Both parties were now elate with hope, and their leaders urged
Solon to seize the supreme power in the state, of which he was
practically possessed, and make himself king. Many even of the more
moderate class of politicians, who saw how weary and difficult a task it
would be to reform the state by debates and legislative measures, were
quite willing that so wise and honest a man should undertake the sole
management of affairs. It is even said that Solon received an oracle as
follows:
"Take thou the helm, the vessel guide,
Athens will rally to thy side."
His intimate friends were loudest in their reproaches, pointing out that
it was merely the name of despot from which he shrunk, and that in his
case his virtues would lead men to regard him as a legitimate hereditary
sovereign; instancing also Tunnondas, who in former times had been
chosen by the Euboeans, and, at the present time, Pittakus, who had been
chosen king of Mitylene. But nothing could shake Solon's determination.
He told his friends that monarchy is indeed a pleasant place, but there
is no way out of it; and he inserted the following verses in answer to
Phokus, in one of his poems:
"But if I spared
My country, and with dread tyrannic sway,
Forbore to stain and to pollute my glory;
I feel no shame at this; nay rather thus,
I think that I excel mankind."
From which it is clear that he possessed a great reputation even before
he became the lawgiver of Athens.
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