SOLON 



SOLUTION 



565 



offence, but Draco's conception of law appeared 

 inadequate to the comprehensive views of Solon, 

 to whom the function of law was contained 

 not less in directing the citizen's most in- 

 timate relations and arrangements than in the 

 guidance of his political and public conduct. 

 Solon's regulations ranged over every province of 

 life. All Draco's laws were repealed "except those 

 relating to murder. A limit was placea on the 

 quantity of land that might be held in Attica ; no 

 citizen could be enslaved for debt, and absolute 

 freedom in bequeathing property was ensured to 

 any citizen who died childless. Arbitrary power 

 of fathers over their children was restrained and 

 arbitrary disinheritance forbidden. Any citizen 

 who maintained neutrality in a sedition lost his 

 civic status. The Areopagus was empowered to 

 deal severely with luxury in food and dress. No 

 woman might leave home with more than three 

 changes of clothing, or with a basket of more than 

 a cubit's length, and excessive wailing at funerals 

 was forbidden. The laws, inscribed on wood, were 

 placed in the Acropolis, whence they were re- 

 moved to Salamis during the Persian wars. 



The later years of Solon belong more to legend 

 than to history. We are told that he left Athens 

 for ten years, after binding the Athenians by oath 

 to observe his laws till his return. His travels took 

 him far afield. Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Egypt, 

 probably the scenes of his early career, were re- 

 visited. Historical investigation may deny the 

 possibility of a dialogue between Solon and 

 Croesus, but cannot spoil the charm of a story 

 which Herodotus has rendered immortal. The 

 king, then at the height of his prosperity, was 

 said to have asked him who was the happiest man 

 in the world, expecting^ to hear himself named. 

 Solon first mentioned Tellos, an Athenian who had 

 died for his country at Eleusis. Nor could Croesus 

 obtain the second mention in the ranks of the 

 happy ; that place was assigned to two Argive 

 youths, Cleobis and Biton, to whom the gods had 

 given to die in their sleep as the reward of an act 

 of filial piety. The wrath of Croesus at the moment 

 was unrestrained, but bitter experience taught 

 him to appreciate the wisdom of Solon, and ' to 

 account a prosperous man happy only when 

 he ended his life as he began it.' Solon's 

 meetings with Anacharsis and with Thales, 

 one of the seven wise men like himself, were 

 among the moral apologues of the ancients. 

 The last years of Solon were passed at 

 Athens, where the wild conflict of parties 

 disturbed the application of the new con- 

 stitution. He saw the failure of his plans 

 with the deepest distress. His suspicion of 

 his kinsman Pisistratus was justified by the 

 issue. Again he entrusted his warnings to 

 elegiac verse : ' Fools, ye are treading in the 30 

 footsteps of the fox ; can ye not read the 

 hidden meaning of these winning words?' 20 

 The protest was in vain ; Pisistratns seized 

 the government. The opposition of Solon 

 continued ; undeterred he laid down his 

 arms before his door, and called heaven to 

 witness that he had stood by his country. 

 Retiring into private life he died soon after 

 the usurpation of Pisistratus, with the last injunc- 

 tion that his ashes should be scattered over the 

 island of Salamis, the 'lovely island' which had 

 been the scene of his earliest exploit. 



Solon died the subject of a despotic monarch. 

 His labour might seem wasted, but its eclipse 

 lasted only for a season, and even during the 

 years of the tyranny of Pisistratus its influence 

 was strong. Morally and politically a power 

 among his countrymen, Solon saw that to im- 

 prison men in a relentless political machine like 



70 



Lycurgus, or to humble a refined aristocracy 

 beneath a paid proletariat like Pericles, were 

 policies equally dangerous. His constitution was 

 a graceful compromise between democracy and 

 oligarchy. In poetry he represents a high Ionian 

 type ; as a traveller and a soldier his experience 

 of men was large. In the higher realms of con- 

 structive statesmanship he rivals the greatest legis- 

 lators not only of Greece but of the world. 



See the Greek histories of Thirlwall, Grote, Curtius, 

 Cox, and Evelyn Abbott ; for the poems, Bergk, Lyrici 

 (?r<ret(4th ed. 1878); also editions of the Constitution 

 of Athens, by Kenyon (1891), Kaibel and Wilamowitz- 

 Moellendorff (Berl. 1891), and Sandys (1893) ; and Eng. 

 trans. byF. G. Kenyon (1891), Thomas J. Dymes (1891), 

 and E. Poste ( 1891). 



Solor Islands. See TIMOR. 



Solothurn. See SOLEUBE. 



Solstice (Lat. solstitium, from sol, 'sun, 'and 

 sto, 'I stand'), that point in the ecliptic at which 

 the sun is farthest removed from the equator, and 

 where it is consequently at the turning-point of 

 its apparent course. There are two such points in 

 the ecliptic, one where it touches the tropic of 

 Cancer, the other where it touches that of Capri- 

 corn. The former is the summer, and the latter is 

 the winter solstice to those who inhabit northern 

 latitudes, and vice ersd The term is also em- 

 ployed to signify the time at which the sun attains 

 these two points in its orbit, the 21st of June and 

 about the 21st December. 



Solution, the liquefaction of a solid or gas 

 by contact with a liquid, the product being a 

 homogeneous liquid called a solution. Like many 

 other terms, ' solution ' is difficult of exact defini- 

 tion, chiefly because of the loose manner in which 

 it is employed. One liquid is said to dissolve in 

 another when the solubility is limited ; but when 

 they are mutually soluble to any extent they are 

 said to be miscible. Solution depends on the 

 mutual attraction of the molecules of the bodies 

 concerned. A distinction is made between simple 

 solution and chemical solution. The solution of 

 salt in water is an example of the former; of zinc 

 in sulphuric acid, of the latter. In reality there is 



50 68 86 104 122 140 168 176 194 212 230 P 



only the one form of solution, though it may be 

 preceded by chemical action, as in the conversion 

 of the zinc into sulphate. In some cases a solid is 

 soluble in a liquid to any extent i.e. the solid 

 may be continuously dissolved in the liquid until 

 the solution becomes viscous or semi-solid. This, 

 however, only occurs with certain amorphous com- 

 pounds. In the great majority of cases (certainly 

 with all crystalline bodies) there is a definite 

 limit to the solubility, which varies according to 

 the temperature. When a liquid has taken itto 



