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.
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