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θανάτῳ. This law, ‘the most drastic poor law on record,’ is a great exaggeration of the Egyptian custom of taking a sort of census of inhabitants and their occupations; but such a punishment for idleness is impossible, though Plutarch (Sol. 17) says that at Athens Draco made death the punishment for ἀργία, and that Solon, here as elsewhere, modified his severity. Pollux (viii. 42) gives the penalty as ἀτιμία, and some (e.g. Theophrastus, Plut. Sol. 31) transfer the law to Pisistratus, who did his best to encourage industry (Ἀθ. Πολ. c. 16). The law, in its milder form, is in the spirit of Solonian legislation, as shown in his law that all sons were to be taught a trade (Plut. Sol. c. 24); but if it had anything to do with him, it could not have been borrowed from Amasis, who became king 570 B. C., more than twenty years after Solon's legislation (cf. App. XIV. 6). There was a law against idleness later at Athens (cf. Demosth. in Eubul. p. 1308, § 37).

ἐς αἰεί simply means ‘they follow it still’, a statement which, though untrue, H. may well have believed.

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