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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Table of Contents Quick Facts Born: c. 630 bce (Show more) Died: c. 560 bce (Show more)Ask the Chatbot a Question
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Solon (born c. 630 bce —died c. 560 bce ) was an Athenian statesman, known as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece (the others were Chilon of Sparta, Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Cleobulus of Lindos, Pittacus of Mytilene, and Periander of Corinth). Solon ended exclusive aristocratic control of the government, substituted a system of control by the wealthy, and introduced a new and more humane law code. He was also a noted poet. He is one of the major figures of Classical antiquity.
In Solon’s lifetime, the Greeks had not yet begun to write history or biography. It was not until the 5th century that accounts of his life and works began to be put together, on the evidence of his poems (of which the 300 or so lines preserved by quotation probably represent only a small proportion), his law code, oral tradition, and inference from existing institutions. Although certain details have a legendary ring, the main features of the story seem to be reliable.
Solon was of noble descent but moderate means. As the tradition states and his travels and economic measures suggest, he may have been a merchant. He first became prominent about 600 bce , when the Athenians were disheartened by ill success in a war with their neighbours of Megara for possession of the island of Salamis. By publicly reciting a poem that made the issue a matter of national honour and that called on the Athenians to “arise and come to Salamis, to win that fair island and undo our shame,” Solon induced them to resume the war, which they eventually won.
The early 6th century was a troubled time for the Athenians in other ways as well. Society was dominated by an aristocracy of birth, the eupatridae, who owned the best land, monopolized the government, and were themselves split into rival factions. The poorer farmers were easily driven into debt by them and when unable to pay were reduced to the condition of serfs on their own land and, in extreme cases, sold into slavery. The intermediate classes of middling farmers, craftsmen, and merchants resented their exclusion from the government. These social, economic, and political evils might well have culminated in a revolution and subsequent tyranny (dictatorship), as they had in other Greek states, had it not been for Solon, to whom Athenians of all classes turned in the hope of a generally satisfactory solution of their problems. Because he believed in moderation and in an ordered society in which each class had its proper place and function, his solution was not revolution but reform.
Solon had already held office as archon (annual chief ruler) about 594 bce . It was probably about 20 years later that he was given full powers as reformer and legislator. His first concern was to relieve the immediate distress caused by debt. He redeemed all the forfeited land and freed all the enslaved citizens, probably by fiat. This measure, known popularly as the “shaking off of burdens,” was described by Solon in one of his poems:
These things the black earth…could best witness for the judgment of posterity; from whose surface I plucked up the marking-stones [probably signs of the farmers’ indebtedness] planted all about, so that she who was enslaved is now free. And I brought back to Athens…many who had been sold, justly or unjustly, or who had fled under the constraint of debt, wandering far afield and no longer speaking the Attic tongue; and I freed those who suffered shameful slavery here and trembled at their masters’ whims.
