[3] Solon was by birth and reputation of the first rank, but by wealth and position belonged to the middle class, as is admitted on the part of the other authorities, and as he himself testifies in these poems, exhorting the wealthy not to be covetous:“Refrain ye in your hearts those stubborn moods,
Plunged in a surfeit of abundant goods,
And moderate your pride! We'll not submit,
Nor even you yourselves will this befit.1
”Solon Fr. 28And he always attaches the blame for the civil strife wholly to the rich; owing to which at the beginning of the elegy he says that he fears“Both love of money and overweening pride—,
”Solon Fr. 28 implying that these were the causes of the enmity that prevailed.
1 'Nor shall ye possess what ye have now without decrease' (Edmonds).