12
Thereupon Solon said that the best home seemed to him to be where no injustice is attached to the acquisition of property, no distrust to keeping it, and no repentance to spending it.
12
Bias said, It is the home in which the head of the household, because of his own self, maintains the same character that he maintains outside of it because of the law.
12
Thales said, The home in which it is possible for the head of the household to have the greatest leisure.
12
Cleobulus said, If the head of the household have more who love him than fear him.
12
Pittacus said that the best home is that which needs nothing superfluous, and lacks nothing necessary.
12
Chilon said that the home ought to be most like to a State ruled by a king; and then he added that Lycurgus said to the man who urged him to establish a democracy in the State, Do you first create a democracy in your own house. Repeated in Moralia, 189 E, 228 D, and Life of Lycurgus, chap. xix. (p. 52 A).
13
When this discussion had come to its end, Eumetis withdrew, accompanied by Melissa. Then Periander drank to Chilon in a big beaker, and Chilon did the same to Bias, whereupon Ardalus arose, and addressing himself to Aesop, said, Won’t you send the cup over here to us, seeing that these people are sending it to and fro to one another as though it were the beaker of Bathycles,Bathycles in his will left his beaker to the most helpful of the wise men. It was given to Thales, and he passed it on to another of the wise men, who in turn gave it to another until finally it came back to Thales again, and he dedicated it to Apollo. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, i. 28, and Plutarch, Life of Solon, chap. iv. (p. 80 E). and are not giving anybody else a chance at it ?
13
And Aesop said, But this cup is not democratic either, since it has been resting all the time by Solon only.
