Part 9

We do not know all the adventures of this famous champion, but are told that he was taken prisoner three times by his enemies. Twice he made marvellous escapes while they were conveying him to Sparta. On the third occasion he was less fortunate. His foes bore him in triumph to their capital city, and here he was condemned to be cast from Mount Taygetus into the Keadas, a deep rock cavity into which they flung their criminals.

Fifty Messenian prisoners suffered the same fate and were all killed; but the gods, so we are told, came to their leader's aid. The legend says that an eagle took Aristomenes on its outspread wings, and landed him safely in the bottom of the pit. More likely the bodies of the former victims broke his fall. Seeing no possible way out from the deep cavity, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and resigned himself to die. But, while thus lying, he saw a fox prowling among the dead bodies, and questioned himself how it had found its way into the pit. When it came near him he grasped its tail, defending himself from its bites by means of his cloak. Holding fast, he followed the fox to the aperture by which it had entered, enlarged it so that he could creep out, and soon appeared alive again in the field, to the surprise of his friends and the consternation of his foes.

Being seized again by some Cretan bowmen, he was rescued by a maiden, who dreamed that wolves had brought into the city a chained lion, bereft of its claws, and that she had given it claws and set it free. When she saw Aristomenes among his captors, she believed that her dream had come true, and that the gods desired her to set him free. This she did by making his captors drunk, and giving him a dagger with which he cut his bonds. The indiscreet bowmen were killed by the warrior, while the escaped hero rewarded the maiden by making her the wife of his son.

But Messenia was doomed by the gods, and no man could avert its fate. The oracle of Delphi declared that if the he-goat (Tragos) should drink the waters of the Neda, the god could no longer defend that fated country. And now a fig-tree sprang up on the banks of the Neda, and, instead of spreading its branches aloft, let them droop till they touched the waters of the stream. This a seer announced as the fulfillment of the oracle, for in the Messenian language the fig-tree was called Tragos.

Aristomenes now, discouraged by the decree of the gods, and finding himself surrounded, through treachery, by his enemies in his mountain stronghold, decided to give up the hopeless struggle. He broke fiercely through the ranks of his assailants with his sons and followers, and left his country to the doom which the gods had decreed.

The end of his career, like its earlier events, was, according to the legend, under the control of the deities. Damagetes, the king of the island of Rhodes, had been told by an oracle that he must marry the bravest of the Hellenes (or Greeks). Believing that Aristomenes had the best claim to this proud title, he asked him for the hand of his daughter in marriage, and offered him a home in his island realm. Aristomenes consented, and spent the remainder of his days in Rhodes. From his daughter descended the illustrious family of the Diagoridæ.

This romantic story of the far past resembles those of King Alfred of England, of Wallace and Bruce of Scotland, and of other heroes who have defended their countries single-handed against a powerful foe. But we are not done with it yet. There is another singular and interesting episode to be told,--a legend, no doubt, but one which has almost passed into history.

The story goes that the Spartans, losing heart at the success of the Messenians in the early years of the war, took the usual method then adopted, and sent to the oracle at Delphi for advice. The oracle told them to apply to Athens for a leader. They did so, sending an embassy to that city; and in response to the oracle the Athenians sent them a lame schoolmaster named Tyrtæus. They did not dare to resist the command of the god, but they had no desire to render any actual aid to the Spartans.

However, Apollo seems to have been wiser than the Athenians. The lame schoolmaster was an able poet as well, and on reaching Sparta he composed a series of war-songs which so inspirited the army that they marched away to victory. Tyrtæus was probably not only an able poet; very likely he also gave the Spartans good advice in the conduct of the war, and though he did not lead their armies, he animated them by his songs and aided them with his advice until victory followed their career of defeat.

For many years afterwards the war-songs of Tyrtæus remained highly popular at Sparta, and some of them have come down to our own days. As for the actual history of this war, most of what we know seems to have been written by Tyrtæus, who was thus not only the poet but the historian of the Messenian wars.

SOLON, THE LAW-GIVER OF ATHENS.

We have told how Sparta came to have an aristocratic government, under the laws of Lycurgus. We have now to tell how Athens came to have a democratic government, under the laws of Solon. These formed the types of government for later Greece, some of whose nations became aristocracies, following the example of Sparta; others became democracies, and formed their governments on the model of that of Athens.

As before Lycurgus the Spartan commonwealth was largely without law, so was Athens before Solon. In those days the people of Attica--of which Athens was the capital city--were divided into three factions,--the rich, the middle class, and the poor. As for the poor, they were in a condition of misery, being loaded down with debt, and many of them in a state of slavery to the rich, who owned nearly all the land.

At that period what law existed was very severe against debtors. The debtor became the slave of his creditor, and was held in this state until he could pay his debt, either in money or in labor. And not only he, but his younger sons and his unmarried daughters and sisters, were reduced to slavery. Through the action of this severe law many of the poor of Attica were owned as slaves, many had been sold as slaves, some had kept their freedom only by selling their own children, and some had fled from the country to escape slavery. And this, too, had arisen in many cases through injustice in the courts and corruption of the judges.

In the time of Solon the misery and oppression from these laws became so great that there was a general mutiny of the poor against the rich. They refused to submit to the unjust enactments of their rulers, and the state fell into such frightful disorder that the governing class, no longer able to control the people, were obliged to call Solon to their aid.

Solon did not belong to the rich men of Athens, though he was of noble birth, and, like so many of the older Greeks, traced his family line back to the gods. Neptune, the ocean deity, was fabled to be his far-off ancestor. He was born about 638 B.C. His father had spent most of his money, largely in kind deeds to others, and the son found himself obliged to become a merchant. In this pursuit he travelled in many parts of Greece and Asia, and in his journeys paid more heed to the gaining of knowledge than of money, so that when he came back his mind was fuller than his purse. Men who seek wisdom rarely succeed in gaining much money, but Solon's story goes to show that wisdom is far the better of the two, and that a rich mind is of more value than a rich purse. When he returned to Attica he gained such fame as a poet and a man of learning and wisdom that he has ever since been classed as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece.

Of these wise men the following story is told. Some fishermen of Cos cast their net into the sea, and brought up in its meshes a golden tripod, which the renowned Helen had thrown into the sea during her return from Troy. A dispute arose as to whom the tripod should belong to. Several cities were ready to go to war about it. To prevent bloodshed the oracle of Apollo was applied to, and answered that it should be sent to the wisest man that could be found.

It was at first sent to Thales of Miletus, a man famous for wisdom. But he decided that Bias of Priene was wiser than he, and sent it to him. And thus it went the round of the seven wise men,--Solon among them, so we are told,--and finally came back to Thales. He refused to keep it, and placed it in the temple of Apollo at Thebes.

An evidence alike of Solon's wisdom, shrewdness, and political skill arose in the war for the island of Salamis, which adjoined the two states of Megara and Attica, and for whose possession they were at war. After the Athenians had been at great loss of men and money in this conflict, Megara gained the island, and the people of Athens became so disgusted with the whole affair that a law was passed declaring that any man who spoke or wrote again about the subject should be put to death.

This Solon held to be a stain on the honor of Athens. He did not care to lose his life by breaking the law, but was not content that his country should rest under the stigma of defeat, and should yield so valuable a prize. He accordingly had it given out that he had gone mad; and in pretended insanity he rushed into the public square, mounted the herald's stone, and repeated a poem he had composed for the occasion, recalling vividly to the people the disgrace of their late defeat. His stirring appeal so wrought upon their feelings that the law was repealed, war was declared, and Solon was placed in command of the army.

Megara sent out a ship to watch the proceedings, but this was seized by Solon's fleet and manned by part of his force. The remainder of his men were landed and marched towards the city of Salamis, on which they made an assault. While this was going on, Solon sailed up with the ship he had captured. The Megarians, thinking it to be their own ship, permitted it to enter the port, and the city was taken by surprise. Salamis, thus won, continued to belong to Athens till those late days when Philip of Macedon conquered Greece.

To Solon, now acknowledged to be the wisest and most famous of the Athenians, the tyrants who had long misruled Athens turned, when they found the people in rebellion against their authority. In the year 594 B.C. he was chosen archon, or ruler of the state, and was given full power to take such measures as were needed to put an end to the disorders. Probably these autocrats supposed that he would help them to continue in power; but, if so, they did not know the man with whom they had to deal.

Solon might easily have made himself a despot, if he had chosen,--all the states of Greece being then under the rule of despots or of tyrannical aristocrats. But he was too honest and too wise for this. He set himself earnestly to overcome the difficulties which lay before him. And he did this with a radical hand. In truth, the people were in no mood for any but radical measures.

The enslaved debtors were at once set free. All contracts in which the person or the land of the debtor had been given as security were cancelled. No future contract under which a citizen could be enslaved or imprisoned for debt was permitted. All past claims against the land of Attica were cancelled, and the mortgage pillars removed. (These pillars were set up at the boundaries of the land, and had the lender's name and the amount of the debt cut into the stone.)

But as many of the creditors were themselves in debt to richer men, and as Solon's laws left them poor, he adopted a measure for their relief. This was to lower the value of the money of the state. The old silver drachmas were replaced by new drachmas, of which seventy-three equalled one hundred of the old. Debtors were thus able to pay their debts at a discount of twenty-seven per cent., and the great loss fell on the rich; and justly so, for most of them had gained their wealth through dishonesty and oppression. Lastly, Solon made full citizens of all from whom political rights had been taken, except those who had been condemned for murder or treason.

This was a bold measure. And, like such bold measures generally, it did injustice to many. But the evil was temporary, the good permanent. It put an end to much injustice, and no such condition as had prevailed ever again arose in Athens. The government of the aristocracy came to an end under Solon's laws. From that time forward Athens grew more and more a government of the people.

The old assembly of the people existed then, but all its power had been taken from it. Solon gave back to it the right of voting and of passing laws. But he established a council of four hundred men, elected annually by the people, whose duty it was to consider the business upon which the assembly was to act. And the assembly could only deal with business that was brought before it by this council.

The assemblies of the people took place on the Pnyx, a hill that overlooked the city, and from which could be seen the distant sea. At its right stood the Acropolis, that famous hill on which the noblest of temples were afterwards built. Between these two hills rose the Areopagus, on which the Athenian supreme court held its sessions. The Athenians loved to do their business in the open air, and, while discussing questions of law and justice, delighted in the broad view before them of the temples, the streets, and the crowded marts of trade of the city, and the shining sea, with its white-sailed craft, afar in the sunny distance.