The Last King of Lydia Read Online Free Page A

you understand – I will return to Athens now.
Perhaps you will forgive my lack of courtesy, given how long I have been away from home. Twenty years is a long time.’
    ‘Do you love your home?’
    ‘Athens? Oh, yes. More than anything, though my countrymen can be foolish. They once gave me command of an army because of a poem I had written about wise leadership. An army for a poem!
They will not believe
that
a century from now.’ He shook his head. ‘A foolish people, but I have hopes for them yet. It will be a great city one day. I only wish that I had
been born a little later, so that I would live to see it.’
    ‘Are you enjoying your retirement?’
    ‘Not at all. It is a wretched business, being at the end of one’s life. Travel makes it worse. Wonders are wasted on a homesick man.’
    ‘Why did you leave Athens in the first place, if you loved it so much?’
    ‘It was a way to trick the Archons. You see, I was able to pass a number of reforms in spite of their objections.’
    ‘Reforms?’
    ‘Yes. In Athens, the wealthy rule in their own interest while the rest suffer in silence. It is the same everywhere, of course, but I wanted to change my own home for the better. Everyone
does, I suppose. I spent my life flattering and bullying a group of stubborn old men, so as to enable the passage of a few simple laws.’
    ‘And what was this trick of yours?’
    ‘A quirk of Athenian law. One of the only laws that I didn’t try to reform, in case I ever had to make use of it. If the person who passes a law is not in the city, the Archons
cannot repeal that law for ten years. It is supposed to discourage political assassination. So they were kind enough to let me pass my laws, thinking that they could overturn them in a year or two.
But I announced my retirement and left the city, and they were stuck with my reforms for a decade.’
    ‘Very clever. I applaud you.’
    ‘I’m not proud of it. It is a foolish law, and it was low of me to take advantage of it. But I hoped some good might come of it.’
    ‘Did it?’
    ‘No.’ Solon said. ‘It is as I thought it would be. They endured my laws for a decade and then they repealed them . . . Now I hear that a tyrant has come to power.
Psistratus.’
    ‘You know the man?’
    ‘Oh yes. I loved him once. Now I must go back to fight him, in whatever way that I can. It will do no good. He will ignore me and humiliate me, and I will die of old age long before he
falls from power. So you see, my life has been an empty gesture.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Perhaps I should have stuck to poetry. I was never much of a poet, but it certainly made
me happier than politics.’
    ‘Your politics does sound like a tedious business. A lifetime of work for a few petty changes. I think I prefer my system. A single man commands and is obeyed. Or do you believe a tyranny
like mine puts unworthy people in power? A lottery of birth, some call it. Were your politicians the finest men in Athens, the most fit to rule?’
    ‘No. Quite the opposite, if anything.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Yes. It seems to me that, almost always, only the evil and the insane crave the power to rule.’
    Amused, Croesus said: ‘Do you count me as such a man?’
    ‘No, because you were born to power. You never had to seek it.’
    Croesus raised an eyebrow. ‘In that case, are
you
evil? A madman? You, after all, rose to supreme power in Athens.’
    ‘No.’ Solon shook his head. ‘I flatter myself enough to believe I belong to another class of men who try to rule.’
    ‘Who are?’
    ‘Men who are outraged that the worst of men are those who rise to the top.’ He finished his cup of wine and placed it down carefully.
    ‘Of course, I became a politician like any other, relying on bribery and trickery to get my way. I realized too late that there are few truly evil men in power. They are mostly weak,
ambitious men who fool themselves that they are doing the right thing. That is why I retired. And now