Solon Ah, Anacharsis, these useless toils, these perpetual claybaths, these miseries in the sand and the open air, are prophylactics against the sun’s rays; we need no hats to ward off his shafts. But come along.
And you are not to regard me as an authority whose statements are to be accepted as matter of faith; wherever you think I have not made out my case, you are to contradict me at once and get the thing straight. So we shall stand to win; either you, after relieving your mind of all objections that strike you, will reach a firm conviction, or, failing that, I shall have found out my mistake. And in the latter case, Athens will owe you a debt that she cannot be too quick to acknowledge; for your instructions and corrections of my ideas will redound to her advantage. I shall keep nothing back; I shall produce it all in public, stand up in the assembly and say: Men of Athens, I drew up for you such laws as I thought would most advantage you; but this stranger—and at that word I point to you, Anacharsis—thts stranger from Scythia has been wise enough to show me my mistake and teach me better ways. Let his name be inscribed as your benefactor’s; set him up in bronze beside your name-Gods, or by Athene on the citadel. And be assured that Athens will not be ashamed to learn what is for her good from a barbarian and an alien.
