Now when Peisistratus, after inflicting a wound upon himself, came into the market-place riding in a chariot, and tried to exasperate the populace with the charge that his enemies had plotted against his life on account of his political opinions and many of them greeted the charge with angry cries Solon drew near and accosted him, saying: ‘O son of Hippocrates, thou art playing the Homeric Odysseus badly; for when he disfigured himself it was to deceive his enemies, but thou doest it to mislead thy fellow-citizens.’
Edition :
Plutarch Lives I: Theseus and Romulus, Lycurgus and Numa, Solon and Publicola, Ed. Jeffrey Henderson, trans. Bernadotte Perrin (The Loeb Classical Library 46), Harvard University Press: Cambridge/MA - London 1967 (first ed. 1914).
Notes :
Peisistratus claims that his life is threatened by enemies in order to justify bodyguards. The claim might have been completely fictional.
