[14]
SOLON
It seems, Anacharsis, that you have never yet done any thinking about the proper way to direct a state; otherwise you would not disparage the best of institutions. If ever you make it your object to find out how a state is to be organized in the best way possible, and how its citizens are to reach the highest degree of excellence, you will then praise these exercises and the rivalry which we display in regard to them, and you will know that they have . much that is useful intermingled with the hardships, even if you now think our energy is spent on them for nothing.ANACHARSIS
T assure you, Solon, I had no other object in coming to your country from Scythia, over such a vast stretch of land and across the wide and tempestuous Euxine, than to learn the laws of the Greeks, to observe your institutions, and to acquaint myself with the best form of polity. Thatis why I selected you in particular out ofall the Athenians for my friend and host, in deference to your reputation, for I used to hear that you were a maker of laws, an inventor of excellent institutions, an introducer of advantageous practices, and in a word, the fashioner of a polity. So do be quick about teaching me and making a disciple of me. For my part I would gladly sit beside you without meat or drink as long as you could endure to talk, and listen to you with avidity while you described government and laws.Anacharsis. Lucian of Samosata. Austin Morris Harmon (Translator). United States. Perseus 5.0.
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