremony they consider the entire wall sacred, except the gates; but if they
were sacred also, they could not without scruple bring in and out
necessaries and unclean things through them.
XII. It is agreed that the foundation of the city took place on the eleventh
day before the Kalends of May (the 21st of April). And on this day the
Romans keep a festival which they call the birthday of the city. At this feast,
originally, we are told, they sacrificed nothing that has life, but thought it
right to keep the anniversary of the birth of the city pure and unpolluted by
blood. However, before the foundation of the city, they used to keep a
pastoral feast called Palilia. The Roman months at the present day do not in
any way correspond to those of Greece; yet they (the Greeks) distinctly
affirm that the day upon which Romulus founded the city was the 30th of
the month. The Greeks likewise tell us that on that day an eclipse of the sun
took place, which they think was that observed by Antimachus of Teos, the
epic poet, which occurred in the third year of the sixth Olympiad. In the
time of Varro the philosopher, who of all the Romans was most deeply
versed in Roman history, there was one Taroutius, a companion of his, a

philosopher and mathematician, who had especially devoted himself to the
art of casting nativities, and was thought to have attained great skill therein.
To this man Varro proposed the task of finding the day and hour of
Romulus's birth, basing his calculations on the influence which the stars
were said to have had upon his life, just as geometricians solve their
problems by the analytic method; for it belongs, he argued, to the same
science to predict the life of a man from the time of his birth, and to find the
date of a man's birth if the incidents of his life are given. Taroutius
performed his task, and after considering the things done and suffered by
Romulus, the length of his life, the manner of his death, and all such like
matters, he confidently and boldly asserted that Romulus was conceived by
his mother in the first year of the second Olympiad, at the third hour of the
twenty-third day of the month which is called in the Egyptian calendar
Choiac, at which time there was a total eclipse of the sun. He stated that he
was born on the twenty-first day of the month Thouth, about sunrise. Rome
was founded by him on the ninth day of the month Pharmouthi, between
the second and third hour; for it is supposed that the fortunes of cities, as
well as those of men, have their certain periods which can be discovered by
the position of the stars at their nativities. The quaint subtlety of these
speculations may perhaps amuse the reader more than their legendary
character will weary him.
XIII. When the city was founded, Romulus first divided all the able-bodied
males into regiments, each consisting of three thousand infantry and three
hundred cavalry. These were named legions, because they consisted of men
of military age selected from the population. The rest of the people were
now organised. They were called Populus, and a hundred of the noblest
were chosen from among them and formed into a council. These he called
Patricians, and their assembly the Senate. This word Senate clearly means
assembly of old men; and the members of it were named Patricians,
according to some, because they were the fathers of legitimate offspring;
according to others, because they were able to give an account of who their
own fathers were, which few of the first colonists were able to do. Others
say that it was from their Patrocinium, as they then called, and do at the
present day call, their patronage of their clients. There is a legend that this
word arose from one Patron, a companion of Evander, who was kind and
helpful to his inferiors. But it is most reasonable to suppose that Romulus

called them by this name because he intended the most powerful men to
show kindness to their inferiors, and to show the poorer classes that they
ought not to fear the great nor grudge them their honours, but be on friendly
terms with them, thinking of them and addressing them as fathers (Patres).
For, up to the present day, foreigners address the senators as Lords, but the
Romans call them Conscript Fathers, using the most honourable and least
offensive of their titles. Originally they were merely called the Fathers, but
afterwards, as more were enrolled, they were called Conscript Fathers. By
this more dignified title Romulus distinguished the Senate from the People;
and he introduced another distinction between the powerful and the
common people by naming the former patrons, which means defenders, and
the latter clients, which means dependants. By this means he implanted in
them a mutual good feeling which was the source of great benefits, for the
patrons acted as advocates for their clients in law suits, and in all cases
became their advisers and friends, while the clients not only respected their
patrons but even assisted them, when they were poor, to portion their
daughters or pay their creditors. No law or magistrate could compel a
patron to bear witness against his client, nor a client against his patron.
Moreover, in later times, although all their other rights remained
unimpaired, it was thought disgraceful for a patron to receive money from a
client. So much for these matters.
XIV. In the fourth month after the city was founded, we are told by Fabius,
the reckless deed of carrying off the women took place. Some say that
Romulus himself naturally loved war, and, being persuaded by some
prophecies that Rome was fated to grow by wars and so reach the greatest
prosperity, attacked the Sabines without provocation; for he did not carry
off many maidens, but only thirty, as though it was war that he desired more
than wives for his followers. This is not probable: Romulus saw that his city
was newly-filled with colonists, few of whom had wives, while most of
them were a mixed multitude of poor or unknown origin, who were
despised by the neighouring states, and expected by them shortly to fall to
pieces. He intended his violence to lead to an alliance with the Sabines, as
soon as the damsels became reconciled to their lot, and set about it as
follows: First he circulated a rumour that the altar of some god had been
discovered, hidden in the earth. This god was called Census, either because
he was the god of counsel (for the Romans to this day call their assembly

Concilium, and their chief magistrates consuls, as it were those who take
counsel on behalf of the people), or else it was the equestrian Neptune. The
altar stands in the greater hippodrome, and is kept concealed except during
the horse-races, when it is uncovered. Some say that, as the whole plot was
dark and mysterious, it was natural that the god's altar should be
underground. When it was brought out, he proclaimed a splendid sacrifice
in its honour, and games and shows open to all men. Many people
assembled to see them, and Romulus sat among his nobles, dressed in a
purple robe. The signal for the assault was that he should rise, unfold his
cloak, and then again wrap it around him. Many men armed with swords
stood round him, and at the signal they drew their swords, rushed forward
with a shout, and snatched up the daughters of the Sabines, but allowed the
others to escape unharmed. Some say that only thirty were carried off, from
whom the thirty tribes were named, but Valerius of Antium says five
hundred and twenty-seven, and Juba six hundred and eighty-three, all
maidens. This is the best apology for Romulus; for they only carried off one
married woman, Hersilia, which proved that it was not through insolence or
wickedness that they carried them off, but with the intention of forcibly
effecting a union between the two races. Some say that Hersilia married
Hostilius, one of the noblest Romans, others that she married Romulus
himself, and that he had children by her; one daughter, called Prima from
her being the first-born, and one son, whom his father originally named
Aollius, because of the assembling of the citizens, but whom they
afterwards named Avillius. This is the story as told by Zenodotus of
Troezen, but many contradict it.
XV. Among the ravishers they say there were some men of low condition
who had seized a remarkably tall and beautiful maiden. When any of the
nobles met them and endeavoured to take her away from them, they cried
out that they were taking her to Talasius, a young man of good family and
reputation. Hearing this, all agreed and applauded, and some even turned
and accompanied them, crying out the name of Talasius through their
friendship for him. From this circumstance the Romans up to the present
day call upon Talasius in their marriage-songs, as the Greeks do upon
Hymen; for Talasius is said to have been fortunate in his wife. Sextius Sulla
of Carthage, a man neither deficient in learning or taste, told me that this
word was given by Romulus as the signal for the rape, and so that all those

who carried off maidens cried "Talasio." But most authors, among whom is
Juba, think that it is used to encourage brides to industry and spinning wool
(talasia), as at that time Greek words had not been overpowered by Latin
ones. But if this be true, and the Romans at that time really used this word
"talasia" for wool-spinning, as we do, we might make another more
plausible conjecture about it. When the treaty of peace was arranged
between the Romans and the Sabines, a special provision was made about
the women, that they were to do no work for the men except wool-spinning.
And thus the custom remained for the friends of those who were married
afterwards to call upon Talasius in jest, meaning to testify that the bride was
to do no other work than spinning. To the present day the custom remains in
force that the bride must not step over the threshold into her house, but be
lifted over it and carried in, because the Sabine maidens were carried in
forcibly, and did not walk in.
Some add that the parting of the bride's hair with the point of a spear is
done in memory of the first Roman marriage having been effected by war
and battle; on which subject we have enlarged further in our treatise on
Causes.
The rape of the Sabines took place upon the eighteenth day of the month
Sextilis, which is now called August, on which day the feast of the
Consualia is kept.
XVI. The Sabines were a numerous and warlike tribe, dwelling in unwalled
villages, as though it was their birthright as a Lacedaemonian colony to be
brave and fearless. Yet when they found themselves bound by such hostages
to keep the peace, and in fear for their daughters, they sent an embassy to
propose equitable and moderate terms, that Romulus should give back their
daughters to them, and disavow the violence which had been used, and that
afterwards the two nations should live together in amity and concord. But
when Romulus refused to deliver up the maidens, but invited the Sabines to
accept his alliance, while the other tribes were hesitating and considering
what was to be done, Acron, the king of the Ceninetes, a man of spirit and
renown in the wars, who had viewed Romulus first proceeding in founding
a city with suspicion, now, after what he had done in carrying off the
women, declared that he was becoming dangerous, and would not be
endurable unless he were chastised. He at once began the war, and marched

with a great force; and Romulus marched to meet him. When they came in
sight of each other they each challenged the other to fight, the soldiers on
both sides looking on. Romulus made a vow that if he should overcome and
kill his enemy he would himself carry his spoils to the temple of Jupiter and
offer them to him. He overcame his adversary, and slew him, routed his
army and captured his city. He did not harm the inhabitants, except that he
ordered them to demolish their houses and follow him to Rome, to become
citizens on equal terms with the rest. This is the policy by which Rome
grew so great, namely that of absorbing conquered nations into herself on
terms of equality.
Romulus, in order to make the fulfilment of his vow as pleasing to Jupiter,
and as fine a spectacle for the citizens as he could, cut down a tall oak-tree
at his camp, and fashioned it into a trophy,[9] upon which he hung or
fastened all the arms of Acron, each in its proper place. Then he girded on
his own clothes, placed a crown of laurel upon his long hair, and, placing
the trophy upright on his right shoulder, marched along in his armour,
singing a paean of victory, with all the army following him. At Rome the
citizens received him with admiration and delight; and this procession was
the origin of all the subsequent triumphs and the model which they imitated.
The trophy itself was called an offering to Jupiter Feretrius; for the Romans
call to strike, ferire, and Romulus prayed that he might strike down his
enemy. The spoils were called spolia opima, according to Varro, because
opim means excellence. A more plausible interpretation would be from the
deed itself, for work is called in Latin opus. This dedication of spolia opima
is reserved as a privilege for a general who has slain the opposing general
with his own hand. It has only been enjoyed by three Roman generals, first
by Romulus, who slew Acron, king of the Ceninetes, second by Cornelius
Cossus, who slew the Tyrrhenian Tolumnius, and, above all, by Claudius
Marcellus, who killed Britomart, the king of the Gauls. Now Cossus and
Marcellus drove into the city in chariots and four, carrying the trophies in
their own hands; but Dionysius is in error when he says that Romulus used
a chariot and four, for the historians tell us that Tarquinius, the son of
Demaratus, was the first of the kings who introduced this pomp into his
triumphs. Others say that Poplicola was the first to triumph in a chariot.
However, the statues of Romulus bearing the trophy, which are to be seen in
Rome, are all on foot.

XVII. After the capture of the Ceninete tribe, while the rest of the Sabines
were still engaged in preparation for war, the inhabitants of Fidenae and
Crustumerium and Antemna attacked the Romans. A battle took place in
which they were all alike worsted, after which they permitted Romulus to
take their cities, divide their lands, and incorporate them as citizens.
Romulus divided all the lands among the citizens, except that which was
held by the fathers of any of the maidens who had been carried off, which
he allowed them to retain.
The remainder of the Sabines, angry at these successes, chose Tatius as their
general and marched against Rome. The city was hard to attack, as the
Capitol stood as an advanced fort to defend it. Here was placed a garrison,
and Tarpeius was its commander, not the maiden Tarpeia, as some write,
who make out Romulus a fool; but it was this Tarpeia, the daughter of the
captain of the garrison, who betrayed the capital to the Sabines, for the sake
of the golden bracelets which she saw them wearing. She asked as the price
of her treachery that they should give her what they wore on their left arms.
After making an agreement with Tatius, she opened a gate at night and let in
the Sabines. Now it appears that Antigonus was not singular when he said
that he loved men when they were betraying, but hated them after they had
betrayed; as also Caesar said, in the case of Rhymitalkes the Thracian, that
he loved the treachery but hated the traitor; but this seems a common
reflection about bad men by those who have need of them, just as we need
the poison of certain venomous beasts; for they appreciate their value while
they are making use of them, and loathe their wickedness when they have
done with them. And that was how Tarpeia was treated by Tatius. He
ordered the Sabines to remember their agreement, and not to grudge her
what was on their left arms. He himself first of all took off his gold armlet,
and with it flung his great oblong shield. As all the rest did the like, she
perished, being pelted with the gold bracelets and crushed by the number
and weight of the shields. Tarpeius also was convicted of treachery by
Romulus, according to Juba's version of the history of Sulpicius Galba. The
other legends about Tarpeia are improbable; amongst them that which is
told by Antigonus, that she was the daughter of Tatius the Sabine leader,
abducted by Romulus, and treated by her father as is related above. Simylus
the poet talks utter nonsense when he says that it was not the Sabines but

the Gauls to whom Tarpeia betrayed the Capitol, because she was in love
with their king. His verses run as follows:

"And near Tarpeia, by the Capitol
That dwelt, betrayer of the walls of Rome.
She loved the chieftain of the Gauls too well,
To guard from treachery her father's home."

And a little afterwards he speaks of her death.

"Her did the Boians and the Celtic tribes
Bury, but not beside the stream of Po;
From off their warlike arms their shields they flung,
And what the damsel longed for laid her low."

XVIII. However, as Tarpeia was buried there, the hill was called the
Tarpeian hill until King Tarquinius, when he dedicated the place to Jupiter,
removed her remains and abolished the name of Tarpeia. But even to this
day they call the rock in the Capitol the Tarpeian Rock, down which
malefactors used to be flung. When the Sabines held the citadel, Romulus in
fury challenged them to come down and fight. Tatius accepted his challenge
with confidence, as he saw that if overpowered his men would have a
strong place of refuge to retreat to. All the intermediate space, in which they
were about to engage, was surrounded by hills, and so seemed to make a
desperate battle necessary, as there were but narrow outlets for flight or
pursuit. It chanced, also, that the river had been in flood a few days before,
and had left a deep muddy pool of water upon the level ground where the
Forum now stands; so that men's footing was not certain, but difficult and
treacherous. Here a piece of good fortune befell the Sabines as they
heedlessly pressed forward. Curtius, one of their chiefs, a man with a
reputation for dashing courage, rode on horseback far before the rest. His
horse plunged into this morass, and he, after trying to extricate him, at last
finding it impossible, left him there and saved himself. This place, in
memory of him, is still called the Gulf of Curtius. Warned of their danger,
the Sabines fought a stout and indecisive battle, in which many fell,
amongst them Hostilius. He is said to have been the husband of Hersilia and
the grandfather of Hostilius, who became king after the reign of Numa.
Many combats took place in that narrow space, as we may suppose; and
especial mention is made of one, which proved the last, in which Romulus
was struck on the head by a stone and like to fall, and unable to fight longer.

The Romans now gave way to the Sabines, and fled to the Palatine hill,
abandoning the level ground. Romulus, now recovered from the blow,
endeavoured to stay the fugitives, and with loud shouts called upon them to
stand firm and fight. But as the stream of fugitives poured on, and no one
had the courage to face round, he lifted his hands to heaven and prayed to
Jupiter to stay the army and not to allow the tottering state of Rome to fall,
but to help it. After his prayer many were held back from flight by
reverence for the king, and the fugitives suddenly resumed their confidence.
They made their first stand where now is the temple of Jupiter Stator, which
one may translate "He who makes to stand firm;" and then forming their
ranks once more they drove back the Sabines as far as what is now called
the Palace, and the Temple of Vesta.
XIX. While they were preparing to fight as though the battle was only now
just begun, they were restrained by a strange spectacle, beyond the power of
words to express. The daughters of the Sabines who had been carried off
were seen rushing from all quarters, with loud shrieks and wailings, through
the ranks and among the dead bodies, as though possessed by some god.
Some of them carried infant children in their arms, and others wore their
hair loose and dishevelled. All of them kept addressing the Romans and the
Sabines alternately by the most endearing names. The hearts of both armies
were melted, and they fell back so as to leave a space for the women
between them. A murmur of sorrow ran through all the ranks, and a strong
feeling of pity was excited by the sight of the women, and by their words,
which began with arguments and upbraidings, but ended in entreaties and
tears. "What wrong have we done to you," said they, "that we should have
suffered and should even now suffer such cruel treatment at your hands? We
were violently and wrongfully torn away from our friends, and after we had
been carried off we were neglected by our brothers, fathers, and relatives
for so long a time, that now, bound by the closest of ties to our enemies, we
tremble for our ravishers and wrongers when they fight, and weep when
they fall. Ye would not come and tear us from our ravishers while we were
yet maidens, but now ye would separate wives from their husbands, and
mothers from their children, a worse piece of service to us than your former
neglect. Even if it was not about us that you began to fight, you ought to
cease now that you have become fathers-in-law, and grandfathers, and
relatives one of another. But if the war is about us, then carry us off with

your sons-in-law and our children, and give us our fathers and relatives, but
do not take our husbands and children from us. We beseech you not to allow
us to be carried off captive a second time." Hersilia spoke at length in this
fashion, and as the other women added their entreaties to hers, a truce was
agreed upon, and the chiefs met in conference. Hereupon the women made
their husbands and children known to their fathers and brothers, fetched
food and drink for such as needed it, and took the wounded into their own
houses to be attended to there. Thus they let their friends see that they were
mistresses of their own houses, and that their husbands attended to their
wishes and treated them with every respect.
In the conference it was accordingly determined that such women as chose
to do so should continue to live with their husbands, free, as we have
already related, from all work and duties except that of spinning wool
(talasia); that the Romans and the Sabines should dwell together in the city,
and that the city should be called Rome, after Romulus, but the Romans be
called Quirites after the native city of Tatius; and that they should both
reign and command the army together. The place where this compact was
made is even to this day called the Comitium, for the Romans call meeting
coire.
XX. Now that the city was doubled in numbers, a hundred more senators
were elected from among the Sabines, and the legions were composed of
six thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry. They also established three
tribes, of which they named one Rhamnenses, from Romulus, another
Titienses from Tatius, and the third Lucerenses, after the name of a grove to
which many had fled for refuge, requiring asylum, and had been admitted
as citizens. They call a grove lucus. The very name of tribe and tribune
show that there were three tribes. Each tribe was divided into ten centuries,
which some say were named after the women who were carried off; but this
seems to be untrue, as many of them are named after places. However,
many privileges were conferred upon the women, amongst which were that
men should make way for them when they walked out, to say nothing
disgraceful in their presence, or appear naked before them, on pain of being
tried before the criminal court; and also that their children should wear the
bulla, which is so called from its shape, which is like a bubble, and was
worn round the neck, and also the broad purple border of their robe
(praetexta).

The kings did not conduct their deliberations together, but each first took
counsel with his own hundred senators, and then they all met together.
Tatius dwelt where now is the temple of Juno Moneta, and Romulus by the
steps of the Fair Shore, as it is called, which are at the descent from the
Palatine hill into the great Circus. Here they say the sacred cornel-tree grew,
the legend being that Romulus, to try his strength, threw a spear, with
cornel-wood shaft, from Mount Aventine, and when the spear-head sunk
into the ground, though many tried, no one was able to pull it out. The soil,
which was fertile, suited the wood, and it budded, and became the stem of a
good-sized cornel-tree. After the death of Romulus this was preserved and
reverenced as one of the holiest objects in the city. A wall was built round it,
and whenever any one thought that it looked inclined to droop and wither
he at once raised a shout to tell the bystanders, and they, just as if they were
assisting to put out a fire, called for water, and came from all quarters
carrying pots of water to the place. It is said that when Gaius Caesar
repaired the steps, and the workmen were digging near it, they
unintentionally damaged the roots, and the tree died.
XXI. The Sabines adopted the Roman system of months, and all that is
remarkable about them will be found in the 'Life of Numa.' But Romulus
adopted the large oblong Sabine shield, and gave up the round Argolic
shields which he and the Romans had formerly carried. The two nations
shared each other's festivals, not abolishing any which either had been wont
to celebrate, but introducing several new ones, among which are the
Matronalia, instituted in honour of the women at the end of the war, and
that of the Carmentalia. It is thought by some that Carmenta is the ruling
destiny which presides over a man's birth, wherefore she is worshipped by
mothers. Others say that she was the wife of Evander the Arcadian, a
prophetess who used to chant oracles in verse, and hence surnamed
Carmenta (for the Romans call verses carmina); whereas it is generally
admitted that her right name was Nicostrate. Some explain the name of
Carmenta more plausibly as meaning that during her prophetic frenzy she
was bereft of intellect; for the Romans call to lack, carcre; and mind,
mentem.
We have spoken before of the feast of the Palilia. That of the Lupercalia
would seem, from the time of its celebration, to be a ceremony of
purification; for it is held during the ominous days of February, a month

whose name one might translate by Purification; and that particular day was
originally called Febraté. The name of this feast in Greek signifies that of
wolves, and it is thought, on this account, to be very ancient, and derived
from the Arcadians who came to Italy with Evander. Still this is an open
question, for the name may have arisen from the she-wolf, as we see that
the Luperci start to run their course from the place where Romulus is said to
have been exposed. The circumstances of the ritual are such as to make it
hard to conjecture their meaning. They slaughter goats, and then two youths
of good family are brought to them. Then some with a bloody knife mark
the foreheads of the youths, and others at once wipe the blood away with
wool dipped in milk. The youths are expected to laugh when it is wiped
away. After this they cut the skins of the goats into strips and run about
naked, except a girdle round the middle, striking with the thongs all whom
they meet. Women in the prime of life do not avoid being struck, as they
believe that it assists them in childbirth and promotes fertility. It is also a
peculiarity of this festival that the Luperci sacrifice a dog. One Bontes, who
wrote an elegiac poem on the origin of the Roman myths, says that when
Romulus and his party had killed Amulius, they ran back in their joy to the
place where the she-wolf suckled them when little, and that the feast is
typical of this, and that the young nobles run,

"As, smiting all they met, that day
From Alba Romulus and Remus ran."

The bloody sword is placed upon their foreheads in token of the danger and
slaughter of that day, and the wiping with the milk is in remembrance of
their nurse. Caius Acilius tells us that, before the foundation of Rome, the
cattle of Romulus and Remus were missing, and they, after invoking
Faunus, ran out to search for them, naked, that they might not be
inconvenienced by sweat; and that this is the reason that the Luperci ran
about naked. As for the dog, one would say that if the sacrifice is
purificatory, it is sacrificed on behalf of those who use it. The Greeks, in
their purificatory rites, sacrifice dogs, and often make use of what is called
Periskylakismos. But if this feast be in honour of the she-wolf, in gratitude
for her suckling and preserving of Romulus, then it is very natural to
sacrifice a dog, for it is an enemy of wolves; unless, indeed, the beast is put
to death to punish it for hindering the Luperci when they ran their course.

XXII. It is said also that Romulus instituted the service of the sacred fire of
Vestae, and the holy virgins who keep it up, called Vestals. Others attribute
this to Numa, though they say that Romulus was a very religious prince,
and learned in divination, for which purpose he used to carry the crooked
staff called lituus, with which to divide the heavens into spaces for the
observation of the flight of birds. This, which is preserved in the Palatium,
was lost when the city was taken by the Gauls; but afterwards, when the
barbarians had been repulsed, it was found unharmed in a deep bed of
ashes, where everything else had been burned or spoiled. He also enacted
some laws, the most arbitrary of which is that a wife cannot obtain a
divorce from her husband, but that a husband may put away his wife for
poisoning her children, counterfeiting keys, or adultery. If any one put away
his wife on other grounds than these, he enacted that half his property
should go to his wife, and half to the temple of Ceres. A man who divorced
his wife was to make an offering to the Chthonian gods.[10] A peculiarity of
his legislation is that, while he laid down no course of procedure in case of
parricide, he speaks of all murder by the name of parricide, as though the
one were an abominable, but the other an impossible crime. And for many
years it appeared that he had rightly judged, for no one attempted anything
of the kind at Rome for nearly six hundred years; but it is said that the first
parricide was that of Lucius Hostilius, which he committed after the war
with Hannibal. Enough has now been said upon these subjects.
XXIII. In the fifth year of the reign of Tatius, some of his relatives fell in
with ambassadors from Laurentum, on their way to Rome, and endeavoured
to rob them. As the ambassadors would not submit to this, but defended
themselves, they slew them. Romulus at once gave it as his opinion that the
authors of this great and audacious crime ought to be punished, but Tatius
hushed the matter up, and enabled them to escape. This is said to have been
the only occasion upon which they were openly at variance, for in all other
matters they acted with the greatest possible unanimity. The relatives,
however, of the murdered men, as they were hindered by Tatius from
receiving any satisfaction, fell upon him when he and Romulus were
offering sacrifice at Lavinium, and slew him, but respected Romulus, and
praised him as a just man. He brought home the body of Tatius, and buried
it honourably. It lies near what is called the Armilustrium, on Mount
Aventine.

But Romulus neglected altogether to exact any satisfaction for the murder.
Some writers say that the city of Lavinium, in its terror, delivered up the
murderers of Tatius, but that Romulus allowed them to depart, saying that
blood had been atoned for by blood. This speech of his gave rise to some
suspicion that he was not displeased at being rid of his colleague. However,
it caused no disturbance in the state, and did not move the Sabines to revolt,
but partly out of regard for Romulus, and fear of his power, and belief in his
divine mission, they continued to live under his rule with cheerfulness and
respect. Many foreign tribes also respected Romulus, and the more ancient
Latin races sent him ambassadors, and made treaties of friendship and
alliance.
He took Fidenae, a city close to Rome, according to some authorities, by
sending his cavalry thither on a sudden, and ordering them to cut the pivots
of the city gates, and then unexpectedly appearing in person. Others say that
the people of Fidenae first invaded the Roman territory, drove off plunder
from it, and insulted the neighbourhood of the city itself, and that Romulus
laid an ambush for them, slew many, and took their city. He did not destroy
it, but made it a Roman colony, and sent two thousand five hundred
Romans thither as colonists on the Ides of April.
XXIV. After this a pestilence fell upon Rome, which slew men suddenly
without previous sickness, and afflicted the crops and cattle with
barrenness. A shower of blood also fell in the city, so that religious terror
was added to the people's sufferings. As a similar visitation befell the
citizens of Laurentum, it became evident that the wrath of the gods was
visiting these cities because of the unavenged murders of Tatius and of the
ambassadors. The guilty parties were delivered up on both sides, and duly
punished, after which the plague was sensibly mitigated. Romulus also
purified the city with lustrations, which, they say, are even now practised at
the Ferentine gate. But before the plague ceased, the people of Camerium
attacked the Romans, supposing that they would be unable to defend
themselves on account of their misfortune, and overran their country.
Nevertheless, Romulus instantly marched against them, slew six hundred of
them in battle, and took their city. Half the survivors he transplanted to
Rome, and settled twice as many Romans as the remainder at Camerium, on
the Kalends of Sextilis. So many citizens had he to spare after he had only
inhabited Rome for about sixteen years. Among the other spoils, he carried

off a brazen four-horse chariot from Camerium; this he dedicated in the
temple of Vulcan, having placed in it a figure of himself being crowned by
Victory.
XXV. As the city was now so flourishing, the weaker of the neighbouring
states made submission, and were glad to receive assurance that they would
be unharmed; but the more powerful, fearing and envying Romulus,
considered that they ought not to remain quiet, but ought to check the
growth of Rome. First the Etruscans of Veii, a people possessed of wide
lands and a large city, began the war by demanding the surrender to them of
Fidenae, which they claimed as belonging to them. This demand was not
only unjust, but absurd, seeing that they had not assisted the people of
Fidenae when they were fighting and in danger, but permitted them to be
destroyed, and then demanded their houses and lands, when they were in
the possession of others. Receiving a haughty answer from Romulus, they
divided themselves into two bodies, with one of which they attacked
Fidenae, and with the other went to meet Romulus. At Fidenae they
conquered the Romans, and slew two thousand; but they were defeated by
Romulus, with a loss of eight thousand men. A second battle now took place
at Fidenae, in which all agree that Romulus took the most important part,
showing the greatest skill and courage, and a strength and swiftness more
than mortal. But some accounts are altogether fabulous, such as that
fourteen hundred were slain, more than half of whom Romulus slew with
his own hand. The Messenians appear to use equally inflated language
about Aristomenes, when they tell us that he thrice offered sacrifice for
having slain a hundred Lacedaemonians. After the victory, Romulus did not
pursue the beaten army, but marched straight to the city of Veii. The
citizens, after so great a disaster, made no resistance, but at their own
request were granted a treaty and alliance for a hundred years, giving up a
large portion of their territory, called the Septem Pagi, or seven districts,
and their saltworks by the river, and handing over fifty of their leading men
as hostages.
For his success at Veii, Romulus enjoyed another triumph, on the Ides of
October, when he led in his train many captives, amongst whom was the
Veientine general, an old man, who was thought to have mismanaged
matters foolishly and like a boy. On this account to this day, when a
sacrifice is made for victory, they lead an old man through the Forum and

up to the Capitol, dressed in a boy's robe with wide purple border, and with
a child's bulla hung round his neck; and the herald calls out "Sardinians for
sale." For the Tyrrhenians or Tuscans are said to be of Sardinian origin, and
Veii is a Tyrrhenian city.
XXVI. This was Romulus's last war. After it, he, like nearly all those who
have risen to power and fame by a great and unexpected series of successes,
became filled with self-confidence and arrogance, and, in place of his
former popular manners, assumed the offensive style of a despot. He wore a
purple tunic, and a toga with a purple border, and did business reclining
instead of sitting on a throne; and was always attended by the band of
youths called Celeres, from their quickness in service. Others walked before
him with staves to keep off the crowd, and were girt with thongs, with
which to bind any one whom he might order into custody. The Latins used
formerly to call to bind ligare, and now call it alligare; wherefore the staff-
bearers are called lictors, and their staves are called bacula,[11] from the
rods which they then carried. It is probable that these officers now called
lictors by the insertion of the c, were originally called litors, that is, in
Greek, leitourgoi (public officials). For to this day the Greeks call a town-
hall leitus, and the people laos.
XXVII. When Romulus' grandfather Numitor died in Alba, although he was
evidently his heir, yet through a desire for popularity he left his claim
unsettled, and contented himself with appointing a chief magistrate for the
people of Alba every year; thus teaching the Roman nobles to desire a freer
constitution, which should not be so much encroached upon by the king.
For at Rome now even the so-called Fathers took no part in public affairs,
but had merely their name and dignity, and were called into the Senate
House more for form's sake than to express their opinions. When there, they
listened in silence to Romulus's orders, and the only advantage which they
possessed over the commons was that they knew the king's mind sooner
than they. Worst of all was, that he of his own authority divided the land
which was obtained in war amongst the soldiers, and restored the hostages
to the Veientines, against the will of the Senate and without consulting it, by
which he seemed purposely to insult it. On this account the Senate was
suspected, when shortly after this he miraculously disappeared. His
disappearance took place on the Nones of the month now called July, but
then Quintilis, leaving nothing certain or agreed on about his end except the

date. Even now things happen in the same fashion as then; and we need not
wonder at the uncertainty about the death of Romulus, when that of Scipio
Africanus, in his own house after supper, proved so inexplicable, some
saying that it arose from an evil habit of body, some that he had poisoned
himself, some that his enemies had suffocated him during the night. And yet
the corpse of Scipio lay openly exposed for all to see, and gave all who saw
it some ground for their conjectures; whereas Romulus suddenly
disappeared, and no morsel of his body or shred of his garments were ever
seen again. Some supposed that the Senators fell upon him in the Temple of
Vulcan, and, after killing him cut his body in pieces and each of them
carried off one in the folds of his robe. Others think that his disappearance
took place neither in the Temple of Vulcan, nor yet in the presence of the
Senators alone, but say that Romulus was holding an assembly without the
city, near a place called the Goat's Marsh, when suddenly strange and
wonderful things took place in the heavens, and marvellous changes; for the
sun's light was extinguished, and night fell, not calm and quiet, but with
terrible thunderings, gusts of wind, and driving spray from all quarters.
Hereupon the people took to flight in confusion, but the nobles collected
together by themselves. When the storm was over, and the light returned,
the people returned to the place again, and searched in vain for Romulus,
but were told by the nobles not to trouble themselves to look for him, but to
pray to Romulus and reverence him, for he had been caught up into heaven,
and now would be a propitious god for them instead of a good king.
The people believed this story, and went their way rejoicing, and praying to
him with good hope; but there were some who discussed the whole question
in a harsh and unfriendly spirit, and blamed the nobles for encouraging the
people to such acts of folly when they themselves were the murderers of the
king.
XXVIII. Now Julius Proculus, one of the noblest patricians, and of good
reputation, being one of the original colonists from Alba, and a friend and
companion of Romulus, came into the Forum, and there upon his oath, and
touching the most sacred things, stated before all men that as he was
walking along the road Romulus appeared, meeting him, more beautiful and
taller than he had ever appeared before, with bright and glittering arms.
Astonished at the vision he had spoken thus: "O king, for what reason or
with what object have you left us exposed to an unjust and hateful

suspicion, and left the whole city desolate and plunged in the deepest
grief?" He answered, "It pleased the gods, Proculus, that I should spend
thus much time among mankind, and after founding a city of the greatest
power and glory should return to heaven whence I came. Fare thee well;
and tell the Romans that by courage and self-control they will attain to the
highest pitch of human power. I will ever be for you the kindly deity
Quirinus."
This tale was believed by the Romans from the manner of Proculus in
relating it and from his oath: indeed a religious feeling almost amounting to
ecstasy seems to have taken hold of all present; for no one contradicted
him, but all dismissed their suspicions entirely from their minds and prayed
to Quirinus, worshipping him as a god.
This account resembles the Greek legends of Aristeas of Proconnesus, and
that of Kleomedes of Astypalaea. The story goes that Aristeas died in a
fuller's shop, and that when his friends came to fetch his body it had
disappeared; then some persons who had just returned from travel said that
they had met Aristeas walking along the road to Kroton. Kleomedes, we are
told, was a man of unusual size and strength, but stupid and half-crazy, who
did many deeds of violence, and at last in a boy's school struck and broke in
two the column that supported the roof, and brought it down. As the boys
were killed, Kleomedes, pursued by the people, got into a wooden chest,
and shut down the lid, holding in inside so that many men together were not
able to force it open. They broke open the chest, and found no man in it,
dead or alive. Astonished at this, they sent an embassy to the oracle at
Delphi, to whom the Pythia answered,

"Last of the heroes is Kleomedes of Astypalaea."

And it also related that the corpse of Alkmena when it was being carried out
for burial, disappeared, and a stone was found lying on the bier in its place.
And many such stories are told, in which, contrary to reason, the earthly
parts of our bodies are described as being deified together with the spiritual
parts. It is wicked and base to deny that virtue is a spiritual quality, but
again it is foolish to mix earthly with heavenly things.

We must admit, speaking with due caution, that, as Pindar has it, the bodies
of all men follow overpowering Death, but there remains a living spirit, the
image of eternity, for it alone comes from heaven. Thence it comes, and
thither it returns again, not accompanied by the body, but only when it is
most thoroughly separated and cleansed from it, and become pure and
incorporeal. This is the pure spirit which Herakleitus calls the best, which
darts through the body like lightning through a cloud, whereas that which is
clogged by the body is like a dull, cloudy exhalation, hard to loose and free
from the bonds of the body. There is no reason, therefore, for supposing that
the bodies of good men rise up into heaven, which is contrary to nature; but
we must believe that men's virtues and their spirits most certainly, naturally
and rightly proceed from mankind to the heroes, and from them to the genii,
and from thence, if they be raised above and purified from all mortal and
earthly taint, even as is done in the holy mysteries, then, not by any empty
vote of the senate, but in very truth and likelihood they are received among
the gods, and meet with the most blessed and glorious end.
XXIX. Some say that the name Quirinus, which Romulus received, means
Mars; others that it was because his people were called Quirites. Others,
again, say that the spear-head or spear was called by the ancients Quiris,
and that the statue of Juno leaning on a spear is called Juno Quirites, and
that the dart which is placed in the Regia is addressed as Mars, and that it is
customary to present with a spear those who have distinguished themselves
in war, and therefore that it was as a warrior, or god of war, that Romulus
was called Quirinus. A temple dedicated to him is built on the Quirinal Hill
which bears his name, and the day of his translation is called the People's
Flight, and the Nonae Caprotinae, because they go out of the city to the
Goat's Marsh on that day to sacrifice, for in Latin a goat is called Capra.
And as they go to the sacrifice they call out many of the names of the
country, as Marcus, Lucius, Caius, with loud shouts, in imitation of their
panic on that occasion, and their calling to each other in fear and confusion.
But some say that this is not an imitation of terror, but of eagerness, and
that this is the reason of it: after the Gauls had captured Rome and been
driven out by Camillus, and the city through weakness did not easily
recover itself, an army of Latins, under one Livius Postumius, marched
upon it. He halted his army not far from Rome, and sent a herald to say that
the Latins were willing to renew their old domestic ties, which had fallen

into disuse, and to unite the races by new intermarriage. If, therefore, the
Romans would send out to them all their maidens and unmarried women,
they would live with them on terms of peace and friendship, as the Romans
had long before done with the Sabines. The Romans, when they heard this,
were afraid of going to war, yet thought that the surrender of their women
was no better than captivity. While they were in perplexity, a female slave
named Philotis, or according to some Tutola, advised them to do neither,
but by a stratagem to avoid both war and surrender of the women. This
stratagem was that they should dress Philotis and the best looking of the
other female slaves like free women, and send them to the enemy; then at
night Philotis said she would raise a torch, and the Romans should come
under arms and fall upon the sleeping enemy. This was done, and terms
were made with the Latins. Philotis raised the torch upon a certain fig-tree
with leaves which spread all round and behind, in such a manner that the
light could not be seen by the enemy, but was clearly seen by the Romans.
When they saw it, they immediately rushed out, calling frequently for each
other at the various gates in their eagerness. As they fell unexpectedly upon
the enemy, they routed them, and keep the day as a feast. Therefore the
Nones are called Caprotinae because of the fig-tree, which the Romans call
caprificus, and the women are feasted out of doors, under the shade of fig-
tree boughs. And the female slaves assemble and play, and afterwards beat
and throw stones at each other, as they did then, when they helped the
Romans to fight. These accounts are admitted by but few historians, and
indeed the calling out one another's names in the daytime, and walking
down to the Goats' Marsh seems more applicable to the former story,
unless, indeed, both of these events happened on the same day.
Romulus is said to have been fifty-four years old, and to be in the thirty-
eighth year of his reign when he disappeared from the world.

COMPARISON OF THESEUS AND ROMULUS.
I. The above are all the noteworthy particulars which we have been able to
collect about Theseus and Romulus. It seems, in the first place, that Theseus
of his own free will, and without any compulsion, when he might have
reigned peacefully in Troezen, where he was heir to the kingdom, no mean
one, longed to accomplish heroic deeds: whereas Romulus was an exile,
and in the position of a slave; the fear of death was hanging over him if
unsuccessful, and so, as Plato says, he was made brave by sheer terror, and
through fear of suffering death and torture was forced into doing great
exploits. Moreover, Romulus's greatest achievement was the slaying of one
man, the despot of Alba, whereas Skeiron, Sinis, Prokrustes, and Korynetes
were merely the accompaniments and prelude to the greater actions of
Theseus, and by slaying them he freed Greece from terrible scourges,
before those whom he saved even knew who he was. He also might have
sailed peacefully over the sea to Athens, and had no trouble with those
brigands, whereas Romulus could not be free from trouble while Amulius
lived. And it is a great argument in favour of Theseus that he attacked those
wicked men for the sake of others, having himself suffered no wrong at
their hands; whereas the twins were unconcerned at Amulius's tyranny so
long as it did not affect themselves. And although it may have been a great
exploit to receive a wound in fighting the Sabines, and to slay Acron, and to
kill many enemies in battle, yet we may compare with these, on Theseus's
behalf, his battle with the Centaurs and his campaign against the Amazons.
As for the courage which Theseus showed in the matter of the Cretan
tribute, when he voluntarily sailed to Crete with the youths and maidens,
whether the penalty was to be given to the Minotaur to eat, or be sacrificed
at the tomb of Androgeus, or even to be cast into dishonoured slavery under
an insolent enemy, which is the least miserable fate mentioned by any
writer, what a strength of mind, what public spirit and love of fame it
shows! In this instance it seems to me that philosophers have truly defined
love as a "service designed by the gods for the care and preservation of the
young." For the love of Ariadne seems to have been specially intended by
Heaven to save Theseus; nor need we blame her for her passion, but rather

wonder that all men and women did not share it. If she alone felt it, then I
say she deserved the love of a god, because of her zeal for all that is best
and noblest.
II. Both were born statesmen, yet neither behaved himself as a king should
do, but, from similar motives, the one erred on the side of democracy, the
other on that of despotism. The first duty of a king is to preserve his crown;
and this can be effected as well by refraining from improperly extending his
rights as by too great eagerness to keep them. For he who either gives up or
overstrains his prerogative ceases to be a king or constitutional ruler, but
becomes either a despot or demagogue; and in the one case is feared, in the
other despised by his subjects. Still the one is the result of kindliness of
disposition, and the other that of selfishness and ferocity.
III. If we are not to attribute their misfortunes to chance, but to peculiarities
of disposition, then we cannot acquit Romulus of blame in his treatment of
his brother, nor Theseus in that of his son; but the greatest excuse must be
made for the one who acted under the greatest provocation. One would not
have thought that Romulus would have flown into such a passion during a
grave deliberation on matters of state; while Theseus was misled, in his
treatment of his son, by love and jealousy and a woman's slander, influences
which few men are able to withstand. And what is more, Romulus's fury
resulted in actual deeds of unfortunate result; whereas the anger of Theseus
spent itself in words and an old man's curses, and the youth seems to have
owed the rest of his suffering to chance; so here, at any rate, one would give
one's vote for Theseus.
IV. Romulus, however, has the credit of having started with the most
slender resources, and yet of having succeeded. The twins were called
slaves and the sons of a swineherd before they achieved their liberty; yet
they freed nearly all the Latin race, and at one and the same time gained
those titles which are the most glorious among men, of slayers of their
enemies, preservers of their own house, kings of their own nation, and
founders of a new city, not by transferring the population of old ones, as
Theseus did, when he brought together many towns into one, and destroyed
many cities that bore the names of kings and heroes of old. Romulus did
this afterwards, when he compelled his conquered enemies to cast down
and obliterate their own dwellings, and become fellow-citizens with their

conquerors; yet at first he did not change the site of his city nor increase it,
but starting with nothing to help him, he obtained for himself territory,
patrimony, sovereignty, family, marriage, and relatives, and he killed no
one, but conferred great benefits on those who, instead of homeless
vagrants, wished to become a people and inhabitants of a city. He slew no
brigands or robbers, but he conquered kingdoms, took cities, and triumphed
over kings and princes.
V. As for the misfortune of Remus, it seems doubtful whether Romulus slew
him with his own hand, as most writers attribute the act to others. He
certainly rescued his mother from death, and gloriously replaced his
grandfather, whom he found in an ignoble and servile position, on the
throne of Aeneas. He did him many kindnesses, and never harmed him even
against his will. But I can scarcely imagine that Theseus's forgetfulness and
carelessness in hoisting the black sail can, by any excuses or before the
mildest judges, come much short of parricide: indeed, an Athenian, seeing
how hard it is even for his admirers to exculpate him, has made up a story
that Aegeus, when the ship was approaching, hurriedly ran up to the
acropolis to view it, and fell down, as though he were unattended, or would
hurry along the road to the shore without servants.
VI. The crimes of Theseus in carrying off women are without any decent
excuse; first, because he did it so often, for he carried off Ariadne and
Antiope and Anaxo of Troezen, and above all when he was an old man he
carried off Helen, when she was not yet grown up, and a mere child, though
he was past the age for even legitimate marriage. Besides, there was no
reason for it, for these Troezenian, Laconian, and Amazonian maidens,
besides their not being betrothed to him, were no worthier mothers for his
children than the Athenian daughters of Erechtheus and Kekrops would
have been, so we must suspect that these acts were done out of mere riotous
wantonness.
Now Romulus, though he carried off nearly eight hundred women, yet kept
only one, Hersilia, for himself, and distributed the others among the
unmarried citizens; and afterwards, by the respect, love, and justice with
which he treated them, proved that his wrongful violence was the most
admirable and politic contrivance for effecting the union of the two nations.
By means of it he welded them into one, and made it the starting-point of

harmony at home and strength abroad. The dignity, love, and permanence
with which he invested the institution of marriage is proved by the fact that
during two hundred and thirty years no man separated from his wife or
woman from her husband; but, just as in Greece, very exact persons can
mention the first instance of parricide or matricide, so all the Romans know
that Spurius Carvilius was the first who put away his wife, upon a charge of
barrenness. Events also testify to the superior wisdom of Romulus, for, in
consequence of that intermarriage, the two kings and the two races shared
the empire, whereas, from the marriage of Theseus, the Athenians obtained
no alliance or intercourse with any nation, but only hatreds and wars and
deaths of citizens and at last the destruction of Aphidnae, and they
themselves escaped from the fate which Paris brought upon Troy, only by
the mercy of their enemies and their own entreaties and supplications. The
mother of Theseus, not nearly but quite, suffered the fate of Hekuba, who
was abandoned and given up by her son, unless the story of her captivity is
false, as I hope it is, together with much of the rest.
Also the religious part of their histories makes a great distinction between
them. For Romulus's success was due to the great favour of Heaven,
whereas the oracle given to Aegeus, to refrain from all women in foreign
parts, seems to argue that the birth of Theseus took place contrary to the
will of the gods.

LIFE OF LYKURGUS.
I. With regard to Lykurgus the lawgiver there is nothing whatever that is
undisputed; as his birth, his travels, his death, and, besides all this, his
legislation, have all been related in various ways; and also the dates of his
birth do not in any way accord. Some say that he was contemporary with
Iphitus, and with him settled the conditions of the Olympic truce; and
among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who adduces as a proof of it the
quoit which is at Olympia, on which the name of Lykurgus is still
preserved. Others, among them Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, by
computing the reigns of the kings of Sparta,[12] prove that he must have
lived many years before the first Olympiad. Timaeus conjectures that there
were two men of the name of Lykurgus in Sparta at different times, and that
the deeds of both are attributed to one of them, on account of his celebrity.
The elder, he thinks, must have lived not far off the time of Homer; indeed
some say that he came into the presence of Homer. Xenophon gives an idea
of his antiquity when he speaks of him as living in the time of the
Herakleidae. By descent of course the last kings of Sparta are Herakleidae,
but he appears to mean by Herakleidae the earliest of all, who were next to
Herakles himself.
However, in spite of these discrepancies, we will endeavour, by following
the least inconsistent accounts and the best known authorities, to write the
history of his life. Simonides the poet tells us that the father of Lykurgus
was not Eunomus, but Prytanis. But most writers do not deduce his
genealogy thus, but say that Soüs was the son of Prokles, and grandson of
Aristodemus, and that Soüs begat Euripus; Euripus, Prytanis, and Prytanis,
Eunomus. Eunomus had two sons, Polydektes by his first wife, and
Lykurgus by his second wife Dionassa, which makes him, according to
Dieutychides, sixth in descent from Prokles, and eleventh from Herakles.
II. The most remarkable of his ancestors was Soüs, in whose reign the
Spartans enslaved the Helots, and annexed a large portion of Arcadia. It is
said that Soüs once was besieged by the Kleitorians, in a fort where there
was no water, and was compelled to conclude a treaty to restore the territory

in dispute, if he and his men were permitted to drink at the nearest spring.
After this had been agreed upon, he called his men together, and offered his
kingdom to any one who could refrain from drinking. But as no one could
do this, but all drank, last of all he himself came down to the spring, and in
the presence of the enemy merely sprinkled his face with the water, and
marched off, refusing to restore the disputed territory, on the ground that all
did not drink. But though he gained great fame by this, yet it was not he but
his son Eurypon who gave the name of Eurypontidae to the family, because
Eurypon was the first to relax the despotic traditions of his family and
render his government more popular with the people. But as a consequence
of this the people were encouraged to demand more freedom, and great
confusion and lawlessness prevailed in Sparta for a long time, because
some of the kings opposed the people and so became odious, while others
were found to yield to them, either to preserve their popularity, or from
sheer weakness of character. It was during this period of disorder that the
father of Lykurgus lost his life. He was endeavouring to part two men who
were quarrelling, and was killed by a blow from a cook's chopper, leaving
the kingdom to his elder son Polydektes.
III. He also died after a short time, and, as all thought, Lykurgus ought to
have been the next king. And he did indeed reign until his brother's wife
was found to be pregnant; but as soon as he heard this, he surrendered the
crown to the child, if it should be a boy, and merely administered the
kingdom as guardian for the child. The Lacedaemonian name for the
guardian of a royal orphan is prodikus. Now the queen made a secret
proposal to him, that she should destroy her infant and that they should live
together as king and queen. Though disgusted at her wickedness, he did not
reject the proposal, but pretended to approve of it. He said that she must not
risk her life and injure her health by procuring abortion, but that he would
undertake to do away with the child. Thus he deluded her until her
confinement, at which time he sent officials and guards into her chamber
with orders to hand the child over to the women if it was a girl, and to bring
it to him, whatever he might be doing, if it was a boy. He happened to be
dining with the archons when a male child was born, and the servants
brought it to him. He is said to have taken the child and said to those
present, "A king is born to you, O Spartans," and to have laid him down in
the royal seat and named him Charilaus, because all men were full of joy

admiring his spirit and justice. He was king for eight months in all; and was
much looked up to by the citizens, who rendered a willing obedience to
him, rather because of his eminent virtues than because he was regent with
royal powers. There was, nevertheless, a faction which grudged him his
elevation, and tried to oppose him, as he was a young man.
They consisted chiefly of the relatives and friends of the queen-mother, who
considered that she had been insultingly treated, and her brother Leonidas
once went so far in his abusive language as to hint to Lykurgus that he knew
that he meant to be king, throwing the suspicion upon Lykurgus, if anything
should happen to the child, that he would be supposed to have managed it.
This sort of language was used by the queen-mother also, and he, grieved
and alarmed, decided to avoid all suspicion by leaving the country and
travelling until his nephew should be grown up and have an heir born to
succeed him.
IV. With this intention he set sail, and first came to Crete, where he studied
the constitution and mixed with the leading statesmen. Some part of their
laws he approved and made himself master of, with the intention of
adopting them on his return home, while with others he was dissatisfied.
One of the men who had a reputation there for learning and state-craft he
made his friend, and induced him to go to Sparta. This was Thales, who was
thought to be merely a lyric poet, and who used this art to conceal his
graver acquirements, being in reality deeply versed in legislation. His
poems were exhortations to unity and concord in verse, breathing a spirit of
calm and order, which insensibly civilised their hearers and by urging them
to the pursuit of honourable objects led them to lay aside the feelings of
party strife so prevalent in Sparta; so that he may be said in some degree to
have educated the people and prepared them to receive the reforms of
Lykurgus.
From Crete Lykurgus sailed to Asia Minor, wishing, it is said, to contrast
the thrifty and austere mode of life of the Cretans with the extravagance and
luxury of the Ionians, as a physician compares healthy and diseased bodies,
and to note the points of difference in the two states. There, it seems, he
first met with the poems of Homer, which were preserved by the
descendants of Kreophylus, and observing that they were no less useful for
politics and education than for relaxation and pleasure, he eagerly copied

and compiled them, with the intention of bringing them home with him.
There was already some dim idea of the existence of these poems among
the Greeks, but few possessed any portions of them, as they were scattered
in fragments, but Lykurgus first made them known. The Egyptians suppose
that Lykurgus visited them also, and that he especially admired their
institution of a separate caste of warriors. This he transferred to Sparta, and,
by excluding working men and the lower classes from the government,
made the city a city indeed, pure from all admixture. Some Greek writers
corroborate the Egyptians in this, but as to Lykurgus having visited Libya
and Iberia, or his journey to India and meeting with the Gymnosophists, or
naked philosophers, there, no one that we know of tells this except the
Spartan Aristokrates, the son of Hipparchus.
V. During Lykurgus's absence the Lacedaemonians regretted him and sent
many embassies to ask him to return, telling him that their kings had indeed
the royal name and state, but nothing else to distinguish them from the
common people, and that he alone had the spirit of a ruler and the power to
influence men's minds. Even the kings desired his presence, as they hoped
that he would assist in establishing their authority and would render the
masses less insolent. Returning to a people in this condition, he at once
began alterations and reforms on a sweeping scale, considering that it was
useless and unprofitable to do such work by halves, but that, as in the case
of a diseased body, the original cause of the disorder must be burned out or
purged away, and the patient begin an entirely new life. After reflecting on
this, he made a journey to Delphi. Here he sacrificed to the god, and, on
consulting the oracle, received that celebrated answer in which the Pythia
speaks of him as beloved by the gods, and a god rather than a man, and
when he asked for a good system of laws, answered that the god gives him
what will prove by far the best of all constitutions. Elated by this he
collected the leading men and begged them to help him, first by talking
privately to his own friends, and thus little by little obtaining a hold over
more men and banding them together for the work. When the time was ripe
for the attempt, he bade thirty of the nobles go into the market-place early
in the morning completely armed, in order to overawe the opposition. The
names of twenty of the most distinguished of these men have been
preserved by Hermippus, but the man who took the greatest part in all
Lykurgus's works, and who helped him in establishing his laws, was

Arthmiades. At first King Charilaus was terrified at the confusion,
imagining that a revolt had broken out against himself, and fled for refuge
to the temple of Minerva of the Brazen House; but, afterward reassured and
having received solemn pledges for his safety, returned and took part in
their proceedings. He was of a gentle nature, as is proved by the words of
his colleague, King Archelaus, who, when some were praising the youth,
said, "How can Charilaus be a good man, if he is not harsh even to wicked
men?"
Of Lykurgus's many reforms, the first and most important was the
establishment of the Council of Elders, which Plato says by its admixture
cooled the high fever of royalty, and, having an equal vote with the kings on
vital points, gave caution and sobriety to their deliberations. For the state,
which had hitherto been wildly oscillating between despotism on the one
hand and democracy on the other, now, by the establishment of the Council
of the Elders, found a firm footing between these extremes, and was able to
preserve a most equable balance, as the eight-and-twenty elders would lend
the kings their support in the suppression of democracy, but would use the
people to suppress any tendency to despotism. Twenty-eight is the number
of Elders mentioned by Aristotle, because of the thirty leading men who
took the part of Lykurgus two deserted their post through fear. But Sphairus
says that those who shared his opinions were twenty-eight originally. A
reason may be found in twenty-eight being a mystic number, formed by
seven multiplied by four, and being the first perfect number after six, for
like that, it is equal to all its parts.[13] But I think that he probably made this
number of elders, in order that with the two kings the council might consist
of thirty members in all.
VI. Lykurgus was so much interested in this council as to obtain from
Delphi an oracle about it, called the rhetra, which runs as follows: "After
you have built a temple to Zeus of Greece and Athene of Greece, and have
divided the people into tribes and obes, you shall found a council of thirty,
including the chiefs, and shall from season to season apellazein the people
between Babyka and Knakion, and there propound measures and divide
upon them, and the people shall have the casting vote and final decision." In
these words tribes and obes are divisions into which the people were to be
divided; the chiefs mean the kings; apellazein means to call an assembly, in
allusion to Apollo, to whom the whole scheme of the constitution is

referred. Babyka and Knakion they now call Oinous; but Aristotle says that
Knakion is a river and Babyka a bridge. Between these they held their
assemblies, without any roof or building of any kind; for Lykurgus did not
consider that deliberations were assisted by architecture, but rather
hindered, as men's heads were thereby filled with vain unprofitable fancies,
when they assemble for debate in places where they can see statues and
paintings, or the proscenium of a theatre, or the richly ornamented roof of a
council chamber. When the people were assembled, he permitted no one to
express an opinion; but the people was empowered to decide upon motions
brought forward by the kings and elders. But in later times, as the people
made additions and omissions, and so altered the sense of the motions
before them, the kings, Polydorus and Theopompus, added these words to
the rhetra, "and if the people shall decide crookedly, the chiefs and elders
shall set it right." That is, they made the people no longer supreme, but
practically excluded them from any voice in public affairs, on the ground
that they judged wrongly. However these kings persuaded the city that this
also was ordained by the god. This is mentioned by Tyrtaeus in the
following verses:

"They heard the god, and brought from Delphi home,
Apollo's oracle, which thus did say:
That over all within fair Sparta's realm
The royal chiefs in council should bear sway,
The elders next to them, the people last;
If they the holy rhetra would obey."

VII. Though Lykurgus had thus mixed the several powers of the state, yet
his successors, seeing that the powers of the oligarchy were unimpaired,
and that it was, as Plato calls it, full of life and vigour, placed as a curb to it
the power of the Ephors. The first Ephors, of whom Elatus was one, were
elected about a hundred and thirty years after Lykurgus, in the reign of
Theopompus. This king is said to have been blamed by his wife because he
would transmit to his children a less valuable crown than he had received,
to which he answered: "Nay, more valuable, because more lasting." In truth,
by losing the odium of absolute power, the King of Sparta escaped all
danger of being dethroned, as those of Argos and Messene were by their
subjects, because they would abate nothing of their despotic power. The

wisdom of Lykurgus became clearly manifest to those who witnessed the
revolutions and miseries of the Argives and Messenians, who were
neighbouring states and of the same race as the Spartans, who, originally
starting on equal terms with them, and indeed seeming in the allotment of
their territories to have some advantage, yet did not long live happily, but
the insolent pride of the kings and the unruly temper of the people together
resulted in a revolution, which clearly proved that the checked and balanced
constitution established among the Spartans was a divine blessing for them.
But of this more hereafter.
VIII. The second and the boldest of Lykurgus's reforms was the
redistribution of the land. Great inequalities existed, many poor and needy
people had become a burden to the state, while wealth had got into a very
few hands. Lykurgus abolished all the mass of pride, envy, crime, and
luxury which flowed from those old and more terrible evils of riches and
poverty, by inducing all land-owners to offer their estates for redistribution,
and prevailing upon them to live on equal terms one with another, and with
equal incomes, striving only to surpass each other in courage and virtue,
there being henceforth no social inequalities among them except such as
praise or blame can create.
Putting his proposals immediately into practice, he divided the outlying
lands of the state among the Perioeki, in thirty thousand lots, and that
immediately adjoining the metropolis among the native Spartans, in nine
thousand lots, for to that number they then amounted. Some say that
Lykurgus made six thousand lots, and that Polydorus added three thousand
afterwards; others that he added half the nine thousand, and that only half
was allotted by Lykurgus.
Each man's lot was of such a size as to supply a man with seventy medimni
of barley, and his wife with twelve, and oil and wine in proportion; for thus
much he thought ought to suffice them, as the food was enough to maintain
them in health, and they wanted nothing more. It is said that, some years
afterwards, as he was returning from a journey through the country at
harvest-time, when he saw the sheaves of corn lying in equal parallel rows,
he smiled, and said to his companions that all Laconia seemed as if it had
just been divided among so many brothers.

IX. He desired to distribute furniture also, in order completely to do away
with inequality; but, seeing that actually to take away these things would be
a most unpopular measure, he managed by a different method to put an end
to all ostentation in these matters. First of all he abolished the use of gold
and silver money, and made iron money alone legal; and this he made of
great size and weight, and small value, so that the equivalent for ten minae
required a great room for its stowage, and a yoke of oxen to draw it. As
soon as this was established, many sorts of crime became unknown in
Lacedaemon. For who would steal or take as a bribe or deny that he
possessed or take by force a mass of iron which he could not conceal, which
no one envied him for possessing, which he could not even break up and so
make use of; for the iron when hot was, it is said, quenched in vinegar, so as
to make it useless, by rendering it brittle and hard to work?
After this, he ordered a general expulsion of the workers in useless trades.
Indeed, without this, most of them must have left the country when the
ordinary currency came to an end, as they would not be able to sell their
wares: for the iron money was not current among other Greeks, and had no
value, being regarded as ridiculous; so that it could not be used for the
purchase of foreign trumpery, and no cargo was shipped for a Laconian
port, and there came into the country no sophists, no vagabond soothsayers,
no panders, no goldsmiths or workers in silver plate, because there was no
money to pay them with. Luxury, thus cut off from all encouragement,
gradually became extinct; and the rich were on the same footing with other
people, as they could find no means of display, but were forced to keep
their money idle at home. For this reason such things as are useful and
necessary, like couches and tables and chairs, were made there better than
anywhere else, and the Laconian cup, we are told by Kritias, was especially
valued for its use in the field. Its colour prevented the drinker being
disgusted by the look of the dirty water which it is sometimes necessary to
drink, and it was contrived that the dirt was deposited inside the cup and
stuck to the bottom, so as to make the drink cleaner than it would otherwise
have been. These things were due to the lawgiver; for the workmen, who
were not allowed to make useless things, devoted their best workmanship to
useful ones.
X. Wishing still further to put down luxury and take away the desire for
riches, he introduced the third and the most admirable of his reforms, that of

the common dining-table. At this the people were to meet and dine together
upon a fixed allowance of food, and not to live in their own homes, lolling
on expensive couches at rich tables, fattened like beasts in private by the
hands of servants and cooks, and undermining their health by indulgence to
excess in every bodily desire, long sleep, warm baths, and much repose, so
that they required a sort of daily nursing like sick people. This was a great
advantage, but it was a greater to render wealth valueless, and, as
Theophrastus says, to neutralise it by their common dining-table and the
simplicity of their habits. Wealth could not be used, nor enjoyed, nor indeed
displayed at all in costly apparatus, when the poor man dined at the same
table with the rich; so that the well-known saying, that "wealth is blind and
lies like a senseless log," was seen to be true in Sparta alone of all cities
under heaven. Men were not even allowed to dine previously at home, and
then come to the public table, but the others, watching him who did not eat
or drink with them, would reproach him as a sensual person, too effeminate
to eat the rough common fare.
For these reasons it is said that the rich were bitterly opposed to Lykurgus
on this question, and that they caused a tumult and attacked him with shouts
of rage. Pelted with stones from many hands, he was forced to run out of
the market-place, and take sanctuary in a temple. He outstripped all his
pursuers except one, a hot-tempered and spirited youth named Alkander,
who came up with him, and striking him with a club as he turned round,
knocked out his eye. Lykurgus paid no heed to the pain, but stood facing the
citizens and showed them his face streaming with blood, and his eye
destroyed. All who saw him were filled with shame and remorse. They gave
up Alkander to his mercy, and conducted him in procession to his own
house, to show their sympathy. Lykurgus thanked them and dismissed them,
but took Alkander home with him. He did him no harm and used no
reproachful words, but sent away all his servants and bade him serve him.
Alkander, being of a generous nature, did as he was ordered, and, dwelling
as he did with Lykurgus, watching his kind unruffled temper, his severe
simplicity of life, and his unwearied labours, he became enthusiastic in his
admiration of him, and used to tell his friends and acquaintances that
Lykurgus, far from being harsh or overbearing, was the kindest and gentlest
of men. Thus was Alkander tamed and subdued, so that he who had been a
wicked and insolent youth was made into a modest and prudent man.

As a memorial of his misfortune, Lykurgus built the temple of Athene,
whom he called Optilitis, for the Dorians in that country call the eyes
optiloi. Some writers, however, among whom is Dioskorides, who wrote an
'Account of the Spartan Constitution,' say that Lykurgus was struck upon
the eye, but not blinded, and that he built this temple as a thank-offering to
the goddess for his recovery.
At any rate, it was in consequence of his mishap that the Spartans
discontinued the habit of carrying staffs when they met in council.
XI. The Cretans call this institution of taking meals in common andreia,
which means men's repast; but the Lacedaemonians call it phiditia, which
can either be explained as another form of philia, friendship, putting a d for
an l, from the friendly feelings which prevailed at them, or else because it
accustomed them to frugality, which is called pheido. Possibly the first
letter was an addition, and the word may have originally been editia, from
edodé, food.
They formed themselves into messes of fifteen, more or less. Each member
contributed per month a medimnus of barley, eight measures of wine, five
minas' weight of cheese, and half as much of figs; and in addition to this a
very small sum of money to buy fish and other luxuries for a relish to the
bread. This was all, except when a man had offered a sacrifice, or been
hunting, and sent a portion to the public table. For persons were allowed to
dine at home whenever they were late for dinner in consequence of a
sacrifice or a hunting expedition, but the rest of the company had to be
present. This custom of eating in common lasted for very many years.
When King Agis returned from his victorious campaign against the
Athenians, and wished to dine at home with his wife, he sent for his share
of the public dinner, and the polemarchs refused to let him have it. As next
day, through anger, he did not offer the customary sacrifice, they fined him.
Boys were taken to the public tables, as though they were schools of good
manners; and there they listened to discourses on politics, and saw models
of gentlemanly behaviour, and learned how to jest with one another, joking
without vulgarity, and being made the subjects of jokes without losing their
temper. Indeed, it was considered peculiarly Laconian to be able to take a
joke; however, if the victim could not, he was entitled to ask that it should

go no farther. As they came in, the eldest present said to each man, pointing
to the door, "Through this no tale passes."
It is said that they voted for a new member of a mess in this manner. Each
man took a piece of bread crumb and threw it in silence into a vessel, which
a servant carried on his head. Those who voted for the new member threw
in their bread as it was, those who voted against, crushed it flat in their
hands. If even one of these crushed pieces be found, they rejected the
candidate, as they wished all members of the society to be friendly. The
candidate was said to be rejected by the kaddichus, which is their name for
the bowl into which the bread is thrown.
The "black broth" was the most esteemed of their luxuries, insomuch that
the elder men did not care for any meat, but always handed it over to the
young, and regaled themselves on this broth. It is related that, in
consequence of the celebrity of this broth, one of the kings of Pontus
obtained a Laconian cook, but when he tasted it he did not like it. His cook
thereupon said, "O king, those who eat this broth must first bathe in the
Eurotas." After drinking wine in moderation the guests separate, without
any torches; for it is not permitted to walk with a light on this or any other
occasion, in order that they may accustom themselves to walk fearlessly
and safely in the dark. This then is the way in which the common dining-
tables are managed.
XII. Lykurgus did not establish any written laws; indeed, this is distinctly
forbidden by one of the so-called Rhetras.
He thought that the principles of most importance for the prosperity and
honour of the state would remain most securely fixed if implanted in the
citizens by habit and training, as they would then be followed from choice
rather than necessity; for his method of education made each of them into a
lawgiver like himself. The trifling conventions of everyday life were best
left undefined by hard-and-fast laws, so that they might from time to time
receive corrections or additions from men educated in the spirit of the
Lacedaemonian system. On this education the whole scheme of Lykurgus's
laws depended. One rhetra, as we have seen, forbade the use of written
laws. Another was directed against expenditure, and ordered that the roof of
every house should consist of beams worked with the axe, and that the

doors should be worked with the saw alone, and with no other tools.
Lykurgus was the first to perceive the truth which Epameinondas is said in
later times to have uttered about his own table, when he said that "such a
dinner has no room for treachery." He saw that such a house as that has no
place for luxury and expense, and that there is no man so silly and tasteless
as to bring couches with silver feet, purple hangings, or golden goblets into
a simple peasant's house, but that he would be forced to make his furniture
match the house, and his clothes match his furniture, and so on. In
consequence of this it is said that the elder Leotychides when dining in
Corinth, after looking at a costly panelled ceiling, asked his host whether
the trees grew square in that country. A third rhetra of Lykurgus is
mentioned, which forbids the Spartans to make war frequently with the
same people, lest by constant practice they too should become warlike. And
this especial accusation was subsequently brought against King Agesilaus in
later times, that, by his frequent and long-continued invasions of Boeotia,
he made the Thebans a match for the Lacedaemonians; for which cause
Antalkidas, when he saw him wounded, said, "The Thebans pay you well
for having taught them to fight, which they were neither willing nor able to
do before."
Maxims of this sort they call rhetras, which are supposed to have a divine
origin and sanction.
XIII. Considering education to be the most important and the noblest work
of a lawgiver, he began at the very beginning, and regulated marriages and
the birth of children. It is not true that, as Aristotle says, he endeavoured to
regulate the lives of the women, and failed, being foiled by the liberty and
habits of command which they had acquired by the long absences of their
husbands on military expeditions, during which they were necessarily left in
sole charge at home, wherefore their husbands looked up to them more than
was fitting, calling them Mistresses; but he made what regulations were
necessary for them also. He strengthened the bodies of the girls by exercise
in running, wrestling, and hurling quoits or javelins, in order that their
children might spring from a healthy source and so grow up strong, and that
they themselves might have strength, so as easily to endure the pains of
childbirth. He did away with all affectation of seclusion and retirement
among the women, and ordained that the girls, no less than the boys, should
go naked in processions, and dance and sing at festivals in the presence of

the young men. The jokes which they made upon each man were sometimes
of great value as reproofs for ill-conduct; while, on the other hand, by
reciting verses written in praise of the deserving, they kindled a wonderful
emulation and thirst for distinction in the young men: for he who had been
praised by the maidens for his valour went away congratulated by his
friends; while, on the other hand, the raillery which they used in sport and
jest had as keen an edge as a serious reproof; because the kings and elders
were present at these festivals as well as all the other citizens. This
nakedness of the maidens had in it nothing disgraceful, as it was done
modestly, not licentiously, producing simplicity, and teaching the women to
value good health, and to love honour and courage no less than the men.
This it was that made them speak and think as we are told Gorgo, the wife
of Leonidas, did. Some foreign lady, it seems, said to her, "You Laconian
women are the only ones that rule men." She answered, "Yes; for we alone
bring forth men."
XIV. These were also incentives to marriage, I mean these processions, and
strippings, and exercises of the maidens in the sight of the young men, who,
as Plato says, are more swayed by amorous than by mathematical
considerations; moreover, he imposed certain penalties on the unmarried
men. They were excluded from the festival of the Gymnopaedia, in honour
of Athene; and the magistrates ordered them during winter to walk naked
round the market-place, and while doing so to sing a song written against
themselves, which said that they were rightly served for their disobedience
to the laws; and also they were deprived of the respect and observance paid
by the young to the elders.
Thus it happened that no one blamed the young man for not rising before
Derkyllidas, famous general as he was. This youth kept his seat, saying,
"You have not begotten a son to rise before me."
Their marriage custom was for the husband to carry off his bride by force.
They did not carry off little immature girls, but grown up women, who were
ripe for marriage. After the bride had been carried off the bridesmaid
received her, cut her hair close to her head, dressed her in a man's cloak and
shoes, and placed her upon a couch in a dark chamber alone. The
bridegroom, without any feasting and revelry, but as sober as usual, after
dining at his mess, comes into the room, looses her virgin zone, and, after

passing a short time with her, retires to pass the night where he was wont,
with the other young men. And thus he continued, passing his days with his
companions, and visiting his wife by stealth, feeling ashamed and afraid
that any one in the house should hear him, she on her part plotting and
contriving occasions for meeting unobserved. This went on for a long time,
so that some even had children born to them before they ever saw their
wives by daylight. These connections not only exercised their powers of
self-restraint, but also brought them together with their bodies in full vigour
and their passions unblunted by unchecked intercourse with each other, so
that their passion and love for each other's society remained unextinguished.
Having thus honoured and dignified the married state, he destroyed the vain
womanish passion of jealousy, for, while carefully avoiding any disorder or
licentiousness, he nevertheless permitted men to associate worthy persons
with them in the task of begetting children, and taught them to ridicule
those who insisted on the exclusive possession of their wives, and who were
ready to fight and kill people to maintain their right. It was permitted to an
elderly husband, with a young wife, to associate with himself any well-born
youth whom he might fancy, and to adopt the offspring as his own.
And again, it was allowable for a respectable man, if he felt any admiration
for a virtuous mother of children, married to some one else, to induce her
husband to permit him to have access to her, that he might as it were sow
seed in a fertile field, and obtain a fine son from a healthy stock. Lykurgus
did not view children as belonging to their parents, but above all to the
state; and therefore he wished his citizens to be born of the best possible
parents; besides the inconsistency and folly which he noticed in the customs
of the rest of mankind, who are willing to pay money, or use their influence
with the owners of well-bred stock, to obtain a good breed of horses or
dogs, while they lock up their women in seclusion and permit them to have
children by none but themselves, even though they be mad, decrepit, or
diseased; just as if the good or bad qualities of children did not depend
entirely upon their parents, and did not affect their parents more than any
one else.
But although men lent their wives in order to produce healthy and useful
citizens, yet this was so far from the licence which was said to prevail in
later times with respect to women, that adultery was regarded amongst them

as an impossible crime. A story is told of one Geradas, a very old Spartan,
who, when asked by a stranger what was done to adulterers among them,
answered, "Stranger, there are no adulterers with us." "And if there were
one?" asked the stranger. "Then," said Geradas, "he would have to pay as
compensation a bull big enough to stand on Mount Täygetus and drink from
the river Eurotas." The stranger, astonished, asked "Where can you find so
big a bull?" "Where can you find an adulterer in Sparta?" answered
Geradas. This is what is said about their marriage ceremonies.
XV. A father had not the right of bringing up his offspring, but had to carry
it to a certain place called Lesché, where the elders of the tribe sat in
judgment upon the child. If they thought it well-built and strong, they
ordered the father to bring it up, and assigned one of the nine thousand plots
of land to it; but if it was mean-looking or misshapen, they sent it away to
the place called the Exposure, a glen upon the side of Mount Täygetus; for
they considered that if a child did not start in possession of health and
strength, it was better both for itself and for the state that he should not live
at all. Wherefore the women used to wash their newborn infants with wine,
not with water, to make trial of their constitution. It was thought that
epileptic or diseased children shrank from the wine and fell into
convulsions, while healthy ones were hardened and strengthened by it. A
certain supervision was exercised over the nurses, making them bring up
the children without swaddling clothes, so as to make their movements free
and unconfined, and also to make them easily satisfied, not nice as to food,
not afraid in the dark, not frightened at being alone, not peevish and fretful.
For this reason, many foreigners used to obtain Lacedaemonian nurses for
their children, and it is said that Amykla, the nurse of Alkibiades, was a
Lacedaemonian. But Plato tells us that Perikles put him under the care of
one Zopyrus, who was no better than the other slaves; whereas Lykurgus
would not intrust the Spartan boys to any bought or hired servants, nor was
each man allowed to bring up and educate his son as he chose, but as soon
as they were seven years of age he himself received them from their
parents, and enrolled them in companies. Here they lived and messed in
common, and were associated for play and for work. However, a
superintendent of the boys was appointed, one of the best born and bravest
men of the state, and they themselves in their troops chose as leader him
who was wisest, and fiercest in fight. They looked to him for orders, obeyed

his commands, and endured his punishments, so that even in childhood they
learned to obey. The elder men watched them at their play, and by
instituting fights and trials of strength, carefully learned which was the
bravest and most enduring. They learned their letters, because they are
necessary, but all the rest of their education was meant to teach them to
obey with cheerfulness, to endure labours, and to win battles. As they grew
older their training became more severe; they were closely shorn, and
taught to walk unshod and to play naked. They wore no tunic after their
twelfth year, but received one garment for all the year round. They were
necessarily dirty, as they had no warm baths and ointments, except on
certain days, as a luxury. They slept all together in troops and companies,
on beds of rushes which they themselves had picked on the banks of the
Eurotas with their hands, for they were not allowed to use a knife. In winter
they mixed the herb called lycophon with the rushes, as it is thought to
possess some warmth.
XVI. At this age the elder men took even greater interest in them,
frequenting the gymnasia where they were, and listening to their repartees
with each other, and that not in a languid careless manner, but just as if each
thought himself the father, instructor, and captain of them all.
Thus no time was left unemployed, and no place was left without some one
to give good advice and punish wrong-doing; although a regular
superintendent of the boys was appointed from the leading men of the city,
and they had their own chiefs, who were the wisest and bravest of the
Eirenes. This is a name given to those who have begun their second year
after ceasing to be children, and the eldest of the children are called
Melleirenes. This Eiren, who is twenty years old, commands his company
in their battles, and in the house uses them as his servants to prepare dinner.
He orders the bigger boys to carry logs of wood, and the little ones to gather
pot herbs. They also bring him what they steal, which they do, some from
the gardens, and some from the men's dining-tables, where they rush in very
cleverly and cautiously; for if one be taken, he is severely scourged for
stealing carelessly and clumsily. They also steal what victuals they can,
learning to take them from those who are asleep or off their guard. Whoever
is caught is punished by stripes and starvation. Their meals are purposely
made scanty, in order that they may exercise their ingenuity and daring in
obtaining additions to them. This is the main object of their short commons,

but an incidental advantage is the growth of their bodies, for they shoot up
in height when not weighed down and made wide and broad by excess of
nutriment. This also is thought to produce beauty of figure; for lean and
slender frames develop vigour in the limbs, whereas those which are
bloated and over-fed cannot attain this, from their weight. This we see in
the case of women who take purgatives during pregnancy, whose children
are thin, but well-shaped and slender, because from their slight build they
receive more distinctly the impress of their mother's form. However, it may
be that the cause of this phenomenon is yet to be discovered.
XVII. The boys steal with such earnestness that there is a story of one who
had taken a fox's cub and hidden it under his cloak, and, though his entrails
were being torn out by the claws and teeth of the beast, persevered in
concealing it until he died. This may be believed from what the young men
in Lacedaemon do now, for at the present day I have seen many of them
perish under the scourge at the altar of Diana Orthias.
After dinner the Eiren would recline, and bid one of the boys sing, and ask
another some questions which demand a thoughtful answer, such as "Who
is the best among men?" or "How is such a thing done?" By this teaching
they began even in infancy to be able to judge what is right, and to be
interested in politics; for not to be able to answer the questions, "Who is a
good citizen?" or "Who is a man of bad repute?" was thought to be the sign
of a stupid and unaspiring mind. The boy's answer was required to be well
reasoned, and put into a small compass; he who answered wrongly was
punished by having his thumb bitten by the Eiren. Often when elders and
magistrates were present the Eiren would punish the boys; if only he
showed that it was done deservedly and with method, he never was checked
while punishing, but when the boys were gone, he was called to account if
he had done so either too cruelly or too remissly.
The lovers of the boys also shared their honour or disgrace; it is said that
once when a boy in a fight let fall an unmanly word, his lover was fined by
the magistrates. Thus was love understood among them; for even fair and
honourable matrons loved young maidens, but none expected their feelings
to be returned. Rather did those who loved the same person make it a reason
for friendship with each other, and vie with one another in trying to improve
in every way the object of their love.

XVIII. The boys were taught to use a sarcastic yet graceful style of
speaking, and to compress much thought into few words; for Lykurgus
made the iron money have little value for its great size, but on the other
hand he made their speech short and compact, but full of meaning, teaching
the young, by long periods of silent listening, to speak sententiously and to
the point. For those who allow themselves much licence in speech seldom
say anything memorable. When some Athenian jeered at the small Laconian
swords, and said that jugglers on the stage could easily swallow them, King
Agis answered, "And yet with these little daggers we can generally reach
our enemies." I think that the Laconian speech, though it seems so short, yet
shows a great grasp of the subject and has great power over the listeners.
Lykurgus himself seems to have been short and sententious, to judge from
what has been preserved of his sayings; as, for instance, that remark to one
who proposed to establish a democracy in the state, "First establish a
democracy in your own household." And when he was asked why he
ordained the sacrifices to be so small and cheap, he answered, "It is in order
that we may never be forced to omit them." So too in gymnastic exercises,
he discouraged all those which are not performed with the hand closed.
The same class of answers are said to have been made by him to his fellow-
countrymen in his letters. When they asked how they should keep off their
enemies, he answered, "By remaining poor, and not each trying to be a
greater man than the other." Again, about walls, he said, "that cannot be
called an open town which has courage, instead of brick walls to defend it."
As to the authenticity of these letters, it is hard to give an opinion.
XIX.—The following anecdotes show their dislike of long speeches. When
some one was discoursing about matters useful in themselves at an unfitting
time, King Leonidas said, "Stranger, you speak of what is wanted when it is
not wanted." Charilaus the cousin of Lykurgus, when asked why they had
so few laws answered, that men of few words required few laws. And
Archidamidas, when some blamed Hekataeus the Sophist for having said
nothing during dinner, answered, "He who knows how to speak knows
when to speak also." The following are some of those sarcastic sayings
which I before said are not ungrateful. Demaratus, when some worthless
fellow pestered him with unreasonable queries, and several times inquired,
"Who is the best man in Sparta?" answered, "He who is least like you."
When some were praising the magnificence and justice with which the

Eleans conducted the Olympian games, Agis said, "What is there so very
remarkable in the people of Elis acting justly on one day in every five
years?"
A stranger was vaunting his admiration of them, and was saying that in his
own city he was called a lover of Sparta. Theopompus observed, "It would
be more to your credit to be called a lover of your own city." Pleistoanax
the son of Pausanias, when an Athenian orator reproached the
Lacedaemonians for ignorance, observed, "What you say is quite true, for
we are the only Greeks who have not learned some mischief from you."
When a stranger asked Archidamidas how many Spartans there were, he
answered, "Enough to keep off bad men."
One may also discover their peculiarities in their jokes; for they are taught
never to talk at random, nor to utter a syllable that does not contain some
thought. As, when one of them was invited to hear a man imitate the
nightingale, he answered, "I have heard the original;" and the man who read
this epigram—

"These men, to quench a tyrant's pride,
Before Selinus fought and died."

"These men," said he, "deserved to die; for, instead of quenching it, they
should have let it burn itself out." When a young man was promised a
present of cocks that would fight till they died, he said, "I had rather have
some that will fight and kill their foes." This was the style of their talk; so
that some have well said that philosophy is more truly Laconian than
gymnastic exercises.
XX.—Their education in poetry and music was no less carefully watched
over than their cleverness and purity of speech, but their songs were such as
rouse men's blood and stir them to deeds of prowess, written in plain
unaffected language, upon noble and edifying subjects. For the most part
they consisted of panegyrics upon those who had been happy enough to die
for their country, reproaches of cowards for living a miserable life, and
encouragement to bravery suitable to those of all ages. A good instance of
this is that on festivals when there are three choruses, that of the old men
first sang—

"We once were lusty youths and tall."

Then that of the young men sang—

"We still are stout; come, try a fall,"

and the third, that of the children, rejoined—

"But we'll be stronger than you all."

Indeed, if one pays any attention to such Laconian poetry as is still extant,
and to the march music which was played on the flutes when they were
going to meet their enemies, it becomes clear that Terpander and Pindar
were right in connecting poetry with bravery. The former speaks thus of the
Lacedaemonians:

"Where the youths are bold with the spear,
And the voice of the muse is clear,
And justice to all is dear."

And Pindar says of them—

"Where the old are wise in council,
And the young are brave in fight;
Where song and dance are honoured
On many a festal night."

For they represent them as being most warlike and at the same time most
poetical.

"The sword with song full well combines,"

as the Laconian poet says. Even in their battles the king first sacrificed to
the Muses, to remind them, it would appear, of their education and their
former contests, that they may be bold in danger, and do deeds worthy of
record in the fight.
XXI.—In time of war, too, they relaxed their strict rules and allowed their
young men to dress their hair and ornament their shields and costumes,

taking a pride in them such as one does in high-mettled horses. For this
reason, although they all let their hair grow long after the age of puberty,
yet it was especially in time of danger that they took pains to have it smooth
and evenly parted, remembering a saying of Lykurgus about the hair, that it
made a well-looking man look handsomer, and an ugly man look more
ferocious.
During a campaign they made the young men perform less severe
gymnastic exercises, and allowed them to live a freer life in other respects,
so that, for them alone of all mankind, war was felt as a relief from
preparation for war. When their array was formed and the enemy were in
sight, the king used to sacrifice a kid, and bid them all put on garlands, and
the pipers to play the hymn to Kastor; then he himself began to sing the
paean for the charge, so that it was a magnificent and terrible spectacle to
see the men marching in time to the flutes, making no gap in their lines,
with no thought of fear, but quietly and steadily moving to the sound of the
music against the enemy. Such men were not likely to be either panic-
stricken or over-confident, but had a cool and cheerful confidence,
believing that the gods were with them.
With the king used to march into battle a Spartan who had won a crown in
the public games of Greece. It is said that one of them was offered a mighty
bribe at Olympia, but refused to take it, and with great trouble threw his
adversary in the wrestling-match. Some one then asked him, "Laconian,
what have you gained by your victory?" The man, smiling with delight,
answered, "I shall fight in front of the king in the wars." After they had
routed their enemy and gained the victory, they were wont to pursue so far
as to render their success secure, and then to draw off, as they did not think
it manly or befitting a Greek to cut down and butcher those who could fight
no longer.
This was not merely magnanimous, but very useful to them, for their
enemies, knowing that they slew those who resisted, but spared those who
gave way, often judged it better for themselves to flee than to stand their
ground.
XXII. The sophist Hippias states that Lykurgus himself was a great warrior
and took part in many campaigns; and Philostephanus even attributed to

Lykurgus the division of the cavalry into the troops called oulamos. This,
according to him, consisted of a troop of fifty horsemen drawn up in a
square. Demetrius Phalereus, on the other hand, says that he had no
experience in war, and arranged the whole constitution in time of peace.
Moreover the institution of the Olympic truce seems to be the idea of a man
of gentle and peaceful temperament, some however say, according to
Hermippus, that Lykurgus had at first no communication with Iphitus, but
happened to be present in the crowd; that he then heard a voice as it were of
a man behind him blaming him and wondering why he did not encourage
his fellow-citizens to take part in the festival. As, when he turned round,
there was no one who could have said so, he concluded that it was a divine
warning, and, at once joining Iphitus and assisting him in regulating the
festival, he rendered it both more splendid and more lasting.
XXIII. The training of the Spartan youth continued till their manhood. No
one was permitted to live according to his own pleasure, but they lived in
the city as if in a camp, with a fixed diet and fixed public duties, thinking
themselves to belong, not to themselves, but to their country. Those who
had nothing else to do, either looked after the young, and taught them what
was useful, or themselves learned such things from the old. For ample
leisure was one of the blessings with which Lykurgus provided his
countrymen, seeing that they were utterly forbidden to practise any
mechanical art, while money-making and business were unnecessary,
because wealth was disregarded and despised. The Helots tilled the ground,
and produced the regular crops for them. Indeed, a Spartan who was at
Athens while the courts were sitting, and who learned that some man had
been fined for idleness, and was leaving the court in sorrow accompanied
by his grieving friends, asked to be shown the man who had been punished
for gentlemanly behaviour. So slavish did they deem it to labour at trade
and business. In Sparta, as was natural, lawsuits became extinct, together
with money, as the people had neither excess nor deficiency, but all were
equally well off, and enjoyed abundant leisure by reason of their simple
habits. All their time was spent in dances, feasting, hunting or gymnastic
exercises and conversation, when they were not engaged in war.
XXIV. Those who were less than thirty years old never came into the
market-place at all, but made their necessary purchases through their friends
and relations. And it was thought discreditable to the older men to be seen

there much, and not to spend the greater part of the day in the gymnasium
and the lesches or places for conversation. In these they used to collect
together and pass their leisure time, making no allusions to business or the
affairs of commerce, but their chief study being to praise what was
honourable, and contemn what was base in a light satiric vein of talk which
was instructive and edifying to the hearers. Nor was Lykurgus himself a
man of unmixed austerity: indeed, he is said by Sosibius to have set up the
little statue of the god of laughter, and introduced merriment at proper times
to enliven their wine-parties and other gatherings. In a word, he trained his
countrymen neither to wish nor to understand how to live as private men,
but, like bees, to be parts of the commonwealth, and gather round their
chief, forgetting themselves in their enthusiastic patriotism, and utterly
devoted to their country. This temper of theirs we can discern in many of
their sayings. Paidaretus, when not elected into the three hundred, went
away rejoicing that the city possessed three hundred better men than
himself. Polykratidas, when he went with some others on a mission to the
generals of the great king, was asked by them, if he and his party came as
private persons or as ambassadors? He answered, "As ambassadors, if we
succeed; as private men, if we fail."
And when some citizens of Amphipolis came to Lacedaemon, and went to
see the mother of Brasidas, Argileonis, she asked them whether Brasidas
died bravely and worthily of Sparta. When they praised him to excess, and
said that he had not left his like behind, she said, "Say not so, strangers;
Brasidas was a noble and a gallant man, but Sparta has many better than
he."
XXV. Lykurgus himself composed his senate, as we have seen, of the
persons who took part in his plot; and in future be ordained that vacancies
should be filled up by those men, upwards of sixty years of age, who were
adjudged to be the most worthy.
This seemed the greatest prize in the world, and also the most difficult to
obtain; for it was not merely that a man should be adjudged swiftest of the
swift, or strongest of the strong, but he had to be chosen as the best and
wisest of all good and wise men, and, as a prize, was to obtain power to
regulate the morals of the state, as he was intrusted with powers of life and
death, and disfranchisement, and with all the highest penalties.

The elections took place as follows: The citizens were all assembled, and
certain men were placed in a building close by, where they could neither see
nor be seen, but merely hear the shouts of the general assembly. They
decided these, as indeed they did other contests, by shouts of approval, not
of all at once, but lots were cast, and each candidate in the order denoted by
his lot came forward and silently walked through the assembly. The men
locked up in the building had writing materials, and noted down who was
cheered most loudly, not knowing who each man was, beyond that he was
first, second, third, and so on, of the candidates. They then told the number
of the man for whom there had been most voices, and he crowned himself
with a garland and offered sacrifice to the gods, followed by many of the
young men, who congratulated him, and by many women, who sang songs
praising his virtues and his felicity. As he went from one temple to another,
each of his relatives used to offer him food, saying, "The state honours you
with this banquet." But he would pass by them all, and go to his usual mess-
table. Here nothing uncommon took place, except that he was given a
second ration, which he took away with him; and after dinner, the women of
his own family being at the doors of the mess-room, he would call for the
one whom he wished to honour, and give her his portion, saying that he had
received it as a prize, and gave it to her as such. This caused her to be
greatly envied by the other women.
XXVI.—Moreover, he made excellent regulations about funerals. In the
first place, he abolished all silly superstition, and raised no objections to
burial in the city, and to placing tombs near the temples, in order to
accustom the young to such sights from their infancy, so that they might not
feel any horror of death, or have any notion about being defiled by touching
a dead body, or walking among tombs. Next, he permitted nothing to be
buried with the dead, but they placed the body in the grave, wrapped in a
purple cloth and covered with olive-leaves. It was not permitted to inscribe
the name of the deceased upon his tomb, except in the case of men who had
fallen in war, or of women who had been priestesses. A short time was fixed
for mourning, eleven days; on the twelfth they were to sacrifice to Demeter
(Ceres) and cease from their grief. For, in Sparta, nothing was left without
regulation, but, with all the necessary acts of life, Lykurgus mingled some
ceremony which might enkindle virtue or discourage vice; indeed he filled
his city with examples of this kind, by which the citizens were insensibly

moulded and impelled towards honourable pursuits. For this reason he
would not allow citizens to leave the country at pleasure, and to wander in
foreign lands, where they would contract outlandish habits, and learn to
imitate the untrained lives and ill-regulated institutions to be found abroad.
Also, he banished from Lacedaemon all strangers who were there for no
useful purpose; not, as Thucydides says, because he feared they might
imitate his constitution, and learn something serviceable for the
improvement of their own countries, but rather for fear that they might
teach the people some mischief. Strangers introduce strange ideas; and
these lead to discussions of an unsuitable character, and political views
which would jar with the established constitution, like a discord in music.
Wherefore he thought that it was more important to keep out evil habits
than even to keep the plague from coming into the city.
XXVII. In all these acts of Lykurgus, we cannot find any traces of the
injustice and unfairness which some complain of in his laws, which they
say are excellent to produce courage, but less so for justice. And the
institution called Krypteia, if indeed it is one of the laws of Lykurgus, as
Aristotle tells us, would agree with the idea which Plato conceived about
him and his system. The Krypteia was this: the leaders of the young men
used at intervals to send the most discreet of them into different parts of the
country, equipped with daggers and necessary food; in the daytime these
men used to conceal themselves in unfrequented spots, and take their rest,
but at night they would come down into the roads and murder any Helots
they found. And often they would range about the fields, and make away
with the strongest and bravest Helots they could find. Also, as Thucydides
mentions in his History of the Peloponnesian War, those Helots who were
especially honoured by the Spartans for their valour were crowned as free
men, and taken to the temples with rejoicings; but in a short time they all
disappeared, to the number of more than two thousand, and in such a way
that no man, either then or afterwards, could tell how they perished.
Aristotle says that the Ephors, when they first take office, declare war
against the Helots, in order that it may be lawful to destroy them. And much
other harsh treatment used to be inflicted upon them; and they were
compelled to drink much unmixed wine, and then were brought into the
public dining-halls, to show the young what drunkenness is.

They were also forced to sing low songs, and to dance low dances, and not
to meddle with those of a higher character. It is said that when the Thebans
made their celebrated campaign in Lacedaemon, they ordered the Helots
whom they captured to sing them the songs of Terpander, and Alkman, and
Spendon the Laconian; but they begged to be excused, for, they said, "the
masters do not like it." So it seems to have been well said that in
Lacedaemon, the free man was more free, and the slave more a slave than
anywhere else. This harsh treatment, I imagine, began in later times,
especially after the great earthquake, when they relate that the Helots joined
the Messenians, ravaged the country, and almost conquered it. I cannot
impute this wicked act of the Krypteia to Lykurgus, when I consider the
gentleness and justice of his general behaviour, which also we know was
inspired by Heaven.
XXVIII. When the leading men of the city were thoroughly imbued with
the spirit of his institutions, and the newly constituted state was able to walk
by itself without leading-strings, and bear its own weight alone, then, as
Plato says of God, that he was pleased with the world that he had created,
when it first began to live and move, so was it with Lykurgus. He admired
the spectacle of his laws in operation, and, as far as was possible by human
prudence, he desired to leave it eternal and unchangeable. He assembled all
the citizens, and told them that the city was now fairly well provided with
materials for happiness and virtue, but that he would not bestow upon them
the most valuable gift of all, until he had taken counsel with Heaven. It was
therefore their duty to abide by the already established laws, and to change
and alter nothing till he returned from Delphi; on his return, he would do
whatever the god commanded. They all assented, and bade him depart, and
he, after making first the kings and elders, and then the rest of the citizens,
swear that they would keep their existing constitution till Lykurgus came
back, set out for Delphi. Upon reaching the temple he sacrificed to the god,
and inquired whether his laws were good, and sufficient for the prosperity
and happiness of his country. Receiving answer from the oracle that his
laws were indeed good, and that the city would become famous if it kept the
constitution of Lykurgus, he wrote down this prophecy and sent it to Sparta.
But he himself, after offering a second sacrifice to the god, and having
embraced his friends and his son, determined not to release his countrymen
from their oath, but to put an end to his own life, being at an age when,

though life was still pleasant, it seemed time to go to his rest, after having
excellently arranged all his people's affairs. He departed by starvation, as he
thought that a true statesman ought to make even his death of service to the
state, and not like that of a private person, the useless end of an idle life. His
death came in the fulness of time, after he had done an excellent work, and
it was left as the guardian of all the good that he had done, because the
citizens had sworn that they would abide by his constitution until he
returned to them. Nor was he deceived in his expectations; for the state was
by far the most celebrated in Greece, for good government at home and
renown abroad, during a period of five hundred years, under his
constitution, which was kept unaltered by fourteen kings, counting from
himself down to Agis the son of Archidamus. For the institution of Ephors
was not a relaxation, but a strengthening of the original scheme, and while
it seemed popular it really confirmed the power of the oligarchy.
XXIX. But in the reign of Agis money found its way into Sparta, and, after
money, selfishness and greed for gain came in, on account of Lysander,
who, though himself incorruptible, yet filled his country with luxury and
love of gold, as he brought back gold and silver from the wars, and
disregarded the laws of Lykurgus. Before this, when those laws were in
force, Sparta was like a wise and practised warrior more than a city, or
rather, she with her simple staff and cloak, like Herakles with his lion-skin
and club, ruled over a willing Greece, deposed bad kings or factions,
decided wars, and crushed revolutions; and that, too, often without moving
a single soldier, but merely by sending a commissioner, who was at once
obeyed, even as bees collect and rank themselves in order when their queen
appears. Sparta then had so much order and justice as to be able to supply
her neighbours; and I cannot understand those who say that the
Lacedaemonians "knew how to obey, but not how to rule;" nor that story of
some one who said to king Theopompus that the safety of Sparta lay in her
kings knowing how to rule. "Rather," he answered, "in her citizens knowing
how to obey."
They would not brook an incapable commander: their very obedience is a
lesson in the art of command; for a good leader makes good followers, and
just as it is the object of the horse-breaker to turn out a gentle and tractable
horse, so it is the object of rulers to implant in men the spirit of obedience.
But the Lacedaemonians produced a desire in other states to be ruled by

them and to obey them; for they used to send embassies and ask not for
ships or money or troops, but for one Spartan for a leader; and when they
obtained him, they respected him and feared him, as, for instance, the
Sicilians had Gylippus as a general, the people of Chalkidike had Brasidas,
while Lysander and Kallikratidas and Agesilaus were made use of by all the
Greeks in Asia Minor. These men were called Regulators and Pacificators in
each several state, and the whole city of Sparta was regarded as a school
and example of orderly public life and of settled political institutions. This
was alluded to by Stratonikus when he said in jest that the Athenians ought
to conduct mysteries and shows, the Eleans to be stewards at the games, and
the Lacedaemonians to be beaten if the others did not do right. This was not
spoken seriously; but Antisthenes, the Sokratic philosopher, was serious
when he said of the Thebans, who were in high spirits after their victory at
Leuktra, that they were as pleased as schoolboys who had beaten their
master.
XXXI. Not that this was Lykurgus's main object, that his country should
dominate over as many other states as possible; but seeing that, in states as
in individuals, happiness is derived from virtue and single-mindedness, he
directed all his efforts to implant in his countrymen feelings of honour, self-
reliance, and self-control. These were also taken as the basis of their
constitution by Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, and all who have written with any
success upon this subject. But they have left mere dissertations; Lykurgus
produced an inimitable constitution, confuted those who complained of the
unreality of the 'Essay on the True Philosopher,' by showing them the
spectacle of an entire city acting like philosophers, and thereby obtained for
himself a greater reputation than that of any other Greek legislator at any
period. For this reason Aristotle says that he has less honour in Lacedaemon
than he deserves, although his memory is greatly respected; for he has a
temple, and they sacrifice to him every year as if he was a god. It is also
said that after his remains were carried home, his tomb was struck by
lightning. This distinction befell scarcely any other man of note except
Euripides, who died long after him, and was buried at Arethusa in
Macedonia. It was considered a great proof and token of his fame by the
admirers of Euripides, that this should happen to him after his death which
happened before to the especial favourite of Heaven. Some say that
Lykurgus died at Kirrha, but Apollothemis says that he was taken to Elis

and died there, and Timaeus and Aristoxenus say that he ended his days in
Crete. Aristoxenus even says that the Cretans show his tomb in what is
called the Strangers' Road in Pergamia. He is said to have left one son,
Antiorus, who died childless, and so ended the family. His companions and
relatives and their descendants kept up the practice of meeting together for
a long period; and the days when they met were called Lykurgids.
Aristokrates the son of Hipparchus says that when Lykurgus died in Crete,
his friends burned his body and threw the ashes into the sea, at his own
request, as he feared that if any remains of him should be brought back to
Lacedaemon, they would think themselves absolved from their oath, and
change the constitution. This is the story of Lykurgus.

LIFE OF NUMA.
I. There is a considerable conflict of opinion about the time of King Numa's
reign, although several pedigrees seem to be accurately traced to him. One
Clodius, in a book on the verification of dates, insists that all these old
records were destroyed during the Gaulish troubles, and that those which
are now extant were composed by interested persons, by whose means men
who had no right to such honours claimed descent from the noblest
families. Though Numa is said to have been a friend of Pythagoras, yet
some deny that he had any tincture of Greek learning, arguing that either he
was born with a natural capacity for sound learning, or that he was taught
by some barbarian.[14] Others say that Pythagoras was born much later,
some five generations after the times of Numa, but that Pythagoras the
Spartan, who won the Stadium race at Olympia on the thirteenth Olympiad,
wandered into Italy, and there meeting Numa, assisted him in the
establishment of his constitution; and that from this cause, the Roman
constitution in many points resembles the Laconian. The Olympic games
were instituted in the third year of Numa's reign. Another story is that Numa
was a Sabine by birth, and the Sabines consider themselves to be of
Lacedaemonian origin. It is hard to reconcile the dates, especially those
which refer to Olympiads, the table of which is said to have been made out
by Hippias of Elis, on no trustworthy basis. However, what things I have
heard about Numa that are worthy of mention I shall proceed to relate,
beginning from a starting-point of my own.
II. Rome had been founded, and Romulus had reigned, for thirty-seven
years, when upon the fifth day of the month of July, which day is now
called nonae caprotinae, he was performing a public sacrifice outside the
gates, at a place called the Goat's Marsh, in the presence of the Senate and
most of the people. Suddenly a great commotion began in the air, thick
clouds covered the earth, with violent gusts and showers. The people fled in
terror, and Romulus disappeared. His body could never be found, but
suspicion fell upon the patricians, and a report was current among the
populace that they had long been jealous of his power as king, and had
determined to get it into their own hands. Indeed, he had dealt with them

very harshly and tyrannically. Fearing this suspicion, they gave out that he
was not dead, but had been caught up into heaven; and Proclus, a man of
mark, swore that he saw Romulus ascend into heaven in his armour as he
was, and that he heard a voice ordering that he should be called Quirinus.
Another disturbance took place in Rome about the election of the next king,
because the new citizens were not yet thoroughly amalgamated with the old
ones, the people were unquiet, and the patricians suspicious of one another.
Nevertheless they all determined that they would have a king, but they
disagreed not merely about who, but of what race he should be.
Romulus's original colonists thought it a monstrous thing that the Sabines,
because they had been admitted to a share of the city and the country,
should propose to rule over it; while the Sabines not unreasonably urged
that because, after the death of Tatius, they had acquiesced in Romulus
reigning alone, now in their turn they ought to furnish a king of their own
nation. They had not, they said, been adopted by a more powerful race than
themselves, but had, by their combination with the Romans, greatly raised
the power and renown of their city.
The two races were at issue on these points. The patricians, fearing that
confusion might arise if the state were left without a head, made one of their
own number every day assume the insignia of royalty, perform the usual
sacrifices to the gods, and transact business for six hours by day, and six by
night. This equal division of their periods of rule was not only just for those
in office, but prevented any jealousy of them being felt by the populace,
each day and night, because they saw one who had been a king become a
private person. This form of government the Romans call an interregnum.
III. But, although they appeared to manage things so smoothly, suspicions
and threatenings of disturbance arose, for men said that they meditated
altering the form of government to an oligarchy, in order to keep all
political power in their own hands, and would not therefore elect a king.
Hereupon the two factions agreed that one should select a king from the
ranks of the other. This, they thought, would both put an end to their
quarrels for the present, and also ensure the candidate who should be
chosen being impartial, because he would be friendly to the one party
because it had chosen him, and to the other because he belonged to it by
birth. The Sabines gave the Romans their choice which they would do; and

they decided that it would be better to choose a Sabine king themselves,
than to be ruled by a Roman chosen by the Sabines. After deliberation
amongst themselves, they chose Numa Pompilius, a man who was not one
of those Sabines who had settled in Rome, but whose excellence was so
well-known to all, that the Sabines, as soon as they heard his name, were
even more eager for him than the Romans who had chosen him. When they
had informed the people of their decision, they sent an embassy to Numa,
composed of the leading men of both parties, to beg of him to come to
Rome and assume the crown.
Numa belonged to a celebrated Sabine city, Cures, from which the united
Romans and Sabines called themselves Quirites. He was the son of
Pomponius, an honourable citizen, and was the youngest of four brothers.
By a miraculous coincidence he was born on the very day on which
Romulus founded Rome; that is, the tenth day before the Calends of May.
His naturally good disposition had been so educated by sorrow and
philosophic pursuits, that he rose superior not merely to commonplace
vices, but even to the worship of brute force, so common among barbarians,
and considered true courage to consist in the conquest of his own passions.
Accordingly he banished all luxury and extravagance from his house, and
was known as a trusty friend and counsellor, both by his countrymen and by
strangers. When at leisure, he disregarded sensual enjoyments and money-
getting, but devoted himself to the service of the gods and to speculations
about their nature and power, so that he obtained great celebrity. Indeed
Tatius, when he was acting as joint-king with Romulus, chose him for the
husband of his only daughter Tatia. But Numa was not elated by his
marriage, and did not remove to the town where his father-in-law was king,
but stayed where he was in Cures, among the Sabines, tending his aged
father; while Tatia also preferred the quiet of a private citizen's life to the
pomp which she might have enjoyed in Rome. She is said to have died in
the thirteenth year after her marriage.
IV. Now Numa was in the habit of leaving the city and passing much of his
time in the country, wandering alone in the sacred groves and dwelling in
desert places. Hence the story first arose that it was not from any
derangement of intellect that he shunned human society, but because he
held converse with higher beings, and had been admitted to marriage with
the gods, and that, by passing his time in converse with the nymph Egeria,

who loved him, he became blessed, and learned heavenly wisdom. It is
evident that this is the same as many ancient myths; such as that told by the
Phrygians about Attis, that of the Bithynians about Herodotus, that of the
Arcadians about Endymion, and many others. Yet it seems probable that a
god, who loves man better than bird or beast, should take pleasure in
conversing with those men who are remarkable for goodness, and not
despise nor disdain to hold communion with the wise and righteous. But it
is hard to believe that a god or deity could feel the passion of love for a
human form; although the Egyptians not unreasonably say, that a woman
may be impregnated by the spirit of a god, but that a man can have no
material union with a god. However it is very right to believe that a god can
feel friendship for a man, and from this may spring a love which watches
over him and guides him in the path of virtue. There is truth in the myths of
Phorbas, of Hyacinthus, and of Admetus, who were all loved by Apollo, as
was also Hippolytus of Sicyon. It is said that whenever he set sail from
Sikyon to Kirrha on the opposite coast, the Pythia would recite the verse,

"Now goes our dear Hippolytus to sea,"

as if the god knew that he was coming and rejoiced at it.
There is also a legend that Pan loved Pindar and his verses; and for the
Muse's sake, Hesiod and Archilochus were honoured after their deaths;
while Sophokles during his life is said, by a legend which remains current
at the present day, to have become the friend of Aesculapius, and on his
death to have had the rites of burial supplied by the care of another god.
If, then, we believe the legends which are told about these persons, why
should we doubt that Zaleukus, Minos, Zoroaster, Numa, and Lykurgus
were inspired by Heaven, when they governed their kingdoms and gave
them laws? We may suppose that the gods, when in an earnest mood, would
hold converse with such men as these, the best of their kind, to talk with
and encourage them, just as they visit the poets, if they do at all, when
inclined for pleasure. However, if any one thinks differently, as Bacchylides
says, "The way is broad."
The other view, which some take about Lykurgus and Numa and such men,
seems very plausible, that they, having to deal with an obstinate and

unmanageable people when introducing great political changes, invented
the idea of their own divine mission as a means of safety for themselves.
V. It was in Numa's fortieth year that the envoys came from Rome to ask
him to be king. Their spokesmen were Proculus and Velesius, one of whom
had very nearly been elected king, for the Romulus people inclined much to
Proculus, and those of Tatius were equally in favour of Velesius. These men
made a short speech, imagining that Numa would be delighted with his
fortune; but it appears that it took much hard pleading to induce a man who
had lived all his life in peace to take the command of a city which owed its
origin and its increase alike to war. He said, in the presence of his father and
of Marcius, one of his relations, "Every change in a man's life is dangerous;
and when a man is not in want of anything needful, and has no cause for
being dissatisfied with his lot, it is sheer madness for him to change his
habits and way of life; for these, at any rate, have the advantage of security,
while in the new state all is uncertain. Not even uncertain are the perils of
royalty, judging from Romulus himself, who was suspected of having
plotted against his partner Tatius, and whose peers were suspected of having
assassinated him. Yet these men call Romulus the child of the gods, and tell
how he had a divinely sent nurse, and was preserved by a miracle while yet
a child; while I was born of mortal parents, and brought up by people whom
you all know: even the points which you praise in my character are far from
those which make a good king, being love of leisure and of unprofitable
speculation, and also a great fondness for peace and unwarlike matters, and
for men who meet together for the glory of the gods or for cheerful
converse with one another, and who at other times plough their fields and
feed their cattle at home. But you Romans have very likely many wars left
upon your hands by Romulus, for the conduct of which the state requires a
vigorous warrior in the prime of life. The people too, from their successes,
are accustomed to and eager for war, and are known to be longing for fresh
conquests and possessions; so that they would ridicule me when I told them
to honour the gods and act justly, and if I tried to instil a hatred of wars and
of brute force into a city which wants a general more than a king."
VI. As he refused the offered crown in such terms, the Romans used every
kind of entreaty to induce him to accept it, begging him not to plunge the
state again into civil war, because there was no other man whom the two
parties would agree to receive as their king. In their absence, his father and

Marcius begged him not to refuse so great and marvellous an offer. "If,"
they said, "you do not desire wealth, because of your simple life, and do not
care for the glory of royalty, because you derive more glory from your own
virtue, yet think that to be king is to serve God, who gives you this office
and will not allow your righteousness to lie idle, useful only to yourself. Do
not therefore shrink from assuming this office, which gives you an
opportunity to conduct the solemn ceremonials of religion with due pomp,
and to civilise the people and turn their hearts, which can be effected more
easily by a king than by any one else. This people loved Tatius, though he
was a foreigner, and they respect the memory of Romulus as if he was a
god. And who knows, if the people, although victorious, may not have had
enough of wars, and, sated with triumphs and spoils, may not be desirous of
a gentle and just ruler under whom they may enjoy rest and peace. If,
however, they are madly bent upon war, is it not better that you should hold
the reins, and direct their fury elsewhere, becoming yourself a bond of
union and friendship between the Sabine nation and this powerful and
flourishing city?" Besides these arguments, it is said that the omens were
favourable, and that the people of the city, as soon as they heard of the
embassy, came and besought him to go and become king, and thus unite and
combine the two races.
VII. When he had made up his mind, he sacrificed to the gods, and started
for Rome. The Senate and people met him and showed great affection for
him; the matrons also greeted him, and there were sacrifices in the temples,
and every one was as joyous as if he had received a kingdom instead of a
king. When they came into the Forum, the interrex or temporary king,
Spurius Vettius, put it to the vote, and all the people voted for Numa. When
they offered him the insignia of royalty, he bade them stop, saying that he
wished to have his crown confirmed to him by God as well as by man.
Taking the prophets and priests he ascended the Capitol, which the Romans
at that time called the Tarpeian Hill. There the chief of the prophets made
him turn towards the south, covered his head, and then standing behind him
with his hand laid upon his head, he prayed, and looked for a sign or omen
sent from the gods in every quarter of the heavens. A strange silence
prevailed among the people in the Forum, as they watched him eagerly,
until a prosperous omen was observed. Then Numa received the royal robes
and came down from the hill among the people. They received him with

cheers and congratulations, as the most pious of men, and as beloved of
Heaven. When he became king, his first act was to disband the body-guard
of three hundred men, whom Romulus always had kept about his person,
who were called Celeres, that is, swift; for Numa would not distrust a loyal
people nor reign over a disloyal one. Next he instituted a third high priest,
in addition to the existing priests of Jupiter and Mars, whom, in honour of
Romulus, he called the Flamen Quirinalis. The elder priests are called
Flamens from the skull-caps which they wear, and the word is derived from
the Greek word for felt; for at that time Greek words were mingled with
Latin ones more than now. For instance, the laena worn by the priests is
said by Juba to be the Greek chlaina, and the boy, whose parents must be
both alive, who is servant to the priest of Jupiter, is called Camillus, just as
the Greeks sometimes call Hermes (Mercury) Cadmilus, from his being the
servant of the gods.
VIII. Numa, after confirming his popularity by these measures, proceeded
at once to attempt to convert the city from the practice of war and the strong
hand, to that of right and justice, just as a man tries to soften and mould a
mass of iron. The city at that time was indeed what Plato calls "inflamed
and angry," for it owed its very existence to the reckless daring by which it
had thrust aside the most warlike races of the country, and had recruited its
strength by many campaigns and ceaseless war, and, as carpentry becomes
more fixed in its place by blows, so the city seemed to gain fresh power
from its dangers. Thinking that it would be a very difficult task to change
the habits of this excited and savage people, and to teach them the arts of
peace, he looked to the gods for help, and by sacrifices, processions, and
choral dances, which he himself organised and arranged, he awed,
interested, and softened the manners of the Romans, artfully beguiling them
out of their warlike ferocity. Sometimes he spoke of supernatural terrors,
evil omens, and unpropitious voices, so as to influence them by means of
superstition. These measures proved his wisdom, and showed him a true
disciple of Pythagoras, for the worship of the gods was an important part of
his state policy, as it is of Pythagoras's system of philosophy. His love of
outward show and stratagem was also said to be derived from Pythagoras,
for as the latter tamed an eagle and made it alight upon him, and when
walking through the crowd at Olympia showed his golden thigh, and did all

the other surprising devices which made Timon of Phlius write the epigram
—

"Pythagoras by magic arts,
And mystic talk deludes men's hearts,"

so did Numa invent the story of his amour with a wood-nymph and his
secret converse with her, and of his enjoying the society of the Muses. He
referred most of his prophetic utterances to the Muses, and taught the
Romans to worship one of them especially, whom he called Tacita, which
means silent or dumb. This seems to have been done in imitation of
Pythagoras, who especially revered silence. His legislation about images
was also connected with the Pythagorean doctrine, which says that first
principles cannot be touched or seen, but are invisible spiritual essences; for
Numa forbade the Romans to worship any likenesses of men or of beasts.
Among them there was no image of a god, either carved or moulded, in the
early times. For a hundred and seventy years they built temples, and placed
shrines in them, but made no image of any living thing, considering that it
was wrong to make the worse like the better, and that God cannot be
comprehended otherwise than by thought. Their sacrifices also were
connected with the Pythagorean doctrine; they were for the most part
bloodless, and performed with flour, libations of wine, and all the
commonest things. But besides these, there are other distinct proofs of the
connection of these two men with one another. One of these is that the
Romans enrolled Pythagoras as a citizen, as we are told by Epicharmus the
comic poet, in a letter which he wrote to Antenor. He was a man who lived
in old times and underwent the Pythagorean training. Another proof is that
of his four sons, King Numa named one Mamercus after the son of
Pythagoras; from whom sprung the ancient patrician house of the Aemilii.
This name was originally given him in sport by the king, who used to call
him aimulos or wily. I myself have heard many Romans narrate that an
oracle once bade the Romans establish the wisest and the bravest of the
Greeks in their own city, and that in consequence of it they set up two
brazen statues in the Forum, one of Alkibiades and one of Pythagoras. But
all this can be so easily disputed that it is not worth while to pursue it
farther or to put any trust in it.

IX. To Numa also is referred the institution of the Pontifices, or high
priests; and he himself is said to have been one of the first. The Pontifices
are so called, according to some authorities, because they worship the gods,
who are powerful and almighty; for powerful in Latin is potens. Others say
that it refers to an exception made in favour of possibilities, meaning that
the legislator ordered the priests to perform what services lay in their power,
and did not deny that there are some which they cannot. But the most
usually received and most absurd derivation is that the word means nothing
more than bridge builders, and that they were so named from the sacrifices
which are offered upon the sacred bridge, which are of great sanctity and
antiquity. The Latins call a bridge pontem. This bridge is intrusted to the
care of the priests, like any other immovable holy relic; for the Romans
think that the removal of the wooden bridge would call down the wrath of
Heaven. It is said to be entirely composed of wood, in accordance with
some oracle, without any iron whatever.
The stone bridge was built many years afterwards, when Aemilius was
Quaestor. However, it is said that the wooden bridge itself does not date
from the time of Numa, but that it was finished by Marcius, the grandson of
Numa, when he was king.
The chief priest, or Pontifex Maximus, is an interpreter and prophet or
rather expounder of the will of Heaven. He not only sees that the public
sacrifices are properly conducted, but even watches those who offer private
sacrifices, opposes all departure from established custom, and points out to
each man how to honour the gods and how to pray to them. He also
presides over the holy maidens called vestals.
The consecration of the vestal virgins, and the worship and watching of the
eternal flame by them, are entirely attributed to Numa, and explained either
by the pure and uncorruptible essence of fire being intrusted to the keeping
of those who are stainless and undefiled, or by that which is barren and
without fruit being associated with maidens.
Indeed, in Greece, wherever an eternal fire is kept up, as at Delphi and
Athens, it is not maidens, but widows, past the age to wed, that tend it.
When any of these fires chance to go out, as, for instance, the sacred lamp
went out at Athens when Aristion was despot, and the fire went out at

Delphi when the temple was burned by the Persians, and at Rome in the
revolutions during the time of the wars with King Mithridates the fire, and
even the altar upon which it burned, was swept away; then they say that it
must not be lighted from another fire, but that an entirely new fire must be
made, lighted by a pure and undefiled ray from the sun. They usually light it
with mirrors made by hollowing the surface of an isosceles right-angled
triangle, which conducts all the rays of light into one point. Now when it is
placed opposite to the sun, so that all the rays coming from all quarters are
collected together into that point, the ray thus formed passes through the
thin air, and at once lights the dryest and lightest of the objects against
which it strikes, for that ray has the strength and force of fire itself.
Some say that the only duty of the vestal virgins is to watch that eternal fire,
but others say they perform certain secret rites, about which we have
written as much as it is lawful to divulge, in the Life of Camillus.
X. The first maidens who were consecrated by Numa were named Gegania
and Verenia; and afterwards Canuleia and Tarpeia were added. Servius
subsequently added two more to their number, which has remained six ever
since his reign. Numa ordained that the maidens should observe celibacy
for thirty years, during the first ten years of which they were to learn their
duties, during the next perform them, and during the last to teach others.
After this period any of them who wished might marry and cease to be
priestesses; but it is said that very few availed themselves of this privilege,
and that those few were not happy, but, by their regrets and sorrow for the
life they had left, made the others scruple to leave it, prefer to remain
virgins till their death. They had great privileges, such as that of disposing
of their property by will when their fathers were still alive, like women who
have borne three children. When they walk abroad they are escorted by
lictors with the fasces; and if they happen to meet any criminal who is being
taken to execution, he is not put to death; but the vestal must swear that she
met him accidentally, and not on purpose. When they use a litter, no one
may pass under it on pain of death. The vestals are corrected by stripes for
any faults which they commit, sometimes by the Pontifex Maximus, who
flogs the culprit without her clothes, but with a curtain drawn before her.
She that breaks her vow of celibacy is buried alive at the Colline Gate, at
which there is a mound of earth which stretches some way inside the city
wall. In it they construct an underground chamber, of small size, which is

entered from above. In it is a bed with bedding, and a lamp burning; and
also some small means of supporting life, such as bread, a little water in a
vessel, milk, and oil, as though they wished to avoid the pollution of one
who had been consecrated with such holy ceremonies dying of hunger. The
guilty one is placed in a litter, covered in, and gagged with thongs so that
she cannot utter a sound. Then they carry her through the Forum. All make
way in silence, and accompany her passage with downcast looks, without
speaking. There is no more fearful sight than this, nor any day when the city
is plunged into deeper mourning. When the litter reaches the appointed
spot, the servants loose her bonds, and the chief priest, after private prayer
and lifting his hands to Heaven before his dreadful duty, leads her out,
closely veiled, places her upon a ladder which leads down into the
subterranean chamber. After this he turns away with the other priests; the
ladder is drawn up after she has descended, and the site of the chamber is
obliterated by masses of earth which are piled upon it, so that the place
looks like any other part of the mound. Thus are the vestals punished who
lose their chastity.
XI. Numa is said to have built the Temple of Vesta, which was to contain
the sacred fire, in a circular form, imitating thereby not the shape of the
earth, but that of the entire universe, in the midst of which the Pythagoreans
place the element of fire, which they call Vesta and the Unit. The earth they
say is not motionless, and not in the centre of its orbit, but revolves round
the central fire, occupying by no means the first or the most honourable
place in the system of the universe. These ideas are said to have been
entertained by Plato also in his old age; for he too thought that the earth was
in a subordinate position, and that the centre of the universe was occupied
by some nobler body.
XII. The Pontifices also explain, to those who inquire of them, the proper
ceremonies at funerals. For Numa taught them not to think that there was
any pollution in death, but that we must pay due honours to the gods below,
because they will receive all that is noblest on earth. Especially he taught
them to honour the goddess Libitina, the goddess who presides over funeral
rites, whether she be Proserpine, or rather Venus, as the most learned
Romans imagine, not unnaturally referring our birth and our death to the
same divinity.

He also defined the periods of mourning, according to the age of the
deceased. He allowed none for a child under three years of age, and for one
older the mourning was only to last as many months as he lived years,
provided those were not more than ten. The longest mourning was not to
continue above ten months, after which space widows were permitted to
marry again; but she that took another husband before that term was out
was obliged by his decree to sacrifice a cow with calf.
Of Numa's many other institutions I shall only mention two, that of the Salii
and of the Feciales, which especially show his love of justice. The Feciales
are, as it were, guardians of peace, and in my opinion obtain their name
from their office; for they were to act as mediators, and not to permit an
appeal to arms before all hope of obtaining justice by fair means had been
lost. The Greeks call it peace when two states settle their differences by
negotiation and not by arms; and the Roman Feciales frequently went to
states that had done wrong and begged them to think better of what they
had done. If they rejected their offers, then the Feciales called the gods to
witness, invoked dreadful curses upon themselves and their country, if they
were about to fight in an unjust cause, and so declared war. Against the will
of the Feciales, or without their approval, no Roman, whether king or
common soldier, was allowed to take up arms, but the general was obliged
first to have it certified to him by the Feciales that the right was on his side,
and then to take his measures for a campaign. It is said that the great
disaster with the Gauls befell the city in consequence of this ceremony
having been neglected. The barbarians were besieging Clusium; Fabius
Ambustus was sent as an ambassador to their camp to make terms on behalf
of the besieged. His proposals met with a harsh reply, and he, thinking that
his mission was at an end, had the audacity to appear before the ranks of the
men of Clusium in arms, and to challenge the bravest of the barbarians to
single combat. He won the fight, slew his opponent and stripped his body;
but the Gauls recognised him, and sent a herald to Rome, complaining that
Fabius had broken faith and not kept his word, and had waged war against
them without its being previously declared. Hereupon the Feciales urged the
Senate to deliver the man up to the Gauls, but he appealed to the people,
and by their favour escaped his just doom. Soon after the Gauls came and
sacked Rome, except the Capitol. But this is treated of more at length in the
'Life of Camillus.'

XIII. The priests called Salii are said to owe their origin to the following
circumstances: In the eighth year of Numa's reign an epidemic raged
throughout Italy, and afflicted the city of Rome. Now amidst the general
distress it is related that a brazen shield fell from heaven into the hands of
Numa. Upon this the king made an inspired speech, which he had learned
from Egeria and the Muses. The shield, he said, came for the salvation of
the city, and they must guard it, and make eleven more like it, so that no
thief could steal the one that fell from heaven, because he could not tell
which it was. Moreover the place and the meadows round about it, where he
was wont to converse with the Muses, must be consecrated to them, and the
well by which it was watered must be pointed out as holy water to the vestal
virgins, that they might daily take some thence to purify and sprinkle their
temple. The truth of this is said to have been proved by the immediate
cessation of the plague. He bade workmen compete in imitating the shield,
and, when all others refused to attempt it, Veturius Mamurius, one of the
best workmen of the time, produced so admirable an imitation, and made all
the shields so exactly alike, that even Numa himself could not tell which
was the original. He next appointed the Salii to guard and keep them. These
priests were called Salii, not, as some say, after a man of Samothrace or of
Mantinea named Salius, who first taught the art of dancing under arms, but
rather from the springing dance itself, which they dance through the city
when they carry out the shields in the month of March, dressed in scarlet
tunics, girt with brazen girdles, with brazen helmets on their heads and little
daggers with which they strike the shields. The rest of their dance is done
with their feet; they move gracefully, whirling round, swiftly and airily
counter-changing their positions with light and vigorous motions according
to rhythm and measure. The shields are called ancilia, because of their
shape; for they are not round, nor with a perfect circumference, but are cut
out of a wavy line, and curl in at the thickest part towards each other; or
they may be called ancilia after the name of the elbow, ankon, on which
they are carried; at least so Juba conjectures in his endeavours to find a
Greek derivation for the word. The name may be connected with the fall of
the shield from above (anekathen), or with the healing (akesis) of the
plague, and the cessation of that terrible calamity, if we must refer the word
to a Greek root.

It is related that, to reward Mamurius for his workmanship, his name is
mentioned in the song which the Salii sing while they dance their Pyrrhic
dance; others, however, say that it is not Veturium Mamurium that they say,
but Veterem Memoriam, which means ancient memory.
XIV. After he had arranged all religious ceremonies, he built, near the
temple of Vesta, the Regia, as a kind of royal palace; and there he spent
most of his time, engaged in religious duties, instructing the priests, or
awaiting some divine colloquy. He had also another house on the hill of
Quirinus, the site of which is even now pointed out.
In all religious processions through the city the heralds went first to bid the
people cease their work, and attend to the ceremony; for just as the
Pythagoreans are said to forbid the worship of the gods in a cursory manner,
and to insist that men shall set out from their homes with this purpose and
none other in their minds, so Numa thought it wrong that the citizens should
see or hear any religious ceremony in a careless, half-hearted manner, and
made them cease from all worldly cares and attend with all their hearts to
the most important of all duties, religion; so he cleared the streets of all the
hammering, and cries, and noises which attend the practice of ordinary
trades and handicrafts, before any holy ceremony. Some trace of this
custom still survives in the practice of crying out Hoc age when the consul
is taking the auspices or making a sacrifice. These words mean "Do this
thing," and are used to make the bystanders orderly and attentive. Many of
his other precepts are like those of the Pythagoreans; for just as they forbid
men to sit upon a quart measure, or to stir the fire with a sword, or to turn
back when they set out upon a journey, and bid them sacrifice an odd
number to the gods above, and an even one to those below, all of which
things had a mystical meaning, which was hidden from the common mass
of mankind, so also some of Numa's rites can only be explained by
reference to some secret legend, such as his forbidding men to make a
libation to the gods with wine made from an unpruned vine, and his
ordering that no sacrifice should be made without flour, and that men
should turn round while worshipping and sit after they had worshipped. The
first two of these seem to point to cultivation of the fruits of the earth, as a
part of righteousness; the turning round of the worshippers is said to be in
imitation of the revolution of the globe, but it seems more probable that, as
all temples look towards the east, the worshipper who enters with his back

to the sun turns round towards this god also, and begs of them both, as he
makes his circuit, to fulfil his prayer. Unless indeed there is an allusion to
the symbolical wheel of the Egyptians, and the change of posture means
that nothing human is constant, and that, however God may turn about our
lives, it is our duty to be content. The act of sitting after prayer was said to
portend that such as were good would obtain a solid and lasting fulfilment
of their prayers. Or again, this attitude of rest marks the division between
different periods of prayer; so that after the end of one prayer they seat
themselves in the presence of the gods, in order that under their auspices
they may begin the next. This fully agrees with what has been said above,
and shows that the lawgiver intended to accustom his countrymen not to
offer their prayers in a hurry, or in the intervals of doing something else, but
when they were at leisure and not pressed for time.
XV. By this religious training the city became so easily managed by Numa,
and so impressed by his power, as to believe stories of the wildest character
about him, and to think nothing incredible or impossible if he wished to do
it. For instance, it is related that once he invited many of the citizens to dine
with him, and placed before them common vessels and poor fare; but, as
they were about to begin dinner, he suddenly said that his familiar goddess
was about to visit him, and at once displayed abundance of golden cups and
tables covered with costly delicacies. The strangest story of all is that of his
conversation with Jupiter. The legend runs that Mount Aventine was not at
this time enclosed within the city, but was full of fountains and shady glens,
and haunted by two divinities, Picus and Faunus, who may be compared to
Satyrs or to Pan, and who, in knowledge of herbs and magic, seem equal to
what the Greeks call the Daktyli of Mount Ida. These creatures roamed
about Italy playing their tricks, but Numa caught them by filling the spring
at which they drank with wine and honey. They turned into all kinds of
shapes, and assumed strange and terrible forms, but when they found that
they were unable to escape, they told Numa much of the future, and showed
him how to make a charm against thunder-bolts, which is used to this day,
and is made of onions and hair and sprats. Some say that it was not these
deities who told him the charm, but that they by magic arts brought down
Jupiter from heaven, and he, in a rage, ordered Numa to make the charm of
"Heads"; and when Numa added, "Of onions," he said "Of men's"—"Hair,"
said Numa, again taking away the terrible part of the imprecation. When

then Jupiter said "With living"—"Sprats," said Numa, answering as Egeria
had taught him. The god went away appeased, and the place was in
consequence called Ilicius. This was how the charm was discovered.
These ridiculous legends show the way in which the people had become
accustomed to regard the gods. Indeed Numa is said to have placed all his
hopes in religion, to such an extent that even when a message was brought
him, saying, "The enemy are approaching," he smiled and said, "And I am
sacrificing."
XVI. The first temples that he founded are said to have been those of Fides
or Faith, and Terminus. Fides is said to have revealed to the Romans the
greatest of all oaths, which they even now make use of; while Terminus is
the god of boundaries, to whom they sacrifice publicly, and also privately at
the divisions of men's estates; at the present time with living victims, but in
old days this was a bloodless sacrifice, for Numa argued that the god of
boundaries must be a lover of peace, and a witness of righteousness, and
therefore averse to bloodshed.
Indeed Numa was the first king who defined the boundaries of the country,
since Romulus was unwilling, by measuring what was really his own, to
show how much he had taken from other states: for boundaries, if
preserved, are barriers against violence; if disregarded, they become
standing proofs of lawless injustice. The city had originally but a small
territory of its own, and Romulus gained the greater part of its possessions
by the sword. All this Numa distributed among the needy citizens, thereby
removing the want which urged them to deeds of violence, and, by turning
the people's thoughts to husbandry, he made them grow more civilised as
their land grew more cultivated. No profession makes men such passionate
lovers of peace as that of a man who farms his own land; for he retains
enough of the warlike spirit to fight fiercely in defence of his own property,
but has lost all desire to despoil and wrong his neighbours. It was for this
reason that Numa encouraged agriculture among the Romans, as a spell to
charm away war, and loved the art more because of its influence on men's
minds than because of the wealth which it produced. He divided the whole
country into districts, which he called pagi, and appointed a head man for
each, and a patrol to guard it. And sometimes he himself would inspect
them, and, forming an opinion of each man's character from the condition

of his farm, would raise some to honours and offices of trust, and blaming
others for their remissness, would lead them to do better in future.
XVII. Of his other political measures, that which is most admired is his
division of the populace according to their trades. For whereas the city, as
has been said, originally consisted of two races, which stood aloof one from
the other and would not combine into one, which led to endless quarrels and
rivalries, Numa, reflecting that substances which are hard and difficult to
combine together, can nevertheless be mixed and formed into one mass if
they are broken up into small pieces, because then they more easily fit into
each other, determined to divide the whole mass of the people of Rome into
many classes, and thus, by creating numerous petty rivalries, to obliterate
their original and greatest cause of variance.
His division was according to their trades, and consisted of the musicians,
the goldsmiths, the builders, the dyers, the shoemakers, the carriers, the
coppersmiths, and the potters. All the other trades he united into one guild.
He assigned to each trade its special privileges, common to all the
members, and arranged that each should have its own times of meeting, and
worship its own special patron god, and by this means he did away with that
habit, which hitherto had prevailed among the citizens, of some calling
themselves Sabines, and some Romans; one boasting that they were Tatius's
men, and other Romulus's. So this division produced a complete fusion and
unity. Moreover he has been much praised for another of his measures, that,
namely, of correcting the old law which allows fathers to sell their sons for
slaves. He abolished this power in the case of married men, who had
married with their father's consent; for he thought it a monstrous injustice
that a woman, who had married a free man, should be compelled to be the
wife of a slave.
XVIII. He also dealt with astronomical matters, not with perfect accuracy,
and yet not altogether without knowledge. During the reign of Romulus the
months had been in a state of great disorder, some not containing twenty
days, some five-and-thirty, and some even more, because the Romans could
not reconcile the discrepancies which arise from reckoning by the sun and
the moon, and only insisted upon one thing, that the year should consist of
three hundred and sixty days.

Numa reckoned the variation to consist of eleven days, as the lunar year
contains three hundred and fifty-four days, and the solar year three hundred
and sixty-five. He doubled these eleven days and introduced them every
other year, after February, as an intercalary month, twenty-two days in
duration, which was called by the Romans Mercedinus. This was a remedy
for the irregularities of the calendar which itself required more extensive
remedies.
He also altered the order of the months, putting March, which used to be the
first month, third, and making January the first, which in the time of
Romulus had been the eleventh, and February the second, which then had
been the twelfth. There are many writers who say that these months,
January and February, were added to the calendar by Numa, and that
originally there had only been ten months in the year, just as some
barbarians have three, and in Greece the Arcadians have four, and the
Acarnanians six. The Egyptians originally had but one month in their year,
and afterwards are said to have divided it into four mouths; wherefore,
though they live in the newest of all countries, they appear to be the most
ancient of all nations, and in their genealogies reckon an incredible number
of years, because they count their months as years.
XIX. One proof that the Romans used to reckon ten months and not twelve
in the year is the name of the last month; for up to the present day it is
called December, the tenth, and the order of the months shows that March
was the first, for the fifth month from it they called Quintilis, the fifth; and
the sixth month Sextilis, and so on for the others, although, by their putting
January and February before March, it resulted that the month which they
number fifth is really seventh in order. Moreover, there is a legend that the
month of March, being the first, was dedicated by Romulus to Mars, and
the second, April, to Aphrodité (Venus); in which month they sacrifice to
this goddess, and the women bathe on the first day of it crowned with
myrtle. Some, however, say that April is not named after Aphrodité, because
the word April does not contain the letter h, and that it comes from the Latin
word aperio, and means the month in which the spring-time opens the buds
of plants; for that is what the word signifies. Of the following months, May
is named after Maia, the mother of Hermes or Mercury, for it is dedicated to
her, and June from Juno. Some say that these names signify old age and
youth, for old men are called by the Latins majores, and young men

juniores. The remaining months they named, from the order in which they
came, the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth: Quintilis, Sextilis,
September, October, November, December. Then Quintilis was called Julius
after Julius Caesar, who conquered Pompeius; and Sextilis was called
Augustus, after the second of the Roman Emperors. The next two months
Domitian altered to his own titles, but not for any long time, as after his
death they resumed their old names of September and October. The last two
alone have preserved their original names without change. Of the months,
added or altered by Numa, Februarius means the month of purification, for
that is as nearly as possible the meaning of the word, and during it they
sacrifice to the dead, and hold the festival of the Lupercalia, which
resembles a ceremony of purification. The first month, Januarius, is named
after Janus. My opinion is, that Numa moved the month named after Mars
from its precedence, wishing the art of good government to be honoured
before that of war. For Janus in very ancient times was either a deity or a
king, who established a social polity, and made men cease from a savage
life like that of wild beasts. And for this reason his statues are made with a
double face, because he turned men's way of life from one form to another.
XX. There is a temple to him in Rome, which has two doors, and which
they call the gate of war. It is the custom to open the temple in time of war,
and to close it during peace. This scarcely ever took place, as the empire
was almost always at war with some state, being by its very greatness
continually brought into collision with the neighbouring tribes. Only in the
time of Caesar Augustus, after he had conquered Antonius, it was closed;
and before that, during the consulship of Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius,
for a short time, and then was almost immediately reopened, as a new war
broke out. But during Numa's reign no one saw it open for a single day, and
it remained closed for forty-three years continuously, so utterly had he
made wars to cease on all sides. Not only was the spirit of the Romans
subdued and pacified by the gentle and just character of their king, but even
the neighbouring cities, as if some soothing healthful air was breathed over
them from Rome, altered their habits and longed to live quiet and well-
governed, cultivating the earth, bringing up their families in peace, and
worshipping the gods. And gay festivals and entertainments, during which
the people of the various states fearlessly mixed with one another, prevailed
throughout Italy, for Numa's knowledge of all that was good and noble was

shed abroad like water from a fountain, and the atmosphere of holy calm by
which he was surrounded spread over all men. The very poets when they
wrote of that peaceful time were unable to find adequate expressions for it,
as one writes—

"Across the shields are cobwebs laid,
Rust eats the lance and keen edged blade;
No more we hear the trumpets bray.
And from our eyes no more is slumber chased away."

No war, revolution, or political disturbance of any kind is recorded during
Numa's reign, neither was there any envy or hatred of him or any attempt by
others to obtain the crown; but either fear of the gods who visibly protected
him, or reverence for his virtues, or the special grace of Heaven, made
men's lives innocent and untainted with evil, and formed a striking proof of
the truth of what Plato said many years afterwards, that the only escape
from misery for men is when by Divine Providence philosophy is combined
with royal power, and used to exalt virtue over vice. Blessed indeed is the
truly wise man, and blessed are they who hear the words of his mouth.
Indeed his people require no restraints or punishments, but seeing a plain
example of virtue in the life of their chief, they themselves of their own
accord reform their lives, and model them upon that gentle and blessed rule
of love and just dealing one with another which it is the noblest work of
politicians to establish. He is most truly a king who can teach such lessons
as these to his subjects, and Numa beyond all others seems to have clearly
discerned this truth.
XXI. Historians differ in their accounts of his wives and children. Some say
that he married Tatia alone, and was the father of one daughter only, named
Pompilia; but others, besides her, assign to him four sons, named Pompo,
Pinus, Calpus, and Mamercus, from whom descended the four noble
families of the Pomponii, Pinarii, Calphurnii, and Mamerci, which for this
reason took the title of Rex, that is, king. Others again say that these
pedigrees were invented to flatter these families, and state that the
Pompilian family descends not from Tatia, but from Lucretia, whom he
married after he became king. All, however, agree that Pompilia married
Marcius, the son of that Marcius who encouraged Numa to accept the
crown. This man accompanied Numa to Rome, was made a member of the
Senate, and after Numa's death laid claim to the crown, but was worsted by
Tullus Hostilius and made away with himself. His son Marcius, who
married Pompilia, remained in Rome, and became the father of Ancus

Marcius, who was king after Tullus Hostilius, and who was only five years
old when Numa died.
We are told by Piso that Numa died, not by a sudden death, but by slow
decay from sheer old age, having lived a little more than eighty years.
XXII. He was enviable even in death, for all the friendly and allied nations
assembled at his funeral with national offerings. The senators bore his bier,
which was attended by the chief priests, while the crowd of men, women
and children who were present, followed with such weeping and wailing,
that one would have thought that, instead of an aged king, each man was
about to bury his own dearest friend, who had died in the prime of life. At
his own wish, it is said, the body was not burned, but placed in two stone
coffins and buried on the Janiculum Hill. One of these contained his body,
and the other the sacred books which he himself had written, as Greek
legislators write their laws upon tablets. During his life he had taught the
priests the contents of these books, and their meaning and spirit, and
ordered them to be buried with his corpse, because it was right that holy
mysteries should be contained, not in soulless writings, but in the minds of
living men. For the same reason they say that the Pythagoreans never
reduced their maxims to writing, but implanted them in the memories of
worthy men; and when some of their difficult processes in geometry were
divulged to some unworthy men, they said that Heaven would mark its
sense of the wickedness which had been committed by some great public
calamity; so that, as Numa's system so greatly resembled that of Pythagoras,
we can easily pardon those who endeavour to establish a connection
between them.
Valerius of Antium says that twelve sacred books and twelve books of
Greek philosophy were placed in the coffin. Four hundred years afterwards,
when Publius Cornelius and Marcus Baebius were consuls, a great fall of
rain took place, and the torrent washed away the earth and exposed the
coffins. When the lids were removed, one of the coffins was seen by all
men to be empty, and without any trace of a corpse in it; the other contained
the books, which were read by Petilius the praetor, who reported to the
Senate that in his opinion it was not right that their contents should be made
known to the people, and they were therefore carried to the Comitium and
burned there.

All good and just men receive most praise after their death, because their
unpopularity dies with them or even before them; but Numa's glory was
enhanced by the unhappy reigns of his successors. Of five kings who
succeeded him, the last was expelled and died an exile, and of the other
four, not one died a natural death, but three were murdered by conspirators,
and Tullus Hostilius, who was king next after Numa, and who derided and
insulted his wise ordinances, especially those connected with religion, as
lazy and effeminate, and who urged the people to take up arms, was cut
down in the midst of his boastings by a terrible disease, and became subject
to superstitious fears in no way resembling Numa's piety. His subjects were
led to share these terrors, more especially by the manner of his death, which
is said to have been by the stroke of a thunderbolt.

COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYKURGUS.
I. Now that we have gone through the lives of Numa and Lykurgus, we
must attempt, without being daunted by difficulties, to reconcile the points
in which they appear to differ from each other. Much they appear to have
had in common, as, for example, their self-control, their piety, and their
political and educational ability; and while the peculiar glory of Numa is his
acceptance of the throne, that of Lykurgus is his abdication. Numa received
it without having asked for it; Lykurgus when in full possession gave it up.
Numa, though a private man and not even a Roman, was chosen by the
Romans as their king; but Lykurgus from being a king reduced himself to a
private station. It is honourable to obtain a crown by righteousness, but it is
also honourable to prefer righteousness to a crown. Numa's virtue made him
so celebrated that he was judged worthy to be king, Lykurgus' made him so
great that he did not care to be king.
Again, like those who tune the strings of a lyre, Lykurgus drew tighter the
relaxed and licentious Sparta, while Numa merely slackened the highly
strung and warlike Rome, so that here Lykurgus had the more difficult task.
He had to persuade his countrymen, not to take off their armour and lay
aside their swords, but to leave off using gold and silver, and to lay aside
costly hangings and furniture; he had not to make them exchange wars for
sacrifices and gay festivals, but to cease from feasts and drinking-parties,
and work hard both in the field and in the palaestra to train themselves for
war.
For this reason, Numa was able to effect his purpose without difficulty, and
without any loss of popularity and respect; while Lykurgus was struck and
pelted, and in danger of his life, and even so could scarcely carry out his
reforms. Yet the genius of Numa was kindly and gentle, and so softened and
changed the reckless fiery Romans that they became peaceful, law-abiding
citizens; and if we must reckon Lykurgus' treatment of the Helots as part of
his system, it cannot be denied that Numa was a far more civilised lawgiver,
seeing that he allowed even to actual slaves some taste of liberty, by his

institution of feasting them together with their masters at the festival of
Saturn.
For this custom of allowing the labourers to share in the harvest-feast is
traced to Numa. Some say that this is in remembrance of the equality which
existed in the time of Saturn, when there was neither master nor slave, but
all were kinsmen and had equal rights.
II. Both evidently encouraged the spirit of independence and self-control
among their people, while of other virtues, Lykurgus loved bravery, and
Numa loved justice best; unless indeed we should say that, from the very
different temper and habits of the two states, they required to be treated in a
different manner. It was not from cowardice, but because he scorned to do
an injustice, that Numa did not make war; while Lykurgus made his
countrymen warlike, not in order that they might do wrong, but that they
might not be wronged. Each found that the existing system required very
important alterations to check its excesses and supply its defects. Numa's
reforms were all in favour of the people, whom he classified into a mixed
and motley multitude of goldsmiths and musicians and cobblers; while the
constitution introduced by Lykurgus was severely aristocratic, driving all
handicrafts into the hands of slaves and foreigners, and confining the
citizens to the use of the spear and shield, as men whose trade was war
alone, and who knew nothing but how to obey their leaders and to conquer
their enemies. In Sparta a free man was not permitted to make money in
business, in order that he might be truly free.
Each thing connected with the business of making money, like that of
preparing food for dinner, was left in the hands of slaves and helots. Numa
made no regulations of this kind, but, while he put an end to military
plundering, raised no objection to other methods of making money, nor did
he try to reduce inequalities of fortune, but allowed wealth to increase
unchecked, and disregarded the influx of poor men into the city and the
increase of poverty there, whereas he ought at the very outset, like
Lykurgus, while men's fortunes were still tolerably equal, to have raised
some barrier against the encroachments of wealth, and to have restrained
the terrible evils which take their rise and origin in it. As for the division of
the land among the citizens, in my opinion, Lykurgus cannot be blamed for
doing it, nor yet can Numa for not doing it. The equality thus produced was

the very foundation and corner-stone of the Lacedaemonian constitution,
while Numa had no motive for disturbing the Roman lands, which had only
been recently distributed among the citizens, or to alter the arrangements
made by Romulus, which we may suppose were still in force throughout the
country.
III. With regard to a community of wives and children, each took a wise
and statesman-like course to prevent jealousy, although the means
employed by each were different. A Roman who possessed a sufficient
family of his own might be prevailed upon by a friend who had no children
to transfer his wife to him, being fully empowered to give her away, by
divorce, for this purpose; but a Lacedaemonian was accustomed to lend his
wife for intercourse with a friend, while she remained living in his house,
and without the marriage being thereby dissolved. Many, we are told, even
invited those who, they thought, would beget fine and noble children, to
converse with their wives. The distinction between the two customs seems
to be this: the Spartans affected an unconcern and insensibility about a
matter which excites most men to violent rage and jealousy; the Romans
modestly veiled it by a legal contract which seems to admit how hard it is
for a man to give up his wife to another. Moreover Numa's regulations
about young girls were of a much more feminine and orderly nature, while
those of Lykurgus were so highflown and unbecoming to women, as to have
been the subject of notice by the poets, who call them Phainomerides, that
is with bare thighs, as Ibykus says; and they accuse them of lust, as
Euripides says—

"They stay not, as befits a maid, at home,
But with young men in shameless dresses roam."

For in truth the sides of the maiden's tunic were not fastened together at the
skirt, and so flew open and exposed the thigh as they walked, which is most
clearly alluded to in the lines of Sophokles—

"She that wanders nigh,
With scanty skirt that shows the thigh,
A Spartan maiden fair and free,
Hermione."

On this account they are said to have become bolder than they should be,
and to have first shown this spirit towards their husbands, ruling
uncontrolled over their households, and afterwards in public matters, where
they freely expressed their opinions upon the most important subjects. On
the other hand, Numa preserved that respect and honour due from men to
matrons which they had met with under Romulus, who paid them these
honours to atone for having carried them off by force, but he implanted in
them habits of modesty, sobriety, and silence, forbidding them even to touch
wine, or to speak even when necessary except in their husbands' presence. It
is stated that once, because a woman pleaded her own cause in the Forum,
the Senate sent to ask the oracle what this strange event might portend for
the state.
A great proof of the obedience and modesty of the most part of them is the
way in which the names of those who did any wrong is remembered. For,
just as in Greece, historians record the names of those who first made war
against their own kindred or murdered their parents, so the Romans tell us
that the first man who put away his wife was Spurius Carvilius, nothing of
the kind having happened in Rome for two hundred and thirty years from its
foundation; and that the wife of Pinarius, Thalaea by name, was the first to
quarrel with her mother-in-law Gegania in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus
—so well and orderly were marriages arranged by this lawgiver.
IV. The rest of their laws for the training and marriage of maidens agree
with one another, although Lykurgus put off the time of marriage till they
were full-grown, in order that their intercourse, demanded as it was by
nature, might produce love and friendship in the married pair rather than the
dislike often experienced by an immature child towards her husband, and
also that their bodies might be better able to support the trials of child-
bearing, which he regarded as the sole object of marriage; whereas the
Romans gave their daughters in marriage at the age of twelve years or even
younger, thinking thus to hand over a girl to her husband pure and
uncorrupt both in body and mind. It is clear that the former system is best
for the mere production of children, and the latter for moulding consorts for
life. But by his superintendence of the young, his collecting them into
companies, his training and drill, with the table and exercises common to
all, Lykurgus showed that he was immensely superior to Numa, who, like
any commonplace lawgiver, left the whole training of the young in the

hands of their fathers, regulated only by their caprice or needs; so that
whoever chose might bring up his son as a shipwright, a coppersmith, or a
musician, as though the citizens ought not from the very outset to direct
their attention to one object, but were like people who have embarked in the
same ship for various causes, who only in time of danger act together for
the common advantage of all, and at other times pursue each his own
private ends. Allowance must be made for ordinary lawgivers, who fail
through want of power or of knowledge in establishing such a system; but
no such excuse can be made for Numa, who was a wise man, and who was
made king of a newly-created state which would not have opposed any of
his designs. What could be of greater importance than to regulate the
education of the young and so to train them that they might all become alike
in their lives and all bear the same impress of virtue? It was to this that
Lykurgus owed the permanence of his laws; for he could not have trusted to
the oaths which he made them take, if he had not by education and training
so steeped the minds of the young in the spirit of his laws, and by his
method of bringing them up implanted in them such a love for the state, that
the most important of his enactments remained in force for more than five
hundred years; for the lives of all Spartans seem to have been coloured by
these laws. That which was the aim and end of Numa's policy, that Rome
should be at peace and friendly with her neighbours, ceased immediately
upon his death; at once the double-gated temple, which he kept closed as if
he really kept war locked up in it, had both its gates thrown open and filled
Italy with slaughter. His excellent and righteous policy did not last for a
moment, for the people were not educated to support it, and therefore it
could not be lasting. But, it may be asked, did not Rome flourish by her
wars? It is hard to answer such a question, in an age which values wealth,
luxury, and dominion more than a gentle peaceful life that wrongs no one
and suffices for itself. Yet this fact seems to tell for Lykurgus, that the
Romans gained such an enormous increase of power by departing from
Numa's policy, while the Lacedaemonians, as soon as they fell away from
the discipline of Lykurgus, having been the haughtiest became the most
contemptible of Greeks, and not only lost their supremacy, but had even to
struggle for their bare existence. On the other hand, it was truly glorious for
Numa that he was a stranger and sent for by the Romans to be their king;
that he effected all his reforms without violence, and ruled a city composed
of discordant elements without any armed force such as Lykurgus had to

assist him, winning over all men and reducing them to order by his wisdom
and justice.

LIFE OF SOLON.
I. Didymus the grammarian, in the book about Solon's laws which he wrote
in answer to Asklepiades, quotes a saying of one Philokles, that Solon was
the son of Euphorion, which is quite at variance with the testimony of all
other writers who have mentioned Solon: for they all say that he was the
son of Exekestides, a man whose fortune and power were only moderate,
but whose family was of the noblest in Athens; for he was descended from
Kodrus the last Athenian king. Herakleides of Pontus relates that the mother
of Solon was first cousin to the mother of Peisistratus. The two boys, we are
told, were friends when young, and when in after years they differed in
politics they still never entertained harsh or angry feelings towards one
another, but kept alive the sacred flame of their former intimate friendship.
Peisistratus is even said to have dedicated the statue of Love in the
Academy where those who are going to run in the sacred torch-race light
their torches.
II. According to Hermippus, Solon, finding that his father had by his
generosity diminished his fortune, and feeling ashamed to be dependent
upon others, when he himself was come of a house more accustomed to
give than to receive, embarked in trade, although his friends were eager to
supply him with all that he could wish for. Some, however, say that Solon
travelled more with a view to gaining experience and learning than to
making money. He was indeed eager to learn, as he wrote when an old man,

"Old to grow, but ever learning,"

but disregarded wealth, for he wrote that he regarded as equally rich the
man who owned

"Gold and broad acres, corn and wine;
And he that hath but clothes and food,
A wife, and youthful strength divine."

Yet elsewhere he has written, but

"I long for wealth, not by fraud obtained,
For curses wait on riches basely gained."

There is no reason for an upright statesman either to be over anxious for
luxuries or to despise necessaries. At that period, as Hesiod tells us, "Work
was no disgrace," nor did trade carry any reproach, while the profession of
travelling merchant was even honourable, as it civilised barbarous tribes,
and gained the friendship of kings, and learned much in many lands. Some
merchants founded great cities, as, for example, Protis, who was beloved by
the Gauls living near the Rhone, founded Marseilles. It is also said that
Thales the sage, and Hippocrates the mathematician, travelled as merchants,
and that Plato defrayed the expenses of his journey to Egypt by the oil
which he disposed of in that country.
III. Solon's extravagance and luxurious mode of life, and his poems, which
treat of pleasure more from a worldly than a philosophic point of view, are
attributed to his mercantile training; for the great perils of a merchant's life
require to be paid in corresponding pleasures. Yet it is clear that he
considered himself as belonging to the class of the poor, rather than that of
the rich, from the following verses:

"The base are rich, the good are poor; and yet
Our virtue for their gold we would not change;
For that at least is ours for evermore,
While wealth we see from hand to hand doth range."

His poetry was originally written merely for his own amusement in his
leisure hours; but afterwards he introduced into it philosophic sentiments,
and interwove political events with his poems, not in order to record them
historically, but in some cases to explain his own conduct, and in others to
instruct, encourage, or rebuke the Athenians. Some say that he endeavoured
to throw his laws into an epic form, and tell us that the poem began—

"To Jove I pray, great Saturn's son divine,
To grant his favour to these laws of mine."

Of ethical philosophy, he, like most of the sages of antiquity, was most
interested in that branch which deals with political obligations. As to natural

science, his views are very crude and antiquated, as we see from the
following verses:

"From clouds the snow and hail descend,
And thunderbolts the lightnings send;
The waves run high when gales do blow,
Without the wind they're still enow."

Indeed, of all the sages of that time, Thales alone seems to have known
more of physics than was necessary to supply man's every-day needs; all
the others having gained their reputation for political wisdom.
IV. These wise men are said to have met at Delphi, and again at Corinth,
where they were entertained by the despot Periander. Their reputation was
greatly increased by the tripod which was sent to all of them and refused by
all with a gracious rivalry. The story goes that some men of Cos were
casting a net, and some strangers from Miletus bought the haul of them
before it reached the surface.
The net brought up a golden tripod, the same which, it is said, Helen threw
into the sea at that spot, in accordance with some ancient oracle, when she
was sailing away from Troy. A dispute arose at first between the strangers
and the fishermen; afterwards it was taken up by their respective cities, who
even came to blows about it. Finally they consulted the oracle at Delphi,
which ordered it to be given to the wisest. Now it was first sent to Miletus,
to Thales, as the men of Cos willingly gave it to that one man, although
they had fought with all the Milesians together about it. Thales said that
Bias was wiser than himself, and sent it to him; and by him it was again
sent to another man, as being wiser yet. So it went on, being sent from one
to another until it came to Thales a second time, and at last was sent from
Miletus to Thebes and consecrated to Apollo Ismenius. As Theophrastus
tells the story, the tripod was first sent to Bias at Priéne, and secondly to
Thales at Miletus, and so on through all of the wise men until it again
reached Bias, and was finally offered at Delphi. This is the more common
version of the story, although some say that it was not a tripod but a bowl
sent by Croesus, others that it was a drinking-cup left behind by one
Bathykles.

V. Anacharsis is said to have met Solon, and afterwards Thales in private,
and to have conversed with them. The story goes that Anacharsis came to
Athens, went to Solon's door, and knocked, saying that he was a stranger
and had come to enter into friendship with him. When Solon answered that
friendships were best made at home, Anacharsis said, "Well then, do you,
who are at home, enter into friendship with me." Solon, admiring the man's
cleverness, received him kindly, and kept him for some time in his house.
He was at this time engaged in politics, and was composing his laws.
Anacharsis, when he discovered this, laughed at Solon's undertaking, if he
thought to restrain the crimes and greed of the citizens by written laws,
which he said were just like spiders' webs; for, like them, they caught the
weaker criminals, but were broken through by the stronger and more
important.
To this Solon answered, that men keep covenants, because it is to the
advantage of neither party to break them; and that he so suited his laws to
his countrymen, that it was to the advantage of every one to abide by them
rather than to break them. Nevertheless, things turned out more as
Anacharsis thought than as Solon wished. Anacharsis said too, when
present at an assembly of the people, that he was surprised to see that in
Greece wise men spoke upon public affairs, and ignorant men decided
them.
VI. When Solon went to Thales at Miletus, he expressed his wonder at his
having never married and had a family. Thales made no answer at the time,
but a few days afterwards arranged that a man should come to him and say
that he left Athens ten days before. When Solon inquired of him, whether
anything new had happened at Athens, the man answered, as Thales had
instructed him, that "there was no news, except the death of a young man
who had been escorted to his grave by the whole city. He was the son, they
told him, of a leading citizen of great repute for his goodness, but the father
was not present, for they said he had been travelling abroad for some
years." "Unhappy man," said Solon, "what was his name?" "I heard his
name," answered the man, "but I cannot remember it; beyond that there was
much talk of his wisdom and justice." Thus by each of his answers he
increased Solon's alarm, until he at last in his excitement asked the stranger
whether it were not Solon's son that was dead. The stranger said that it was.
Solon was proceeding to beat his head and show all the other marks of

grief, when Thales stopped him, saying with a smile, "This, Solon, which
has the power to strike down so strong a man as you, has ever prevented my
marrying and having children. But be of good courage, for this tale which
you have been told is untrue." This story is said by Hermippus to have been
told by Pataikos, he who said that he had inherited the soul of Aesop.
VII. It is a strange and unworthy feeling that prompts a man not to claim
that to which he has a right, for fear that he may one day lose it; for by the
same reasoning he might refuse wealth, reputation, or wisdom, for fear of
losing them hereafter. We see even virtue, the greatest and most dear of all
possessions, can be destroyed by disease or evil drugs; and Thales by
avoiding marriage still had just as much to fear, unless indeed he ceased to
love his friends, his kinsmen, and his native land. But even he adopted his
sister's son Kybisthus; for the soul has a spring of affection within it, and is
formed not only to perceive, to reflect, and to remember, but also to love. If
it finds nothing to love at home, it will find something abroad; and when
affection, like a desert spot, has no legitimate possessors, it is usurped by
bastard children or even servants, who when they have obtained our love,
make us fear for them and be anxious about them. So that one may often
see men, in a cynical temper, inveighing against marriage and children, who
themselves shortly afterwards will be plunged into unmanly excesses of
grief, at the loss of their child by some slave or concubine. Some have even
shown terrible grief at the death of dogs and horses; whereas others, who
have lost noble sons, made no unusual or unseemly exhibition of sorrow,
but passed the remainder of their lives calmly and composedly. Indeed it is
weakness, not affection, which produces such endless misery and dread to
those who have not learned to take a rational view of the uncertainty of life,
and who cannot enjoy the presence of their loved ones because of their
constant agony for fear of losing them. We should not make ourselves poor
for fear of losing our property, nor should we guard ourselves against a
possible loss of friends by making none; still less ought we to avoid having
children for fear that our child might die. But we have already dwelt too
much upon this subject.
VIII. After a long and harassing war with the Megarians about the
possession of the Island of Salamis, the Athenians finally gave up in sheer
weariness, and passed a law forbidding any one for the future, either to
speak or to write in favour of the Athenian claim to Salamis, upon pain of

death. Solon, grieved at this dishonour, and observing that many of the
younger men were eager for an excuse to fight, but dared not propose to do
so because of this law, pretended to have lost his reason. His family gave
out that he was insane, but he meanwhile composed a poem, and when he
had learned it by heart, rushed out into the market-place wearing a small
felt cap, and having assembled a crowd, mounted the herald's stone and
recited the poem which begins with the lines—

"A herald I from Salamis am come,
My verse will tell you what should there be done."

The name of this poem is Salamis; it consists of a hundred beautifully
written lines. After he had sung it, his friends began to commend it, and
Peisistratus made a speech to the people, which caused such enthusiasm
that they abrogated the law and renewed the war, with Solon as their leader.
The common version of the story runs thus: Solon sailed with Peisistratus to
Kolias, where he found all the women of the city performing the customary
sacrifice to Demeter (Ceres). At the same time, he sent a trusty man to
Salamis, who represented himself as a deserter, and bade the Megarians
follow him at once to Kolias, if they wished to capture all the women of the
first Athenian families. The Megarians were duped, and sent off a force in a
ship. As soon as Solon saw this ship sail away from the island, he ordered
the women out of the way, dressed up those young men who were still
beardless in their clothes, headdresses, and shoes, gave them daggers, and
ordered them to dance and disport themselves near the seashore until the
enemy landed, and their ship was certain to be captured. So the Megarians,
imagining them to be women, fell upon them, struggling which should first
seize them, but they were cut off to a man by the Athenians, who at once
sailed to Salamis and captured it.
IX. Others say that the island was not taken in this way, but that first of all
Solon received the following oracular response from Apollo at Delphi:

"Appease the land's true lords, the heroes blest,
Who near Asopia's fair margin rest,
And from their tombs still look towards the West."

After this, Solon is said to have sailed by night, unnoticed by the
Megarians, and to have sacrificed to the heroes Periphemus and Kychreus.
His next act was to raise five hundred Athenian volunteers, who by a public
decree were to be absolute masters of the island if they could conquer it.
With these he set sail in a number of fishing-boats, with a triaconter or ship
of war of thirty oars, sailing in company, and anchored off a certain cape
which stretches towards Euboea. The Megarians in Euboea heard an
indistinct rumour of this, and at once ran to arms, and sent a ship to
reconnoitre the enemy. This ship, when it came near Solon's fleet, was
captured and its crew taken prisoners. On board of it Solon placed some
picked men, and ordered them to make sail for the city of Salamis, and to
conceal themselves as far as they could. Meanwhile he with the remaining
Athenians attacked the Megarian forces by land; and while the battle was at
its hottest, the men in the ship succeeded in surprising the city.
This story appears to be borne out by the proceedings which were instituted
in memory of the capture. In this ceremony an Athenian ship used to sail to
Salamis, at first in silence, and then as they neared the shore with warlike
shouts. Then a man completely armed used to leap out and run, shouting as
he went, up to the top of the hill called Skiradion, where he met those who
came by land. Close by this place stands the temple of Ares, which Solon
built; for he conquered the Megarians in the battle, and sent away the
survivors with a flag of truce.
X. However, as the Megarians still continued the war, to the great misery of
both sides, they agreed to make the Lacedaemonians arbitrators and judges
between them. Most writers say that Solon brought the great authority of
Homer's 'Iliad' to his aid, by interpolating in the catologue of ships the two
verses—

"Ajax from Salamis twelve vessels good
Brought, and he placed them where the Athenians stood,"

which he had read as evidence before the court.
The Athenians, however, say that all this is nonsense, but that Solon proved
to the arbitrators that Philaeus and Eurysakes, the sons of Ajax, when they
were enrolled as Athenian citizens, made over the island to Athens, and

dwelt, one at Brauron, in Attica, and the other at Melité; moreover, there is
an Athenian tribe which claims descent from Philaeus, to which Peisistratus
belonged. Wishing, however, yet more thoroughly to prove his case against
the Megarians, he based an argument on the tombs in the island, in which
the corpses were buried, not in the Megarian, but in the Athenian manner.
For the Megarians bury their dead looking towards the east, and the
Athenians towards the west. But Hereas of Megara denies this, and says
that the Megarians also bury their dead looking towards the west, and
moreover, that each Athenian had a coffin to himself, while the Megarians
place two or three bodies in one coffin. However, Solon supported his case
by quoting certain oracles from Delphi, in which the god addresses Salamis
as Ionian. The Spartan arbitrators were five in number, their names being
Kritolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsichidas, Anaxilos, and Kleomenes.
XI. Solon's reputation and power were greatly increased by this, but he
became much more celebrated and well-known in Greece by his speeches
on behalf of the temple at Delphi, in which he urged the necessity of
checking the insolent conduct of the people of Kirrha towards the temple,
and of rallying in defence of the god. The Amphiktyons, prevailed upon by
his eloquence, declared war, as we learn from Aristotle, among other
writers, in his book about the winners of the prize at the Pythian games, in
which he attributes this decision to Solon. However, he was not made
general in that war, as Hermippus relates, quoting from Evanthes of Samos;
for Aeschines the orator does not mention him, and, in the records of
Delphi, Alkmaeon, not Solon, is mentioned as general of the Athenians on
that occasion.
XII. Athens had long been suffering from the anger of the gods, which it
had incurred by the treatment of Kylon's party. These conspirators took
sanctuary in Athene's temple, but were induced by Megakles the archon to
quit it and stand their trial. They fastened a thread to the shrine of the
goddess, and kept hold of it so as still to be under her protection. But as
they were coming down from the Acropolis, just beside the temple of the
Furies, the string broke, and Megakles and the other archons, thinking that
the goddess rejected their appeal, seized them. Some of them were stoned to
death outside the temple, and some who had fled for sanctuary to the altars
were slain there. Only those who fell as suppliants at the feet of the archons'
wives were spared. After this the archons were called accursed, and were

viewed with horror; moreover, the survivors of Kylon's party regained
strength, and continued their intrigues against Megakles and the archons. At
the time of which we are speaking these dissensions had reached their
height, and the city was divided into two factions, when Solon, who was
already a man of great reputation, came forward with some of the noblest
Athenians, and by his entreaties and arguments prevailed upon those
magistrates who were called accursed, to stand trial and be judged by a jury
of three hundred citizens selected from the best families. Myron of Phlya
prosecuted, and the archons were found guilty, and forced to leave the
country. The bodies of such of them as had died were dug up, and cast out
beyond the borders of Attica.
During these disorders the Athenians were again attacked by the Megarians,
and lost Nisaea, and were again driven out of Salamis. The city was also a
prey to superstitious terrors, and apparitions were seen, so that the prophets,
after inspecting their victims, said that the city was polluted and under a
curse, and that it required purification. Upon this they sent for Epimenides
the Phaestian, of Crete, who is reckoned among the seven wise men of
Greece, by some of those who do not admit Periander into their number. He
was thought to enjoy the favour of Heaven, and was skilled in all the lore of
the sacred mysteries, and in the sources of divine inspiration; wherefore he
was commonly reported to be the child of the nymph Balte, and to be one of
the old Curetes of Crete revived. He came to Athens and was a friend to
Solon, assisting him greatly in his legislation. He remodelled their religious
rites, and made their mourning more moderate, introducing certain
sacrifices shortly after the funeral, and abolishing the harsh and barbarous
treatment which women were for the most part subject to before in times of
mourning. Above all, by purifications and atoning sacrifices, and the
erection of new temples, he so sanctified and hallowed the city as to make
the minds of the people obedient to the laws, and easily guided into unity
and concord. It is said that he saw Munychia, and viewed it carefully for
some time in silence. Then he said to the bystanders, "How blind is man to
the future. The Athenians would eat this place up with their teeth if they
knew what misfortunes it will bring upon them?" A prophetic saying of the
same kind is attributed to Thales. He bade his friends bury him in a low and
neglected quarter of Miletus, telling them that one day it would be the
market-place of the city. Epimenides was greatly honoured by the

Athenians, and was offered large sums of money by them, and great
privileges, but he refused them all, and only asked for a branch of the
sacred olive-tree, which he received and went his way.
XIII. When the troubles about Kylon were over, and the accursed men cast
out of the country, the Athenians relapsed into their old dispute about the
constitution. The state was divided into as many factions as there were parts
of the country, for the Diakrii, or mountaineers, favoured democracy; the
Pedioei, oligarchy; while those who dwelt along the seashore, called Parali,
preferred a constitution midway between these two forms, and thus
prevented either of the other parties from carrying their point. Moreover, the
state was on the verge of revolution, because of the excessive poverty of
some citizens, and the enormous wealth of others, and it appeared that the
only means of putting an end to these disorders was by establishing an
absolute despotism. The whole people were in debt to a few wealthy men;
they either cultivated their farms, in which case they were obliged to pay
one-sixth of the profit to their creditors, and were called Hektemori, or
servants, or else they had raised loans upon personal security, and had
become the slaves of their creditors, who either employed them at home, or
sold them to foreigners. Many were even compelled to sell their own
children, which was not illegal, and to leave the country because of the
harshness of their creditors.
The greater part, and those of most spirit, combined together, and
encouraged one another not to suffer such oppression any longer, but to
choose some trustworthy person to protect their interests, to set free all
enslaved debtors, redistribute the land, and, in a word, entirely remodel the
constitution.
XIV. In this position of affairs, the most sensible men in Athens perceived
that Solon was a person who shared the vices of neither faction, as he took
no part in the oppressive conduct of the wealthy, and yet had sufficient
fortune to save him from the straits to which the poor were reduced. In
consequence of this, they begged him to come forward and end their
disputes. But Phanias of Lesbos says that Solon deceived both parties, in
order to save the state, promising the poor a redistribution of lands, and the
rich a confirmation of their securities. However, Solon himself tells us that
it was with reluctance that he interfered, as he was threatened by the avarice

of the one party, and the desperation of the other. He was chosen archon
next after Philombrotus, to act as an arbitrator and lawgiver at once,
because the rich had confidence in him as a man of easy fortune, and the
poor trusted him as a good man. It is said also that a saying which he had let
fall some time before, that "equality does not breed strife," was much
circulated at the time, and pleased both parties, because the rich thought it
meant that property should be distributed according to merit and desert,
while the poor thought it meant according to rule and measure. Both parties
were now elate with hope, and their leaders urged Solon to seize the
supreme power in the state, of which he was practically possessed, and
make himself king. Many even of the more moderate class of politicians,
who saw how weary and difficult a task it would be to reform the state by
debates and legislative measures, were quite willing that so wise and honest
a man should undertake the sole management of affairs. It is even said that
Solon received an oracle as follows:

"Take thou the helm, the vessel guide,
Athens will rally to thy side."

His intimate friends were loudest in their reproaches, pointing out that it
was merely the name of despot from which he shrunk, and that in his case
his virtues would lead men to regard him as a legitimate hereditary
sovereign; instancing also Tunnondas, who in former times had been chosen
by the Euboeans, and, at the present time, Pittakus, who had been chosen
king of Mitylene. But nothing could shake Solon's determination. He told
his friends that monarchy is indeed a pleasant place, but there is no way out
of it; and he inserted the following verses in answer to Phokus, in one of his
poems:

"But if I spared
My country, and with dread tyrannic sway,
Forbore to stain and to pollute my glory;
I feel no shame at this; nay rather thus,
I think that I excel mankind."

From which it is clear that he possessed a great reputation even before he
became the lawgiver of Athens.

In answer to the reproaches of many of his friends at his refusal to make
himself despot, he wrote as follows:

"Not a clever man was Solon, not a calculating mind,
For he would not take the kingdom, which the gods to him
inclined,
In his net he caught the prey, but would not draw it forth to
land,
Overpowered by his terrors, feeble both of heart and hand;
For a man of greater spirit would have occupied the throne,
Proud to be the Lord of Athens, though 'twere for a day
alone,
Though the next day he and his into oblivion were thrown."

XV. This is the way in which he says the masses, and low-minded men,
spoke of him. He, however, firmly rejecting the throne, proceeded quietly to
administer public affairs, in laying down his laws without any weak
yielding to the powerful, or any attempt to court popularity. Such as were
good, he did not meddle with, fearing that if he

"Disturbed and overset the state,"

he might not have sufficient power to

"Reconstitute and organise again,"

in the best way. He carried out his measures by persuasion, and, where he
thought he could succeed, by force; in his own words,

"Combining Force and Justice both together."

Being afterwards asked whether he had composed the best possible laws for
the Athenians, he answered, "The best that they would endure." And the
habit of Athenians of later times, who soften down harsh words by using
politer equivalents, calling harlots "mistresses," taxes "contributions,"
garrisons of cities "protectors," and the common prison "the house," was, it
seems, first invented by Solon, who devised the name of "relief from
burdens" for his measure to abolish all debts.

This was his first measure; namely, to put an end to all existing debts and
obligations, and to forbid any one in future to lend money upon security of
the person of the debtor. Some writers, among whom is Androtion, say that
he benefited the poor, not by the absolute extinction of debt, but by
establishing a lower rate of interest; and that this measure was called
"Relief from burdens," and together with it the two other measures for the
enlargement of measures and of the value of money, which were passed
about the same time. For he ordered a mina, which was before constituted
of seventy three drachmas, to contain a hundred, so that, though they paid
the same amount, yet the value was less; thus those who had much to pay
were benefited, and still their creditors were not cheated. But most writers
say that the "Relief from burdens" meant the extinction of all securities
whatever, and this agrees best with what we read in his poems. For Solon
prides himself in these upon having

"Taken off the mortgages, which on the land were laid,
And made the country free, which was formerly enslaved."

While he speaks of bringing back Athenian citizens who had been sold into
slavery abroad,

"In distant lands who roam,
Their native tongue forgot,
Or here endure at home
A slave's disgraceful lot,"

and of making them free men again.
It is said that in consequence of this measure he met with the greatest
trouble of his life. As he was meditating how he might put an end to debt,
and what words and preambles were best for the introduction of this law, he
took counsel with his most intimate friends, such as Konon and Kleinias
and Hipponikus, informing them that he had no intention of interfering with
the tenure of land, but that he intended to abolishing all existing securities.
They instantly took time by the forelock, borrowed large sums from the
wealthy, and bought up a great extent of land. Presently the decree came
forth, and they remained in enjoyment of these estates, but did not repay
their loan to their creditors. This brought Solon into great discredit, for the

people believed that he had been their accomplice. But he soon proved that
this must be false, by remitting a debt of five talents which he himself had
lent; and some state the sum at fifteen talents, amongst whom is Polyzelus
of Rhodes. However, his friends were for ever afterwards called "The
Swindlers."
XVI. By this measure he pleased neither party, but the rich were dissatisfied
at the loss of their securities, and the poor were still more so because the
land was not divided afresh, as they hoped it would be, and because he had
not, like Lykurgus, established absolute equality.
But Lykurgus was eleventh in direct descent from Herakles, and had
reigned in Lacedaemon for many years, and had his own great reputation,
friends, and interest to assist him in carrying out his reforms: and although
he chose to effect his purpose by violence, so that his eye was actually
knocked out, yet he succeeded in carrying that measure, so valuable for the
safety and concord of the state, by which it was rendered impossible for any
citizen to be either rich or poor. Solon's power could not reach this height,
as he was only a commoner and a moderate man; yet he did all that was in
his power, relying solely upon the confidence and goodwill of his
countrymen.
It is clear that they were disappointed, and expected more from his
legislation, from his own verses—

"Once they speculated gaily, what good luck should them
befall,
Now they look upon me coldly, as a traitor to them all."

Yet he says, if any one else had been in his position,

"He ne'er would have desisted from unsettling the laws,
Till he himself got all the cream."

However, not long afterwards, they perceived the public benefits which he
had conferred upon them, forgot their private grievances, and made a public
sacrifice in honour of the Seisachtheia, or "Relief from burdens." Moreover,
they constituted Solon supreme reformer and lawgiver, not over some
departments only, but placing everything alike in his hands; magistracies,

public assemblies, senate, and law-courts. He had full powers to confirm or
abolish any of these, and to fix the proper qualifications for members of
them, and their numbers and times of meeting.
XVII. First of all, then, he repealed all the laws of Drakon, except those
relating to murder, because of their harshness and the excessive
punishments which they awarded. For death was the punishment for almost
every offence, so that even men convicted of idleness were executed, and
those who stole pot-herbs or fruits suffered just like sacrilegious robbers
and murderers. So that Demades afterwards made the joke that Drakon's
laws were not written with ink, but with blood. It is said that Drakon
himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most
offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and
he had no greater punishment for more important ones.
XVIII. In the next place, Solon, who wished to leave all magistracies as he
found them, in the hands of the wealthy classes, but to give the people a
share in the rest of the constitution, from which they were then excluded,
took a census of the wealth of the citizens, and made a first class of those
who had an annual income of not less than five hundred medimni of dry or
liquid produce; these he called Pentakosiomedimni. The next class were the
Hippeis, or knights, consisting of those who were able to keep a horse, or
who had an income of three hundred medimni. The third class were the
Zeugitae, whose property qualification was two hundred medimni of dry or
liquid produce; and the last class were the Thetes, whom Solon did not
permit to be magistrates, but whose only political privilege was the right of
attending the public assemblies and sitting as jurymen in the law courts.
This privilege was at first insignificant, but afterwards became of infinite
importance, because most disputes were settled before a jury. Even in those
cases which he allowed the magistrates to settle, he provided a final appeal
to the people.
Solon moreover is said to have purposely worded his laws vaguely and with
several interpretations, in order to increase the powers of these juries,
because persons who could not settle their 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 and
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
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 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 idle. A
harsher measure was that of which we are told by Herakleides of Pontus,
his making it unnecessary for illegitimate children to maintain their father.
Yet if a man abstains from an honourable marriage, and lives with a woman

more for his own pleasure in her society than with a view to producing a
family, he is rightly served, and cannot upbraid his children with neglecting
him, because he has made their birth their reproach.
XXIII. Altogether Solon's laws concerning women are very strange. He
permitted a husband to kill an adulterer taken in the act; but if any one
carried off a free woman and forced her, he assessed the penalty at one
hundred drachmas. If he obtained her favours by persuasion, he was to pay
twenty drachmas, except in the case of those who openly ply for hire,
alluding to harlots; for they come to those who offer them money without
any concealment. Moreover, he forbade men to sell their sisters and
daughters, except in the case of unchastity. Now to punish the same offence
at one time with unrelenting severity, and at another in a light and trifling
manner, by imposing so slight a fine, is unreasonable, unless the scarcity of
specie in the city at that period made fines which were paid in money more
valuable than they would now be; indeed, in the valuation of things for
sacrifice, a sheep and a drachma were reckoned as each equal to a
medimnus of corn. To the victor at the Isthmian games he appointed a
reward of a hundred drachmas, and to the victor in the Olympian, five
hundred. He gave five drachmas for every wolf that was killed, and one
drachma for every wolf's whelp; and we are told by Demetrius of Phalerum
that the first of these sums was the price of an ox, and the second that of a
sheep. The prices of choice victims, which he settled in his sixteenth tablet
of laws, would naturally be higher than those of ordinary beasts, but even
thus they are cheap compared with prices at the present day. It was an
ancient practice among the Athenians to destroy the wolves, because their
country was better fitted for pasture than for growing crops. Some say that
the Athenian tribes derive their names, not from the sons of Ion, but from
the different professions in which men were then divided: thus the fighting
men were named Hoplites, and the tradesmen Ergadeis; the two remaining
ones being the Geleontes, or farmers, and the Aigikoreis, or goat-herds and
graziers. With regard to water, as the country is not supplied with either
rivers or lakes, but the people depend chiefly upon artificial wells, he made
a law, that wherever there was a public well within four furlongs, people
should use it, but if it were farther off, then they must dig a private well for
themselves; but if a man dug a depth of sixty feet on his own estate without
finding water, then he was to have the right of filling a six-gallon pitcher

twice a day at his neighbour's well; for Solon thought it right to help the
distressed, and yet not to encourage laziness. He also made very judicious
regulations about planting trees, ordering that they should not be planted
within five feet of a neighbour's property, except in the case of olives and
fig-trees, which were not to be planted within nine feet; for these trees
spread out their roots farther than others, and spoil the growth of any others
by taking away their nourishment and by giving off hurtful juices. Trenches
and pits he ordered to be dug as far away from another man's property as
they were deep; and no hive of bees was to be placed within three hundred
feet of those already established by another man.
XXIV. Oil was the only product of the country which he allowed to be
exported, everything else being forbidden; and he ordered that if any one
broke this law the archon was to solemnly curse him, unless he paid a
hundred drachmas into the public treasury. This law is written on the first of
his tablets. From this we see that the old story is not altogether incredible,
that the export of figs was forbidden, and that the men who informed
against those who had done so were therefore called sycophants. He also
made laws about damage received from animals, one of which was that a
dog who had bitten a man should be delivered up to him tied to a stick three
cubits long, an ingenious device for safety.
One is astounded at his law of adopting foreigners into the state, which
permits no one to become a full citizen in Athens unless he be either exiled
for life from his native city, or transfers himself with his whole family to
Athens to practise his trade there. It is said that his object in this was not so
much to exclude other classes of people from the city, as to assure these of a
safe refuge there; and these he thought would be good and faithful citizens,
because the former had been banished from their own country, and the latter
had abandoned it of their own freewill. Another peculiarity of Solon's laws
was the public dining-table in the prytaneum. Here he did not allow the
same person to dine often, while he punished the man who was invited and
would not come, because the one seemed gluttonous, and the other
contemptuous.
XXV. He ordered that all his laws should remain in force for a hundred
years, and he wrote them upon triangular wooden tablets, which revolved
upon an axis in oblong recesses, some small remains of which have been

preserved in the prytaneum down to the present day. These, we are told by
Aristotle, were called Kurbeis. The comic poet Kratinus also says,

"By Solon and by Draco, mighty legislators once,
Whose tablets light the fire now to warm a dish of pulse."

Some say that the term Kurbeis is only applied to those on which are
written the laws which regulate religious matters.
The senate swore by a collective oath that it would enforce Solon's laws;
and each of the Thesmothetae took an oath to the same effect at the altar in
the market-place, protesting that, if he transgressed any of the laws, he
would offer a golden statue as big as himself to the temple at Delphi.
Observing the irregularity of the months, and that the motions of the moon
did not accord either with the rising or setting of the sun, but that frequently
she in the same day overtakes and passes by him, he ordered that day to be
called "the old and the new," and that the part of it before their conjunction
should belong to the old month, while the rest of the day after it belonged to
the new one, being, it seems, the first to rightly interpret the verse of Homer
—

"The old month ended and the new began."

He called the next day that of the new moon. After the twentieth, he no
longer reckoned forwards, but backwards, as the moon decreased, until the
thirtieth of the month.
When Solon had passed all his laws, as people came to him every day to
praise or blame, or advise him to add or take away from what he had
written, while innumerable people wanted to ask questions, and discuss
points, and kept bidding him explain what was the object of this or that
regulation, he, feeling that he could not do all this, and that, if he did not,
his motives would be misunderstood; wishing, moreover, to escape from
troubles and the criticism and fault-finding of his countrymen [for, as he
himself writes, it is "Hard in great measures every one to please"], made his
private commercial business an excuse for leaving the country, and set sail
after having obtained from the Athenians leave of absence for ten years. In
this time he thought they would become used to his laws.

XXVI. He first went to Egypt, where he spent some time, as he himself
says,

"At Nilus' outlets, by Canopus' strand."

And he also discussed points of philosophy with Psenophis of Heliopolis,
and with Sonchis of Sais, the most distinguished of the Egyptian priests.
From them he heard the tale of the island Atlantis, as we are told by Plato,
and endeavoured to translate it into a poetical form for the enjoyment of his
countrymen. He next sailed to Cyprus, where he was warmly received by
Philocyprus, one of the local sovereigns, who ruled over a small city
founded by Demophon, the son of Theseus, near the river Klarius, in a
position which was easily defended, but inconvenient.
As a fair plain lay below, Solon persuaded him to remove the city to a
pleasanter and less contracted site, and himself personally superintended the
building of the new city, which he arranged so well both for convenience
and safety, that many new settlers joined Philocyprus, and he was envied by
the neighbouring kings. For this reason, in honour of Solon, he named the
new city Soloi, the name of the old one having been Aipeia. Solon himself
mentions this event, in one of his elegiac poems, in which he addresses
Philocyprus, saying—

"Long may'st thou reign,
Ruling thy race from Soloi's throne with glory,
But me may Venus of the violet crown
Send safe away from Cyprus famed in story.
May Heaven to these new walls propitious prove,
And bear me safely to the land I love."

XXVII. Some writers argue, on chronological grounds, that Solon's
meeting with Croesus must have been an invention. But I cannot think that
so famous a story, which is confirmed by so many writers, and, moreover,
which so truly exhibits Solon's greatness of mind and wisdom, ought to be
given up because of the so-called rules of chronology, which have been
discussed by innumerable persons, up to the present day, without their being
ever able to make their dates agree. The story goes that Solon at Croesus's
desire came to Sardis, and there felt much like a continental when he goes

down to the seaside for the first time; for he thinks each river he comes to
must be the sea, and so Solon, as he walked through the court and saw
many of the courtiers richly attired and each of them swaggering about with
a train of attendants and body-guards, thought that each one must be the
king, until he was brought before the king himself, who, as far as precious
stones, richly dyed clothes, and cunningly worked gold could adorn him,
was splendid and admirable, indeed a grand and gorgeous spectacle to
behold. When Solon was brought into his presence, he showed none of the
feelings and made none of the remarks about the sight, which Croesus
expected, but evidently despised such vulgar ostentation. Croesus then
ordered his treasures to be exhibited to him, and all the rest of his
possessions and valuables; not that Solon needed this, for the sight of
Croesus himself was enough to show him what sort of man he was. When,
after having seen all this, he was again brought before the king, Croesus
asked him whether he knew any man more happy than himself. Solon at
once answered that one Tellus, a fellow countryman of his own, was more
happy. He explained that Tellus was a good man, and left a family of good
sons; that he passed his life beyond the reach of want, and died gloriously in
battle for his country. At this, Croesus began to think that Solon must be a
cross-grained churlish fellow, if he did not measure happiness by silver and
gold, but preferred the life and death of some private man of low degree to
such power and empire as his. However, he asked him a second time,
whether he knew any one more happy than himself, next to Tellus. Solon
answered that he knew two men, Kleobis and Biton, remarkable for their
love for each other and for their mother, who, as the oxen that drew their
mother travelled slowly, put themselves under the yoke and drew the
carriage with her in it to the temple of Here. She was congratulated by all
the citizens, and was very proud of them; and they offered sacrifice, drank
some wine, and then passed away by a painless death after so much glory.
"Then," asked Croesus angrily, "do you not reckon me at all among happy
men?" Solon, who did not wish to flatter him, nor yet to exasperate him
farther, answered, "O King of the Lydians, we Greeks have been endowed
with moderate gifts, by Heaven, and our wisdom is of a cautious and
homely cast, not of a royal and magnificent character; so, being moderate
itself, and seeing the manifold chances to which life is exposed, it does not
permit us to take a pride in our present possessions, nor to admire the good

fortune of any man when it is liable to change. Strange things await every
man in the unknown future; and we think that man alone happy whose life
has been brought to a fortunate termination. To congratulate a man who is
yet alive and exposed to the caprice of fortune is like proclaiming and
crowning as victor one who has not yet run his race, for his good fortune is
uncertain and liable to reversal." After speaking thus, Solon took his leave,
having enraged Croesus, who could not take his good advice.
XXVIII. Aesop, the writer of the fables, who had been sent for to Sardis by
Croesus and enjoyed his favour, was vexed at the king's ungracious
reception of Solon, and advised him thus: "Solon," said he, "one ought
either to say very little to kings or else say what they wish most to hear."
"Not so," said Solon; "one should either say very little to them, or else say
what is best for them to hear." So at that time Croesus despised Solon; but
after he had been defeated by Cyrus, his city taken, and he himself was
about to be burned alive upon a pyre erected in the presence of all the
Persians and of Cyrus himself, then he thrice cried out, "Solon," as loud as
he could. Cyrus, surprised at this, sent to ask what man or god Solon might
be, who was invoked by a man in such extremity. Croesus, without any
concealment said, "He is one of the wise men of Greece, whom I sent for,
not because I wished to listen to him and learn what I was ignorant of, but
in order that he might see and tell of my wealth, which I find it is a greater
misfortune to lose than it was a blessing to possess. For, while I possessed
it, all I enjoyed was opinion and empty talk; whereas, now the loss of it has
brought me in very deed into terrible and irreparable misfortunes and
sufferings. Now this man, who foresaw what might befall me, bade me look
to the end of my life, and not be arrogant on the strength of a fleeting
prosperity."
When this was reported to Cyrus, he being a wiser man than Croesus, and
finding Solon's words strongly borne out by the example before him, not
only released Croesus, but treated him with favour for the rest of his life; so
that Solon had the glory of having by the same words saved one king's life
and given instruction to another.
XXIX. During Solon's absence the strife of the factions at Athens was
renewed; Lykurgus was the chief of the party of the Pediaei, Megakles, the
son of Alkmaeon, led the Parali, and Peisistratus, the Diakrii, who were

joined by the mass of the poorer classes who hated the rich. Thus the city
still obeyed Solon's laws, but was longing for change, and all men hoped
for a new revolution, in which they trusted to get not only their rights, but
something more, and to triumph over the opposite faction. In this state of
affairs Solon landed at Athens, and was received with respect by all the
citizens. Although, on account of his age, he was no longer able to engage
in politics as keenly as before, still he met the leaders of the various factions
privately and endeavoured to arrange their differences and reconcile them to
one another. Peisistratus appeared to pay more attention to him than the
others, for he was crafty and pleasant of speech, a protector of the poor, and
a man of moderation even in his quarrels. The qualities which he had not,
he affected to possess, giving himself out to be a cautious and law-abiding
man, who loved even-handed justice and was enraged at any revolutionary
proceedings. Thus he deceived the people; but Solon soon saw through him,
and detected his plans before any one else. He was not shocked, but
endeavoured to turn him from his purpose by advice, saying to him and to
others that if his desire to be first and his wish to make himself master could
be removed, there would be no more excellent and virtuous citizen than
Peisistratus.
At this time Thespis was beginning to introduce the drama, and the novelty
of his exhibition attracted many people, although the regular contests were
not yet introduced. Solon, who was fond of seeing sights and gaining
knowledge, and whose old age was spent in leisure and amusements and
good fellowship, went to see Thespis, who acted in his own play, as the
ancient custom was. After the play was over, he asked him if he was not
ashamed to tell so many lies before so many people. When Thespis
answered that there was no harm in saying and doing these things in jest,
Solon violently struck the ground with his stick, saying, "If we praise and
approve of such jests as these, we shall soon find people jesting with our
business."
XXX. When Peisistratus wounded himself and was driven into the market-
place in a cart to excite the people, whom he told that he had been so treated
by his enemies because he defended the constitution, and while he was
surrounded by a noisy crowd of sympathisers, Solon came near him and
said, "Son of Hippokrates, you are dishonourably imitating Homer's
Ulysses. You are doing this to deceive your fellow citizens, while he

mutilated himself to deceive the enemy." Upon this, as the people were
willing to take up arms on behalf of Peisistratus, they assembled at the
Pnyx, where Ariston proposed that a body-guard of fifty club-bearers
should be assigned to Peisistratus. Solon opposed this, urging many
arguments, like what we read in his poems:

"You hang upon a crafty speaker's words;"

and again,

"Each alone a fox in cunning,
You grow stupid when you meet."

But as he saw that the poor were eager to serve Peisistratus, while the rich
held back from cowardice, he went away, after saying that he was wiser
than the one class, and braver than the other; wiser, namely, than those who
did not understand what was going on, and braver than those who did
understand, but did not dare to oppose the despotism with which they were
threatened.
The people carried the proposal, and would not be so mean as to make any
stipulation with Peisistratus about the number of his body-guard, but
permitted him to keep as many as he pleased until he seized the Acropolis.
When this took place, the city was convulsed; Megakles and the other
descendants of Alkmaeon fled, but Solon, although he was now very old
and had no one to stand by him, nevertheless came into the market-place
and addressed the citizens, reproaching them for their folly and remissness,
and urging them to make a final effort to retain their freedom. It was then
that he made the memorable remark that, in former days it would have been
easier for them to have prevented despotism from appearing amongst them,
but that now it would be more glorious to cut it down, when it had arrived
at its full growth. However, as no one listened to him, because of the
general terror, he went home, armed himself, and took his post in the street
outside his door, saying, "I have done all I could for my country and her
laws." After this he remained quiet, though his friends urged him to leave
Athens. He, however, wrote poems reproaching the Athenians—

"Through your own cowardice you suffered wrong,

Blame then yourselves and not the gods for this;
'Twas you yourselves that made the tyrant strong,
And rightly do you now your freedom miss."
XXXI. At this many of his friends told him that the despot would surely put
him to death, and when they asked him what he trusted to, that he
performed such mad freaks, he answered, "To my age." But Peisistratus,
after he became established as sovereign, showed such marked favour to
Solon that he even was advised by him, and received his approval in several
cases. For he enforced most of Solon's laws, both observing them himself
and obliging his friends to do so. Indeed, when accused of murder before
the court of the Areopagus, he appeared in due form to stand his trial, but
his accuser let the case fall through. He also made other laws himself, one
of which is that those who are maimed in war shall be kept at the public
expense. Herakleides says that this was done in imitation of Solon, who had
already proposed it in the case of Thersippus. But Theophrastus tells us that
it was not Solon, but Peisistratus, who made the law about idleness, by
means of which he rendered the city more quiet, and the country better
cultivated.
Solon also attempted to write a great poem about the fable of 'Atlantis,'
which he had learned from the chroniclers of Sais particularly concerned
the Athenians, but he did not finish it, not, as Plato says, for want of leisure,
but rather because of his advanced age, which made him fear that the task
was too great for him. His own words tell us that he had abundance of
leisure—

"Old I grow, but ever learning,"

and,

"Venus and Bacchus are all my care,
And the Muses, that charm the hearts of men."

Plato eagerly took in hand the scheme of the 'Atlantis,' as though it were a
fine site for a palace, which had come to be his by inheritance, still unbuilt
on. He placed in the beginning of it such splendid entrance-halls and
vestibules as we find in no other tale or legend or poem, but, as he began

the work too late, he died before he was able to finish it; so that the more
we enjoy what he has written, the more we grieve over what is lost. As the
temple of Olympic Zeus among the temples of Athens, so the 'Atlantis' is
the only one among Plato's many noble writings that is unfinished.
Solon lived on into the reign of Peisistratus for a long time, according to
Herakleides of Pontus, but less than two years, according to Phanias of
Eresus. For Peisistratus became despot in the archonship of Komius, and
Phanias tells us that Solon died during the archonship of Hegesistratus,
Komias' successor. The story that his ashes were scattered round the island
of Salamis is legendary and improbable, yet it is confirmed by many
trustworthy writers, amongst whom is the philosopher Aristotle.

LIFE OF POPLICOLA.
I. As a parallel to Solon we shall take Poplicola, who was honoured with
this name by the Romans, his original name having been Publius Valerius, a
supposed descendant of that Valerius who in ancient times was especially
instrumental in making the Romans and Sabines cease to be enemies and
become one people; for it was he who persuaded the two kings to meet and
make terms of peace. Valerius, a descendant of this hero, was a man of
eminence in Rome, which was then ruled by the kings, because of his
eloquence and wealth. He always spoke boldly on the side of justice, and
assisted the poor and needy with such kindness that it was clear that, in case
of a revolution, he would become the first man in the state.
Tarquinius Superbus, the king, had not come to his throne justly, but by
wicked and lawless violence, and as he reigned tyrannically and insolently,
the people hated him, and seized the opportunity of the death of Lucretia,
after her dishonour, to drive him out. Lucius Brutus, who was determined to
change the form of government, applied to Valerius first of all, and with his
vigorous assistance drove out the king. After these events Valerius kept
quiet, as long as it seemed likely that the people would choose a single
general to replace their king, because he thought that it was Brutus's right to
be elected, as he had been the leader of the revolution. However the people,
disgusted with the idea of monarchy, and thinking that they could more
easily endure to be ruled by two men, proposed that two consuls should be
chosen. Valerius now became a candidate, hoping that he and Brutus would
be elected; but he was not chosen. Brutus, instead of Valerius, whom he
would have preferred, had as a colleague Tarquinius Collatinus, the husband
of Lucretia, who was not a better man than Valerius, but was elected
because the men in power at Rome, seeing what intrigues the exiled king
was setting on foot to secure his return, wished to have for their general a
man who was his sworn personal enemy.
II. Valerius, disgusted at the idea that he was not trusted to fight for his
country because he had not suffered any personal wrong at the hands of the
king, left the senate, refused to attend public meetings, and ceased to take

any part whatever in public affairs, so that people began to fear that in his
rage he might go over to the king's party and destroy the tottering edifice of
Roman liberty. Brutus suspected some others besides him, and proposed on
a certain day to hold a solemn sacrifice and bind the senate by an oath.
Valerius, however, came cheerfully into the Forum, and was the first to
swear that he would never yield anything to the Tarquins, but would fight
for liberty to the death, by which he greatly delighted the senate and
encouraged the leading men of the state. His acts too, immediately
confirmed his words, for ambassadors came from Tarquin with specious
and seductive proposals, such as he thought would win over the people,
coming from a king who seemed to have laid aside his insolence and only
to wish for his just rights. The consuls thought it right that these proposals
should be laid before the people, but Valerius would not permit it, not
wishing that the poorer citizens, to whom the war was a greater burden than
the monarchy had been, should have any excuse for revolt.
III. After this came other ambassadors, announcing that Tarquin would give
up his throne, put an end to the war, and only ask for his own property and
that of his relatives and friends, upon which to live in exile. Many were
inclined to agree to this, and amongst them Collatinus, when Brutus, an
inflexible and harsh-tempered man, rushed into the Forum, calling out that
his colleague was a traitor, who wished to furnish the tyrant with the means
of continuing the war and recovering his throne, when he ought rather to
grudge him food to keep him from starving. The citizens assembled, and
Caius Minucius, a private citizen, was the first man who addressed them,
encouraging Brutus, and pointing out to the Romans how much better it was
that the money should be used to help them than to help their enemies. In
spite of this, however, the Romans decided that, as they now possessed the
liberty for which they had fought, they would not lose the additional
blessing of peace for the sake of this property, but would cast it from them
after the tyrant to which it belonged.
Tarquin really cared little for the property, and the demand was merely
made in order to sound the people and arrange a plot for the betrayal of the
state, which was managed by the ambassadors whom he had nominally sent
to look after his property. These men were selling some part of it, keeping
some safe, and sending some of it away, and meanwhile intrigued so
successfully that they won over two of the best families in Rome, that of the

Aquillii, in which were three senators, and that of the Vitellii, among whom
were two. All these men were, on the mother's side, nephews of the consul
Collatinus, and the Vitellii were also related to Brutus, for he had married
their sister, and by her had a large family. The Vitellii, being relatives and
intimate friends of the two elder sons of Brutus, induced them to take part
in the conspiracy, holding out to them the hope that they might ally
themselves to the great house of Tarquin, soon to be restored to the throne,
and would rid themselves of their father's stupidity and harshness. By
harshness, they alluded to his inexorable punishment of bad men, and the
stupidity was that which he himself affected for a long time, in order to
conceal his real character from the tyrant, which was made matter of
reproach to him afterwards.
IV. So, after they had persuaded these young men, they conferred again
with the Aquillii, and determined that all the conspirators should swear a
great and terrible oath, in which a man is killed, and each person then pours
a libation of his blood, and touches his entrails. The room in which they
meant to do this was, as may be supposed, a dark and half-ruined one. Now
a servant of the name of Vindicius happened to conceal himself in it; not
that he had any designs or any knowledge of what was going on, but
chancing to be in the room when the conspirators solemnly entered, he was
afraid of being detected there, and so hid himself behind a chest, where he
could see what was done and hear what was said by them. They agreed to
assassinate both consuls, and wrote a letter to Tarquin acquainting him with
their determination, which they gave to the ambassadors, who were lodging
in the house of the Aquillii as their guests, and were present at this scene.
After this they dispersed, and Vindicius came out from his hiding-place. He
was at a loss what use to make of the discovery which Fortune had thrown
in his way, for he thought it a shocking thing, as indeed it was, for him to
make such a fearful revelation to Brutus about his sons, or to Collatinus
about his nephews, and he would not trust any private citizen with a secret
of such importance. Tormented by his secret, and unable to remain quiet, he
addressed himself to Valerius, chiefly moved to do so by his affable kindly
temper; for his house was open all day to those who wished to speak with
him, and he never refused an interview or rejected a poor man's petition.
V. When, then, Vindicius came before him and told him all that he knew in
the presence only of his wife and his brother Marcus, Valerius was

astounded and horrified. He would not let the man go, but locked him up,
set his wife to guard the door, and bade his brother to surround the king's
quarters, to seize the letter, if possible, keeping a strict watch over all the
servants there. He himself, with a large train of clients, friends and servants,
went to the house of the Aquillii, who were not within. As no one expected
him, he pushed into the house and found the letter lying in the ambassadors'
apartments.
While he was thus employed, the Aquillii returned in haste, and assembling
a force at the door endeavoured to take away the letter from him. His own
party came to his assistance, and with their gowns twisted round their necks
with much buffeting made their way to the Forum. The same thing
happened at the king's quarters, where Marcus laid hold of another letter
which was being taken thither concealed among some baggage, and brought
as many of the king's party as he could into the Forum.
VI. When the consuls had put a stop to the confusion, Vindicius, at
Valerius's command, was brought out of his prison, and a court was held.
The letters were recognised, and the culprits had nothing to say for
themselves. All were silent and downcast, and a few, thinking to please
Brutus, hinted at banishment as the penalty of their crime. Collatinus by his
tears, and Valerius by his silence gave them hopes of mercy. But Brutus,
addressing each of his sons by name, said, "Come, Titus, come Tiberius,
why do you make no answer to the charges against you?" As, after being
asked thrice, they made no answer, he, turning his face to the lictors, said, "I
have done my work, do yours." They immediately seized upon the young
men, tore off their clothes, tied their hands behind their backs, and scourged
them. Although the people had not the heart to look at so dreadful a sight,
yet it is said that Brutus never turned away his head, and showed no pity on
his stern countenance, but sat savagely looking on at the execution of his
sons until at last they were laid on the ground and their heads severed with
an axe. Then he handed over the rest of the culprits to be dealt with by his
colleague, rose, and left the Forum. His conduct cannot be praised, and yet
it is above censure. Either virtue in his mind overpowered every other
feeling, or his sorrow was so great as to produce insensibility. In neither
case was there anything unworthy, or even human in his conduct, but it was
either that of a god or a brute beast. It is better, however, that we should
speak in praise of so great a man rather than allow our weakness to distrust

his virtue. Indeed the Romans think that even the foundation of the city by
Romulus was not so great an event as the confirmation of its constitution by
Brutus.
VII. When he left the Forum all men were silent for a long while,
shuddering at what had been done. The Aquillii took heart at the mildness
of Collatinus, and asked for time to prepare their defence. They also begged
that Vindicius might be given up to them, because he was their servant, and
ought not to be on the side of their accusers. Collatinus was willing to allow
this, but Valerius said that he was not able to give the man up, because he
was surrounded by so large a crowd, and called upon the people not to
disperse without punishing the traitors. At last he laid his hands upon the
two corpses, called for Brutus, and reproached Collatinus for making his
colleague act against nature by condemning his own sons to death, and then
thinking to please the wives of these traitors and public enemies by saving
their lives. The consul, vexed at this, ordered the lictors to seize Vindicius.
They forced their way through the crowd, tried to lay hold of him, and
struck those who defended him, but the friends of Valerius stood in front of
him and beat them off, and the people raised a shout for Brutus. He
returned, and when silence was restored said that he had, as a father, full
power to condemn his sons to death, but that as for the other culprits, their
fate should be decided by the free vote of the citizens, and that any one
might come forward and address the people. The people, however, would
listen to no speeches, but voted unanimously for their death, and they were
all beheaded.
Collatinus, it seems, had been viewed with suspicion before because of his
connection with the royal family, and his second name, Tarquinius, was
odious to the people. After these events, having utterly failed as consul, he
voluntarily laid down that office, and left the city. So now there was another
election, and Valerius received the due reward of his patriotism and was
gloriously made consul. Thinking that Vindicius ought to receive something
for his services, he made him a freedman, the first ever made in Rome, and
allowed him to vote in whatever tribe he chose to be enrolled. The other
freedmen were not allowed the suffrage till, long after, it was given them by
Appius to obtain popularity among them. The whole ceremony is up to the
present day called vindicta, after Vindicius, we are told.

VIII. After this they allowed the king's property to be plundered, and
destroyed the palace. Tarquinius had obtained the pleasantest part of the
Field of Mars, and had consecrated it to that god. This field had just been
cut, and the corn lay on the ground, for the people thought that they must
not thresh it or make any use of it, because of the ground being consecrated,
so they took the sheaves and threw them into the river. In the same way
they cut down the trees and threw them in, leaving the whole place for the
god, but uncultivated and unfruitful. As there were many things of different
sorts all floating together in the river, the current did not carry them far, but
when the first masses settled on a shallow place, the rest which were carried
down upon them could not get past, but became heaped up there, and the
stream compacted them securely by the mud which it deposited upon them,
not only increasing the size of the whole mass, but firmly cementing it
together. The waves did not shake it, but gently beat it into a solid
consistency. Now, from its size, it began to receive additions, as most of
what the river brought down settled upon it. It is now a sacred island close
by the city, with temples and walks, and in the Latin tongue it has a name
which means "between two bridges." Some state that this did not happen
when Tarquinia's field was consecrated, but in later times when Tarquinia
gave up another field next to that one, for the public use. This Tarquinia was
a priestess, one of the Vestal virgins, and she was greatly honoured for
having done so, and was allowed to appear as a witness in court, which no
other woman could do; she also was permitted to marry, by a decree of the
senate, but did not avail herself of it. These are the legends which they tell
about this island.
IX. Tarquin now gave up all hopes of recovering his throne by intrigue, and
appealed to the Etruscans, who willingly espoused his cause and
endeavoured to restore him with a great army. The consuls led out the
Romans to fight against them, posting them in holy places one of which is
called the Arsian grove, and another the Aesuvian meadow. When they were
about to join battle, Aruns, the son of Tarquin, and Brutus, the Roman
consul, attacked one another, not by chance, but with fell hatred and rage,
the one urging his horse against the tyrant and enemy of his country, the
other against the man who drove him into exile. Falling upon one another
with more fury than judgment, they made no attempt to defend themselves,
but only to strike, and both perished. The struggle, so terribly begun, was

continued with equal ferocity on both sides, until the armies, after great
losses, were separated by a tempest. Valerius was in great straits, not
knowing how the battle had gone, and observing that his soldiers were
despondent when they looked at the corpses of their comrades, and elated
when they saw those of the enemy, so equal and undecided had been the
slaughter. Yet each side, when it viewed its own dead close by, was more
inclined to own itself defeated, than to claim the victory because of the
supposed losses of the enemy. Night came on, and it was spent as may be
imagined by men who had fought so hard. When all was quiet in both
camps, we are told that the grove was shaken, and that from it proceeded a
loud voice which declared that the Etruscans had lost one man more than
the Romans. Apparently it was the voice of a god; for immediately the
Romans raised a bold and joyous shout, and the Etruscans, panic-stricken,
ran out of their camp and dispersed. The Romans attacked the camp, took
prisoners all that were left in it, something less than five thousand, and
plundered it. The dead, when counted, proved to be eleven thousand three
hundred of the enemy, and of the Romans the same number save one. This
battle is said to have been fought on the Calends of March. Valerius
triumphed after it in a four-horse chariot, being the first consul that ever did
so. And it was a magnificent sight, and did not, as some say, offend the
spectators; for, if so, the habit of doing it would not have been so carefully
kept up for so many years. The people were also pleased with the honours
which Valerius paid to his colleague in arranging a splendid funeral for him;
he also pronounced a funeral oration over him, which was so much
approved of by the Romans that from that day forth it became the custom
for all good and great men at their deaths to have an oration made over
them by the leading men of the time. This is said to have been older even
than the Greek funeral orations, unless, as Anaximenes tells us, Solon
introduced this custom.
X. But the people were vexed and angry, because though Brutus, whom
they thought the author of their liberty, would not be consul alone, but had
one colleague after another, yet "Valerius," they said, "has got all power
into his own hands, and is not so much the heir of the consulship of Brutus
as of the tyranny of Tarquin. And what use is it for him to praise Brutus
while he imitates Tarquin in his deeds, swaggering down into the Forum
with all the rods and axes before him, from a house larger than the king's

palace used to be." Indeed, Valerius lived in rather too splendid a house on
the Velian Hill, looking down into the Forum, and difficult to climb up to,
so that when he walked down from it he did indeed look like a tragedy king
leaving his palace. But now he proved how valuable a thing it is for a
statesman engaged in important matters to keep his ears open to the truth,
and shut against flattery. Hearing from his friends what the people thought
of him, he did not argue or grieve at it, but suddenly assembled a number of
workmen and during the night destroyed his entire house down to the very
foundations, so that on the next day the Romans collected in crowds to see
it, admiring the magnanimity of the man, but sorrowing at the destruction of
so great and noble a house, which, like many a man, had been put to death
undeservedly, and expressing their concern for their consul, who had no
house to live in. Valerius, indeed, had to be entertained by his friends, until
the people gave him a site and built him a house upon it, of more moderate
proportions than the other, in the place where at the present day stands the
temple of Vica Pota. Wishing to make not only himself but his office cease
to be an object of terror to his countrymen, he removed the axes from the
bundles of rods carried by the lictors, and when he entered the assembly of
the people he ordered his fasces to be bowed and lowered before them, to
show respect to the majesty of the people. This custom the consuls observe
to this day. By these acts he did not really humble himself as he appeared to
the Romans to be doing, but he so completely destroyed any illwill which
had been felt against him that by giving up the semblance of power he
really gained the reality, as the people were eager to serve him and obey
him. For this reason they surnamed him Poplicola, which means "lover of
the people," and this name so took the place of his former one that we shall
use it during the remainder of this account of his life.
XI. He permitted any one to become a candidate for the consulship; and
while he was sole consul he used his power to effect the greatest of his
reforms, because he did not know who his new colleague might be, and
whether he would not thwart him through ignorance or illwill. First of all he
brought up the senate to its proper number, for many senators had perished,
some at Tarquin's hands in former years, and some in the late battle. It is
said that he elected no less than a hundred and sixty-four new senators.
After this, he enacted laws which greatly added to the power of the people,
the first one of which gave accused persons a power of appeal from the

decision of the consuls to the people. The second appointed the penalty of
death to those who entered upon any public office without the consent of
the people. The third was to assist the poor, as it relieved them from taxes
and enabled them all to apply themselves with greater assiduity to trade.
The law, too, which he enacted about disobedience to the consuls is no less
popular in its spirit, and favours the people more than the great nobles. He
assessed the fine for disobedience at the price of five oxen and two sheep.
Now the value of a sheep was ten obols, and that of an ox a hundred, for at
this period the Romans did not make much use of coined money, but
possessed abundance of cattle. For this reason at this day they call property
peculia, from pecus, a sheep, and on their oldest coins they marked the
figure of an ox, a sheep, or a pig. Their children, too, were distinguished by
the names of Suillii, Bubulci, Caprarii and Porcii, for capra means a goat,
and porcus a pig.
XII. Though Poplicola favoured the people so much in these laws, and
showed such great moderation, yet in one instance he appointed a terrible
penalty. One of his laws enacted that any citizen was at liberty to put to
death anyone who tried to make himself king, without any form of trial. No
penalty was to be enforced, if the man could bring forward proofs of the
other's intention. His reason for this was that it was impossible for any one
to attempt to make himself king, unperceived by some of his countrymen,
but quite possible for him, although detected, to become too powerful to be
brought to trial. So, before he made his attempt on the crown, any one was
at liberty to exact from him that penalty, which he would be unable to do
after his success.
His law about the treasury was also much approved. It being necessary that
the citizens should contribute taxes to carry on the war, as he did not wish
to touch the revenue himself or to allow his friends to do so, and was even
unwilling that the public money should be brought into a private man's
house, he appointed the Temple of Saturn to be used as a treasury, which it
is to this day, and he appointed also two of the younger citizens as
quaestors, to manage the accounts. The first quaestors were Publius
Venturius and Marcus Minucius, and a large sum of money was collected,
for a hundred and thirty thousand persons were taxed, although orphans and
widows were exempted.

When he had settled all these matters, he nominated Lucretius, the father of
Lucretia, as his colleague, and gave up the fasces to him as a mark of
respect, because he was the elder man. This custom, that the elder of the
two consuls has the fasces carried before him, remains to this day. As
Lucretius died shortly afterwards, a new election took place, and Marcus
Horatius was elected, and acted as Poplicola's colleague for the remainder
of his year of office.
XIII. As Tarquin was stirring up the Etruscans to a second war with Rome,
a great portent is said to have taken place. While he was yet king, and had
all but finished the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, he, either in accordance
with some prophecy or otherwise, ordered certain Etruscan workmen at Veii
to make an earthenware four-horse chariot to be placed on the top of the
temple. Shortly afterwards he was driven from the throne, and the chariot,
which had been modelled in clay, was placed in the furnace. Here it did not,
as clay generally does, shrink and become smaller in the fire, as the wet
dries out of it, but swelled to so great a size, and became so hard and strong
that it could only be got out of the furnace by taking off the roof and sides.
As this was decided by the prophets to be a sign from Heaven that those
who possessed the chariot would be prosperous and fortunate, the
Veientines determined not to give it up to the Romans, arguing that it
belonged to Tarquin, not to those who had cast him out.
A few days afterwards there were horse-races there; everything proceeded
as usual, but as the driver of the winning chariot, after receiving his crown
as victor, was driving slowly out of the circus, the horses suddenly became
excited for no apparent cause, and, either guided by Heaven or by chance,
rushed towards Rome, their driver with them, for he finding it impossible to
stop them was forced to let them whirl him along until they reached the
Capitol, where they threw him down near what is called the Ratumenan
Gate. The Veientines, struck with fear and wonder at this event, permitted
the workmen to deliver up the earthenware chariot to the Romans.
XIV. Tarquinius the son of Demaratus, when at war with the Sabines,
vowed that he would build the temple of Jupiter Olympius, but it was built
by Tarquinius Superbus, the son or grandson of him who made the vow. He
had not time to dedicate it, but was dethroned just before its completion.
Now when it was finished and thoroughly decorated, Poplicola was eager to

have the glory of dedicating it. Many of the nobles, however, grudged him
this, and were more incensed at this than at all the glory which he had won
as a general and as a legislator; for that, they said, was his vocation, but this
was not. They stirred up Horatius to oppose him and urged him to claim the
right to dedicate the temple. So when Poplicola was of necessity absent on
military service, the senate decreed that Horatius should dedicate it, and
brought him up into the Capitol to do so, a thing which they never could
have done had Poplicola been present. Some say that the two consuls casts
lots, and that the one, sorely against his will, drew the lot to command the
army in the field, and the other that to dedicate the temple. But we may
conjecture how this was, from the events which took place at the
dedication. On the Ides of September, which corresponds with the full
moon in our month Metageitnion, all the people assembled in the Capitol,
and Horatius, after silence had been enjoined upon all, performed the
ceremony of dedication. When, as is customary, he was about to take hold
of the doors of the temple and say the prayer of dedication, Marcus,
Poplicola's brother, who had long been standing near the doors watching his
opportunity, said to him, "Consul, your son has just died of sickness in the
camp." All who heard this were grieved, but Horatius, undisturbed, merely
said, "Fling his corpse where you please, for I cannot grieve for him," and
completed the dedication service. The story was false, invented by Marcus
to confuse Horatius. His conduct is a remarkable instance of presence of
mind, whether it be that he at once saw through the trick, or believed the
story and was not disturbed by it.
XV. The same fortune seems to have attended the second temple also. The
first, as we have related, was built by Tarquin, and dedicated by Horatius.
This was destroyed by fire in the civil wars. The second was built by Sulla,
but the name of Catulus appears as its dedicator, for Sulla died before it was
completed. This again was burned during the civil tumults in the time of
Vitellius, and Vespasian built a third, which had nearly the same fortune as
the others, except that he saw it completed, and did not see it shortly
afterwards destroyed, being thus more fortunate than Tarquin in seeing the
completion, and than Sulla in seeing the dedication of his work. When
Vespasian died the Capitol was burned. The fourth and present temple was
built and dedicated by Domitian. It is said that Tarquin spent forty thousand
pounds of silver in building the foundations; but there is no private citizen

in Rome at the present day who could bear the expense of gilding the
existing temple, which cost more than twelve thousand talents. Its columns
are of Pentelic marble, exquisitely proportioned, which I myself saw at
Athens; but at Rome they were again cut and polished, by which process
they did not gain so much in gloss as they lost in symmetry, for they now
appear too slender. However, if any one who wonders at the expense of the
temple in the Capitol were to see the splendour of any one portico, hall, or
chamber in the house of Domitian, he would certainly be led to parody that
line of Epicharmus upon an extravagant fellow,

"Not good-natured, but possessed with the disease of
giving,"

and would say that Domitian was not pious or admirable, but possessed
with the disease of building, and turned everything into bricks and mortar,
just as it is said Midas turned things into gold. So much for this.
XVI. Tarquin, after the great battle in which his son was slain by Brutus,
took refuge at Clusium and begged Lars Porsena, the most powerful king in
Italy, to assist him. He was thought to be an honourable and ambitious man,
and promised his aid. First he sent an embassy to Rome, ordering them to
receive Tarquin; and when the Romans refused to obey, he declared war
against them, and telling them at what place and time he would attack them,
marched against them with a great army. At Rome, Poplicola, though
absent, was chosen consul for the second time, and with him, Titus
Lucretius. He returned to Rome, and by way of putting a slight upon
Porsena, went and founded the city of Sigliuria, while his army was close at
hand. He built the walls of this place at a vast expense, and sent away seven
hundred colonists to it, as if the war with which he was menaced was a very
unimportant matter. But, nevertheless, Porsena made a sharp assault upon
the walls of Rome, drove away the garrison, and very nearly entered the
town. Poplicola forestalled him by sallying from one of the gates, and
fought by the banks of the Tiber against overwhelming numbers until he
was severely wounded and had to be carried out of the battle. As the same
fate befell his colleague Lucretius, the Romans lost heart and endeavoured
to save themselves by flight into the town. As the enemy also began to push
across the wooden bridge, Rome was in danger of being taken. But
Horatius, surnamed Cocles, and with him two of the noblest citizens, named

Herminius and Lartius, held the wooden bridge against them. This Horatius
was surnamed Cocles because he had lost an eye in the wars, or as some say
because of the flatness of his nose, which made his eyes and eyebrows seem
to meet, having nothing to separate them, and therefore the people meaning
to call him Cyclops, by a mistake of pronunciation, named him Cocles. This
man stood at the end of the bridge and kept off the enemy until his friends
behind had cut down the bridge. Then he plunged into the river in his
armour and swam to the other bank, though wounded by an Etruscan spear
in the thigh. Poplicola, in admiration of his valour, at once proposed and
passed a decree that every Roman should give him the price of one day's
provisions. Moreover, he gave him as much land as he could plough in one
day. And a brazen statue of him was placed in the temple of Vulcan, by
which honourable allusion was made to the lameness caused by his wound.
XVII. As Porsena pressed the siege, the Romans suffered from famine, and
another separate army of Etruscans invaded their territory. But Poplicola,
who was now consul for the third time, though he thought it his chief duty
to remain stedfast and hold out the city against Porsena, did nevertheless
sally out and attack these men, routing them with a loss of five thousand.
Now as to the legend of Mucius, it is told in many different ways, but I will
relate it as it seems most probable that it happened. He was a man of great
courage, and very daring in war, who, meaning to assassinate Porsena, stole
into the camp in an Etruscan dress and speaking the Etruscan language.
When he arrived at the raised platform on which the king was sitting, he did
not exactly know which was he, and being afraid to ask, he drew his sword
and killed the man who of all the party looked most as if he were the king.
Hereupon, he was seized and questioned. A fire was burning close by in a
brazier which had been brought for Porsena to offer sacrifice. Mucius held
his right hand over this, and while the flesh was being consumed looked at
Porsena cheerfully and calmly, until he in astonishment acquitted him and
restored him his sword, which Mucius took with his left hand. On account
of this he is said to have been named Scaevola, which means left-handed.
He then said that though he did not fear Porsena, he was conquered by his
generosity, and out of kindness would tell him what torture would have
failed to extort: "Three hundred young Romans like-minded with myself are
at present concealed in your camp. I was chosen by lot to make the first
attempt, and am not grieved that I failed to kill a man of honour, who ought

to be a friend rather than an enemy to the Romans." Porsena, hearing this,
believed it to be true, and became much more inclined to make peace, not, I
imagine, so much for fear of the three hundred, as out of admiration for the
spirit and valour of the Romans. This Mucius is called Scaevola by all
writers, but Athenodorus, the son of Sandon, in his book which is dedicated
to Octavia, the sister of Caesar Augustus, says that he was also named
Posthumus.
XVIII. Poplicola, who did not think Porsena so terrible as an enemy as he
would be valuable as a friend and ally, was willing that he should decide the
quarrel between the Romans and Tarquin, and often proposed that he should
do so, feeling sure that he would discover him to be a wretch who had been
most deservedly dethroned. But Tarquin roughly answered that he would
submit his claims to no judge, and least of all to Porsena, who had been his
ally and now seemed inclined to desert him. Porsena was angered at this,
and, as his son Aruns also pleaded hard for the Romans, put an end to the
war upon condition that they should give up the portion of Etruscan
territory which they had seized, restore their prisoners, and receive back
their deserters. Upon this, ten youths of the noblest families were given as
hostages, and as many maidens, among whom was Valeria, the daughter of
Poplicola.
XIX. While these negotiations were going on, and Porsena, through his
confidence in the good faith of the Romans, had relaxed the discipline of
his camp, these Roman maidens came down to bathe in the river at a place
where a bank, in the form of a crescent, makes the water smooth and
undisturbed. As they saw no guards, nor any one passing except in boats,
they determined to swim across, although the stream was strong and deep.
Some say that one of them, by name Cloelia, rode on a horse across the
river, encouraging the others as they swam. When they had got safe across
they went to Poplicola, but he was displeased with them because it made
him seem more faithless than Porsena, and he feared lest this daring feat of
the maidens might be suspected of being a preconcerted plot of the Romans.
For these reasons he sent them back to Porsena. Now Tarquin and his party,
foreseeing that this would be done, laid an ambush on the further bank and
attacked those who were escorting the girls with superior numbers. Still
they made a stout defence, and meanwhile Valeria, the daughter of
Poplicola, made her way through the combatants and escaped, and three

slaves who also got away took care of her. The others were mixed up with
the fight, and were in considerable danger, when Aruns, Porsena's son,
came to the rescue, put the enemy to the rout, and saved the Romans. When
the girls were brought before Porsena, he asked which it was that had
conceived the attempt to escape and encouraged the others. Being told that
it was Cloelia, he smiled kindly upon her, and presented her with one of his
own horses, splendidly caparisoned. This is relied upon by those who say
that it was Cloelia alone who rode on horseback over the river, as proving
their case. Others say that it was not because she used a horse, but to honour
her manly spirit that the Etruscan king made her this present. A statue of
her, on horseback, stands in the Sacred Way as you go up to the Palatine
Hill, which by some is said not to be a statue of Cloelia, but of Valeria.
Porsena, after making peace with the Romans, among many other instances
of generosity, ordered his army to carry back nothing but their arms when
they retired, leaving the entrenched camp full of food and property of every
kind for the Romans. For this reason, at the present day, whenever there is a
sale of any public property, especially that which is taken in war,
proclamation is always made, "Porsena's goods for sale," so that the
Romans have never forgotten the kindness which they received from him. A
brazen statue of him used to stand near the senate house, of plain and
oldfashioned workmanship.
XX. After this the Sabines invaded the country. Marcus Valerius, Poplicola's
brother, and Posthumius Tubertus were then consuls, and Marcus, acting by
the advice of Poplicola, who was present, won two great battles, in the
second of which he slew thirteen thousand of the enemy without the
Romans losing a man. He was rewarded for this, in addition to his triumph,
by having a house built for him upon the Palatine Hill at the public expense.
And whereas all other street doors open inwards, the doors of that house
were made to open outwards, as a perpetual memorial of the honour paid
him by the people, who thus made way for him. It is said that all the doors
in Greece used once to open this way, arguing from the comedies, in which
those who are coming out of a house always knock at the door, to warn
those who are passing or standing near not to be struck by the leaves of the
door, as they open.

XXI. Next year Poplicola was consul for the fourth time. There was an
expectation of a war against the Latins and Sabines combined.
Moreover the city seemed to have displeased the gods; for all the pregnant
women were delivered prematurely, and of imperfectly formed children.
Poplicola, after appeasing the gods below according to the injunctions of
the Sibylline books, re-established certain games in accordance with an
oracle, brought the city into a more hopeful state of mind, and began to
consider what he had to fear from earthly foes, for the enemy's army was
large and formidable. There was one Appius Clausus, a Sabine, of great
wealth and remarkable personal strength, and a virtuous and eloquent man,
who, like all great men, was the object of envy and ill-will to many. He was
accused by his enemies of having put an end to the war, because he wished
to increase the power of Rome, in order to enable him the more easily to
triumph over the liberties of his own country, and make himself king of it.
Perceiving that the populace eagerly listened to these tales, and that he was
an object of dislike to the war party and the army, he began to fear
impeachment: so, having numerous followers, besides his personal friends
and relatives, he was able to divide the state into two parties. This caused
great delay in the Sabines' preparations for attacking the Romans, and
Poplicola, feeling it to be his duty not merely to watch but to assist Clausus,
sent envoys, who spoke to him as follows: "Poplicola feels that you are a
man of honour, who would be unwilling to take vengeance upon your
countrymen, although you have been shamefully treated by them. But if you
choose to put yourself in safety by leaving your country and a people that
hates you, he will receive you, both in his public and his private capacity, in
a manner worthy of your own high character and of the dignity of Rome."
After much deliberation, Clausus decided that he could not do better than
accept this offer, and assembled all his friends. They in their turn influenced
many others, so that he was able to transplant to Rome five thousand of the
most peaceful and respectable families of the Sabine nation. Poplicola, who
had notice of their arrival, welcomed them kindly and graciously. He made
them all citizens of Rome, and gave each of them two acres of land along
the river Anio. He gave Clausus twenty-five acres, and enrolled him among
the Senators. Clausus afterwards became one of the first men in Rome for
wisdom and power, and his descendants, the Claudian family, was one of
the most illustrious in history.

XXII. Though the disputes of the Sabines were settled by this migration,
yet their popular orators would not let them rest, but vehemently urged that
they ought not to let Appius, a deserter and an enemy, prevail upon them to
let the Romans go unpunished—a thing which he could not persuade them
to do when he was present among them. They proceeded to Fidenae with a
great army and encamped there, and laid two thousand men in ambush
before Rome, in wooded and broken ground, meaning in the morning to
send out a few horsemen to plunder ostentatiously. These men were ordered
to ride up close to Rome, and then to retire till their pursuers were drawn
into the snare. Poplicola heard of this plan the same day from deserters, and
quickly made all necessary arrangements. At evening he sent Postumius
Balbus, his son-in-law, with three thousand men to occupy the tops of the
hills under which the Sabine ambush was placed. His colleague, Lucretius,
was ordered to take the swiftest-footed and noblest youth of the city, and
pursue the plundering horsemen, while he himself with the rest of the forces
made a circuitous march and outflanked the enemy. It chanced that a thick
mist came on about dawn, in the midst of which Postumius charged down
from the hills upon the men in ambush with a loud shout, while Lucretius
sent his men to attack the cavalry, and Poplicola fell upon the enemy's
camp. The Sabines were routed in every quarter, and even when fighting no
longer were cut down by the Romans, their rash confidence proving ruinous
to them. Each party thought that the others must be safe, and did not care to
stay and fight where they were, but those who were in the camp ran to those
in the ambush, and those in the ambush towards the camp, each of them
meeting those with whom they hoped to take refuge, and finding that those
who they had hoped would help them needed help themselves. The Sabines
would have been all put to the sword, had not the neighbouring city of
Fidenae afforded them a refuge, especially for the men from the camp. Such
as could not reach Fidenae were either put to death or taken prisoners.
XXIII. The Romans, accustomed as they are to refer all great success to the
intervention of Heaven, thought that the whole glory of this achievement
was due to the general. The first thing heard was the victorious soldiers
declaring that Poplicola had delivered up the enemy to them blind and lame,
and all but in chains, for them to slaughter at their ease. The people were
enriched by the plunder and the sale of the prisoners for slaves. Poplicola
enjoyed a triumph, and previously delivering over the administration of the

city to the two succeeding consuls, died shortly afterwards, having attained
to the highest pitch of glory that man can reach. The people, as if they had
done nothing during his life to honour him as he deserved, and were now
for the first time to show their gratitude, decreed him a public funeral, and
moreover that every person should contribute the coin called quadrans, to
show him respect. The women also made a common agreement to wear
mourning for him for a whole year. He was buried by a decree of the people
within the city near the place called Velia, and all his family were given the
privilege of burial there. At the present day not one of the family is actually
buried there, but the corpse is carried thither, and laid down, while some
one places a lighted torch under it for a moment, after which it is carried
away. By this ceremony they claim the right, although they forego it, and
bury the corpse outside the city.

COMPARISON OF SOLON AND POPLICOLA.
I. It is a point peculiar to this comparison, and which does not occur in any
of the other Lives which I have written, that in turn one imitates and the
other bears witness to his fellow's deeds. Observe, for instance, Solon's
definition of happiness before Croesus, how much better it suits Poplicola
than Tellus. He says that Tellus was fortunate because of his good luck, his
virtue, and his noble children; but yet he makes no mention of him or of his
children in his poetry, and he never was a man of any renown, or held any
high office.
Now Poplicola's virtues made him the most powerful and glorious of the
Romans during his life, and six hundred years after his death the very
noblest families of Rome, those named Publicola and Messala and Valerius,
are proud to trace their descent from him, even at the present day. Tellus, it
is true, died like a brave man fighting in the ranks, but Poplicola slew his
enemies, which is much better than being killed oneself, and made his
country victorious by skill as a general and a statesman, and, after
triumphing and enjoying honours of every kind, died the death which Solon
thought so enviable. Besides, Solon, in his answer to Mimnermus about the
time of life, has written the verses:

"To me may favouring Heaven send,
That all my friends may mourn my end,"

in which he bears witness to the good fortune of Poplicola; for he, when he
died, was mourned not only by all his friends and relations but by the whole
city, in which thousands wept for him, while all the women wore mourning
for him as if he were a son or father of them all that they had lost.
Solon says in his poems,

"I long for wealth, but not procured
By means unholy."

Now Poplicola not only possessed wealth honourably acquired, but also
was able to spend it, much to his credit, in relieving the needy. Thus if
Solon was the wisest, Poplicola was certainly the most fortunate of men; for
what Solon prayed for as the greatest blessing, Poplicola possessed and
enjoyed to the end of his days.
II. Thus has Solon done honour to Poplicola; and he again honoured Solon
by regarding him as the best model a man could follow in establishing a
free constitution: for he took away the excessive power and dignity of the
consuls and made them inoffensive to the people, and indeed made use of
many of Solon's own laws; as he empowered the people to elect their own
consuls, and gave defendants a right of appeal to the people from other
courts, just as Solon had done. He did not, like Solon, make two senates,
but he increased the existing one to nearly double its number. His grounds
for the appointment of quaestors was to give the consul leisure for more
important matters, if he was an honest man; and if he was a bad man, to
remove the opportunity of fraud which he would have had if he were
supreme over the state and the treasury at once. In hatred of tyrants
Poplicola exceeded Solon, for he fixed the penalty for a man who might be
proved to be attempting to make himself king, whereas the Roman allowed
any one to kill him without trial. And while Solon justly prided himself
upon his having been offered the opportunity to make himself despot, with
the full consent of his fellow-countrymen, and yet having refused it,
Poplicola deserves even greater credit for having been placed in an office of
almost despotic power, and having made it more popular, not using the
privileges with which he was entrusted. Indeed Solon seems to have been
the first to perceive that a people

"Obeys its rulers best,
When not too free, yet not too much opprest."

III. The relief of debtors was a device peculiar to Solon, which, more than
anything else confirmed the liberty of the citizens. For laws to establish
equality are of no use if poor men are prevented from enjoying it because of
their debts; and in the states which appear to be the most free, men become
mere slaves to the rich, and conduct the whole business of the state at their
dictation. It should be especially noted that although an abolition of debt
would naturally produce a civil war, yet this measure of Solon's, like an

unusual but powerful dose of medicine, actually put an end to the existing
condition of internal strife; for the well-known probity of Solon's character
outweighed the discredit of the means to which he resorted. In fact Solon
began his public life with greater glory than Poplicola, for he was the
leading spirit, and followed no man, but entirely single handed effected the
most important reforms; while Poplicola was more enviable and fortunate at
the close of his career.
Solon himself saw his own constitution overthrown, while that of Poplicola
preserved order in the city down to the time of the civil wars; and the reason
was that Solon, as soon as he had enacted his laws, went on his travels,
leaving them written on wooden tablets, defenceless against all assailants;
whereas Poplicola remained at home, acted as consul, and by his
statesmanship ensured the success and permanence of the new constitution.
Moreover, Solon could not stop Peisistratus, although he perceived his
designs, but was forced to see a despotism established; while Poplicola
destroyed a monarchy which had existed for many years, showing equal
virtue with Solon, but greater good fortune and power to enable him to
carry out his intentions.
IV. With regard to warlike achievements, Daimachus of Plataea will not
even admit that Solon made the campaign against the Megarians, which we
have related; but Poplicola both by strategy and personal valour won many
great battles. As a statesman, Solon seems to have acted somewhat
childishly in pretending that he was mad, in order to make his speech about
Salamis, while Poplicola ran the very greatest risks in driving out the tyrant
and crushing the conspiracy. He was especially responsible for the chief
criminals being put to death, and thus not only drove the Tarquins out of the
city, but cut off and destroyed their hopes of return. And while he showed
such vigour in enterprises that required spirit and courage, he was equally
admirable in peaceful negotiations and the arts of persuasion; for he
skilfully won over the formidable Porsena to be the friend instead of the
enemy of Rome.
Still we may be reminded that Solon stirred up the Athenians to capture
Salamis, which they had given up to the Megarians, while Poplicola
withdrew the Romans from a country which they had conquered. We must,
however, consider the circumstances under which these events took place.

A subtle politician deals with every thing so as to turn it to the greatest
advantage, and will often lose a part in order to save the whole, and by
sacrificing some small advantage gain another more important one, as did
Poplicola on that occasion; for he, by withdrawing from a foreign country,
preserved his own, gained the enemy's camp for the Romans, who before
were only too glad to save their city from ruin, and at last, by converting his
enemy into an arbitrator and winning his cause, obtained all the fruits of
victory: for Porsena put an end to the war, and left behind him all his war
material to show his respect for the noble character of the consul.

LIFE OF THEMISTOKLES.
I. Themistokles came of a family too obscure to entitle him to distinction.
His father, Neokles, was a middle-class Athenian citizen, of the township of
Phrearri and the tribe Leontis. He was base born on his mother's side, as the
epigram tells us:

"My name's Abrotonon from Thrace,
I boast not old Athenian race;
Yet, humble though my lineage be,
Themistokles was born of me."

Phanias, however, says that the mother of Themistokles was a Carian, not a
Thracian, and that her name was not Abrotonon but Euterpe. Manthes even
tells us that she came from the city of Halikarnassus in Caria. All base-born
Athenians were made to assemble at Kynosarges, a gymnasium outside the
walls sacred to Herakles, who was regarded as base born among the gods
because his mother was a mortal; and Themistokles induced several youths
of noble birth to come to Kynosarges with him and join in the wrestling
there, an ingenious device for destroying the exclusive privileges of birth.
But, for all that, he evidently was of the blood of Lykomedes; for when the
barbarians burned down the temple of the Initiation at Phlya, which
belonged to the whole race of the descendants of Lykomedes, it was
restored by Themistokles, as we are told by Simonides.
II. He is agreed by all to have been a child of vigorous impulses, naturally
clever, and inclined to take an interest in important affairs and questions of
statesmanship. During his holidays and times of leisure he did not play and
trifle as other children do, but was always found arranging some speech by
himself and thinking it over. The speech was always an attack on, or a
defence of, some one of his playfellows. His schoolmaster was wont to say,
"You will be nothing petty, my boy; you will be either a very good or a very
bad man."

In his learning, he cared nothing for the exercises intended to form the
character, and mere showy accomplishments and graces, but eagerly applied
himself to all real knowledge, trusting to his natural gifts to enable him to
master what was thought to be too abstruse for his time of life. In
consequence of this, when in society he was ridiculed by those who thought
themselves well mannered and well educated, he was obliged to make the
somewhat vulgar retort that he could not tune a lute or play upon the harp,
but he could make a small and obscure state great and glorious.
In spite of all this, Stesimbrotus says that Themistokles was a pupil of
Anaxagoras, and attended the lectures of Melissus the physicist; but here he
is wrong as to dates. Melissus was the general who was opposed to Perikles,
a much younger man than Themistokles, when he was besieging Samos,
and Anaxagoras was one of Perikles's friends. One is more inclined to
believe those who tell us that Themistokles was a follower and admirer of
Mnesiphilus of Phrearri, who was neither an orator nor a natural
philosopher, but a man who had deeply studied what went by the name of
wisdom, but was really political sharp practice and expedients of
statesmanship, which he had, as it were, inherited as a legacy from Solon.
Those who in later times mixed up this science with forensic devices, and
used it, not to deal with the facts of politics, but the abstract ideas of
speculative philosophy, were named Sophists. Themistokles used to
converse with this man when he had already begun his political career. In
his childhood he was capricious and unsteady, his genius, as yet untempered
by reason and experience, showing great capacities both for good and evil,
and after breaking out into vice, as he himself used afterwards to admit,
saying that the colts which are the hardest to break in usually make the most
valuable horses when properly taught. But as for the stories which some
have fabricated out of this, about his being disinherited by his father, and
about his mother committing suicide through grief at her son's disgrace,
they seem to be untrue. On the other hand, some writers tell us that his
father, wishing to dissuade him from taking part in politics, pointed out to
him the old triremes lying abandoned on the beach, and told him that
politicians, when the people had no farther use for them, were cast aside in
like manner.
III. Very early in life Themistokles took a vigorous part in public affairs,
possessed by vehement ambition. Determined from the very outset that he

would become the leading man in the state, he eagerly entered into all the
schemes for displacing those who where then at the head of affairs,
especially attacking Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, whose policy he
opposed on every occasion. Yet his enmity with this man seems to have had
a very boyish commencement; for they both entertained a passion for the
beautiful Stesilaus, who, we are told by Ariston the philosopher, was
descended from a family residing in the island of Keos. After this difference
they espoused different parties in the state, and their different temper and
habits widened the breach between them. Aristeides was of a mild and
honourable nature, and as a statesman cared nothing for popularity or
personal glory, but did what he thought right with great caution and strict
rectitude. He was thus often brought into collision with Themistokles, who
was trying to engage the people in many new schemes, and to introduce
startling reforms, by which he would himself have gained credit, and which
Aristeides steadily opposed.
He is said to have been so recklessly ambitious and so frenziedly eager to
take part in great events, that though he was very young at the time of the
battle of Marathon, when the country rang with the praises of the
generalship of Miltiades, he was often to be seen buried in thought, passing
sleepless nights and refusing invitations to wine-parties, and that he
answered those who asked him the cause of his change of habits, that the
trophies of Miltiades would not let him sleep. Other men thought that the
victory of Marathon had put an end to the war, but Themistokles saw that it
was but the prelude to a greater contest, in which he prepared himself to
stand forth as the champion of Greece, and, foreseeing long before what
was to come, endeavoured to make the city of Athens ready to meet it.
IV. First of all, he had the courage to propose that the Athenians, instead of
dividing amongst themselves the revenues derived from the silver mines at
Laurium, should construct ships out of this fund for the war with Aegina.
This was then at its height, and the Aeginetans, who had a large navy, were
masters of the sea. By this means Themistokles was more easily enabled to
carry his point, not trying to terrify the people by alluding to Darius and the
Persians, who lived a long way off, and whom few feared would ever come
to attack them, but by cleverly appealing to their feelings of patriotism
against the Aeginetans, to make them consent to the outlay.

With that money a hundred triremes were built, which were subsequently
used to fight against Xerxes. After this he kept gradually turning the
thoughts of the Athenians in the direction of the sea, because their land
force was unable even to hold its own against the neighbouring states, while
with a powerful fleet they could both beat off the barbarians and make
themselves masters of the whole of Greece. Thus, as Plato says, instead of
stationary soldiers as they were, he made them roving sailors, and gave rise
to the contemptuous remark that Themistokles took away from the citizens
of Athens the shield and the spear, and reduced them to the oar and the
rower's bench. This, we are told by Stesimbrotus, he effected after quelling
the opposition of Miltiades, who spoke on the other side. Whether his
proceedings at this time were strictly constitutional or no I shall leave to
others to determine; but that the only safety of Greece lay in its fleet, and
that those triremes were the salvation of the Athenians after their city was
taken, can be proved by the testimony, among others, of Xerxes himself; for
although his land force was unbroken, he fled after his naval defeat, as
though no longer able to contend with the Greeks, and he left Mardonius
behind more to prevent pursuit, in my opinion, than with any hopes of
conquest.
V. Some writers tell us that he was a keen man of business, and explain that
his grand style of living made this necessary; for he made costly sacrifices,
and entertained foreigners in a splendid manner, all of which required a
large expenditure; but some accuse him of meanness and avarice, and even
say that he sold presents which were sent for his table. When Philides the
horse-dealer refused to sell him a colt, he threatened that he would soon
make a wooden horse of the man's house; meaning that he would stir up
lawsuits and claims against him from some of his relations.
In ambition he surpassed every one. When yet a young and unknown man
he prevailed upon Epikles of Hermione, the admired performer on the harp,
to practise his art in his house, hoping thereby to bring many people to it to
listen. And he displeased the Greeks when he went to the Olympian games
by vying with Kimon in the luxury of his table, his tents, and his other
furniture. It was thought very proper for Kimon, a young man of noble
birth, to do so; but for a man who had not yet made himself a reputation,
and had not means to support the expense, such extravagance seemed mere
vulgar ostentation. In the dramatic contest, which even then excited great

interest and rivalry, the play whose expenses he paid for won the prize. He
put up a tablet in memory of his success bearing the words: Themistokles of
Phrearri was choragus, Phrynichus wrote the play, Adeimantus was archon.
Yet he was popular, for he knew every one of the citizens by name, and
gave impartial judgment in all cases referred to him as arbitrator. Once,
when Simonides of Keos asked him to strain a point in his favour,
Themistokles, who was a general at the time, answered that Simonides
would be a bad poet if he sang out of tune; and he would be a bad
magistrate if he favoured men against the law. At another time he rallied
Simonides on his folly in abusing the Corinthians, who inhabited so fine a
city, and in having his own statue carved, though he was so ugly. He
continued to increase in popularity by judiciously courting the favour of the
people, and was at length able to secure the triumph of his own party, and
the banishment of his rival Aristeides.
VI. As the Persians were now about to invade Greece, the Athenians
deliberated as to who should be their leader. It is said that most men refused
the post of General through fear, but that Epikydes, the son of Euphemides,
a clever mob-orator, but cowardly and accessible to bribes, desired to be
appointed, and seemed very likely to be elected. Themistokles, fearing that
the state would be utterly ruined if its affairs fell into such hands, bribed
him into forgetting his ambitious designs, and withdrawing his candidature.
He was much admired for his conduct when envoys came from the Persian
king to demand earth and water, in token of submission. He seized the
interpreter, and by a decree of the people had him put to death, because he
had dared to translate the commands of a barbarian into the language of free
Greeks. He acted in the same way to Arthmias of Zelea. This man, at the
instance of Themistokles, was declared infamous, he and his children and
his descendants for ever, because he brought Persian gold among the
Greeks. His greatest achievement of all, however, was, that he put an end to
all the internal wars in Greece, and reconciled the states with one another,
inducing them to defer the settlement of their feuds until after the Persian
war. In this he is said to have been greatly assisted by Chileon the Arcadian.
VII. On his appointment as General, he at once endeavoured to prevail
upon his countrymen to man their fleet, leave their city, and go to meet the
enemy by sea as far from Greece as possible. As this met with great

opposition, he, together with the Lacedaemonians, led a large force as far as
the Vale of Tempe, which they intended to make their first line of defence,
as Thessaly had not at that time declared for the Persians. When, however,
the armies were forced to retire from thence, and all Greece, up to Boeotia,
declared for the Persians, the Athenians became more willing to listen to
Themistokles about fighting by sea, and he was sent with a fleet to guard
the straits at Artemisium. Here the Greeks chose the Lacedaemonians, and
their general, Eurybiades, to take the command; but the Athenians refused
to submit to any other state, because they alone furnished more ships than
all the rest. Themistokles, at this crisis perceiving the danger, gave up his
claims to Eurybiades, and soothed the wounded pride of the Athenians,
telling them that if they proved themselves brave men in the war, they
would find that all the other states in Greece would cheerfully recognise
their supremacy. On this account he seems more than any one else to
deserve the credit of having saved Greece, and to have covered the
Athenians with glory by teaching them to surpass their enemies in bravery,
and their allies in good sense. When the Persian fleet reached Aphetai,
Eurybiades was terrified at the number of ships at the mouth of the Straits,
and, learning that two hundred sail more were gone round the outside of
Euboea to take him in the rear, he at once wished to retire further into
Greece, and support the fleet by the land army in Peloponnesus, for he
regarded the Persian king's fleet as utterly irresistible at sea. Upon this the
Euboeans, who feared to be deserted by the Greeks, sent one Pelagon with a
large sum of money, to make secret proposals to Themistokles. He took the
money, Herodotus tells us, and gave it to Eurybiades and his party. One of
those who most vehemently opposed him was Architeles, the captain of the
Sacred Trireme, who had not sufficient money to pay his crew, and
therefore wished to sail back to Athens. Themistokles stirred up the anger of
his men to such a pitch that they rushed upon him and took away his supper.
At this, Architeles was much vexed, but Themistokles sent him a basket
containing bread and meat, with a talent of silver hidden underneath it, with
a message bidding him eat his supper and pay his men the next day, but
that, if he did not, Themistokles would denounce him to his countrymen as
having received bribes from the enemy. This we are told by Phanias of
Lesbos.

VIII. The battles which took place in the Straits with the Persian ships,
were indeed indecisive, but the experience gained in them was of the
greatest value to the Greeks, as they were taught by their result that
multitudes of ships and splendid ensigns, and the boastful war-cries of
barbarians, avail nothing against men who dare to fight hand to hand, and
that they must disregard all these and boldly grapple with their enemies.
Pindar seems to have understood this when he says, about the battle at
Artemisium, that there

"The sons of Athena laid
Their freedom's grand foundation."

for indeed confidence leads to victory. This Artemisium is a promontory of
the island of Euboea, stretching northwards beyond Hestiaea; and opposite
to it is Olizon, which was once part of the dominions of Philoktetes. There
is upon it a small temple of Artemis (Diana), which is called the "Temple
towards the East." Round it stand trees and a circle of pillars of white stone.
This stone, when rubbed in the hand, has the colour and smell of saffron.
On one of these pillars were written the following verses:

"The sons of Athens once o'ercame in fight
All Asia's tribes, on yonder sea;
They raised these pillars round Diana's shrine,
To thank her for their victory."

Even now a place is pointed out on the beach where, under a great heap of
sand, there is a deep bed of black ashes where it is thought the wrecks and
dead bodies were burned.
IX. But when the news of Thermopylae was brought to the Greeks at
Artemisium, that Leonidas had fallen, and Xerxes was in possession of the
passes, they retired further into Greece, the Athenians protecting the rear on
account of their bravery, and full of pride at their achievements. At all the
harbours and landing-places along the coast, Themistokles, as he passed by,
cut conspicuous inscriptions on stones, some of which he found on the spot,
and others which he himself set up at all the watering-places and convenient
stations for ships. In these inscriptions he besought the Ionians, if possible,
to come over to the Athenians, who were their fathers, and who were
fighting for their liberty; and if they could not do this, to throw the
barbarian army into confusion during battle. He hoped that these writings
would either bring the Ionians over to the side of the Greeks, or make them
suspected of treason by the Persians.
Meanwhile Xerxes invaded Greece through Doris, and came into Phokis,
where he burned the city of the Phokaeans. The Greeks made no resistance,
although the Athenians begged them to make a stand in Boeotia, and cover

Attica, urging that they had fought in defence of the whole of Greece at
Artemisium. However, as no one would listen to them, but all the rest of the
Greeks determined to defend the Peloponnesus, and were collecting all their
forces within it, and building a wall across the Isthmus from sea to sea, the
Athenians were enraged at their treachery, and disheartened at being thus
abandoned to their fate. They had no thoughts of resisting so enormous an
army; and the only thing they could do under the circumstances, to abandon
their city and trust to their ships, was distasteful to the people, who saw
nothing to be gained by victory, and no advantage in life, if they had to
desert the temples of their gods and the monuments of their fathers.
X. At this crisis, Themistokles, despairing of influencing the populace by
human reasoning, just as a dramatist has recourse to supernatural
machinery, produced signs and wonders and oracles. He argued that it was a
portent that the sacred snake during those days deserted his usual haunt.
The priests, who found their daily offerings to him of the first fruits of the
sacrifices left untouched, told the people, at the instigation of Themistokles,
that the goddess Athena (Minerva) had left the city, and was leading them to
the sea. He also swayed the popular mind by the oracle, in which he argued
that by "wooden walls" ships were alluded to; and that Apollo spoke of
Salamis as "divine," not terrible or sad, because Salamis would be the cause
of great good fortune to the Greeks. Having thus gained his point, he
proposed a decree, that the city be left to the care of the tutelary goddess of
the Athenians, that all able-bodied men should embark in the ships of war,
and that each man should take the best measures in his power to save the
women and children and slaves.
When this decree was passed, most of the Athenians sent their aged folks
and women over to Troezen, where they were hospitably received by the
Troezenians, who decreed that they should be maintained at the public
expense, receiving each two obols a day, that the children should be
allowed to pick the fruit from any man's tree, and even that their school
expenses should be paid. This decree was proposed by Nikagoras.
The Athenians at this time had no public funds, yet Aristotle tells us that the
Senate of the Areopagus, by supplying each fighting man with eight
drachmas, did good service in manning the fleet; and Kleidemus tells us
that this money was obtained by an artifice of Themistokles. When the

Athenians were going down to the Peiraeus, he gave out that the Gorgon's
head had been lost from the statue of the goddess. Themistokles, under
pretext of seeking for it, searched every man, and found great stores of
money hidden in their luggage, which he confiscated, and thus was able to
supply the crews of the ships with abundance of necessaries. When the
whole city put to sea, the sight affected some to pity, while others admired
their courage in sending their families out of the way that they might not be
disturbed by weeping and wailing as they went over to Salamis. Yet many
of the aged citizens who were left behind at Athens afforded a piteous sight;
and even the domestic animals, as they ran howling to the sea-shore,
accompanying their masters, touched men's hearts. It is said that the dog of
Xanthippus, the father of Perikles, could not endure to be separated from
him, and jumping into the sea swam alongside of his trireme, reached
Salamis, and then at once died. His tomb is even now to be seen at the place
called Kynossema.
XI. Besides these great achievements, Themistokles, perceiving that his
countrymen longed to have Aristeides back again, and fearing that he might
ally himself with the Persian, and work ruin to Greece out of anger against
his own country (for Aristeides had been banished from Athens before the
war when Themistokles came into power), proposed a decree, that any
citizen who had been banished for a term of years, might return and do his
best by word and deed to serve his country together with the other citizens.
Eurybiades, on account of the prestige of Sparta, held the chief command of
the fleet, but was unwilling to risk a battle, preferring to weigh anchor and
sail to the Isthmus where the land army of the Peloponnesians was
assembled. This project was opposed by Themistokles; and it was on this
occasion that he made use of the following well-known saying: When
Eurybiades said to him, "Themistokles, in the public games they whip those
who rise before their turn." "True," said Themistokles, "but they do not
crown those who lag behind." And when Eurybiades raised his staff as if he
would strike him, Themistokles said, "Strike, but hear me." When
Eurybiades, in wonder at his gentle temper, bade him speak, he again urged
Eurybiades to remain at Salamis. Some one then said, that a man without a
city had no right to tell those who still possessed one to abandon it, but
Themistokles turning upon him, answered, "Wretch, we Athenians have
indeed abandoned our walls and houses, because we scorn to be slaves for

the sake of mere buildings, but we have the greatest city of all Greece, our
two hundred ships of war, which now are ready to help you if you choose to
be saved by their means; but, if you betray us and leave us, some of the
Greeks will soon learn to their cost that the Athenians have obtained a free
city and a territory no worse than that which they left behind." When
Eurybiades heard Themistokles use this language, he began to fear that the
Athenians might really sail away and leave him.
When Eretrieus tried to say something to Themistokles, he answered, "Do
you too dare to say anything about war, you, who like a cuttle-fish, have a
sword but no heart."
XII. It is said by some writers that while Themistokles was talking about
these matters upon the deck of his ship, an owl was seen to fly from the
right-hand side of the fleet, and to perch upon his mast; which omen
encouraged all the Athenians to fight. But when the Persian host poured
down to Phalerum, covering the whole sea-shore, and the king himself was
seen with all his forces, coming down to the beach with the infantry, the
Greeks forgot the words of Themistokles, and began to cast eager glances
towards the Isthmus and to be angry with any one who proposed to do
anything else than withdraw. They determined to retire by night, and the
steersmen were given orders to prepare for a voyage. Themistokles, enraged
at the idea of the Greek fleet dispersing, and losing the advantage of the
narrow waters, planned the affair of Sikinnus. This Sikinnus was a Persian
who had been taken prisoner, and who was fond of Themistokles and took
charge of his children. He sent this man secretly to Xerxes, ordering him to
say that Themistokles, the general of the Athenians, has determined to come
over to the king of the Persians, and is the first to tell him that the Greeks
are about to retreat. He bids him not to allow them to fly, but to attack them
while they are disheartened at not being supported by a land force, and
destroy their fleet.
Xerxes, who imagined this to be said for his advantage, was delighted, and
at once gave orders to the commanders of his ships to make ready for battle
at their leisure, all but two hundred, whom he ordered to put to sea at once,
surround the whole strait, and close up the passages through the islands, so
that no one of the enemy could escape. While this was being done,
Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, who was the first to perceive it, came to

the tent of Themistokles, although the latter was his enemy, and had driven
him into exile. When Themistokles came to meet him, he told him they
were surrounded; knowing the frank and noble character of Aristeides,
Themistokles told him the whole plot, and begged him as a man in whom
the Greeks could trust, to encourage them to fight a battle in the straits.
Aristeides praised Themistokles for what he had done, and went round to
the other generals and captains of ships, inciting them to fight. Yet they
were inclined to doubt even the word of Aristeides, when a trireme from the
island of Tenos, under the command of Panaitios, came in, having deserted
from the enemy, and brought the news that the Greeks were really
surrounded. Then, in a spirit of anger and despair, they prepared for the
struggle.
XIII. At daybreak Xerxes took his seat on a high cliff overlooking all his
host, just above the Temple of Herakles, we are told by Phanodemus, where
the strait between Salamis and Attica is narrowest, but according to
Akestodorus, close to the Megarian frontier, upon the mountains called
Horns. Here he sat upon the golden throne, with many scribes standing
near, whose duty it was to write down the events of the battle.
While Themistokles was sacrificing on the beach, beside the admiral's ship,
three most beautiful captive boys were brought to him, splendidly adorned
with gold and fine clothes. They were said to be the children of Sandauke,
the sister of Xerxes, and Artäuktes. When Euphrantides the prophet saw
them, there shone at once from the victims on the altar a great and brilliant
flame, and at the same time some one was heard to sneeze on the right
hand, which is a good omen. Euphrantides now besought Themistokles to
sacrifice these young men as victims to Dionysus, to whom human beings
are sacrificed; so should the Greeks obtain safety and victory. Themistokles
was struck with horror at this terrible proposal; but the multitude, who, as is
natural with people in great danger, hoped to be saved by miraculous rather
than by ordinary means, called upon the God with one voice, and leading
the captives up to the altar, compelled him to offer them up as the prophet
bade him. This story rests on the authority of Phanias of Lesbos, who was a
man of education, and well read in history.
XIV. As for the numbers of the Persian fleet, the poet Aeschylus, as though
he knew it clearly, writes as follows in his tragedy of the Persae:

"And well I know a thousand sail
That day did Xerxes meet,
And seven and two hundred more,
The fastest of his fleet."

The Athenian ships, a hundred and eighty in number, had each eighteen
men on deck, four of whom were archers, and the rest heavy-armed
soldiers. Themistokles now chose the time for the battle as judiciously as he
had chosen the place, and would not bring his triremes into line of battle
before the fresh wind off the sea, as is usual in the morning, raised a heavy
swell in the straits. This did not damage the low flat ships of the Greeks, but
it caught the high-sterned Persian ships, over-weighted as they were with
lofty decks, and presented their broadsides to the Greeks, who eagerly
attacked them, watching Themistokles because he was their best example,
and also because Ariamenes, Xerxes's admiral, and the bravest and best of
the king's brothers, attacked him in a huge ship, from which, as if from a
castle, he poured darts and arrows upon him.
But Ameinias of Dekeleia and Sokles of Pedia, who were both sailing in the
same vessel, met him stem to stem. Each ship crashed into the other with its
iron beak, and was torn open. Ariamenes attempted to board the Greek ship,
but these two men set upon him with their spears, and drove him into the
sea. His body was noticed by Queen Artemisia floating amongst the other
wreckage, and was by her brought to Xerxes.
XV. At this period of the battle it is said that a great light was seen to shine
from Eleusis, and that a great noise was heard upon the Thriasian plain near
the sea, as though multitudes of men were escorting the mystic Iacchus in
procession. From the place where these sounds were heard a mist seemed to
spread over the sea and envelop the ships. Others thought that they saw
spirit-forms of armed men come from Aegina, and hold their hands before
the ships of the Greeks. These it was supposed were the Aeakid heroes, to
whom prayers for help had been offered just before the battle. The first man
to capture a ship was Lykomedes, an Athenian captain, who cut off its
ensign and dedicated it to Apollo with the laurel crown at the Temple at
Phlyae.

In the narrow straits the Persians were unable to bring more than a part of
their fleet into action, and their ships got into each other's way, so that the
Greeks could meet them on equal terms, and, although they resisted until
evening, completely routed them, winning, as Simonides calls it, that
"glorious and famous victory," the greatest exploit ever achieved at sea,
which owed its success to the bravery of the sailors and the genius of
Themistokles.
XVI. After this naval defeat, Xerxes, enraged at his failure, endeavoured to
fill up the strait with earth, and so to make a passage for his land forces to
Salamis, to attack the Greeks there. Now Themistokles, in order to try the
temper of Aristeides, proposed that the fleet should sail to the Hellespont,
and break the bridge of boats there, "in order," said he, "that we may
conquer Asia in Europe." But Aristeides disapproved of this measure,
saying, "Hitherto we have fought against the Persian king, while he has
been at his ease; but if we shut him up in Greece, and drive the chief of so
large an army to despair, he will no longer sit quietly under a golden
umbrella to look on at his battles, but will strain every nerve and
superintend every operation in person, and so will easily retrieve his losses
and form better plans for the future."
"Instead of breaking down the existing bridge for him, Themistokles," said
he, "we ought rather, if possible, at once to build another, and send the man
out of Europe as quickly as possible." "Well then," answered Themistokles,
"if you think that our interest lies in that direction, we ought all to consider
and contrive to send him out of Greece as fast as we can." When this
resolution was adopted, Themistokles sent one of the king's eunuchs, whom
he had found among the prisoners, bidding him warn Xerxes that "the
Greeks had determined after their victory to sail to the Hellespont and break
the bridge, but that Themistokles, out of his regard for the king, advises him
to proceed as fast as he can to his own sea, and cross over it, while he
(Themistokles) gained time for him by delaying the allied fleet." Xerxes,
hearing thus, was much alarmed and retired in all haste. And indeed the
battle with Mardonius at Plataea shows us which of the two was right; for
the Greeks there could scarcely deal with a small part of the Persian army,
and what therefore could they have done with the whole?

XVII. Herodotus tells us that, of Greek States, Aegina received the prize of
valour, and that, of the generals, it was awarded to Themistokles, though
against the will of the voters. When the armies retired to the Isthmus all the
generals laid their votes on the altar there, and each man declared himself to
deserve the first prize for valour, and Themistokles to deserve the second.
However, the Lacedaemonians brought him home with them to Sparta, and
gave Eurybiades the first prize for valour, but Themistokles that for
wisdom, a crown of olive-leaves. They also gave him the best chariot in
their city, and sent three hundred of their young men to escort him out of
the country. It is also related that at the next Olympian games, when
Themistokles appeared upon the race-course, all the spectators took no
further interest in the contests, but passed the whole day in admiring and
applauding him, and in pointing him out to such as were strangers; so that
he was delighted, and said to his friends that he had now received his
reward for all his labours on behalf of Greece.
XVIII. He was by nature excessively fond of admiration, as we may judge
from the stories about him which have been preserved. Once, when he was
made admiral of the Athenian fleet, he put off all the necessary business of
his office until the day appointed for sailing, in order that he might have a
great many dealings with various people all at once, and so appear to be a
person of great influence and importance. And when he saw the corpses
floating in the sea with gold bracelets and necklaces, he himself passed
them by, but pointed them out to a friend who was following, saying, "Do
you pick them up and keep them; for you are not Themistokles." A beautiful
youth, named Antiphates, regarded him coolly at first, but eventually
became submissive to him because of his immense reputation. "Young
man," said Themistokles, "it has taken some time, but we have at length
both regained our right minds." He used to say that the Athenians neither
admired nor respected him, but used him like a plane-tree under which they
took shelter in storm, but which in fair weather they lopped and stripped of
its leaves. Once when a citizen of Seriphos said to him that he owed his
glory, not to himself but to his city, he answered, "Very true; I should not
have become a great man if I had been a Seriphian, nor would you if you
had been an Athenian." When one of his fellow-generals, who thought that
he had done the state good service, was taking a haughty tone, and
comparing his exploits with those of Themistokles, he said, "The day after a

feast, once upon a time, boasted that it was better than the feast-day itself,
because on that day all men are full of anxiety and trouble, while upon the
next day every one enjoys what has been prepared at his leisure. But the
feast-day answered, 'Very true, only but for me you never would have been
at all.' So now," said he, "if I had not come first, where would you all have
been now?" His son, who was spoiled by his mother, and by himself to
please her, he said was the most powerful person in Greece; for the
Athenians ruled the Greeks, he ruled the Athenians, his wife ruled him, and
his son ruled his wife. Wishing to be singular in all things, when he put up a
plot of ground for sale, he ordered the crier to announce that there were
good neighbours next to it. When two men paid their addresses to his
daughter, he chose the more agreeable instead of the richer of the two,
saying that he preferred a man without money to money without a man.
Such was his character, as shown in his talk.
XIX. Immediately after the great war, he began to rebuild and fortify the
city. In order to succeed in this, Theopompus says that he bribed the Spartan
ephors into laying aside opposition, but most writers say that he outwitted
them by proceeding to Sparta nominally on an embassy. Then when the
Spartans complained to him that Athens was being fortified, and when
Poliarchus came expressly from Aegina to charge him with it, he denied it,
and bade them send commissioners to Athens to see whether it was true,
wishing both to obtain time for the fortifications to be built, and also to
place these commissioners in the hands of the Athenians, as hostages for his
own safety. His expectations were realised; for the Lacedaemonians, on
discovering the truth, did him no harm, but dissembled their anger and sent
him away. After this he built Peiraeus, as he perceived the excellence of its
harbours, and was desirous to turn the whole attention of the Athenians to
naval pursuits. In this he pursued a policy exactly the opposite to that of the
ancient kings of Attica; for they are said to have endeavoured to keep their
subjects away from the sea, and to accustom them to till the ground instead
of going on board ships, quoting the legend that Athene and Poseidon had a
contest for the possession of the land, and that she gained a decision in her
favour by the production of the sacred olive. Themistokles, on the other
hand, did not so much "stick Peiraeus on to Athens," as Aristophanes the
comic poet said, as make the city dependent upon Peiraeus, and the land
dependent on the sea. By this means he transferred power from the nobles

to the people, because sailors and pilots became the real strength of the
State. For this reason the thirty tyrants destroyed the bema, or tribune on the
place of public assembly, which was built looking towards the sea, and built
another which looked inland, because they thought that the naval
supremacy of Athens had been the origin of its democratic constitution, and
that an oligarchy had less to fear from men who cultivated the land.
XX. Themistokles had even more extended views than these about making
the Athenians supreme at sea. When Xerxes was gone, the whole Greek
fleet was drawn up on shore for the winter at Pagasae. Themistokles then
publicly told the Athenians that he had a plan which would save and benefit
them all, but which must not be divulged. The Athenians bade him tell
Aristeides only, and to execute his designs if he approved.
Themistokles then told Aristeides that his design was to burn the whole
Greek fleet as they lay on the beach. But Aristeides came forward and told
the people that no proposal could be more advantageous or more villainous;
so that the Athenians forbade Themistokles to proceed with it. On another
occasion the Lacedaemonians proposed, in a meeting of the Amphiktyonic
council, that all States that had taken no part in the Persian war should be
excluded from that council; Themistokles, fearing that if the
Lacedaemonians should exclude Thessaly, Argos, and Thebes, they would
have complete control over the votes, and be able to carry what measures
they pleased, made representations to the various States, and influenced the
votes of their deputies at the meeting, pointing out to them that there were
only thirty-one States which took any part in the war, and that most of these
were very small ones, so that it would be unreasonable for one or two
powerful States to pronounce the rest of Greece outlawed, and be supreme
in the council. After this he generally opposed the Lacedaemonians;
wherefore they paid special court to Kimon, in order to establish him as a
political rival to Themistokles.
XXI. Moreover, he made himself odious to the allies by sailing about the
islands and wringing money from them. A case in point is the conversation
which Herodotus tells us he held with the people of Andros, when trying to
get money from them. He said that he was come, bringing with him two
gods, Persuasion and Necessity; but they replied that they also possessed
two equally powerful ones, Poverty and Helplessness, by whom they were

prevented from supplying him with money. The poet, Timokreon of
Rhodes, in one of his songs, writes bitterly of Themistokles, saying that he
was prevailed upon by the bribes which he received from exiles to restore
them to their native country, but abandoned himself, who was his guest and
friend. The song runs as follows:

"Though ye may sing Pausanias or Xanthippus in your lays,
Or Leotychides, 'tis Aristeides whom I praise,
The best of men as yet produced by holy Athens' State,
Since thus upon Themistokles has fall'n Latona's hate:
That liar and that traitor base, who for a bribe unclean,
Refused to reinstate a man who his own guest had been.
His friend too, in his native Ialysus, but who took
Three silver talents with him, and his friend forsook.
Bad luck go with the fellow, who unjustly some restores
From exile, while some others he had banished from our
shores,
And some he puts to death; and sits among us gorged with
pelf.
He kept an ample table at the Isthmian games himself,
And gave to every guest that came full plenty of cold meat,
The which they with a prayer did each and every of them
eat,
But their prayer was 'Next year be there no Themistokles to
meet.'"

And after the exile and condemnation of Themistokles, Timokreon wrote
much more abusively about him in a song which begins,

"Muse, far away,
Sound this my lay,
For it both meet and right is."

It is said that Timokreon was exiled from home for having dealings with the
Persians, and that Themistokles confirmed his sentence. When, then,
Themistokles was charged with intriguing with the Persians, Timokreon
wrote upon him,

"Timokreon is not the only Greek
That turned a traitor, Persian gold to seek;
I'm not the only fox without a tail,
But others put their honour up for sale."

XXII. As the Athenians, through his unpopularity, eagerly listened to any
story to his discredit, he was obliged to weary them by constantly repeating
the tale of his own exploits to them. In answer to those who were angry
with him, he would ask, "Are you weary of always receiving benefits from
the same hand?" He also vexed the people by building the Temple of
Artemis of Good Counsel, as he called her, hinting that he had taken good
counsel for the Greeks. This temple he placed close to his own house in
Melite, at the place where at the present day the public executioner casts out
the bodies of executed criminals, and the clothes and ropes of men who
have hanged themselves. Even in our own times a small statue of
Themistokles used to stand in the Temple of Artemis of Good Counsel; and
he seems to have been a hero not only in mind, but in appearance. The
Athenians made use of ostracism to banish him, in order to reduce his
extravagant pretensions, as they always were wont to do in the case of men
whom they thought over powerful and unfit for living in the equality of a
democracy. For ostracism implied no censure, but was intended as a vent
for envious feelings, which were satisfied by seeing the object of their
hatred thus humbled.
XXIII. When Themistokles was banished from Athens, he lived in Argos,
during which time the proceedings of Pausanias gave a great opportunity to
his enemies. He was impeached on a charge of treason by Leobotes, the son
of Alkmaeon of Agraulai, and the Spartans joined in the impeachment.
Pausanias, indeed, at first concealed his treacherous designs from
Themistokles, although he was his friend; but when he saw that
Themistokles was banished, and chafing at the treatment he had received,
he was encouraged to ask him to share his treason, and showed him the
letters which he had received from the Persian king, at the same time
inflaming his resentment against the Greeks, whom he spoke of as
ungrateful wretches. Themistokles refused utterly to join Pausanias, but
nevertheless told no one of his treasonable practices, either because he
hoped that he would desist, or that his visionary and impossible projects
would be disclosed by other means. And thus it was that when Pausanias

was put to death, certain letters and writings on this subject were found,
which threw suspicion upon Themistokles. The Lacedaemonians loudly
condemned him, and many of his own countrymen, because of the enmity
they bore him, brought charges against him. He did not appear in person at
first, but answered these attacks by letters. In these he told his accusers that
he had always sought to rule, and was not born to obey; so that he never
would sell himself and Greece to be a slave to the Persians. But in spite of
these arguments, his enemies prevailed upon the Athenians to send men
with orders to seize him, and bring him to be tried by Greece.
XXIV. He was apprised of this in time to take refuge in Korkyra, a State
which was under obligations to him. For once, when Korkyra was at
variance with Corinth, he had been chosen to arbitrate between them, and
had reconciled them, giving as his award that the Corinthians were to pay
down twenty talents, and each State to have an equal share in the city and
island of Leucas, as being a colony from both of them. From thence he fled
to Epirus; but, being still pursued by the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, he
adopted a desperate resolution. Admetus, the king of the Molossians, had
once made some request to the Athenians, which Themistokles, who was
then in the height of his power, insultingly refused to grant. Admetus was
deeply incensed, and eager for vengeance; but now Themistokles feared the
fresh fury of his countrymen more than this old grudge of the king's, put
himself at his mercy, and became a suppliant to Admetus in a novel and
strange fashion; for he lay down at the hearth of Admetus, holding that
prince's infant son, which is considered among the Molossians to be the
most solemn manner of becoming a suppliant, and one which cannot be
refused. Some say that Phthia, the king's wife, suggested this posture to
Themistokles, and placed her infant on the hearth with him; while others
say that Admetus, in order to be able to allege religious reasons for his
refusal to give up Themistokles to his pursuers, himself arranged the scene
with him. After this, Epikrates, of the township of Acharnai, managed to
convey his wife and children out of Athens to join him, for which, we are
told by Stesimbrotus, Kimon subsequently had him condemned and
executed. But, singularly enough, afterwards Stesimbrotus either forgets his
wife and children, or makes Themistokles forget them, when he says that he
sailed to Sicily and demanded the daughter of the despot Hiero in marriage,

promising that he would make all Greece obey him. As Hiero rejected his
proposals, he then went to Asia.
XXV. Now it is not probable that this ever took place. Theophrastus, in his
treatise on monarchy, relates that when Hiero sent race-horses to Olympia
and pitched a costly tent there, Themistokles said to the assembled Greeks
that they ought to destroy the despot's tent, and not permit his horses to run.
Thucydides too informs us that he crossed to the Aegean sea, and set sail
from Pydna, none of his fellow-travellers knowing who he was until the
ship was driven by contrary winds to Naxos, which was then being besieged
by the Athenians. Then he became alarmed, and told the captain and the
pilot who he was, and, partly by entreaties, partly by threats that he would
denounce them to the Athenians, and say that they well knew who he was,
but were carrying him out of the country for a bribe, he prevailed on them
to hold on their course to the coast of Asia.
Of his property, much was concealed by his friends and sent over to him in
Asia; but what was confiscated to the public treasury amounted, according
to Theopompus, to a hundred talents, and according to Theophrastus to
eighty, albeit Themistokles, before his entrance into political life, did not
possess property worth three talents.
XXVI. When he sailed to Kyme, he found that many of the inhabitants of
the Ionic coast were watching for an opportunity to capture him, especially
Ergoteles and Pythodorus (for indeed, to men who cared not how they made
their money, he would have been a rich prize, as the Persian king had
offered a reward of two hundred talents for him), he fled to Aegae, a little
Aeolian city, where he was known by no one except his friend Nikogenes,
the richest of all the Aeolians, who was well known to the Persians of the
interior. In this man's house he lay concealed for some days. Here, after the
feast which followed a sacrifice, Olbius, who took charge of Nikogenes's
children, fell into a kind of inspired frenzy, and spoke the following verse:
"Night shall speak and give thee counsel, night shall give thee victory."
After this Themistokles dreamed a dream. He thought that a snake was
coiling itself upon his belly and crawling up towards his throat. As soon as
it reached his throat, it became an eagle and flapped its wings, lifted him up,
and carried him a long distance, until he saw a golden herald's staff. The

eagle set him down upon this securely, and he felt free from all terror and
anxiety. After this he was sent away by Nikogenes, who made use of the
following device. Most barbarian nations, and the Persians especially, are
violently jealous in their treatment of women. They guard not only their
wives, but their purchased slaves and concubines, with the greatest care, not
permitting them to be seen by any one out of doors, but when they are at
home they lock them up, and when they are on a journey they place them in
waggons with curtains all round them. Such a waggon was prepared for
Themistokles, and he travelled in it, his escort telling all whom they met
that they were conveying a Greek lady from Ionia to one of the king's
courtiers.
XXVII. Thucydides and Charon of Lampsakus relate that Xerxes was now
dead, and that Themistokles gave himself up to his son; but Ephorus,
Deinon, Kleitarchus, Herakleides, and many others, say that it was to
Xerxes himself that he came. But the narrative of Thucydides agrees better
with the dates, although they are not thoroughly settled.
At this perilous crisis Themistokles first applied to Artabanus, a chiliarch,
or officer in command of a regiment of a thousand men, whom he told that
he was a Greek, and that he wished to have an interview with the king about
matters of the utmost importance, and in which the king was especially
interested. He replied, "Stranger, the customs of different races are
different, and each has its own standard of right and wrong; yet among all
men it is thought right to honour, admire, and to defend one's own customs.
Now we are told that you chiefly prize freedom and equality; we on the
other hand think it the best of all our laws to honour the king, and to
worship him as we should worship the statue of a god that preserves us all.
Wherefore if you are come with the intention of adopting our customs, and
of prostrating yourself before the king, you may be permitted to see the
king, and speak with him; but if not, you must use some other person to
communicate with him; for it is not the custom for the king to converse
with any one who does not prostrate himself before him." Themistokles,
hearing this, said to him, "Artabanus, I am come to increase the glory and
power of the king, and will both myself adopt your customs, since the god
that has exalted the Persians will have it so, and will also increase the
number of those who prostrate themselves before the king. So let this be no
impediment to the interview with him which I desire." "Whom of the

Greeks," asked Artabanus, "are we to tell him is come? for you do not seem
to have the manners of a man of humble station." "No one," answered
Themistokles, "must learn my name before the king himself." This is the
story which we are told by Phanias. But Eratosthenes, in his treatise on
wealth, tells us also that Themistokles was introduced to Artabanus by an
Eretrian lady with whom the latter lived.
XXVIII. When he was brought into the king's presence he prostrated
himself, and stood silent. The king then told his interpreter to ask him who
he was; and when the interpreter had asked this question, he told him to
answer, "I am, O King, Themistokles the Athenian, an exile, a man who has
wrought much evil to the Persians, but more good than evil, in that I
stopped the pursuit when Greece was safe, and I was able to do you a
kindness as all was well at home. In my present fallen fortunes I am
prepared to be grateful for any mark of favour you may show me, or to
deprecate your anger, should you bear a grudge against me. You may see,
from the violence of my own countrymen against me, how great were the
benefits which I conferred upon the Persians; so now use me rather as a
means of proving your magnanimity than of glutting your wrath. Wherefore
save me, your suppliant, and do not destroy one who has become the enemy
of Greece." Themistokles also introduced a supernatural element into his
speech by relating the vision which he saw at the house of Nikogenes, and
also a prophecy which he received at the shrine of Jupiter of Dodona, which
bade him "go to the namesake of the god," from which he concluded that
the god sent him to the king, because they were both great, and called kings.
To this speech the Persian king made no answer, although he was
astonished at his bold spirit; but in conversation with his friends he spoke as
though this were the greatest possible piece of good fortune, and in his
prayers begged Arimanios to make his enemies ever continue to banish their
ablest men. He is said to have offered a sacrifice to the gods and to have
drunk wine at once, and during the night in his soundest sleep he thrice
cried out, "I have got Themistokles the Athenian."
XXIX. At daybreak he called together his friends and sent for
Themistokles, who augured nothing pleasant from the insults and abuse
which he received from the people at the palace gates, when they heard his
name. Moreover Roxanes the chiliarch, as Themistokles passed by him in
silence into the king's presence, whispered, "Thou subtle serpent of Greece,

the king's good genius has led thee hither." But when he was come before
the king and had prostrated himself a second time, the king embraced him,
and said in a friendly tone that he already owed him two hundred talents:
for as he had brought himself he was clearly entitled to the reward which
was offered to any one else who would do so. He also promised him much
more than this, and encouraged him to speak at length upon the affairs of
Greece. To this Themistokles answered, that human speech was like
embroidered tapestry, because when spread out it shows all its figures, but
when wrapped up it both conceals and spoils them, wherefore he asked for
time. The king was pleased with his simile, and bade him take what time he
chose. He asked for a year, during which he learned the Persian language
sufficiently to talk to the king without an interpreter. This led the people to
imagine that he discoursed about the affairs of Greece; but many changes
were made at that time in the great officers of the court, and the nobles
disliked Themistokles, imagining that he dared to speak about them to the
king. Indeed, he was honoured as no other foreigner ever was, and went
hunting with the king and lived in his family circle, so that he came into the
presence of the king's mother, and became her intimate friend, and at the
king's command was instructed in the mysteries of the Magi.
When Demaratus the Spartan was bidden to ask for a boon, he asked to be
allowed to drive through Sardis wearing his tiara upright like that of the
king. Mithropaustes, the king's cousin, took hold of Demaratus by his tiara,
saying, "You have no brains for the king's tiara to cover; do you think you
would become Zeus if you were given his thunderbolt to wield?" The king
was very angry with Demaratus because of this request, but Themistokles
by his entreaties restored him to favour. It is also said that the later Persian
kings, whose politics were more mixed up with those of Greece, used to
promise any Greek whom they wished to desert to them that they would
treat him better than Themistokles. We are told that Themistokles himself,
after he became a great man and was courted by many, was seated one day
at a magnificent banquet, and said to his children, "My sons, we should
have been ruined if it had not been for our ruin." Most writers agree that
three cities, Magnesia, Lampsakus, and Myous, were allotted to him for
bread, wine, and meat. To these Neanthes of Kyzikus and Phanias add two
more, Perkote and Palaiskepsis, which were to supply bedding and clothing
respectively.

XXX. On one occasion, when he went down to the seaside on some
business connected with Greece, a Persian named Epixyes, Satrap of Upper
Phrygia, plotted his assassination. He had long kept some Pisidians who
were to kill him when he passed the night in the town of Leontokophalos,
which means 'Lion's Head.' It is said that the mother of the gods appeared to
him while he was sleeping at noon and said, "Themistokles, be late at Lion's
Head, lest you fall in with a lion. As a recompense for this warning, I
demand Mnesiptolema for my handmaid." Themistokles, disturbed at this,
after praying to the goddess, left the highway and made a circuit by another
road, avoiding that place; when it was night he encamped in the open
country. As one of the sumpter cattle that carried his tent had fallen into a
river, Themistokles's servants hung up the rich hangings, which were
dripping with wet, in order to dry them. The Pisidians meanwhile came up
to the camp with drawn swords, and, not clearly distinguishing in the
moonlight the things hung out to dry, thought that they must be the tent of
Themistokles, and that they would find him asleep within it. When they
came close to it and raised the hangings, the servants who were on the
watch fell upon them and seized them. Having thus escaped from danger, he
built a temple to Dindymene at Magnesia to commemorate the appearance
of the goddess, and appointed his daughter Mnesiptolema to be its priestess.
XXXI. When he came to Sardis, he leisurely examined the temples and the
offerings which they contained, and in the temple of the mother of the gods,
he found a bronze female figure called the Water-carrier, about two cubits
high, which he himself, when overseer of the water supply of Athens, had
made out of the fines imposed upon those who took water illegally.
Either feeling touched at the statue being a captive, or else willing to show
the Athenians how much power he possessed in Persia, he proposed to the
Satrap of Lydia to send it back to Athens. This man became angry at his
demand, and said that he should write to the king, and tell him of it.
Themistokles in terror applied himself to the harem of the Satrap, and by
bribing the ladies there induced them to pacify him, while he himself took
care to be more cautious in future, as he saw that he had to fear the enmity
of the native Persians. For this reason, Theopompus tells us, he ceased to
wander about Asia, but resided at Magnesia, where, receiving rich presents
and honoured equally with the greatest Persian nobles, he lived for a long
time in tranquillity; for the king's attention was so entirely directed to the

affairs of the provinces of the interior that he had no leisure for operations
against Greece. But when Egypt revolted, and the Athenians assisted it, and
Greek triremes sailed as far as Cyprus and Cilicia, and Kimon was master
of the sea, then the king determined to attack the Greeks, and prevent their
development at his expense. Armies were put in motion, generals were
appointed, and frequent messages were sent to Themistokles from the king,
bidding him attack Greece and fulfil his promises. Themistokles, unmoved
by resentment against his countrymen, and uninfluenced by the thought of
the splendid position which he might occupy as commander-in-chief,
possibly too, thinking that his task was an impossible one, as Greece
possessed many great generals, especially Kimon, who had a most brilliant
reputation, but chiefly because he would not soil his glory and disgrace the
trophies which he had won, determined, as indeed was his best course, to
bring his life to a fitting close. He offered sacrifice to the gods, called his
friends together, and, having taken leave of them, drank bull's blood,
according to the most common tradition, but according to others, some
quickly-operating poison, and died at Magnesia in the sixty-fifth year of a
life almost entirely spent in great political and military employments.
The King of Persia, when he heard of the manner of his death and his
reasons for dying, admired him more than ever, and continued to treat his
family and friends with kindness.
XXXII. Themistokles left five children, Neokles, Diokles, Archeptolis,
Polyeuktus, Kleophantus, by his first wife Archippe, who was the daughter
of Lysander, of the township of Alopekai. Of these Kleophantus is
mentioned by Plato the philosopher as being an excellent horseman, but
otherwise worthless. Of the elder ones, Neokles was bitten by a horse and
died while still a child, and Diokles was adopted by his grandfather
Lysander. He also had several daughters by his second wife, of whom
Mnesiptolema married Archeptolis, her father's half-brother; Italia married
Panthoides of the island of Chios, and Sybaris married Nikomedes, an
Athenian. After Themistokles's death, his nephew Phrasikles sailed to
Magnesia, and with her brother's consent married Nicomache, and also took
charge of the youngest child, who was named Asia.
The people of Magnesia show a splendid tomb of Themistokles in their
market-place; but with regard to the fate of his remains we must pay no

attention to Andokides, who in his address to his friends, tells us that the
Athenians stole them and tore them to pieces, because he would tell any
falsehood to excite the hatred of the nobles against the people. Phylarchus,
too, writes his history in such dramatic form that he all but resorts to the
actual machinery of the stage, bringing forward one Neokles, and
Demopolis as the children of Themistokles to make a touching scene, which
anyone can see is untrue. Diodorus the topographer, in his treatise 'On
Tombs' says, more as a conjecture than as knowing it for a fact, that in the
great harbour of Peiraeus a kind of elbow juts out from the promontory of
Alkimus, and that when one sails past this, going inwards, where the sea is
most sheltered, there is a large foundation, and upon it the tomb of
Themistokles, shaped like an altar. It is thought that the comic poet Plato
alludes to this in the following verses:

"By the sea's margin, by the watery strand,
Thy monument, Themistokles, shall stand;
By this directed to thy native shore
The merchant shall convey his freighted store;
And when our fleets are summoned to the fight,
Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight."

The descendants of Themistokles are given certain privileges at Magnesia
even to the present day, for I know that Themistokles, an Athenian, my
friend and fellow-student in the school of Ammonias the philosopher,
enjoyed them.

LIFE OF CAMILLUS.
I. The strangest fact in the life of Furius Camillus is that, although he was a
most successful general and won great victories, though he was five times
appointed dictator, triumphed four times, and was called the second founder
of Rome, yet he never once was consul. The reason of this is to be found in
the political condition of Rome at that time; for the people, being at
variance with the senate, refused to elect consuls, and chose military
tribunes instead, who, although they had full consular powers, yet on
account of their number were less offensive to the people than consuls. To
have affairs managed by six men instead of two appears to have been a
consolation to those who had suffered from the arbitrary rule of a few. It
was during this period that Camillus reached the height of power and glory,
and yet he would not become consul against the will of the people, although
several occasions occurred when he might have been elected, but in his
various appointments he always contrived, even when he had sole
command, to share his power with others, while even when he had
colleagues he kept all the glory for himself. His moderation prevented any
one from grudging him power, while his successes were due to his genius,
in which he confessedly surpassed all his countrymen.
II. The family of the Furii was not a very illustrious one before Camillus
gained glory in the great battle with the Aequi and Volsci, where he served
under the dictator Postumius Tubertus. Riding out before the rest of the
army, he was struck in the thigh by a dart, but tore it out, assailed the
bravest of the enemy, and put them to flight. After this, amongst other
honours he was appointed censor, an office of great dignity at that time.
One admirable measure is recorded of his censorship, that by arguments and
threatening them with fines he persuaded the unmarried citizens to marry
the widow women, whose number was very great on account of the wars.
Another measure to which he was forced was that of taxing orphans, who
had hitherto been exempt from taxation. This was rendered necessary by the
constant campaigns which were carried on at a great expense, and more
especially by the siege of Veii. Some call the inhabitants of this city
Veientani. It was the bulwark of Etruria, possessing as many fighting men

as Rome itself; the citizens were rich, luxurious, and extravagant in their
habits, and fought bravely many times for honour and for power against the
Romans. At this period, having been defeated in several great battles, the
people of Veii had given up any schemes of conquest, but had built strong
and high walls, filled their city with arms and provisions, and all kinds of
material of war, and fearlessly endured a siege, which was long, no doubt,
but which became no less irksome and difficult to the besiegers.
Accustomed as the Romans had been to make short campaigns in summer
weather, and to spend their winters at home, they were now for the first
time compelled by their tribunes to establish forts and entrench their camp,
and pass both summer and winter in the enemy's country for seven years in
succession. The generals were complained of, and as they seemed to be
carrying on the siege remissly, they were removed, and others appointed,
among them Camillus, who was then tribune for the second time. But he
effected nothing in the siege at that time, because he was sent to fight the
Faliscans and Capenates, who had insulted the Roman territory throughout
the war with Veii, when the Roman army was engaged elsewhere, but were
now driven by Camillus with great loss to the shelter of their city walls.
III. After this, while the war was at its height, much alarm was caused by
the strange phenomenon seen at the Alban lake, which could not be
accounted for on ordinary physical principles. The season was autumn, and
the summer had not been remarkable for rain or for moist winds, so that
many of the streams and marshes in Italy were quite dried up, and others
held out with difficulty, while the rivers, as is usual in summer, were very
low and deeply sunk in their bed. But the Alban lake, which is self-
contained, lying as it does surrounded by fertile hills, began for no reason,
except it may be the will of Heaven, to increase in volume and to encroach
upon the hillsides near it, until it reached their very tops, rising quietly and
without disturbance. At first the portent only amazed the shepherds and
herdsmen of the neighbourhood; but when the lake by the weight of its
waters broke through the thin isthmus of land which restrained it, and
poured down in a mighty stream through the fertile plains below to the sea,
then not only the Romans, but all the people of Italy, thought it a portent of
the gravest character. Much talk about it took place in the camp before Veii,
so that the besieged also learned what was happening at the lake.

IV. As always happens during a long siege, where there are frequent
opportunities of intercourse between the two parties, one of the Romans had
become intimate with a citizen of Veii, who was learned in legendary lore,
and was even thought to have supernatural sources of information. When
this man heard of the overflowing of the lake, his Roman friend observed
that he was overjoyed, and laughed at the idea of the siege being successful.
The Roman told him that these were not the only portents which troubled
the Romans at the present time, but that there were others stranger than this,
about which he should like to consult him, and, if possible, save himself in
the common ruin of his country. The man eagerly attended to his discourse,
imagining that he was about to hear some great secrets. The Roman thus
decoyed him away farther and farther from the city gate, when he suddenly
seized him and lifted him from the ground. Being the stronger man, and
being assisted by several soldiers from the camp, he overpowered him, and
brought him before the generals. Here the man, seeing that there was no
escape, and that no one can resist his destiny, told them of the ancient
oracles about his city, how it could not be taken until its enemies drove back
the waters of the Alban lake, and prevented its joining the sea. When the
senate heard this they were at a loss what to do, and determined to send an
embassy to Delphi to enquire of the God. The embassy consisted of men of
mark and importance, being Licinius Cossus, Valerius Potitus, and Fabius
Ambustus. After a prosperous journey they returned with a response from
Apollo, pointing out certain ceremonies which had been neglected in the
feast of the Latin games, and bidding them, if possible, force the waters of
the Alban lake away from the sea into its ancient course, or, if this could not
be done, to divide the stream by canals and watercourses, and so to expend
it in the plain. When the answer was brought back, the priests took the
necessary steps about the sacrifices, while the people turned their attention
to the diversion of the water.
V. In the tenth year of the war, the Senate recalled all the rest of the
generals, and made Camillus Dictator. He chose Cornelius Scipio to be his
Master of the Knights, and made a vow to the gods, that, if he succeeded in
bringing the war to a glorious close, he would celebrate a great festival, and
build a shrine to the goddess whom the Romans call Mater Matuta. This
goddess, from the rites with which she is worshipped, one would imagine to
be the same as the Greek Leukothea. For they bring a slave girl into the

temple and beat her, and then drive her out; they take their brothers'
children in their arms in preference to their own, and generally their
ceremonies seem to allude to the nursing of Bacchus, and to the misfortunes
which befell Ino because of her husband's concubine. After this, Camillus
invaded the Faliscan territory, and in a great battle overthrew that people,
and the Capenates who came to their assistance. Next, he turned his
attention to the siege of Veii, and, perceiving that it would be a difficult
matter to take the city by assault, he ordered mines to be dug, as the ground
near the walls was easily worked, and the mines could be sunk to a
sufficient depth to escape the notice of the besieged. As this work
succeeded to his wish, he made a demonstration above ground to call the
enemy to the walls and distract their attention, while others made their way
unperceived through the mine to the Temple of Juno in the citadel, the
largest and most sacred edifice in the city. Here, it is said, was the King of
the Veientines, engaged in sacrificing. The soothsayer inspected the entrails,
and cried with a loud voice, that the goddess would give the victory to
whoever offered that victim. The Romans in the mine, hearing these words,
quickly tore up the floor, and burst through it with shouts and rattling arms.
The enemy fled in terror, and they seized the victims and carried them to
Camillus. However, this story sounds rather fabulous.
The city was stormed, and the Romans carried off an enormous mass of
plunder. Camillus, who viewed them from the citadel, at first stood
weeping, but when, congratulated by the bystanders, raised his hands to
heaven and said, "Great Jupiter, and all ye other gods, that see all good and
evil deeds alike, ye know that it is not in unrighteous conquest, but in self-
defence, that the Romans have taken this city of their lawless enemies. If,"
he continued, "there awaits us any reverse of fortune to counterbalance this
good luck, I pray that it may fall, not upon the city or army of Rome, but, as
lightly as may be, upon my own head." After these words he turned round
to the right, as is the Roman habit after prayer, and while turning, stumbled
and fell. All those present were terrified at the omen, but he recovered
himself, saying that, as he had prayed, he had received a slight hurt to
temper his great good fortune.
VI. When the city was sacked, he determined to send the statue of Juno to
Rome, according to his vow. When workmen were assembled for this
purpose, he offered sacrifice, and prayed to the goddess to look kindly on

his efforts, and to graciously take up her abode among the gods of Rome. It
is said that the statue answered that it wished to do so, and approved of his
proceedings. But Livy tells us that Camillus offered his prayers while
touching the statue, and that some of the bystanders said, "She consents,
and is willing to come." However, those who insist on the supernatural form
of the story have one great argument in their favour, in the marvellous
fortune of Rome, which never could from such small beginnings have
reached, such a pitch of glory and power without many direct
manifestations of the favour of Heaven. Moreover, other appearances of the
same kind are to be compared with it, such as that statues have often been
known to sweat, have been heard to groan, and have even turned away and
shut their eyes, as has been related by many historians before our own time.
And I have heard of many miraculous occurrences even at the present day,
resting on evidence which cannot be lightly impugned. However, the
weakness of human nature makes it equally dangerous to put too much faith
in such matters or to entirely disbelieve them, as the one leads to
superstition and folly, and the other to neglect and contempt of the gods.
Our best course is caution, and the "golden mean."
VII. Camillus, either because he was elated by the magnificence of his
exploit in having taken a city as large as Rome after a ten years' siege, or
else because he had been so flattered by his admirers that his pride
overcame his sober judgment, conducted his triumph with great ostentation,
especially in driving through Rome in a chariot, drawn by four white
horses, which never was done by any general before or since, for this
carriage is thought to be sacred to Jupiter, the king and father of the gods.
The citizens, unaccustomed to splendour, were displeased with him for this,
and their dislike was increased by his opposition to the law for a
redistribution of the people. The tribunes proposed that the Senate and
people should be divided into two parts, one of which should stay at Rome
and the other remove to the captured city, because they would be more
powerful if they possessed two great cities, instead of one, and held the land
in common, still remaining one nation. The lower classes, which were
numerous and poor, eagerly took up the scheme, and continually clamoured
round the speakers at the rostra, demanding to have it put to the vote. But
the Senate and the nobles thought that it was not a redistribution, but the
absolute destruction of Rome which the tribunes were demanding, and in

their anger rallied round Camillus. He, fearing to have a contest on the
matter, kept putting off the people and inventing reasons for delay, so as to
prevent the law being brought forward to be voted upon. This increased his
unpopularity; but the greatest and most obvious reason for the dislike which
the people bore him arose from his demand for the tenth part of the spoils;
very naturally, though perhaps he scarcely deserved it. On his way to Veii it
seems he had made a vow, that if he took the city he would dedicate the
tenth part of the spoil to Apollo. But when the city was taken and
plundered, he either was unwilling to interfere with his countrymen, or else
forgot his vow, and allowed them to enrich themselves with the booty.
Afterwards, when he had laid down his dictatorship, he brought the matter
before the Senate, and the soothsayers declared that the victims for sacrifice
showed, when inspected, that the gods were angry and must be propitiated.
VIII. The Senate decreed, not that the plunder should be given up, for that
would have been scarcely possible to carry out, but that those who had
taken any should be put on their oath, and contribute a tenth part of its
value. This measure bore very hardly upon the soldiers, poor hard-working
men, who were now compelled to repay so large a proportion of what they
had earned and spent. Camillus was clamorously assailed by them, and,
having no better excuse to put forward, made the extraordinary statement
that he had forgotten his vow when the city was plundered. The people
angrily said that he had vowed to offer up a tithe of the enemy's property,
but that he really was taking a tithe from the citizens instead. However, all
the contributions were made, and it was determined that with them a golden
bowl should be made and sent to Apollo at Delphi. There was a scarcity of
gold in the city, and while the government were deliberating how it was to
be obtained, the matrons held a meeting among themselves, and offered
their golden ornaments to make the offering, which came to eight talents'
weight of gold. The Senate rewarded them by permitting them to have a
funeral oration pronounced over their graves the same as men; for hitherto
it had not been customary at Rome to make any speeches at the funerals of
women. They also chose three of the noblest citizens to travel with the
offering, and sent them in a well-manned ship of war, splendidly equipped.
Both storms and calms at sea are said to be dangerous, and they chanced on
this occasion to come very near destruction, and miraculously escaped, for
in a calm off the Aeolian Islands they were assailed by Liparian triremes,

who took them for pirates. At their earnest entreaty these people forbore to
run down their vessel, but took it in tow and brought it into their harbour,
where they treated it as a piratical craft, and put up the crew and the
property on board for sale by public auction. With great difficulty, by the
goodness and influence of one man, Timesitheos, a general, they obtained
their release, and were allowed to proceed. Timesitheos even launched
some ships of his own, with which he escorted them to Delphi, where he
also took part in the ceremony of consecration. In return for his services, as
was only just, he received special honours at Rome.
IX. The tribunes of the people again began to agitate about the
redistribution of land and occupation of Veii, but a war with the Faliscans
gave the leading men a seasonable opportunity to elect magistrates after
their own hearts for the coming year. Camillus was appointed military
tribune, with five others, as it was thought that the State required a general
of tried experience. At the decree of the Senate, Camillus raised a force and
invaded the Faliscan territory. He now besieged Falerii, a strong city well
provided with all munitions of war, which he considered it would be a work
of no small time and labour to take; but he was desirous of employing the
people in a long siege, to prevent their having leisure for factious
proceedings at home. This was ever the policy of the Romans, to work off
the elements of internal strife in attacks on their neighbours.
X. The Faliscans thought so little of the siege, from the strength of their
defences, that, except when on duty on the walls, they used to walk about
their city in their ordinary dress, and their children were sent regularly to
school, and used to be taken by their master to walk and take exercise
outside the walls. For the Faliscans, like the Greeks, had one common
school, as they wished all their children to be brought up together. The
schoolmaster determined to betray these boys to the enemy, and led them
outside the walls for exercise every day, and then led them back again. By
this means he gradually accustomed them to going out as if there was no
danger, until finally he took all the boys and handed them over to the
Roman pickets, bidding them bring him to Camillus. When he was brought
before him he said that he was a schoolmaster, that he preferred the favour
of Camillus to his duty, and that he came to hand over to him the city of
Falerii in the persons of these boys.