SOLON, THE LAW-GIVER OF ATHENS, 73

blessing. The lowest class, composed of the poorest
citizens, had no taxes at all to pay, and no power in
the state, other than the right to vote in the assem-
bly. When called out as soldiers arms were fur-
nished them, while the other classes had to buy their
own arms.

Various other laws were made by Solon. The old
law against crime, established long before by Draco,
had made death the penalty for every crime, from
murder to petty theft. This severe law was re-
pealed, and the punishment made to agree with the
crime. Minor laws were these: The living could
not speak evil of the dead. No person could draw
more than a fixed quantity of water daily from the
public wells. People who raised bees must not have
their hives too near those of their neighbors. It
was fixed how women should dress, and they were
forbidden to scratch or tear themselves at funerals.
They had to carry baskets of a fixed size when they
went abroad. A dog that bit anybody had to be
delivered up with a log four feet and a half long
tied to its neck. Such were some of the laws which
the council swore to maintain, each member vowing
that if he broke any of them he would dedicate a
golden statue as large as himself to Apollo, at Delphi.

Having founded his laws Solon, fearing that he
would be forced to make changes in them, left
Athens, having bound the people by oath to keep
them for ten years, during which time he proposed
to be absent.

From Athens he set sail for Egypt, and in that
ancient realm talked long with two learned priests

D 7