With regard to the prohibition to export attributed to Solon, it is necessary either to abandon the subject altogether, or to understand it in the contrary sense to that usually given. Plutarch, as his text now stands, tells a very strange story, observing, that the exportation of every thing but oil was prohibited by Solon, and therefore he adds, it is not wholly improbable that figs also were prohibited.[1618] I understand the matter differently. Solon, probably observing that Attica, at that time, produced barely sufficient oil for its own consumption, prohibited its exportation, though as agriculture improved, the law fell into desuetude, and oil became a principal export. From this example, Plutarch thinks it not improbable, that figs also may at some time or another have been prohibited. The matter is thus clear and natural. Besides, the Scholiast on Pindar, alluding no doubt to some particular period, observes, that the exportation of oil was not permitted.[1619] It is therefore surprising that Bœckh should have laid any stress at all on so contradictory a passage, without endeavouring to restore it, particularly as Solon was himself a merchant and a transgressor of his supposed law. That the exportation of corn should not have been allowed is both intelligible and reasonable, as Attica never produced sufficient for its own consumption; and they were not disposed to adopt the system of the modern Tuscans, who would sell their own corn to the English, and subsist on an inferior sort from the Black Sea, if indeed it be inferior.[1620] ----- Footnote 1618: Plut. Solon. § 24. Footnote 1619: Pind. Nem. x. 64. Shulz. Cf. Dissen. t. ii. 505. Petit, p. 417. Footnote 1620: Bowring, Statistics of Tuscany, p. 15. Ulpian, to whom Bœckh, i. 74, refers, merely repeats the well-known prohibition to ship-captains to take a cargo of corn to any foreign port. Orat. x. p. 271. a. -----