SOLON OF ATHENS (c. 640-559 BC)


The motto of Solon of Athens was said to be, “Know thyself.”

Solon, an Athenian statesman, lawgiver, and poet, was considered one of Athens’ Seven Sages, or seven wisest men. His reputation is based on his contribution to Athenian law and through political and economic reforms that paved the way for increased participatory democracy in the “great period” of classical Athens.

Solon, born to a well-off family in approximately 640 BC, grew up in a period when expanding Greek maritime trade had led to a growing middle class of merchants in Athenian society who were beginning to agitate against their exclusion from political power. Attica, and most of Greece, had been ruled absolutely by local aristocrats for centuries. Like the struggles in Rome a few centuries later between the Patricians and the Plebeians, the middle class in Athens now wanted to share power. Solon himself was of upper class and possibly noble birth, although some sources claim he was a merchant in the export-import trade and was of modest means. He either sympathized with or became a representative of the new economic forces seeking a voice in Athens’ affairs.

At roughly age 40, Solon became prominent in urging the Athenians to renewed efforts when they lost heart in the continuing war against Megara for the possession of Salamis (c. 600 BC). In 594-93, after being approached by aristocrats worried at the city’s continuing unrest, he became sole Archon, or ruler of the city, with wide powers for reform. His new laws made the name Solon a by-word for just, progressive adjudication.

Reforms were needed. In addition to the agitating merchants, land abuse was becoming endemic. The nobles owned not only most political power, but had inherited and bought up most of the arable land in Attica. The position of the peasants had rapidly degenerated to almost serf-like conditions. Laws permitted a poor man to continue borrowing even when he had to pledge his own freedom as repayment; when he defaulted, he became a slave.

The story is told that Solon invited another of the famous “Seven Sages”, Anarcharsis, to visit him in Athens. While there, Solon tried out some of his reformist debt laws on Anarcharsis. It is said that the guest laughed at Solon for thinking he could control the greed and dishonesty of the Athenians with words; Anacharsis commented that such laws, like cobwebs, catch the weak and poor while letting the rich tear them apart. Yet Solon’s laws would be so logically constructed that they would last for centuries – and more importantly, serve their purpose.

Solon’s famous seisachtheia (‘shaking off of burdens’) is represented by some historians as a cancellation of all debt, but more likely simply reformed the Athenian debt system. Formerly, men in a state of servitude had to give a sixth of all their produce to their overlord. This required payment was abolished and many men became owners of their own small farms. Financial independence contributed to the growth of the middle class in decades to come. Solon limited the amount of land anyone might add to his holdings and outlawed all borrowing in which a person's liberty might be pledged. This last reform put an end to serfdom in Attica.

Solon vastly expanded the rights of Athenians of all classes to participate in city affairs. Pragmatically, Solon divided the Athenian citizens into four properties classes, from high to low, and gave special areas of city government and administration into the hands of each. The pentakosiomedimnoi and hippeis (the two highest classes) could hold major offices; the third class (zeugitai) were eligible for minor city offices; the lowest class (thetes) could not hold office but could attend the Athenian Assembly. In so doing, Solon broke the monopoly of the noble families over the reins of political power. The Athenian Assembly was opened to all free men, the Aeropagus , (the ancient council of Elders) was continued with new powers, and the Council of Four Hundred was reformed or reinstated to provide representation for a wide spectrum of the propertied classes – merchants and landowners. Citizenship was granted to the swelling communities of foreign craftsmen settling in Athens.

In addition, the Athenian economy was encouraged in the direction of external trade by Solon’s mandate that agricultural products other than olive oil could not be exported. This encouraged the planting of hundreds and thousands of acres of olives as an export crop and eventually revolutionized Athens’ trade balance with the rest of the Mediterranean. A reorganization of Athens’ use of measures, weights, and coinage also encouraged foreign trade.

Solon’s legal reforms mitigated the harsh penalties of Draco’s laws of roughly 621 BC, which are thought to have prescribed death as the penalty for even trivial offences (hence the phrase a “Draconian law.”) Solon reserved the death penalty only for murder or manslaughter. He is said to have defined a well-governed city by stating, ”That city where those who have not been injured take up the cause of one who has, and prosecute the case as earnestly as if the wrong had been done to themselves." Accordingly, he allowed anyone to take up the cause of a poor man who had been injured and made the law a remedy available for many more social ills than at any time in Athens’ past. In the turbulence of Athenian politics, another of his laws required that, in the event of a revolt, anyone not taking sides would lose all civil rights. This precluded good men, frightened of taking a stand and hoping to save themselves, from remaining aloof from affairs of their city in times of crisis.

Solon deliberately proceeded through law to achieve a compromise between the demands of the rich and privileged and of the poorest classes. In doing so, he angered both - the poor wanted a wholesale redistribution of land and wealth, whereas the rich were angered at deprivation of their traditional rights. Growing tensions in the decades after Solon left power led to its seizure by Pisistratus between c. 561 and 546. A contemporary tradition said that Solon, still living when Pisistratus first seized power, tried to warn the Athenians against his eventual tyranny.

In the unique Greek manner, Solon was as multi-faceted as many other great Greek in the classical age; he was a brilliant lawgiver, but he was also a poet praised for his artistic achievements in his own lifetime and later. His reputation (promoted by Herodotus) continued to grow until, by the fourth century, Athenian orators ascribed all the wisest laws of Athens to his care. Plutarch’s biography of him is exquisitely Roman in its fascination with the truths and (by that time) the many legends that had grown up about this remarkable man.

Historians find sound evidence, however, that Solon deserved much of his reputation. He helped create a free peasantry while weakening the aristocracy and strengthening both the Assembly and the judicial system. In later decades Solon would be praised for reforms that precluded a full-scale Athenian revolution and which laid the foundations for the stable brilliance the City would show in the future.


Image from Classical Athens.