mysteries, and in the sources of divine inspiration; wherefore he was commonly reported to be the child of the nymph Balte, and to be one of the old Curetes of Crete revived.  He came to Athens and was a friend to Solon, assisting him greatly in his legislation.  He remodelled their religious rites, and made their mourning more moderate, introducing certain sacrifices shortly after the funeral, and abolishing the harsh and barbarous treatment which women were for the most part subject to before in times of mourning.  Above all, by purifications and atoning sacrifices, and the erection of new temples, he so sanctified and hallowed the city as to make the minds of the people obedient to the laws, and easily guided into unity and concord.  It is said that he saw Munychia, and viewed it carefully for some time in silence.  Then he said to the bystanders, “How blind is man to the future.  The Athenians would eat this place up with their teeth if they knew what misfortunes it will bring upon them?” A prophetic saying of the same kind is attributed to Thales.  He bade his friends bury him in a low and neglected quarter of Miletus, telling them that one day it would be the market-place of the city.  Epimenides was greatly honoured by the Athenians, and was offered large sums of money by them, and great privileges, but he refused them all, and only asked for a branch of the sacred olive-tree, which he received and went his way.

XIII.  When the troubles about Kylon were over, and the accursed men cast out of the country, the Athenians relapsed into their old dispute about the constitution.  The state was divided into as many factions as there were parts of the country, for the Diakrii, or mountaineers, favoured democracy; the Pedioei, oligarchy; while those who dwelt along the seashore, called Parali, preferred a constitution midway between these two forms, and thus prevented either of the other parties from carrying their point.  Moreover, the state was on the verge of revolution, because of the excessive poverty of some citizens, and the enormous wealth of others, and it appeared that the only means of putting an end to these disorders was by establishing an absolute despotism.  The whole people were in debt to a few wealthy men; they either cultivated their farms, in which case they were obliged to pay one-sixth of the profit to their creditors, and were called Hektemori, or servants, or else they had raised loans upon personal security, and had become the slaves of their creditors, who either employed them at home, or sold them to foreigners.  Many were even compelled to sell their own children, which was not illegal, and to leave the country because of the harshness of their creditors.

The greater part, and those of most spirit, combined together, and encouraged one another not to suffer such oppression any longer, but to choose some trustworthy person to protect their interests, to set free all enslaved debtors, redistribute the land, and, in a word, entirely remodel the constitution.