matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old.  On one occasion, when he was drawing them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world—­about Phoroneus, who is called ‘the first,’ and about Niobe; and, after the Deluge, to tell of the lives of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and attempted to reckon bow many years old were the events of which he was speaking, and to give the dates.  Thereupon, one of the priests, who was of very great age; said, ’O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and there is never an old man who is an Hellene.’  Solon, bearing this, said, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean to say,’ he replied, ’that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age.  And I will tell you the reason of this:  there have been, and there will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes.  There is a story which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Phaethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father’s chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt.  Now, this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving around the earth and in the heavens, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth recurring at long intervals of time:  when this happens, those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the sea-shore; and from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing savior, saves and delivers us.  When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, among you herdsmen and shepherds on the mountains are the survivors, whereas those of you who live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea; but in this country neither at that time nor at any other does the water come from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below, for which reason the things preserved here are said to be the oldest.  The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer sun does not prevent, the human race is always increasing at times, and at other times diminishing in numbers.  And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed—­if any action which is noble or great, or in any other way remarkable has taken place, all that has been written down of old, and is preserved in our temples; whereas you and other nations are just being provided with letters and the other things which States require; and then, at the usual period, the stream from heaven descends like a pestilence, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education;