Aristotle, Politics

[1274a] [1] Solon seems merely to have abstained from destroying institutions that existed already, he does appear to have founded the democracy by constituting the jury-courts from all the citizens. For this he is actually blamed by some persons, as having dissolved the power of the other parts of the community by making the law-court, which was elected by lot, all-powerful. For as the law-court grew strong, men courted favor with the people as with a tyrant, and so brought the constitution to the present democracy; and Ephialtes and Pericles docked the power of the Council on the Areopagus, while Pericles instituted payment for serving in the law-courts, and in this manner finally the successive leaders of the people led them on by growing stages to the present democracy. But this does not seem to have come about in accordance with the intention of Solon, but rather as a result of accident （for the common people having been the cause of the naval victories at the time of the Persian invasion became proud and adopted bad men as popular leaders when the respectable classes opposed their policy）; inasmuch as Solon for his part appears to bestow only the minimum of power upon the people, the function of electing the magistrates and of calling them to account （for if even this were not under the control of the populace it would be a mere slave and a foreign enemy）, whereas he appointed all the offices from the notable and the wealthy, the Five-hundred-bushel class [20] and the Teamsters and a third property-class called the Knighthood; while the fourth class, the Thetes, were admitted to no office.¹

Laws were given² by Zaleucus to the Epizephyrian³ Locrians and by Charondas⁴ of Catana to his fellow-citizens and to the other Chalcidic cities⁵ on the coasts of Italy and Sicily. Some persons try to connect Zaleucus and Charondas together: they say that Onomacritus first arose as an able lawgiver, and that he was trained in Crete, being a Locrian and travelling there to practise the art of soothsaying, and Thales became his companion, and Lycurgus and Zaleucus were pupils of Thales, and Charondas of Zaleucus; but these stories give too little attention to the dates. Philolaus of Corinth also arose as lawgiver at Thebes. Philolaus belonged by birth to the Bacchiad family; he became the lover of Diocles the winner⁶ at Olympia, but when Diocles quitted the city because of his loathing for the passion of his mother Alcyone, he went away to Thebes, and there they both ended their life. Even now people still show their tombs, in full view of each other and one of them fully open to view in the direction of the Corinthian country but the other one not; for the story goes that they arranged to be buried in this manner, Diocles owing to his hatred for his misfortune securing that the land of Corinth might not be visible from his tomb, and Philolaus that it might be from his.