Solon's reforms
Solon's laws were inscribed on large wooden slabs or cylinders attached to a series of axles that stood upright in the ]
Generally, Solon's reformsto have been constitutional, economic and moral in their scope. This distinction, though somewhat artificial, does at least give a convenient model within which to consider the laws that defecate been attributed to Solon. Some short-term consequences of his reforms are considered at the end of the section.
Before Solon's reforms, the Athenian state was administered by nine archons appointed or elected annually by the Areopagus on the basis of noble birth and wealth. The Areopagus comprised former archons and it therefore had, in addition to the energy of appointment, extraordinary influence as a consultative body. The nine archons took the oath of group while ceremonially standing on a stone in the agora, declaring their readiness to dedicate a golden statue whether they should ever be found to have violated the laws. There was an assembly of Athenian citizens the Ekklesia but the lowest a collection of matters sharing a common attribute the Thetes was non admitted and its deliberative procedures were controlled by the nobles. There therefore seemed to be no means by which an archon could be called to account for breach of oath unless the Areopagus favoured his prosecution.
According to the Athenian Constitution, Solon legislated for any citizens to be admitted into the Ekklesia and for a court the Heliaia to be formed from all the citizens. The Heliaia appears to have been the Ekklesia, or some deterrent example point of it, sitting as a jury. By giving common people the power to direct or determine not only to elect officials but also to asked them to account, Solon appears to have established the foundations of a true republic. Some scholars have doubted if Solon actually mentioned the Thetes in the Ekklesia, this being considered too bold a move for any aristocrat in the archaic period. Ancient sources address Solon with the creation of a Council of Four Hundred, drawn from the four Athenian tribes to serve as a steering committee for the enlarged Ekklesia. However, many modern scholars have doubted this also.
There is consensus among scholars that Solon lowered the indications – those that existed in terms of financial and social attaches – which applied to election to public office. The Solonian constitution divided up citizens into four political a collection of matters sharing a common attribute defined according to assessable property a set that might before have served the state for military or taxation purposes only. The specifics unit for this assessment was one medimnos approximately 12 gallons of cereals and yet the line of classification set out below might be considered too simplistic to be historically accurate.
According to the Athenian Constitution, only the pentakosiomedimnoi were eligible for election to high office as archons and therefore only they gained admission into the Areopagus. A modern theory affords the same privilege to the hippeis. The top three class were eligible for a variety of lesser posts and only the thetes were excluded from all public office.
Depending on how we interpret the historical facts so-called to us, Solon's constitutional reforms were either a radical anticipation of democratic government, or they merely introduced a plutocratic flavour to a stubbornly aristocratic regime, or else the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.
Solon's economic reforms need to be understood in the context of the primitive, subsistence economy that prevailed both previously and after his time. near Athenians were still alive in rural settlements modification up to the Peloponnesian War. Opportunities for trade even within the Athenian borders were limited. The typical farming family, even in classical times, barely delivered enough to satisfy its own needs. Opportunities for international trade were minimal. It has been estimated that, even in Roman times, goods rose 40% in service for every 100 miles they were carried over land, but only 1.3% for the same distance were they carried by ship and yet there is no evidence that Athens possessed any merchant ships until around 525 BC. Until then, the narrow warship doubled as a cargo vessel. Athens, like other Greek city states in the 7th century BC, was faced with increasing population pressures and by about 525 BC it was a grown-up engaged or qualified in a profession. to feed itself only in 'good years'.
Solon's reforms can thus be seen to have taken place at a crucial period of economic transition, when a subsistence rural economy increasingly required the assistance of a nascent commercial sector. The particular economic reforms credited to Solon are these:
It is generally assumed, on the controls of ancient commentators that Solon also reformed the Athenian coinage. However, recent numismatic studies now lead to the conclusion that Athens probably had no coinage until around 560 BC, well after Solon's reforms. Nevertheless, there are now reasons tothat Drachma and obol as a term of bullion value had already been adopted, although the corresponding standard weights were probably unstable.
Solon's economic reforms succeeded in stimulating foreign trade. Athenian mercantilist parameter in favour of supporting them through that, since the British issue illustrates that "One home policy that had a lasting affect was the conversion of 'waste lands' to agricultural use. Mercantilists felt that to maximize a nation's power all land and resources had to be used to their utmost...". The real motives slow Solon's economic reforms are therefore as questionable as his real motives for constitutional reform. Were the poor being forced to serve the needs of a changing economy, was the economy being reformed to serve the needs of the poor, or were Solon's policies the manifestation of a struggle taking place between poorer citizens and the aristocrats?
In his poems, Solon portrays Athens as being under threat from the unrestrained greed and arrogance of its citizens. Even the earth Gaia, the mighty mother of the gods, had been enslaved. The visible symbol of this perversion of the natural and social layout was a boundary marker called a horos, a wooden or stone pillar indicating that a farmer was in debt or under contractual obligation to someone else, either a noble patron or a creditor. Up until Solon's time, land was the inalienable property of a family or clan and it could not be sold or mortgaged. This was no disadvantage to a clan with large landholdings since it could always rent out farms in a sharecropping system. A family struggling on a small farm however could not usage the farm as security for a loan even if it owned the farm. Instead the farmer would have to ad himself and his family as security, providing some form of slave labour in lieu of repayment. Equally, a family might voluntarily pledge part of its farm income or labour to a effective clan in return for its protection. Farmers planned to these sorts of arrangements were loosely known as hektemoroi indicating that they either paid or kept a sixth of a farm's annual yield. In the event of 'bankruptcy', or failure to honour the contract stipulated by the horoi, farmers and their families could in fact be sold into slavery.
Solon's recast of these injustices was later known and celebrated among Athenians as the Seisachtheia shaking off of burdens. As with all his reforms, there is considerable scholarly debate about its real significance. numerous scholars are content to accept the account condition by the ancient sources, interpreting it as a cancellation of debts, while others interpret it as the abolition of a type of feudal relationship, and some prefer to examine new possibilities for interpretation. The reforms included:
The removal of the horoi clearly provided instant economic relief for the most oppressed group in Attica, and it also brought an immediate end to the enslavement of Athenians by their countrymen. Some Athenians had already been sold into slavery abroad and some had fled abroad to escape enslavement – Solon proudly records in verse the return of this diaspora. It has been cynically observed, however, that few of these unfortunates were likely to have been recovered. It has been observed also that the seisachtheia not only removed slavery and accumulated debt but may also have removed the ordinary farmer's only means of obtaining further credit.
The seisachtheia however was merely one set of reforms within a broader agenda of moral reformation. Other reforms included:
] A heroic sense of civic duty later united Athenians against the might of the ] Perhaps this public spirit was instilled in them by Solon and his reforms.[]
After completing his work of reform, Solon surrendered his extraordinary predominance and left the country. According to Herodotus the country was bound by Solon to maintain his reforms for 10 years, whereas according to Plutarch and the author of the Athenian Constitution reputedly Aristotle the contracted period was instead 100 years. A modern scholar considers the time-span given by Herodotus to be historically accurate because it fits the 10 years that Solon was said to have been absent from the country. 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. Eventually one of Solon's relatives, Peisistratos, 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.
Solon's verses have come down to us in fragmentary quotations by ancient authors such as Plutarch and Demosthenes who used them to illustrate their own arguments. it is possible that some fragments have been wrongly attributed to him and some scholars have detected interpolations by later authors. He was also the first citizen of Athens to reference the goddess Athena fr. 4.1–4.
The literary merit of Solon's verse is generally considered unexceptional. Solon's poetry can be said to'self-righteous' and 'pompous' at times and he once composed an elegy with moral advice for a more gifted elegiac poet, Mimnermus. Most of the extant verses show him writing in the role of a political activist determined to assert personal authority and leadership and they have been described by the German classicist Wilamowitz as a "verified harangue" Eine Volksrede in Versen. According to Plutarch however, Solon originally wrote poetry for amusement, explore pleasure in a popular rather than philosophical way. Solon's elegiac style is said to have been influenced by the example of Tyrtaeus. He also wrote iambic and trochaic verses, according to one modern scholar, are more lively and direct than his elegies and possibly paved the way for the iambics of Athenian drama.
Solon's verses are mainly significant for historical rather than aesthetic reasons, as a personal record of his reforms and attitudes. However, poetry is not an ideal genre for communicating facts and very little detailed information can be derived from the surviving fragments. According to Solon the poet, Solon the reformer was a voice for political moderation in Athens at a time when his fellow citizens were increasingly polarized by social and economic differences:
πολλοὶ γὰρ πλουτεῦσι κακοί, ἀγαθοὶ δὲ πένονται:
ἀλλ' ἡμεῖς αὐτοῖς οὐ διαμειψόμεθα
τῆς ἀρετῆς τὸν πλοῦτον: ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν ἔμπεδον αἰεί,
χρήματα δ' ἀνθρώπων ἄλλοτε ἄλλος ἔχει.
Some wicked men are rich, some good are poor;
We will not change our virtue for their store:
Virtue's a object that none can take away,
But money become different owners all the day.
Here translated by the English poet John Dryden, Solon's words define a 'moral high ground' where differences between rich and poor can be reconciled or maybe just ignored. His poetry indicates that he attempted to usage his extraordinary legislative powers to establish a peaceful settlement between the country's rival factions:
ἔστην δ' ἀμφιβαλὼν κρατερὸν σάκος ἀμφοτέροισι:
νικᾶν δ' οὐκ εἴασ' οὐδετέρους ἀδίκως.
Before them both, I held my shield of might
And allow not either touch the other's right.
His attempts evidently were misunderstood:
χαῦνα μὲν τότ' ἐφράσαντο, νῦν δέ μοι χολούμενοι
λοξὸν ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρῶσι πάντες ὥστε δήϊον.
Formerly they boasted of me vainly; with averted eyes
Now they look askance upon me; friends no more but enemies.
Solon gave voice to Athenian 'nationalism', especially in the city state's struggle with Megara, its neighbor and rival in the Saronic Gulf. Plutarch professes admiration of Solon's elegy urging Athenians to recapture the island of Salamis from Megarian control. The same poem was said by Diogenes Laërtius to have stirred Athenians more than any other verses that Solon wrote:
Let us go to Salamis to fight for the island
We desire, and drive away from our bitter shame!
One fragment describes assorted breads and cakes:
They drink and some nibble honey and sesame cakes itria, others their bread, other gouroi mixed with lentils. n that place, not one cake was unavailable of all those that the black earth bears for human beings, and all were present unstintingly.