Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/271

 S L S O M 255 were united in one and the same person, and political questions were continually decided when, as often happened, a citizen was put on his trial for some alleged illegal or unconstitutional proposal. By such means popular rights and privileges were effectually protected, and the democratic character of the constitution enlarged and confirmed, as we see in the subsequent history of Athens. Solon, indeed, retained (he did not create) the famous senate of the Areopagus, and aimed at making it respected and capable of exercising a general superintend- ence over the morals and social life of the citizens. It was to be an aristocratic body, consisting only of archons who had acquitted themselves well and honourably during their year of office. It seems that he did not attempt to prescribe to it any special or particular duties, but that lie rather trusted to its making its influence felt from the fact that it was, as every one knew, composed of men of acknowledged merit and ability. Consequently, as Thirl- wall observes (Hist. ofGr., ch. xi.), "it could only exercise its powers with advantage as long as it retained the confidence of its fellow-citizens; when that was lost it became time that its legal authority should cease." Solon evidently felt that, for a time at least, there must be checks on popular government. Had it been hinted to him that under his constitution power must finally drift down to the lowest social stratum, he would perhaps have replied that he had endeavoured to supply the entire people with a political training which should by degrees qualify them for absolute self-government. Solon encouraged commerce and manufacturing indus- try, and drew a number of settlers from foreign parts to Athens, on condition of their paying an annual tax and putting themselves under the protection of a citizen who was to be their legal representative their "patronus," according to Eoman phrase. These settlers (/xcrot/cot, "metics") had none of the political privileges of the Athenian citizen, and they could not acquire landed property. Many of them, however, flourished and grew rich, and had every reason to b.e satisfied with their position, which, in a kindly and tolerant community like that of Athens, was continually improving. Solon, too, like all the legislators of antiquity, endeavoured to regulate every department of life, compelling the attend- ance of the youths from sixteen to eighteen at the public gymnastic schools, and requiring them to serve the next two years on garrison duty. Restraints were put upon women as to their appearance in public, and even as to their mourning at funerals. Solon's punishments were for the most part rather lenient, and indicated a humane and generous temper. It is of course not to be supposed that all the details of his legislation were maintained, but they undoubtedly left their mark on the Athenian character. Having done his work, Solon left Athens and travelled for ten years in Egypt, Cyprus, and Asia, gathering fresh stores of knowledge for himself and giving counsel to others. One would like to believe the beautiful story Herodotus tells of his interview with Croesus, king of Lydia, whom he warned with the memorable saying that " we must not pronounce any man happy till we have seen his end." Unfortunately, Croesus did not begin to reign till several years after Solon's travels, and with Grote we must be content to take the story as merely an " illustra- tive fiction." On his return to Athens in his old age he found the old feuds once more raging, and Pisistratus, his kinsman, and his friend in past days, intriguing for power. The two men had, it seems, a sincere respect for one another, but Solon protested against the complete surrender of the government to Pisistratus, the danger of which he publicly pointed out, though without effect. The crisis ended in the rule, in many respects an enlightened and beneficent rule, of Pisistratus and his sons, of which Solon lived only to see the first beginning. He died, soon after having made his honourable protest, at the age of eighty, leaving behind him the good effects of a work which only a man of rare intelligence and wide sympathies could have accomplished. He was something of a poet, and several fragments of his poems, written generally with a practical purpose, have come down to us, and throw light on his political aims and sentiments. Grote and Thirhvall in their histories of Greece give a full ac- count of Solon's legislation. Plutarch's life of Solon, not a very critical performance, is our chief original authority (W. J B ) SOLOTHURN. See SOLEURE. SOMALI, SOMAL, a Hamitic people of east Central Africa, mainly confined to the eastern "horn "of the continent, which from them takes the name of Somali Land, probably the Punt of the Egyptian records. Here they are conterminous towards the north-west with the kindred Afars (Dankali), and elsewhere with the more closely related Gallas, from whom they are separated on the south-west by the river Juba. Tajurra Bay, with the lower course of the Hawash, is usually given as the north- west frontier ; but, according to the recent explorations of Abargues de Sosten in eastern Abyssinia, there appears to be here an overlapping of the three peoples, the Isa Somali encroaching on the Afar domain north of Tajurra Bay nearly to the parallel of Asab Bay (13 N.), while the Dawari Gallas penetrate between this Somali tribe and the lower Hawash eastwards to the coast at Obok (12 N.). A line drawn from the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb through the Harrar district and the headwaters of the Haines river (Webbe-Shebeyli or " Leopard river ") southwards to the equator at the mouth of the Juba will roughly define the landward frontier of the Somali territory, which is else- where sea-girt, by the Gulf of Aden on the north, by the Indian Ocean from Cape Guardafui to the equator. Our first contact with the Somali people may be said to date from the English occupation of Aden in 1839. But, notwithstanding the early visits of Cruttenden, Ch. H. Johnston, Captain Burton, and one or two others, very little was known about them before the seizure of Berberah by the Egyptians in 1874. This event led to the estab- lishment of permanent relations with the coast tribes, and was followed by several excursions into the interior, of which the most fruitful in results have been those of Sacconi, Revoil, F. L. James, Paulitschke, Von Hardegger, and Josef Menge, the last three bringing our information down to the year 1885. From the reports of these ob- servers the true relations of the Somali have been gradually determined, and we now know that they form a distinct branch of the eastern (" Ethiopic") Hamitic stock, of which the other chief members are the neighbouring Gallas and Afars, the Abyssinian Agau, and the Bejas (Bishari) of the steppe lands between the Nubian Nile and the Red Sea. Their close affinities both in physical type and in speech with the surrounding Gallas are obvious, and like them they are described as a fine race, 1 tall, active, and robust, with fairly regular features, but not free from an infusion of Negro blood, as shown both in their dark, often almost black complexion, and still more in their kinky and even woolly hair, sometimes short, sometimes long enough to be plaited in tresses hanging down to the shoulders. 2 Like 1 Captain Wharton, who has been recently surveying the Somali seaboard, describes the coast tribes near the equator as "the hand- somest race of men and women he had ever seen," black in colour, but with magnificent physique (Proc. Hoy. Geog. Sec., Oct., 1885). Captain F. M. Hunter also describes them as a tall, fine-looking people, with oval face, high rounded forehead, full lips, strong regular teeth, bright restless eye, but lower limbs seldom well developed (A Grammar of the Somal Language, Bombay, 1880). 2 The occasional presence of " steatopyga " (Topinard) shows that all these features are undoubtedly due to Negro intermixture.