Book of the Magistrates of the Athenians

being secure, begin in a certain way to despise their head and move to compete with seditions and travails (since everyone is of a different opinion)—that these want to sail, and those others force the master to reach port—as I say, it appears a deformed and ugly thing to those who look upon the strife and the diverse opinions born among them, as some take down the sails, and others force the oars into the water, one pulling and the other slackening, whence many times they enter into the gravest perils and often, reaching land, strike a reef and break apart. Such happened and appeared to be the case of the Athenians. Because their Republic, having overcome the gravest and most harmful perils both by the virtue of the people and by that of many magistrates and captains, finally ruined itself rashly in matters of little importance and between reefs that were not to be feared in any count. Therefore, I will say no more about this one, in which the mob has the sum of the government in its hands. Thus far spoke Polybius. Now one must return to the movements of the seditious. Truly, since they were so discordant in will and of diverse wishes, they could do nothing other than turn to the Monarchy or make a head who would govern those discordant minds. By the consent, therefore, of all and especially of the populace, Solon, for the integrity of his life and because he had never consented to anything against the People, was called to this government. This enterprise, full of danger and doubtful of outcome, he, a man most upright and most wise, refused with these words:

While I flee to be the tyrant of the Fatherland,
while I have no power over any mortal,
I have lost nothing, nor has anything contrary offended me, nor have I stained my honor, and thus I have been made superior to all others.