SOLON SOLWAY MOSS. 



315 



and industry, upon which the prosperity of Athens 

 depended. It also tended to place the most worthy 

 and enlightened citizens in offices of trust. By 

 making the choice of magistrates dependent not on 

 lot, but on the votes of the citizens, a proper de- 

 gree of influence was secured to the most respect- 

 able portion of the people. The only reward of 

 public officers was the honour attached to their 

 offices, no salary being connected with them. 

 Still further to excite industry among the poor, 

 the Areopagus was empowered to punish vaga- 

 bonds ; and the son was released from the obliga- 

 tion of supporting his parents, if they had taught 

 him no trade. The great counterpoise to the power 

 of the people consisted in the organization of the 

 Areopagus and the institution of a council. The 

 Areopagus not only judged in capital cases, but 

 kept up a rigorous inspection into the morals and 

 lives of the citizens, watched over the faithful 

 observance of the laws, and possessed many of the 

 privileges of archons. In cases of emergency, it 

 seems to have exercised all powers, like the Roman 

 dictators. The new senate of 400 (chosen from 

 each phyle) had still more extensive powers, and 

 was directed by an executive committee (prytanis), 

 chosen from its own number. Solon attempted to 

 give stability to his constitution, by a law, that no 

 decree contrary to existing laws should be valid, 

 and that whoever repealed an old law, should pro- 

 pose a new one in place of it ; and to prevent the 

 increase of a needy populace, he made it difficult 

 for a foreigner to acquire the right of citizenship in 

 Athens. Prodigal, extravagant, or otherwise im- 

 moral citizens were not permitted to speak in the 

 popular assemblies, and were thereby excluded 

 from all public offices. Bribery was punished by 

 death, or a fine of ten times the amount of the 

 bribe, or by infamy, both parties being treated as 

 equally guilty. . Adulterers, seducers of a free 

 person, and procurers, were punished with death. 

 A woman guilty of adultery was to be divorced, 

 and could not appear at the public festivals. The 

 hours for the public instruction of youth were fixed 

 with the greatest exactness ; and foreigners were 

 forbidden all access to the gymnasia. The educa- 

 tion of boys, youths, and men was regulated by 

 particular laws ; and public officers were appointed 

 to superintend the conduct of masters and pupils. 

 Whoever could not afford to send his children to a 

 gymnasium, was required to have them taught 

 agriculture or a trade. Solon left religion un- 

 changed, but gave to the Areopagus the supreme 

 direction of religious matters, and built several 

 temples, among which was one to Venus Pandemos 

 (the priestesses of which were public strumpets). 

 When Solon had completed his laws (see Petiti 

 Leyes Atticce, Paris, 1635), he caused them to be 

 engraved on wooden cylinders, and bound the 

 Athenians by an oath not to make any changes in 

 his code for ten years. He himself left the country, 

 to avoid being obliged to make any alterations in 

 them, and visited Egypt, Crete, Cyprus, Lydia 

 (see Croesus), Miletus, where he met Thales, and 

 several cities of Greece proper. Returning to 

 Athens, after an absence of ten years, he found the 

 state torn by the old party hate : but he was re- 

 ceived with general esteem, and all parties sub- 

 mitted their demands to his decision. Among the 

 leaders, at this time, was Pisistratus, who was at 

 the head of the popular party. Although a friend 

 and favourite of Solon, he found an opponent in 



him, when his purpose of obtaining the sovereignty 

 became obvious. Solon left Athens for ever, and 

 died soon after; but when and where his death 

 took place is uncertain. He is generally repre- 

 sented to have died in his eightieth year, in the 

 second year of the fifty-fifth Olympiad. Of hio 

 poems and other writings we have some fragments, 

 which are contained in Glandorf's Gnotnicorum 

 Poctarum Opera (Leipsic, 1776, 2d vol.) The 

 letters to Pisistratus, and to some of the seven 

 wise men, attributed to him, are spurious. 



SOLOTHURN. See Soleure. 



SOLSTICE, in astronomy; that time when the 

 sun is in one of the solstitial points; that is, when 

 he is at his greatest distance from the equator, and 

 is so called because he then appears to stand still, 

 and not to change his distance from the equator for 

 some time an appearance owing to the obliquity 

 of our sphere, and which those living under the 

 equator are strangers to. The solstices are two in 

 each year, the estival or summer solstice, and the 

 hyemal or winter solstice. The summer solstice 

 is when the sun seems to describe the tropic of 

 Cancer, which is on June 22, when he makes the 

 longest day; the winter solstice is when the sun 

 enters the first degree, or seems to describe the 

 tropic of Capricorn, which is on December 22, 

 when he makes the shortest day. This is to be 

 understood of our northern hemisphere; for, in the 

 southern, the sun's entrance into Capricorn makes 

 the summer solstice, and that into Cancer the 

 winter solstice. The two points of the ecliptic, 

 wherein the sun's greatest ascent above the equator, 

 and his descent below it, are terminated, are called 

 the solstitial points; and a circle, supposed to pass 

 through the poles of the world and these points, 13 

 called the solstitial colure. The summer solstitial 

 point is in the beginning of the first degree of 

 Cancer, and is called the cestival or summer point ; 

 and the winter solstitial point is in the beginning of 

 the first degree of Capricorn, and is called the 

 winter point. These two points are diametrically 

 opposite to each other. 



SOLUTION. See Cohesion. 



SOLWAY MOSS; a tract, of land in Cumber- 

 land, celebrated for an eruption of a very remark- 

 able kind, which is thus described by Mr Gilpin: 

 " Solway moss is a flat area about seven miles in 

 circumference. The substance of it is a gross fluid, 

 composed of mud and the putrid fibres of heath, 

 diluted by internal springs, which arise in every 

 part. The surface is a dry crust, covered with 

 moss and rushes, offering a fair appearance over an 

 unsound bottom, shaking with the least pressure. 

 Cattle, by instinct, know and avoid it. Where 

 rushes grow, the bottom is soundest. The adven- 

 turous passenger, therefore, who sometimes, in dry 

 seasons, traverses this perilous waste, to save a few 

 miles, picks his cautious way over the rushy 

 tussocks as they appear before him. If his foot 

 slips, or if he ventures to desert this mark of 

 security, it is possible he may never more be heard 

 of. On the south, Solway moss is bounded by a 

 cultivated plain, which declines gently, through 

 the space of a mile, to the river Esk. This plain 

 is lower than the moss, being separated from it by 

 a breastwork formed by digging peat, which makes 

 an irregular, though perpendicular line of low, 

 black boundary. It was the bursting of the moss 

 through this peat breastwork, over the plains 

 hctwc-en it and the Esk, that occasioned the 



