"...And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander.
About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought
to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the destruction
of the actors, it has not come down to us.
Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom
Solon heard this veritable tradition.
He replied:-In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river
Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district
of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is
the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their
foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted
by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers
of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. To
this city came Solon, and was received there with great honour; he asked
the priests who were most skilful in such 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, wishing to draw
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
man," and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion
and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning
up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he
was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very
great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children,
and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he
meant. 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 why. There have been, and
will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes;
the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water,
and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which
even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, 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 in the
heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the
earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times 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 seashore. And from this calamity
the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us.
When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water,
the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the
mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers
into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time,
does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency
to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are
the most ancient.
The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of
summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes
in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours,
or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions
noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written
down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when
you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the
other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream
from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those
of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin
all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient
times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of
yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than
the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge
only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not
know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race
of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended
from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown
to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction
died, leaving no written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the
great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war
and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed
the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which
tradition tells, under the face of heaven.
