Solon of Athens

“ But the people of Athens regarded this deed as a most wicked murder, and later on, when Solon was made chief ruler and lawgiver of the city, all the persons who took part in this action were sent into exile.
Many of the citizens wished Solon to take the crown. They thought he was a wise and just man, and would act as a wise and just king. Solon, however, had no mind for kingship; he was pleased to do his best to govern Athens, but had no wish for the glory of a crown or the splendor of a palace. ”

“ He then seized the citadel—the antagonist faction of Megacles fled—and Pisistratus was master of Athens. Amid the confusion and tumult of the city, Solon retained his native courage. He appeared in public—harangued the citizens—upbraided their blindness—invoked their courage. In his speeches he bade them remember that if it be the more easy task to prevent tyranny, it is the more glorious achievement to destroy it. In his verses 228 he poured forth the indignant sentiment which a thousand later bards have borrowed and enlarged; “Blame not Heaven for your tyrants, blame yourselves.” ”

“ We are here again introduced to the same oligarchical dissensions as are reported to have prevailed before the Solonian legislation: the pedieis, or opulent proprietors of the plain round Athens, under Lykurgus; the parali of the south of Attica, under Megaklês: and the diakrii, or mountaineers of the eastern cantons, the poorest of the three classes, under Peisistratus, are in a state of violent intestine dispute. The account of Plutarch represents Solon as returning to Athens during the height of this sedition. ”

“ The complaints of the poorer citizens found redress; all debts were remitted, and no one was permitted to seize the person of his debtor, if he was unable to make payment. After he had established the most salutary regulations in the state, and bound the Athenians by a solemn oath that they would faithfully observe his laws for the space of one hundred years, Solon resigned the office of legislator, and removed himself from Athens. He visited Egypt, and the court of Crœsus, [14] king of Lydia—celebrated [Pg 273] for his wealth, and the vanity of desiring to be esteemed the happiest of mankind. ”

“ Those conservative feelings were in the subsequent Athenian democracy peculiarly deep-rooted: the mass of the Athenian people identified inseparably the maintenance of property, in all its various shapes, with that of their laws and constitution. And it is a remarkable fact, that though the admiration entertained at Athens for Solon, was universal, the principle of his seisachtheia, and of his money-depreciation, was not only never imitated, but found the strongest tacit reprobation ”

“ The Athenians looked about for a more humane reformer. At last they found some one who could do that sort of thing better than anybody else. His name was Solon. He belonged to a noble family and he had travelled all over the world and had studied the forms of government of many other countries. After a careful study of the subject, Solon gave Athens a set of laws which bore testimony to that wonderful principle of moderation which was part of the Greek character. ”

“ These passages seem positively to contradict the supposition, in itself sufficiently improbable, that Solon is the author of the peculiar democratical institutions of Athens, such as the constant and numerous dikasts for judicial trials and revision of laws. The genuine and forward democratical movement of Athens begins only with Kleisthenês, from the moment when that distinguished Alkmæônid, either spontaneously, or from finding himself worsted in his party strife with Isagoras, purchased by large popular concessions the hearty coöperation of the multitude under very dangerous circumstances. ”

“ He here declared to the monarch that an Athenian, who had always seen his country flourish—who had virtuous children, and who fell in defence of his native land, had a happier career than the proudest emperor on the globe.
After ten years’ absence, Solon returned to Athens; but he had the mortification to find the greatest part of his regulations disregarded, through the factious spirit of his countrymen and the usurpation of Pisistratus. ”

“ If we examine the facts of the case, we shall see that nothing more than the bare foundation of the democracy of Athens as it stood in the time of Pericles can reasonably be ascribed to Solon. "I gave to the people (Solon says in one of his short remaining fragments) as much strength as sufficed for their needs, without either enlarging or diminishing their dignity: for those too, who possessed power and were noted for wealth, I took care that no unworthy treatment should be reserved. ”

“ But during the time of his absence, great seditions rose at Athens amongst the inhabitants, who had gotten them several heads amongst them: as those of the valley had made Lycurgus their head. The coast-men Megacles, the son of Alcmæon. And those of the mountains, Pisistratus; with whom all artificers and craftsmen living of their handy labour were joined, which were the stoutest against the rich. So that notwithstanding the city kept Solon’s laws and ordinances, yet was there not a man but gaped for a change, and desired to see things in another state. ”

“ The first particular event in respect to which Solon appears as an active politician, is the possession of the island of Salamis, then disputed between Megara and Athens. Megara was at that time able to contest with Athens, and for sometime to contest with success, the occupation of this important island,—a remarkable fact, which perhaps may be explained by supposing that the inhabitants of Athens and its neighborhood carried on the struggle with only partial aid from the rest of Attica. ”

“ Solon did not belong to the rich men of Athens, though he was of noble birth, and, like so many of the older Greeks, traced his family line back to the gods. Neptune, the ocean deity, was fabled to be his far-off ancestor. He was born about 638 B.C. His father had spent most of his money, largely in kind deeds to others, and the son found himself obliged to become a merchant. In this pursuit he travelled in many parts of Greece and Asia, and in his journeys paid more heed to the gaining of knowledge than of money, so that when he came back his mind was fuller than his purse. ”

“ In 612 B. C. a noble named Kylon attempted to overthrow the aristocratic government and establish a tyranny under himself, but he failed. Legislation of Solon. Then there came forward in public life another noble, who was one of the wisest men and purest patriots of any country or age, and who made an attempt of quite another kind. This was Solon, the famous lawgiver, who became archon in 594 B. C. The political state of Athens at that time has been described for us in an ancient Greek treatise lately discovered, and which is believed to be one of the hitherto lost writings of Aristotle. ”

“ There were no unnatural laws as there were at Sparta; people might live at home as they pleased; but there were schools, and all the youths were to be taught there, both learning and training in all exercises. And whether it was from Solon’s laws or their own character, there certainly did arise in Athens some of the greatest and noblest men of all times. ”

“ There is, indeed, some countenance for this confusion between Solonian and post-Solonian Athens, in the usage of the orators themselves; for Dêmosthenês and Æschinês employ the name of Solon in a very loose manner, and treat him as the author of institutions belonging evidently to a later age for example, the striking and characteristic oath of the heliastic jurors, which Demosthenês [208] ascribes to Solon, proclaims itself in [p. 124] many ways as belonging to the age after Kleisthenês, especially by the mention of the senate of five hundred, and not of four hundred. ”

“ On departing from Athens, Solon first visited Egypt, where he communicated largely with Psenôphis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Saïs, Egyptian priests, who had much to tell respecting their ancient history, and from whom he learned matters, real or pretended, far transcending in alleged antiquity the oldest Grecian genealogies,—especially the history of the vast submerged island of Atlantis, and the war which the ancestors of the Athenians had successfully carried on against it, nine thousand years before. ”

“ Material conditions for amelioration were far more favourable than in the neighbouring island of Ægina, where commerce concerned only the ruling class, who farmed their lands with purchased slaves. But the rapid rise of Athens from obscurity to the first rank is due to one man, in whom the union of East and West was first consummated—the wise Solon. Of noble birth and in sympathy with Dorian modes of life, he had, for all that, travelled to distant shores as a merchant, had laid aside among the Ionians all prejudice, superstition, and mysticism ”

“ But, looking to the man himself—his discoveries—his designs—his genius—his marvellous accomplishments—we cannot but consider him as one of the most astonishing persons the world ever produced; and, if in part a mountebank and an impostor, no one, perhaps, ever deluded others with motives more pure—from an ambition more disinterested and benevolent.
XXI. Upon the Athenians the effect of these various philosophers was already marked and influential. From the time of Solon there had existed in Athens a kind of school of political philosophy [246] . ”

“ He left his native country to travel in pursuit of knowledge, and came to Athens just at the time that Solon was occupied with his legislative measures. He became acquainted with Solon, and by the simplicity of his way of living, his talents, and his acute observations on the institutions and usages of the Greeks, he excited general attention and admiration. ”

“ II. However prudent had appeared to Solon his absence from Athens, it is to be lamented that he did not rather brave the hazards from which his genius might have saved the state, than incur those which the very removal of a master-spirit was certain to occasion. We may bind men not to change laws, but we cannot bind the spirit and the opinion, from which laws alone derive cogency or value. We may guard against the innovations of a multitude, which a wise statesman sees afar off, and may direct to great ends ”

“ Solon knew that the poor are the sinews of a nation; he knew too, that there is a point in which the crushing power of debt destroys the qualities that form the man, the free-man so dear to wisdom; and Athens shook off this oppression beneath his righteous sway. ”

“ For many years after his time the government continued to be an oligarchy, but was exercised with more moderation and justice than formerly.
Solon enacted numerous laws, containing regulations on almost all subjects connected with the public and private life of the citizens. He encouraged trade and manufactures, and invited foreigners to settle in Athens by the promise of protection and by valuable privileges. To discourage idleness a son was not obliged to support his father in old age, if the latter had neglected to teach him some trade or occupation. ”

“ The mechanical obedience and fixed habits of the mass of the Egyptian population (not priests or soldiers) was a point which made much impression upon Grecian observers; so that Solon is said to have introduced at Athens a custom prevalent in Egypt, whereby the nomarch or chief of each nome was required to investigate every man’s means of living, and to punish with death those who did not furnish evidence of some recognized occupation. ”

“ Changes in the Athenian Constitution.—The changes wrought by Solon in the political constitution of Athens were equally wise and beneficent. He divided all the citizens of Athens into four classes, according to their income. Only members of the first class could hold the office of Archon; and only those of the first three classes were eligible to the Council of Elders but every member of all the classes had the right to vote in the popular assembly. ”

“ The laws of Solon were abrogated, and a new code of laws formed by Cleisthenes, which lasted till the independence of Athens came to an end.
Before that time the clan system had prevailed in Greece. The people were divided into family groups, each of which claimed to be descended from a single ancestor,—often a supposed deity. These clans held all the power of the state; not only in the early days, when they formed the whole people, but later, when Athens became a prosperous city with many merchant ships, and when numerous strangers had come from afar to settle within its walls. ”

“ SOLON FREES THE SLAVES Solon, the wise lawgiver of Athens, was a descendant of King Codrus. His father had given away most of his wealth to help his city or his countrymen, so Solon became a merchant, as the sons of noblemen often did in these days of long ago. To increase his business, Solon journeyed through many of the states of Greece as well as to Asia. Wherever he went he studied the laws and manners of the people, just as Lycurgus the lawgiver of Sparta had done. ”

“ A yet more pernicious evil in the social state of the Athenians was radical in their constitution—it was their courts of justice. Proceeding upon a theory that must have seemed specious and plausible to an inexperienced and infant republic, Solon had laid it down as a principle of his code, that as all men were interested in the preservation of law, so all men might exert the privilege of the plaintiff and accuser. As society grew more complicated, the door was thus opened to every species of vexatious charge and frivolous litigation. ”