inst the deceptions of the drama: and it is interesting
as marking the incipient struggles of that literature in which Athens
afterward attained such unrivaled excellence.

It would appear that all the laws of Solon were proclaimed, inscribed,
and accepted without either discussion or resistance. He is said to have
described them, not as the best laws which he could himself have
imagined, but as the best which he could have induced the people to
accept. He gave them validity for the space of ten years, during which
period both the senate collectively and the archons individually swore
to observe them with fidelity; under penalty, in case of non-observance,
of a golden statue as large as life to be erected at Delphi. But though
the acceptance of the laws was accomplished without difficulty, it was
not found so easy either for the people to understand and obey, or for
the framer to explain them. Every day persons came to Solon either with
praise, or criticism, or suggestions of various improvements, or
questions as to the construction of particular enactments; until at last
he became tired of this endless process of reply and vindication, which
was seldom successful either in removing obscurity or in satisfying
complainants. Foreseeing that if he remained he would be compelled to
make changes, he obtained leave of absence from his countrymen for ten
years, trusting that before the expiration of that period they would
have become accustomed to his laws. He quitted his native city in the
full certainty that his laws would remain unrepealed until his return;
for (says Herodotus) "the Athenians _could not_ repeal them, since they
were bound by solemn oaths to observe them for ten years." The
unqualified manner in which the historian here speaks of an oath, as if
it created a sort of physical necessity and shut out all possibility of
a contrary result, deserves notice as illustrating Grecian sentiment.

On departing from Athens, Solon first visited Egypt, where he
communicated largely with Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais,
Egyptian priests who had much to tell respecting their ancient history,
and from whom he learned matters, real or pretended, far transcending in
alleged antiquity the oldest Grecian genealogies--especially the history
of the vast submerged island of Atlantis, and the war which the
ancestors of the Athenians had successfully carried on against it, nine
thousand years before. Solon is said to have c