obtained leave of absence from his countrymen for ten years, trusting that before the expiration of that period they would have become accustomed to his laws.  He quitted his native city in the full certainty that his laws would remain unrepealed until his return; for (says Herodotus) “the Athenians could not repeal them, since they were bound by solemn oaths to observe them for ten years.”  The unqualified manner in which the historian here speaks of an oath, as if it created a sort of physical necessity and shut out all possibility of a contrary result, deserves notice as illustrating Grecian sentiment.

On departing from Athens, Solon first visited Egypt, where he communicated largely with Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais, Egyptian priests who had much to tell respecting their ancient history, and from whom he learned matters, real or pretended, far transcending in alleged antiquity the oldest Grecian genealogies—­especially the history of the vast submerged island of Atlantis, and the war which the ancestors of the Athenians had successfully carried on against it, nine thousand years before.  Solon is said to have commenced an epic poem upon this subject, but he did not live to finish it, and nothing of it now remains.  From Egypt he went to Cyprus, where he visited the small town of AEpia, said to have been originally founded by Demophon, son of Theseus, and ruled at this period by the prince Philocyprus—­each town in Cyprus having its own petty prince.  It was situated near the river Clarius in a position precipitous and secure, but inconvenient and ill-supplied, Solon persuaded Philocyprus to quit the old site and establish a new town down in the fertile plain beneath.  He himself stayed and became aecist of the new establishment, making all the regulations requisite for its safe and prosperous march, which was indeed so decisively manifested that many new settlers flocked into the new plantation, called by Philocyprus Soli, in honor of Solon.  To our deep regret, we are not permitted to know what these regulations were; but the general fact is attested by the poems of Solon himself, and the lines in which he bade farewell to Philocyprus on quitting the island are yet before us.  On the dispositions of this prince his poem bestowed unqualified commendation.

Besides his visit to Egypt and Cyprus, a story was also current of his having conversed with the Lydian king Croesus at Sardis.  The communication said to have taken place between them has been woven by Herodotus into a sort of moral tale which forms one of the most beautiful episodes in his whole history.  Though this tale has been told and retold as if it were genuine history, yet as it now stands it is irreconcilable with chronology—­although very possibly Solon may at some time or other have visited Sardis, and seen Croesus as hereditary prince.