Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and RomansPlutarch
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Plutarch
Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
Now, after the death of his father Aegeus, forming in his mind a great
and wonderful design, he gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica
into one town, and made them one people of one city, whereas before they
lived dispersed, and were not easy to assemble upon any affair for the
common interest. Nay, differences and even wars often occurred between
them, which he by his persuasions appeased, going from township to
township, and from tribe to tribe. And those of a more private and mean
condition readily embracing such good advice, to those of greater power
he promised a commonwealth without monarchy, a democracy, or people's
government in which he should only be continued as their commander in
war and the protector of their laws, all things else being equally
distributed among them; and by this means brought a part of them over to
his proposal. The rest, fearing his power, which was already grown very
formidable, and knowing his courage and resolution, chose rather to be
persuaded than forced into a compliance. He then dissolved all the
distinct state-houses, council halls, and magistracies, and built one
common state-house and council hall on the site of the
present upper town, and gave the name of Athens to the whole state,
ordaining a common feast and sacrifice, which he called Panathenaea, or
the sacrifice of all the united Athenians. He instituted also another
sacrifice, called Metoecia, or Feast of Migration, which is yet
celebrated on the sixteenth day of Hecatombaeon. Then, as he had
promised, he laid down his regal power and proceeded to order a
commonwealth, entering upon this great work not without advice from the
gods. For having sent to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning the
fortune of his new government and city, he received this answer:
Son of the Pitthean maid,
To your town the terms and fates,
My father gives of many states.
Be not anxious nor afraid;
The bladder will not fail so swim
On the waves that compass him.
Which oracle, they say, one of the sibyls long after did in a manner
repeat to the Athenians, in this verse,
The bladder may be dipt, but not be drowned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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