XIV.  In this position of affairs, the most sensible men in Athens perceived that Solon was a person who shared the vices of neither faction, as he took no part in the oppressive conduct of the wealthy, and yet had sufficient fortune to save him from the straits to which the poor were reduced.  In consequence of this, they begged him to come forward and end their disputes.  But Phanias of Lesbos says that Solon deceived both parties, in order to save the state, promising the poor a redistribution of lands, and the rich a confirmation of their securities.  However, Solon himself tells us that it was with reluctance that he interfered, as he was threatened by the avarice of the one party, and the desperation of the other.  He was chosen archon next after Philombrotus, to act as an arbitrator and lawgiver at once, because the rich had confidence in him as a man of easy fortune, and the poor trusted him as a good man.  It is said also that a saying which he had let fall some time before, that “equality does not breed strife,” was much circulated at the time, and pleased both parties, because the rich thought it meant that property should be distributed according to merit and desert, while the poor thought it meant according to rule and measure.  Both parties were now elate with hope, and their leaders urged Solon to seize the supreme power in the state, of which he was practically possessed, and make himself king.  Many even of the more moderate class of politicians, who saw how weary and difficult a task it would be to reform the state by debates and legislative measures, were quite willing that so wise and honest a man should undertake the sole management of affairs.  It is even said that Solon received an oracle as follows: 

    “Take thou the helm, the vessel guide,
    Athens will rally to thy side.”

His intimate friends were loudest in their reproaches, pointing out that it was merely the name of despot from which he shrunk, and that in his case his virtues would lead men to regard him as a legitimate hereditary sovereign; instancing also Tunnondas, who in former times had been chosen by the Euboeans, and, at the present time, Pittakus, who had been chosen king of Mitylene.  But nothing could shake Solon’s determination.  He told his friends that monarchy is indeed a pleasant place, but there is no way out of it; and he inserted the following verses in answer to Phokus, in one of his poems: 

                   “But if I spared
    My country, and with dread tyrannic sway,
    Forbore to stain and to pollute my glory;
    I feel no shame at this; nay rather thus,
    I think that I excel mankind.”

From which it is clear that he possessed a great reputation even before he became the lawgiver of Athens.

In answer to the reproaches of many of his friends at his refusal to make himself despot, he wrote as follows: