Note 227 — Chapter XI · SOLONIAN LAWS AND CONSTITUTION.

Plutarch, Solon, 22-24. According to Herodotus, Solon had enacted that the authorities should punish every man with death who could not show a regular mode of industrious life (Herod. ii, 177; Diodor. i, 77).

So severe a punishment is not credible; nor is it likely that Solon borrowed his idea from Egypt.

According to Pollux (viii, 6) idleness was punished by atimy (civil disfranchisement) under Drako: under Solon, this punishment only took effect against the person who had been convicted of it on three successive occasions. See Meursius, Solon, c. 17; and the “Areopagus” of the same author, c. 8 and 9; and Taylor, Lectt. Lysiac. cap. 10.