<h2>The Comparison of Poplicola with Solon</h2>

There is something singular in the present parallel which has not occurred
in any other of the lives; that the one should be the imitator of the other,
and the other his best evidence. Upon the survey of Solon's sentence to
Croesus in favour of Tellus's happiness, it seems more applicable to Poplicola;
for Tellus, whose virtuous life and dying well had gained him the name
of the happiest man, yet was never celebrated in Solon's poems for a good
man, nor have his children or any magistracy of his deserved a memorial;
but Poplicola's life was the most eminent amongst the Romans, as well for
the greatness of his virtue as his power, and also since his death many
amongst the distinguished families, even in our days, the Poplicolae, Messalae,
and Valerii, after a lapse of six hundred years, acknowledge him as the
fountain of their honour. Besides, Tellus, though keeping his post and
fighting like a valiant soldier, was yet slain by his enemies; but Poplicola,
the better fortune, slew his, and saw his country victorious under his
command. And his honours and triumphs brought him, which was Solon's ambition,
to a happy end; the ejaculation which, in his verses against Mimnermus
about the continuance of man's life, he himself made-
<BR><BR>"Mourned let me die; and may I, when life ends,
<BR>Occasion sighs and sorrows to my friends," is evidence to Poplicola's
happiness; his death did not only draw tears from his friends and acquaintance,
but was the object of universal regret and sorrow through the whole city,
the women deplored his loss as that of a son, brother, or common father.
"Wealth I would have," said Solon, "but wealth by wrong procure would not,"
because punishment would follow. But Poplicola's riches were not only justly
his, but he spent them nobly in doing good to the distressed. So that if
Solon was reputed the wisest man, we must allow Poplicola to be the happiest;
for what Solon wished for as the greatest and most perfect good, this Poplicola
had, and used and enjoyed to his death.
<BR><BR>And as Solon may thus be said to have contributed to Poplicola's
glory, so did also Poplicola to his, by his choice of him as his model
in the formation of republican institutions; in reducing, for example,
the excessive powers and assumption of the consulship. Several of his laws,
indeed, he actually transferred to Rome, as his empowering the people to
elect their officers, and allowing offenders the liberty of appealing to
the people, as Solon did to the jurors. He did not, indeed, create a new
senate, as Solon did, but augmented the old to almost double its number.
The appointment of treasurers again, the quaestors, has a like origin;
with the intent that the chief magistrate should not, if of good character,
be withdrawn from greater matters; or, if bad, have the greater temptation
to injustice, by holding both the government and treasury in his hands.
The aversion to tyranny was stronger in Poplicola; any one who attempted
usurpation could, by Solon's law, only be punished upon conviction; but
Poplicola made it death before a trial. And though Solon justly gloried,
that, when arbitrary power was absolutely offered to him by circumstances,
and when his countrymen would have willingly seen him accept it, he yet
declined it; still Poplicola merited no less, who, receiving a despotic
command, converted it to a popular office, and did not employ the whole
legal power which he held. We must allow, indeed, that Solon was before
Poplicola in observing that-
<BR><BR>"A people always minds its rulers best
<BR>When it is neither humoured nor oppressed."
<BR><BR>The remission of debts was peculiar to Solon; it was his great
means for confirming the citizens' liberty; for a mere law to give all
men equal rights is but useless, if the poor must sacrifice those rights
to their debts, and, in the very seats and sanctuaries of equality, the
courts of justice, the offices of state, and the public discussions, be
more than anywhere at the beck and bidding of the rich. A yet more extraordinary
success was, that, although usually civil violence is caused by any remission
of debts, upon this one occasion this dangerous but powerful remedy actually
put an end to the civil violence already existing, Solon's own private
worth and reputation overbalancing all the ordinary ill-repute and discredit
of the change. The beginning of his government was more glorious, for he
was entirely original, and followed no man's example, and, without the
aid of any ally, achieved his most important measures by his own conduct;
yet the close of Poplicola's life was more happy and desirable, for Solon
saw the dissolution of his own commonwealth, Poplicola maintained the state
in good order to the civil wars. Solon, leaving his laws, as soon as he
had made them, engraved in wood, but destitute of a defender, departed
from Athens; whilst Poplicola, remaining both in and out of office, laboured
to establish the government. Solon, though he actually knew of Pisistratus's
ambition, yet was not able to suppress it, but had to yield to usurpation
in its infancy; whereas Poplicola utterly subverted and dissolved a potent
monarchy, strongly settled by long continuance; uniting thus to virtues
equal to those, and purposes identical with those of Solon, the good fortune
and the power that alone could make them effective.
<BR><BR>In military exploits, Daimachus of Plataea will not even allow
Solon the conduct of the war against the Megarians, as was before intimated;
but Poplicola was victorious in the most important conflicts, both as a
private soldier and commander. In domestic politics, also, Solon, in play,
as it were, and by counterfeiting madness induced the enterprise against
Salamis; whereas Poplicola, in the very beginning, exposed himself to the
greatest risk, took arms against Tarquin, detected the conspiracy, and,
being principally concerned both in preventing the escape of and afterwards
punishing the traitors, not only expelled the tyrants from the city, but
extirpated their very hopes. And as, in cases calling for contest and resistance
and manful opposition, he behaved with courage and resolution, so, in instances
where peaceable language, persuasion, and concession were requisite, he
was yet more to be commended; and succeeded in gaining happily to reconciliation
and friendship, Porsenna, a terrible and invincible enemy. Some may, perhaps,
object that Solon recovered Salamis, which they had lost, for the Athenians;
whereas Poplicola receded from part of what the Romans were at that time
possessed of; but judgment is to be made of actions according to the times
in which they were performed. The conduct of a wise politician is ever
suited to the present posture of affairs; often by foregoing a part he
saves the whole, and by yielding in a small matter secures a greater; and
so Poplicola, by restoring what the Romans had lately usurped, saved their
undoubted patrimony, and procured, moreover, the stores of the enemy for
those who were only too thankful to secure their city. Permitting the decision
of the controversy to his adversary, he not only got the victory, but likewise
what he himself would willingly have given to purchase the victory, Porsenna
putting an end to the war, and leaving them all the provision of his camp,
from the sense of the virtue and gallant disposition of the Romans which
their consul had impressed upon him.