SG Heritage Dictionary

Solon [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

A celebrated Athenian lawmaker, born about 638 b. c.; hence, a legislator; a publicist; -- often used ironically.

Solon Encyclopedia Britannica

SOLON. The legislation of the Athenian Solon, which to a large extent moulded the subsequent political life of Athens, belongs to the early part of the 6th century b.c. It followed almost immediately on an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of the aristocratic families of Attica, one of which, however, that of the Alcmaeonids, was driven into exile; and it preceded by a short interval the famous usurpation of Pisistratus. Solon had won the confidence of his fellow-citizens by having recovered for them the island of Salamis, close to the shores of Attica, an old and valued possession, which their neighbours of Megara had taken from them. Solon, himself a native of Salamis, encouraged them to fight once again for the “lovely island,” as he called it, in a short poem which he publicly recited, feigning, it is said, the excitement of a madman. Through Spartan intervention in the war between Athens and Megara Salamis was restored to the Athenians, and Solon had the credit of the result. In 594 b.c. he was summoned under the constitutional title of “archon” to undertake the work of sweeping political reforms, which, in consequence of bitter party strifes and the poverty and indebtedness of the small farmers or proprietors of Attica, were sorely needed. The Athenian like the Roman debtor had often sunk, under the legalized oppression of his creditor, into an actual slave, and had from time to time been sold and exported. Many poor creatures had fled away from home, and were supporting themselves by the labour of their hands in foreign countries. Many men who still clung to their little properties could, with all their pinching, barely keep their heads above water. The governing classes themselves felt that a crisis was at hand, and they appealed to Solon ...

Solon encouraged commerce and manufacturing industry, and drew a number of settlers from foreign parts to Athens, on condition of their paying an annual tax and putting themselves under the protection of a citizen who was to be their legal representative—their “patronus,” according to Roman phrase. These settlers (μετoίκoι , “metics”) had none of the political privileges of the Athenian citizen, and they could not acquire landed property. Many of them, however, flourished and grew rich, and had every reason to be satisfied with their position, which, in a kindly and tolerant community like that of Athens, was continually improving. Solon, too, like all the legislators of antiquity, endeavoured to regulate every department of life, compelling the attendance of the youths from sixteen to eighteen at the public gymnastic schools, and requiring them to serve the next two years on garrison duty. Restraints were put upon women as to their appearance in public, and even as to their mourning at funerals. Solon’s punishments were for the most part rather lenient, and indicated a humane and generous temper. It is of course not to be supposed that all the details of his legislation were maintained, but they undoubtedly left their mark on the Athenian character.

Having done his work, Solon left Athens and travelled for ten years in Egypt, Cyprus, and Asia, gathering fresh stores of knowledge for himself and giving counsel to others. One would like to believe the beautiful story Herodotus tells of his interview with Croesus, king of Lydia, whom he warned with the memorable saying that “we must not pronounce any man happy till we have seen his end.” Unfortunately, Croesus did not begin to reign till several years after Solon’s travels, and with Grote we must be content to take the story as merely an “illustrative fiction.” On his return to Athens in his old age he found the old feuds once more raging, and Pisistratus, his kinsman, and his friend in past days, intriguing for power. The two men had, it seems, a sincere respect for one another, but Solon protested against the complete surrender of the government to Pisistratus, the danger of which he publicly pointed out, though without effect. The crisis ended in the rule, in many respects an enlightened and beneficent rule, of Pisistratus and his sons, of which Solon lived only to see the first beginning. He died, soon after having made his honourable protest, at the age of eighty, leaving behind him the good effects of a work which only a man of rare intelligence and wide sympathies could have accomplished. He was something of a poet, and several fragments of his poems, written generally with a practical purpose, have come down to us, and throw light on his political aims and sentiments.

Grote and Thirlwall in their histories of Greece give a full account of Solon’s legislation. Plutarch’s life of Solon, not a very critical performance, is our chief original authority.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 22, p. 253 — signed W. J. B.
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