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174 ANCIENT GREECE. [CHAP.influential as the difference of constitutions. How thencould it be otherwise expected, than that with the increasing culture of the nation, there should be a change in theinfluence and the conduct of those who were at its head.In the age of Solon, men first appeared in the mothercountry, who were worthy of the name of statesmen.Manyhad before that period been in possession of power, and notunfrequently had become tyrants but;none can be calledstatesmen, as the word itself denotes, except those who asfreemen conduct the affairs of cultivated nations.1In Solon's age, the relations of the Grecian states hadnot yet become intricate. No one of them exercised swajover the rest ;and no one endeavoured to do so ; even theimportance of Sparta in the Peloponnesus was founded OPher attempts to liberate the cities from the yoke of thetyrants. In such a period, when the individual states werechiefly occupied with their own concerns. and those of theirnearest neighbours, the statesman's sphere of action couldnot for any length of time be extended beyond the internalgovernment and administration. The seven wise men, from^hom the Greeks date the age in which politics began tobe a science, were not speculative philosophers, but rulers,presidents, and counsellors of states ; rulers, as Periander ofCorinth and Pittacus of Mitylene ; presidents, as Solon ofAthens, Cliilo of Sparta, Cleobulus of Lindus ;.counsellors,as Bias and Thales, of princes and cities. 2 Of these, Solonis the only one with whom we are much acquainted ;he isknown as a lawgiver, and also as a soldier and poet. But itwas not till after the wars with Persia, that the men appeared whom we can call statesmen in the modern senseof the word. For it was then for the first time, when acontest arose with a nation to allappearances infinitely superior in power, and the question of existence was at issue,,and when good counsel was not less important than action'that a greater political interest was excited, whichthe employedstrongest minds. And this interest was not and couldnot be transitory. For it gave birth in Greece to the idea,of supremacy, which a single state obtained and preserved1Between 600 and 550 years B. C./ See Diog. Laert. i c. 1-5. The passages which relate to them, havealready been collected and lUustmted by MeWrs and other writers on thehistory of philosophy. Memers's Geschichte der Wissenschaften, ip 43