Book 2
1273b
Of those that have put forward views about politics, some have taken no part in any political activities whatever but have passed their whole life as private citizens; and something has been said about almost all the writers of this class about whom there is anything noteworthy. Some on the other hand have been lawgivers, either for their native cities or even for certain foreign peoples, after having themselves been actively engaged in government; and of these some have been framers of laws only, and others of a constitution also, for instance Solon and Lycurgus, who instituted both laws and constitutions. The Spartan constitution has been discussed. As for Solon, he is considered by some people to have been a good lawgiver, as having put an end to oligarchy when it was too unqualified and having liberated the people from slavery and restored the ancestral democracy with a skilful blending of the constitution: the Council on the Areopagus being an oligarchic element, the elective magistracies aristocratic and the law-courts democratic.
