Indeed it is weakness, not affection, which
produces such endless misery and dread to those who have not learned to
take a rational view of the uncertainty of life, and who cannot enjoy
the presence of their loved ones because of their constant agony for
fear of losing them. We should not make ourselves poor for fear of
losing our property, nor should we guard ourselves against a possible
loss of friends by making none; still less ought we to avoid having
children for fear that our child might die. But we have already dwelt
too much upon this subject.
VIII. After a long and harassing war with the Megarians about the
possession of the Island of Salamis, the Athenians finally gave up in
sheer weariness, and passed a law forbidding any one for the future,
either to speak or to write in favour of the Athenian claim to Salamis,
upon pain of death. Solon, grieved at this dishonour, and observing that
many of the younger men were eager for an excuse to fight, but dared not
propose to do so because of this law, pretended to have lost his reason.
His family gave out that he was insane, but he meanwhile composed a
poem, and when he had learned it by heart, rushed out into the
market-place wearing a small felt cap, and having assembled a crowd,
mounted the herald's stone and recited the poem which begins with the
lines--
"A herald I from Salamis am come,
My verse will tell you what should there be done.
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