7
Solon then, laying his hand on Aesop’s head and smiling the while, said, Don’t you think that anyone could make a ruler more moderate and a despot more reasonable if he could persuade them that it is better not to rule than to rule?
7
Who, he replied, would believe you in this matter in preference to the god who said, according to the oracle referring to you, Blessed the city that hears the command of one herald only?
7
Yet it is a fact, said Solon, that even now the Athenians hearken to one herald and ruler only, and that one, the law, under their democratic constitution. You are clever in understanding ravens and jackdaws, but you have no true ear for the voice of equality, but think that, according to the god, the city which hearkens to one man fares the best, whereas in a social gathering you regard it as a virtue to have everybody talk and on every sort of subject.
7
Yes, said Aesop, that is because you have not yet written a law that slaves Aesop, now received as an equal among people of the highest standing, had been a slave in his earlier years, and does not hesitate to joke about the fact. shall not get drunk, which would be a similar law to fit this case, as at Athens you wrote a law that slaves shall not have any love-affair and shall not rub down like athletes. A reason for the prohibition is given in Plutarch’s Life of Solon, chap. i. (p. 79 A).
