Burrow, Edward John: The Elgin marbles: with an abridged historical and topographical account of Athens (Band 1): Illustrated with forty plates (London, 1817)

18

accept the regal dignity, but he repeatedly
refused it. He abrogated the laws of Draco,
with the exception of those which related
to the crime of murder; and divided the peo-
ple into four classes, assigning to each their
appropriate privileges, and preventing their
infringement on each other. The court of the
Areopagus was established in still greater au-
thority and power than it had hitherto enjoyed.
He made also some alterations in the Senate,
appointing four hundred as the number of
the judges. After making these and other
salutary regulations, he produced his famous
code, consisting of many excellent and equita-
ble laws, which the Athenians bound them-
selves by oath to observe for ten years*.
During an absence of these ten years from
Athens, Solon visited Egypt and the court of
Croesus, king of Lydia, whose dazzling riches
he dared to estimate according to their true
value, and whose ideas of earthly happiness he
endeavoured unsuccessfully to improve. The

* xoti $yj net) Y,6\wv3 dvyjp'AQrjvaios, og 'AQyvaloicri vopovs xskev-
ccccl itoiy)<roc$? drfsoyptsyo'e area, ^axoc^xaTd Sewplrrf itpofaciv ix>
nt\w<TOLst ha $rj ay two, fcuv vop,m dv&yKticrftrj Av<rai Twv. sQeTQ.
Herod. L 29.