871 
G R E 
The principal magiftrates ereiEled in Athens were tire 
nine arclions, the firit of vvlioni gave his name to tlie 
year, and prefided in the civil courts of jiidice, where 
a committee of the people, chofen from ail clalfes by 
lot, fat as judges and jury. The archon next in dig¬ 
nity, who had the appellation of king, prefided in caufcs 
refpefting religion, and things facred. The archon third 
in dignity, with his alfeirors the generals, prefided in 
military matters; and th<^ fix remaining, who were 
known by the appellation of ihefmoiheta, heard criminal 
pleas of various kinds, or rather directed the proceed¬ 
ings of the fix courts where criminal caufes were exa¬ 
mined and determined. Thefe nine archons, like all 
other Athenian magifirates, were, at the expiration of 
their annual office, accountable to the people ; and 
when their conduti., after a fevere fcruliny, appeared-to 
merit public approbation and gratitude, they were re¬ 
ceived, and remained for life, members of the Areopa¬ 
gus, which, in dangerous emergencies, was entitled to 
a H u me a fort of didfatorial power. 
Such is the great outline of the conftitution eftablifii- 
cd by Solon, according to which every Athenian citi¬ 
zen enjoyed the ineftimable privilege of being judged 
t>y his'peers, and tried by laws to which he himfelf had 
confented. Although the legiflative and judicial 
powers were thus lodged with the people, men of pro¬ 
perty and ability were alone entrufted with the admi- 
niftration of government; and as power in fome mea- 
fure followed property, the fame expedient which 
ferved to maintain a due diftinftion of ranks in fociety, 
tended alfo to promote the indultry and frugality of the 
multitude, that they might thereby become entitled to 
lhare thofe honours and offices, to which perfons of a 
certain eftate only could afpire. Hence the laws of So¬ 
lon were of the moft extenfive nature, comprehending not 
only rules of right, but maxims of morality, regulations 
of commerce, and precepts of agriculture. To def eribe 
his inflitutlons refpedfing fuch matters as are properly th.e 
objedts of legifiation, would be explaining thofe great 
but familiar principles, concerning marriage, fucceflion, 
telfaments, the rights of perfons and of things, which, 
through the medium of the Roman law, have been con¬ 
veyed into the jurifprudence of all the civilifed nations 
of Europe. His laws concerning education and man¬ 
ners prove that drunkennefs and unnatural love were 
the predominant vices of thofe early times. It was a 
particular duty of the archons, to prevent or punilh 
offences committed in confequence of intoxication ; 
and the regulations concerning fchools, which were 
not to be opened till fun-rife, which were ordered to 
be fiiut before night, and into which none but fuch re¬ 
lations of the mafter, as were particularly fpecified by 
law-, could on any pretence be admitted, marked the 
utmofi: folicitude to root out an evil which infected and 
difgraced the Athenian charadter.—It was for the puri¬ 
fication and amelioration of which charadter, added to 
his fuperior fagacity and contempt of earthly grandeur, 
that Solon was dignified with the epithet of one of the 
wife men of Greece ; yet was he doomed, like the cele¬ 
brated lawgiver Lycurgus, not to refi his allies where- 
he had acquired his fame : he died in the illand of Cy¬ 
prus, when about eighty years of age. 
The ufurpation of Pififiratus, though it deftroyed for 
a time the political liberty of Athens, gave ftability to 
moft of the laws introduced by Solon. That extraor¬ 
dinary tyrant w'as not mord diftinguilhed by the loftinefs 
of his geniH-s than the humanity of his difpofition ; and 
had not the violence of contending factions, and the 
fury of his enemies, inflamed his natural love of power, 
the name of Pilifiratus might fland the foremoft in the 
lift of Greci-an patriots and heroes. His valour and con¬ 
duct were fignalized in the conqueft oi Nifaea, Salamis, 
INuxos, Delos, and Sigseum ; and if he difplayed bold- 
nefs and addrefs in acquiring fovereignty, he dilplayed 
fiill more moderation and virtue in adininiftering it. 
E C E. 
'He afl'umed, indeed, the royal dignities of priefi and ge¬ 
neral, and took care that the chief offices of inagiftracy 
fiiould be filled by his p.irtifans. But he maintaintd 
the regular courfe of law and jufiice, not only by his 
authority, but by his example. He not only enforced 
the law's of Solon againft idlenefs, but endeavoured to 
give them more efficacy by introducing new arts and 
manufactures into Attica. He was the firff who brought 
into that country the complete collection of Homer’s 
poems, which he commanded to be fung at the Pana- 
thensean feftival; nor can we I'uppofe that he fliould 
have been zealous to diff'ufe the liberal and manly fen- 
timents of that divine poet, if his government had not 
relemblcd the moderation and equity of the heroic ages, 
rather than the defpotifm of tyrants. 
His fon Hipparchus imitated and ftirpalTed the mild 
virtues of his father; and, amidft the turbulence of the 
later democracy, it was acknowledged with a figh by 
the Atlieniaiis, that their anceftors w'ere indeed happy 
under Solon and Pififiratus, but that the reign of the 
tyrant Hipparchus brought back on earth the golden 
days of Saturn. The father had required a tenth pen't 
of the produce of Attica, to fupport his guards, and 
the other appendages of royalty : his more generous fon 
remitted otie half of this impofition. While he allevi¬ 
ated the burdens, yet encouraged the induftry, of his 
fubjeds, by building the temple of Olympian Jupiter, 
he was folicitous to difpel their ignorance and barba¬ 
rity by erecting pillars in every part of the city, en¬ 
graved with elegiac verfes, containing lefions ot wifdont 
and precepts of morality. He collected the firfi library 
in Athens ; and his liberal rewards, and fiill more his 
agreeable manners and winning aflability, attraCbed to 
that city the mofi dirtinguilhed poets of the age. The 
murder of Hipparchus exafperated the temper of his 
brother and fuccefl'or Plippias ; but notwithftanding the 
calamities which the latter infliCted and fuffered, it 
mufi be allowed that the government of Pififiratus and 
his family, which, with various interruptions, laft'ed 
fixty-eight years, increafed the ftrength and promoted 
the refinement of Athens. See Attica, vol. ii. p.502. 
But for the fuperionty of her progrefs in the arts, 
Athens was chiefly indebted to the laudable efforts ot 
Pericles and Phidias. It was the peculiar felicity of 
Pericles, to find Athens provided not only with all the 
materials of art, but witli artifis capable of employing 
them to the belt advantage. In the inaccui'ate, but 
exprefiive, language of Pliny, Iculpture and painting 
then firfi arofe, under the plaftic hands of Phidias and 
his brother Pantenus. Both arts, however, are known 
to have exified at a much earlier date ; but in the age 
of Pericles they firfi ali'umed their due honours. The 
inventive genius of man tried a new and nobler flight. 
The fuperiority of Phidias and Iris contemporaries ob- 
I'cured, and almolt obliterated, the memory of their 
predeceli'ors, and produced that fublime Ityle, which, 
having fiourifiied about an hundred and fifty years, de¬ 
cayed with the glory of Greece, and difappeared foon 
after the reign of Alexander. 
It appears from the gems and medals, and the few 
remains in marble, preceding the age of Pericles, that- 
the mechanical part of engraving and ffculpture had al¬ 
ready attained a high degree of perfection. But in fia- 
tuary, the fuperior merit of Phidias was acknowledged 
by the unanimous admiration of independent and rival 
communities. Intrufied by Pericles with the fuperin- 
tendence of the public works, his own hands added tp 
them their lafi and moft valuable ornaments. Before 
he vvas called to this diftinguilhed employment,, his fia- 
lues had adorned the mofi celebrated temples of Greece. 
His Olympian Jupiter, his ftatues of Apollo and Diana, 
his Minerva of twenty-fix cubits high, his group of 
twelve Grecian heroes lurrounding the Trojan horfe, 
his fiatue of the goddefs of 'Vengeance, his Venus Urur 
nia, and Parthenopean Apollo, his. three Mineryas 
fculpturtid. 
