Solon (; ; BC) was an archaic Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher (philosopher in an etymological sense), and poet. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece and is credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy.Stanton, G. R. Athenian Politics c. 800–500 BC: A Sourcebook, Routledge, London (1990), p. 76.Andrews, A. Greek Society (Penguin 1967) 197E. Harris, "A New Solution to the Riddle of the Seisachtheia", in The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece, eds. L. Mitchell and P. Rhodes (Routledge 1997) 103 Solon's efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral declineAristotle, Politics, 1273b 35–1274a 21 resulted in his constitutional reform reforming most of Draco's laws.
Solon's reforms included debt relief later known and celebrated among Athenians as the (shaking off of burdens). He is described by Aristotle in the Athenian Constitution as "the first people's champion". Demosthenes credited Solon's reforms with starting a golden age.
Modern knowledge of Solon is limited by the fact that his works only survive in fragments and appear to feature interpolations by later authors. It is further limited by the general scarcity of documentary and archaeological evidence covering Athens in the early 6th century BC.Stanton G. R. Athenian Politics c. 800–500 BC: A Sourcebook, London: Routledge (1990), pp. 1–5.
Ancient authors such as Philo of Alexandria,Philo Judaeus Alexandria, "On the Laws I and II", Loeb Classical Library (1953) Herodotus, and Plutarch are the main sources, but wrote about Solon long after his death. Fourth-century BC orators, such as Aeschines, tended to attribute to Solon all the laws of their own, much later times.V. Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates: Greek History and Civilization, Routledge (1973) 71
Biography
Early life and ancestry
Solon was born in Athens around 630 BC. His family was distinguished in Attica because they belonged to a noble or Eupatrid clan. Solon's father was probably Execestides. If so, his lineage could be traced back to Codrus, the last King of Athens."Solon" in Magill, Frank N. (ed)., The Ancient World: Dictionary of World Biography (Salem Press/Routledge, 1998), p. 1057. According to Diogenes Laërtius, he had a brother named Dropides, who was an ancestor (six generations removed) of Plato.Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Famous Philosophers, Book 3 "Plato", chapter 1. According to Plutarch, Solon was related to the tyrant Pisistratus, for their mothers were cousins.Plutarch Solon 1 s:Lives (Dryden translation)/Solon#1. Solon is said to have done business in maritime trade which later authors in antiquity judged unaristocratic.Plutarch, Life of Solon, ch. 2; Björn Onken, "Ein Seehändler unter den sieben Weisen? Anmerkungen zur Biographie des Solon". In: Ruffing, Kai; Droß-Krüpe, Kerstin (eds) (2018). Emas non quod opus est, sed quod necesse est. Beiträge zur Wirtschafts-, Sozial-, Rezeptions- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Antike. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 37–44.
Defeat of Megara When Athens and its neighbor and rival in the Saronic Gulf, Megara, were contesting the possession of Salamis, Solon was made leader of the Athenian forces. After repeated disasters, Solon was able to improve the morale of his troops through a nationalist poem he wrote about the island. Supported by Pisistratus, he defeated the Megarians either by means of a cunning trick or more directly through heroic battle around 595 BC.Plutarch Solon 9 s:Lives/Solon#9 The Megarians, however, refused to give up their claim. The dispute was referred to the Spartans, who eventually awarded possession of the island to Athens on the strength of the case that Solon put to them.Plutarch, Solon 9 Plutarch professes admiration of Solon's elegy.Plutarch, Solon 8 The same poem was said by Diogenes Laërtius to have stirred Athenians more than any other verses that Solon wrote:
One fragment describes assorted breads and cakes:
Archonship According to Diogenes Laertius, in 594 BC, Solon was chosen archon, or chief magistrate.Solon of Athens Solon repealed all of Draco's laws except those relating to homicide.Plutarch, Solon 17.
During Solon's time, many Greek city-states had seen the emergence of tyrants, opportunistic noblemen who had taken power on behalf of sectional interests. Solon was described by Plutarch as having been temporarily awarded autocratic powers by Athenian citizens on the grounds that he had the wisdom to sort out their differences for them in a peaceful and equitable manner.Plutarch Solon 14 s:Lives (Dryden translation)/Solon#14 Some modern scholars believe these powers were in fact granted some years after Solon had been archon, when he would have been a member of the Areopagus and probably a more respected statesman by his peers.Stanton G.R. Athenian Politics c. 800–500 BC: A Sourcebook, Routledge, London (1990), p. 36.Hignett C. A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford University Press 1952).Miller, M. Arethusa 4 (1971) 25–47.
As archon, Solon discussed his intended reforms with some friends. Knowing that he was about to cancel all debts, these friends took out loans and promptly bought some land. Suspected of complicity, Solon complied with his own law and released his own debtors, amounting to five talents (or 15 according to some sources). His friends never repaid their debts.Plutarch Solon 15 s:Lives (Dryden translation)/Solon#15
Travels
After completing his work of reform, Solon surrendered his extraordinary authority and traveled abroad for ten years, so that the Athenians could not induce him to repeal any of his laws.Herodotus, The Histories, Hdt. 1.29
Within four years of Solon's departure, the old social rifts re-appeared, but with some new complications. There were irregularities in the new governmental procedures, elected officials sometimes refused to stand down from their posts and occasionally important posts were left vacant. It has even been said that some people blamed Solon for their troubles.Athenaion Politeia 13. Eventually one of Solon's relatives, Pisistratus, ended the factionalism by force, thus instituting an unconstitutionally gained tyranny. In Plutarch's account, Solon accused Athenians of stupidity and cowardice for allowing this to happen.Plutarch, Solon 30.
Solon's first stop in his travels was Egypt. There, according to Herodotus, he visited the Pharaoh of Egypt, Amasis II.Herodotus, The Histories, Hdt. 1.30 According to Plutarch, he spent some time and discussed philosophy with two Egyptian priests, Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais.Plutarch Solon 26 s:Lives (Dryden translation)/Solon#26 A character in two of Plato's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias, claims Solon visited Neith's temple at Sais and received from the priests there an account of the history of Atlantis. Next, Solon sailed to Cyprus, where he oversaw the construction of a new capital for a local king, who named it Soloi in gratitude.
Solon's travels finally brought him to Sardis, capital of Lydia. According to Herodotus and Plutarch, he met with Croesus and gave the Lydian king advice, which Croesus failed to appreciate until it was too late. Croesus had considered himself to be the happiest man alive and Solon had advised him, "Count no man happy until he be dead." The reasoning was that at any minute, fortune might turn on even the happiest man and make his life miserable. It was only after he had lost his kingdom to the Persian king Cyrus, while awaiting execution, that Croesus acknowledged the wisdom of Solon's advice.Herodotus 1.30.Plutarch Solon 28 s:Lives (Dryden translation)/Solon#28
Death and legacy After his return to Athens, Solon became a staunch opponent of Pisistratus. In protest, and as an example to others, Solon stood outside his own home in full armour, urging all who passed to resist the machinations of the would-be tyrant. His efforts were in vain. Solon died shortly after Pisistratus usurped by force the autocratic power that Athens had once freely bestowed upon him.Plutarch, Solon 32 Solon died in Cyprus around the age of 70 and, in accordance with his will, his ashes were scattered around Salamis, the island where he was born.Diogenes Laertius 1.62I. M. Linforth, Solon the Athenian, University of California Press (1919), p. 308, Google Books link
Pausanias listed Solon among the Seven Sages, whose aphorisms adorned Apollo's temple in Delphi.Pausanias 10.24.1 (e.g. Jones and Omerod trans. ). Stobaeus in the Florilegium relates a story about a symposium where Solon's young nephew was singing a poem of Sappho's: Solon, upon hearing the song, asked the boy to teach him to sing it. When someone asked, "Why should you waste your time on it?", Solon replied, "", "So that I may learn it before I die."Stobaeus, III, 29, 58, taken from a lost work of Aelian. Ammianus Marcellinus, however, told a similar story about Socrates and the poet Stesichorus, quoting the philosopher's rapture in almost identical terms: ,Ammianus Marcellinus 38.4 meaning "in order to leave life knowing a little more".
Historical rivalries
The social and political upheavals that characterized Athens in Solon's time have been variously interpreted by historians from ancient times to the present day. The historical account of Solon's Athens has evolved over many centuries into a set of contradictory stories or a complex story that might be interpreted in a variety of ways. As further evidence accumulates, and as historians continue to debate the issues, Solon's motivations and the intentions behind his reforms will continue to attract speculation.See, for example, J. Bintliff, "Solon's Reforms: an archeological perspective", in Solon of Athens: new historical and philological approaches, eds. J. Blok and A. Lardinois (Brill, Leiden 2006), and other essays published with it.
Two contemporary historians have identified three distinct historical accounts of Solon's Athens, emphasizing quite different rivalries: economic and/or ideological rivalry, regional rivalry, and rivalry between aristocratic clans.Stanton G.R. Athenian Politics c. 800–500 BC: A Sourcebook, Routledge, London (1991), pp. 3–4.Walters, K.R., Geography and Kinship as Political Infrastructures in Archaic Athens These different accounts provide a convenient basis for an overview of the issues involved.
Economic and ideological Economic and ideological rivalry is a common theme in ancient sources. This sort of account emerges from Solon's poems, in which he casts himself in the role of a noble mediator between two intemperate and unruly factions. This same account is substantially taken up about three centuries later by the author of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia but with an interesting variation:
Here Solon is presented as a partisan in a democratic cause whereas, judged from the viewpoint of his own poems, he was instead a mediator between rival factions. A still more significant variation in the ancient historical account appears in the writing of Plutarch in the late 1st – early 2nd century AD:
Regional