Caleb Jones

I don't exactly know, but he was a very famous person.

History knows him as a real person.

And we get the story about how he visited Egypt.

And it says, we read in the Timaeus, in the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile divides, there is a certain district, which is called the district of Sais.

To this city came Solon and was received there with great honor.

He asked the priest who were the most skillful in such matters about antiquity and made the discovery that neither he nor any of the other Helen, which is any other Greek, knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old.

On one occasion, wishing to draw them to speak of antiquity, Solon began to tell them about the most ancient things in our part of the world, about Pheronius, who was called the first man, about Niobe, and about the deluge, and of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha, and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, reckoning up the dates tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened.

Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said, O Solon, Solon, you Helens are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.

Solon in return asked him what he meant.

I mean to say, the priest replied, that in mind you are all young.

There is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is ory with age.

There have been and will be again many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes.

The greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes.

There is a story which even you Greeks have preserved, that once upon a time Phaethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds of his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was on the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt.

Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth which recurs after long intervals.

You remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones.

Also, you do not know that there were formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived.

And this was unknown to you because for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word.

For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and have had the fairest constitution of any which tradition tells under the face of heaven.

Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded in your state in our histories, but one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valor, for these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end.