Solon the Lawgiver

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Hello. In the first years of the sixth century BC, the Greek city-state of Athens was in crisis. The lower orders of society were ravaged by debt to the point where some of them were being forced into slavery. an oppressive law code mandated the death penalty for everything from murder to petty theft. There was a real danger that the city could fall into either tyranny or civil war. In 594 BC, a man named Solon was elected Archon or Chief Magistrate.

He instituted a program of reforms that transformed Athens' political and legal systems, its society and economy, so that later generations referred to him as Solon the Lawgiver. Some see him as the father of Athenian democracy. When we do discuss so on the log of our hands, we... Groot, Professor of Ancient History at University College London, William Allen, Professor of Greek and a Connor Lang Tutorial Fellow in Greek and Latin languages and literature at University College Oxford.

and Melissa Lane, the class of nineteen forty three professor of politics at Princeton University. Melissa Lane, we think Solomon was born around six thirty BC in Athens. What was Greece like at the time? So Solon is born into the middle of the archaic period of Greek history. So that's traditionally dated to begin in seven seventy six towards the start of the eighth century with the first Olympic Games.

and that was a couple of centuries after the Mycenaean palace societies had collapsed. And then the Archaic period stretches forward um towards the fifth century, which then is followed by the classical period. So in Solon's time the the polis, the city state, was really taking shape across the Greek area and It was dominated largely in most places by elite families, aristocratic families that drew their wealth largely from the land.

they enjoyed symposia where there would be oral poetry. It was still to a great extent an oral uh culture, but also we have the emergence of alphabetic writing i for Greek Greece in this period. And so s shortly before Solon's um birth we have the evidence of the first written laws in Greece. This could be roughly called two hundred years before the golden age of Greece. Is that right? Yeah, that's right.

What do we know about Solon's family, if anything, and his early life? So we know a remarkable amount about Solon, actually probably more than anyone else in the archaic period. He was born into one of these noble families, his family. family trace. What did a noble family mean in that time? So they it was both bloodlines. So um he his father traced his lineage to one of the legendary kings of Athens, but it was also wealth, having this landed wealth.

But what's unusual about Solon is we're not sure why, but he also chose to go into trade and so he seems to have done very well in trade. It meant that he traveled a good deal, he gained wisdom, he perhaps that's when he started composing poetry. And it was his role as a poet that brought him into political life, it seems, initially as a young man. He used his poetry to galvanize Athens into a war to recover the island of Salamis, which was a major

trading posts. Yeah, that's right. Um what sort of shape was Athens in? Can you give This is some idea of how big it was, how many people lived there? So it's one of the largest um societies in Greece, one of the largest Polis communities, both in terms of its geographical extent and also in terms of its of its population. About Twenty percent of the people were in some way perhaps.

uh in some level of the elite, more more wealthy, and then there was a very large proportion of people who might have been peasants or poor artisans and, you know, were largely under the thumb um of the elites in in this period to varying degrees. People write about the imminent breakdown of the society at that time. Can you give us some idea of w how that came about and how dangerous it was?

Yeah, so it's it's a little bit hard to know. Some of our best evidence is actually from Solon's own poetry, which was originally oral and then gets written down much later. But um it does seem that there was intra-elite conflict. So there had been an attempt at a tyranny in Athens around the time of Solon's birth, and there was still a lot of um tension between the two sides of that of that struggle.

there was economic pressure because people were now making money in new ways. So there were wealthy families that were kind of pushing their way into the elite as it were. And then there was um the the pressure on the poor. different degrees of vulnerability even to debt slavery, where they would secure their debts on their person and effectively be enslaved until they could actually um pay them off. Some people fled Athens, it seems, in order to escape that sort of Economic bankruptcy.

So slavery was a fact of life then was it quite a big section of the community as far as you know? So these people were not slaves as we think of the sort of slaves of classical Athens. The debt slavery would typically be temporary if one could sort of do it. And how did that lead to slavery? Well so I mean it while you were indebted in this way, then you lost the ability to

work freely and amass wealth, you were under the thumb economically and had to pay it off. But in theory you could pay it off. Um there were other people who were kind of slaves and, you know, had very little if any chance of of being freed.

Thank you. Hans van Viets Greek was divided into city states. Can you give the listeners some idea of the different political systems around that time? Yeah, it was um a very volatile time I think, so the political systems uh changed uh frequently. Typically you would either have an oligarchy of some sort uh or uh what the Greeks call a tyranny. Where power is exercised established or exercised in uh in in less traditional ways.

thought to be essentially a non Greek equivalent for for king or ruler. it ac acquired this notion of of despotic, you know, violent rule later on when in in the classical period in Greece people started really uh disliking the whole idea of monarchical rule. And so by definition, monarch was also a tyrant in our sense.

But originally it it seems to have been uh yes, as I say, a sort of a synonym for for ruler. Was was Athens one of the more enlightened uh the city states, many city states, were there were the huge differences between them? Uh apart from in size I think Athens at that point was quite similar to many other uh city states. So um with the possible exception of Sparta. just bigger as a political community than uh than anything else in well, almost everywhere in Greece.

But I think uh otherwise uh economic conditions, political conditions really not that unusual for its time. the problems with slavery, the uh inequality. the the sort of oligarchic nature of the regime, the threat of uh tyranny uh in Athens itself that Melissa just mentioned, these are all there. And so in the background that Solon Solon comes into

is typical of the Greek world at the time, which is really in in crisis I think it's fair to say. Around six hundred B C there's a very widespread social, economic and political crisis in the Greek world. What do we know about the political history of Athens before Solon's time? What did he come into mend?

Right, right. Well the political history it's slightly tricky to reconstruct that. Um a major source for um the Athenian political system before Solon uh actually has uh a constitution of Draco, uh is what that's called and it's a very Draco was in Draconian. Yes, yes, that that Draco, the the the one who uh it's a historical figure who um uh he he's also a law giver, but he issued that code of laws that's uh that you mentioned in your introduction, this very bloody uh one. Um

Uh he's also credited by later sources with a s a constitutional structure that's described for us. That that actually doesn't sound plausible in There's a lot of detail that all sounds anachronistic. So we think people later invented an idea of what Draco's constitution might have been like.

Um so in that respect it's difficult to know, but um we know a bit about some of the political institutions which again suggest a quite closed oligarchy. Um there's a council known as the council of the Aryopaca. which seems to work by basically appointing magistrates who are then sort of co opted after their term of office into the council. So it's a very cosy uh arrangement. And so that creates almost

inevitably a sort of uh closed oligarchy. Um some of these families seem to call themselves or have called themselves the the eupatridae, the the descendants of good fathers, so they they claim to be a sort of aristocracy of of birth.

Was the condition of the poorer uh the poorer class, was it as d uh devastating as as has already been mentioned? Can you just make be a bit more graphic about that please? I mean Solon actually does quite a good job of making it graphic in his uh in his poetry. So he he talks about this political conflict and then he says, um and and the poor as a result of all that's going on, the poor end up abroad uh in shackles, you know, in chains, sold uh into slavery.

And that's one of the things that he that he singles out as an abuse of the time and that he wants to uh to address. Maybe we would distinguish between the two kinds of slavery. bondage that Melissa referred to, so where you have to work off your debt for your creditor. But the other is actually where your creditor is legally entitled to to seize your person or your children or your wife.

and sell you as a slave abroad somewhere and there's no coming back from that normally. Um so that that is a very uh serious problem at the time. William Allen uh big switch now I want role did writing play in Greece at this period and how radical was it that it arrived at that time?

So Right and was used for a variety of purposes. Uh you have for example inscriptions on stone of important state documents, laws and decrees, so they'd be publicly visible and a permanent record of the community's decision. And then you have writing on papyrus in ink, which would be used for things like Soon's poetry. So the earliest Greek literature we've got is about a century before Soon, about se seven hundred BC. You've got the epic poems of Homer, the Ilair and the Odyssey.

But the important thing about writing is very few people can read and write. Uh literacy is the preserve of a highly educated elite. So that most people's experience of poetry and literature would be in performance. And so on his written for live performance. And that explains the to us weird thing that this politician and legislator is defending his reforms in poetry, not prose.

But this is a good why is that? Is it is pr prose hasn't got on at that stage. That's right. So he's writing in the five nineties. It's a good hundred years before prose establishes itself as the main medium for the d dissemination of political philosophical wisdom. Is this poetry spoken dry or is it accompanied by a musical instrument? It c it depends. If you've got an Aulos player, so uh it's a kind of

obo like instrument, double oboe instrument. If you happen to be able to afford one, then you might perform the elegiac poetry with the alos, but it could be performed simply dry, as you say. So, yeah. So he's ready for performance and Performance requires poetry, not prose. Poetr uh poetry is more memorable. than than than prose. It's more fun to listen to and so so on seizes on that as a more viable medium for reaching the largest audience possible and getting his message across.

With his new laws written on them. That's when they say they're have told for hundreds of years. Yeah. So some of the population would be literate. You would have different levels of literacy. You'd have a certain amount of functional literacy people involved in trade and business could

be literate literate to a point. But obviously the majority of the poorer citizens would not be literate and they'd actually have to ask someone to tell them what that law was, and they'd have to have an intermediary who was literate.

We've thrown away this word Archon, he became an Archon. What's an Archon? So Archon is the Greek word for ruler. Uh by Solon's time it means the chief. civil magistrate. The Archon's appointed annually, as are the other two by the by by the by the people. um by uh as it so what happens when he becomes Arco and it's this crisis where you've got the poor resenting the wealth uh of the aristocracy, they rise up, a civil war might happen. And the ancient sources say that both sides agree to

to appoint him as an archon and the Greek word is dialactes, a reconciler. So they wanted him to reconcile the war and factions. and prevent civil war. What did he done to make him chosen for that role? I think it's in part um w w what we were saying before, he was already known as a poet, but I think his role in trade also meant that he probably had more social contacts more widely. So

He understood the position of people who were in trade, he had interacted with them, whereas some of the elites who were only living off their their land wouldn't have known those people. So he had a wider range of social contacts and therefore might have been trusted more widely.

No mm, just to to add to that, I think uh Melissa mentioned the the songs or uh poems that Solomon composed about the war over Salamis, so Salamis is this island really close to Athens, which they'd lost shortly before his time to their neighbour Megara. Uh and so uh one of the things he seems to have done is really um get people going and stimulate this patriotic war to recover lost territory and that

That will also have been a factor that made him popular because they you know they did succeed in getting that island back. Um M Melissa, so he comes at a time of crisis. Does he come into power because of the crisis or is it just a coincidence? No, I think as as Bill mentioned, it's significant that Archon was an established role that people were chosen for annually, but the idea that he was also asked to be a reconciler

Or one can also translate that word an arbitrator or a mediator. Means that he was really charged with a special sort of pivotal moment and And and and then acted also as a law giver. So as you mentioned at the beginning, replaced the code of Draco with these new laws and the publicity around the new laws, I think even if people couldn't read them

the fact that you could see that they were written up on these wooden boards all over the city, you know, meant that a sort of substantial change had happened and people would have been would have been aware of that. Why did people think he was gonna be successful?

Um I mean that's an interesting question. I think it I think you know, I think b because he had this reputation for wisdom, so later he would be remembered as one of the seven wise men of all of Greece. So it's a very distinctive role. He clearly you know, had a kind of reputation as a poet and and a wise a wise person.

And I think part of the the wisdom will be that he um I think he appealed to the the people who were in this in this debt uh you know bondage and debt crisis because some of his early poems clearly before his reforms

uh, you know, flag this up and and do um they do criticize the elite and say that the elite are are greedy, that they you know they overindulge and you know at the expense of the rest of the community. So that will have made him quite popular, you know, an elite person expressing these more popular sentiments. uh will make him uh accessible I guess um you know uh acceptable rather to uh

to the population as a as a potential mediator. Okay, let's stick with you and go g be a bit more particular in i i in in describing what you did. Let's start with his economic reforms. What did you do there that mattered?

Yeah. obvious thing and then the sort of least contested thing uh is that he um he for forbade the uh enslavement of people for debt. So um creditors are no longer allowed to sell people in order to make their money back. That that is sort all a agreed by all. Uh beyond that it's a bit controversial but uh most

Ancient sources agreed that he cancelled all debts, so all existing outstanding debt. Just like that. Cancelled just like that. Yes, they did think that was really radical and you know, for some classical authors that was too radical really and uh they tried to come up with a a different scenario where he perhaps he only got it through

I guess he got that through, apparently, against some resistance, it would seem, because he writes these poems later on where he defends his actions against those who thought that he went too far or not far enough. Um he says if anybody else had done it you'd have been in far worse putting it. Exactly, exactly. So he does really suggest there was there were very serious tensions.

So he draws up these economic rules. How does he implement them? Who are the civil service? What's going on? There's really no civil service to speak of. It's very difficult to know. how he did that. Um one element is that he um uh he got people to uh to swear, I guess that they would uh uh abide by his rulings and by his legislation. So and taking oaths was taken very seriously. Did they swear by the gods?

Yes, absolutely. So that counts very heavily. But he does also say in one of his poems, he says he achieved all this. by combining uh force and justice, which is an interesting phrase. And so uh he's saying he did have to use violence, I think, but but in the in a good cause. But what form that took? Um

It's very hard to tell. He he doesn't elaborate. So you got these economic reforms through we know about abolishing the debt. What else did the economic reforms do? So beyond that, uh he uh again but most of what we know comes from one of Solon's own poems and uh one of the things he says is that he

He uh freed, he liberated the land by removing boundary stones. And that's a there's a whole industry of scholarship trying to work out what he meant by that. Um it could just be that uh land was mortgaged as part of the whole debt crisis and that he, you know, by Uh cancelling the debt that land was free.

Uh that is definitely a possibility one I I personally favour actually that he uh he returned common land to common use and that could have made a big difference. Uh what he didn't do, uh he says explicitly, is redistribute the land. That's the other The two radical things that uh reformers do in Greece later on is cancel debt and redistribute land and

Um our later sources make it very clear that Solomon definitely did not d redistribute land. Did that get him more favour by not doing that? I think that that's all he could get away with. I mean th the the people who were you know uh would have liked him to redistribute land and do more. But he's clearly faced with an an entrenched elite that whose land it is, that don't want him to to go that far. Um

So these poems after his reforms uh are really all about that, where he's saying, you know, the the elite should be glad that I didn't go further and and the people should be glad that I didn't go further the other way. Impartial to a fault perhaps. Right. He he sa he emphasizes that a great deal.

Can we now talk about his political reforms? Yes, I think the core of the political reforms was this quite radical innovation of opening up access to the assembly. So the assembly was a participatory democracy and the assembly was where you went to speak and to vote and to make decisions.

And he opens up access to the assembly to all Athenian citizens, even the poorest class. Everybody. Yes. And that was a huge one. No, just men. We're talking about an Athenian citizen as an adult male, not women or slaves. Well that was a hugely revolutionary move. Uh, he could have gone further and said the poorest class can also hold office, so he didn't go that far, but by granting them access to the assembly, he's really at the start of this hugely influential idea.

uh that dominates democratic thought, you know, until today, which is that every citizen matters. It doesn't matter how rich you are, how poor you are, whether you own land and property or not. You matter, you have a right to participate in the political community. You should as long as you're an adult male, you should participate.

And um you cannot be sold into slavery. You are a free citizen. And that's a hugely influential uh idea for many centuries to come. How have you any idea how that idea was received? Uh it was welcomed by some and strongly resented by others. So the people who resented it were the aristocrats of an oligarchic bent who believed that power should be vested in a much smaller group.

Uh and in later Greek history you have oligarchic revolutions this happened in Athens in the last decade of the fifth century BC, where groups of oligarchs would topple the democracy. And actually when they did that Some of them claimed Solon's authority for it and said they were going back to an ancestr ancestral constitution that he had embraced, because they saw him through a much more conservative lens than the Democrats did.

For the Democrats, he's the founding father of democracy. So there's a tussle over his legacy for many centuries to come. What effect did these political reforms of his have on Athens?

Well in the short term they stave off civil war, but in the medium term it's kind of uh in vain because as we've already uh re already alluded to, the tyranny rises and you've got Athens dominated for fifty years by the tyrant Pisistratus and his sons, until they're kicked out in five hundred ten BC, and then a guy called Cleisthenes comes along and

In five oh eight and five oh seven, who's like the second most important figure after Sogon, arguably more important, but he institutes what we think of as the classical form of Athenian democracy that goes even further. So what happens is different? A you have much even more um encouragement for poor citizens to participate. So you have people being paid to serve on the jury, being paid to attend the assembly, even poorer farmers.

Melissa, let's switch to the law now. What did you do to the legal s we've talked a little bit about politics, now let's talk a little more about the legal system. So he he the Solon laws got stuck in there, didn't they? Yeah, so he's known as a poet and as a lawgiver. As as we've mentioned in his laws, there there are dozens of them and you know they're they survive written up on these boards for centuries um and remain part of the Athenian law code.

So some of the other legal reforms go in the same direction of giving more power to the people. So for example, um allowing popular courts to hear appeals from decisions of the more elite magistrates. Um also giving any citizen the right to bring a public lawsuit in the interest of the of the city state. Was this happening anywhere else in Greece? No. This is really distinctive of Athens um and and and something that makes Solon stand out. There are lawgivers in a number of

Greek cities around this time. But some of these particular reforms having said that, there were other laws that Solon borrows from other societies, even from Egypt. For example, he's said to have borrowed a law requiring every ma male citizen to declare the sources of their livelihood um as a kind of economic law. And he reformed laws in a number of other areas to do with funerals, inheritance. immigration. So he fostered the immigration into Athens of skilled craftspersons. Um that was

significant. He on the other hand banned agricultural exports except for olive oil, which also sort of fostered elements of the economy and trade. So, you know, he was really his his reforms extended across the private and public um domain they were really significant in reshaping the society.

asked um Hans, how did he, you know, ensure the success of his laws? One thing that he did was that he he not only asked the people to swear as an an oath, as was mentioned, but he also then said that he would leave Athens for ten years.

And this is a very significant thing that divides him from the tyrant because the tyrannical figures, even if they were sometimes somewhat benevolent, they stayed and sort of maintained power in their own hands. Whereas Solon is a law giver kind of gives the laws and then says, I'm gonna go away so that I can't personally benefit or profit from these laws and you can have faith that they weren't made for my own interest and I think that's very significant in enabling the laws to really bed down.

Humra was that hand. Uh very, I think. Um and and Solon uh in several of his uh poems uh make makes that point uh he's very pleased with himself, I think, about that, that he he had the strength of will to step step away from tyranny. He claims that that people uh wanted him to seize a tyranny, presumably th the common people, you know, as as opposed to the elite. And again he says that that would have you know, that I could have done that but I didn't uh and that is a a a sign of restraint.

And certainly all the other stories we hear about politics in Greece suggest that people would have indeed leapt at the opportunity to to make themselves king effectively of their of their cities.

So that is a remarkable thing. And I I think it's probably one of the main reasons why Solon um also got a reputation as one of the so called seven sages, like his these thr uh seven wise men of the Greek world. Uh he was one of them and and I imagine it's not least because he One of the few that's able maybe the only one that stepped away from tyranny.

It is extraordinary though, given the volatility that pre s that had preceded him, that he walked away for ten years a long time. Uh and they just put in the reforms. And did he come back and live all was well in the garden? Um not exactly. Um there there's um where apparently um that that was meant to have been sorted by by legislation but uh that continued to be contentious. So there were people who um uh who refused to step down after their year of office uh

Uh there were uh at one point there was a a sort of compromise where they picked Archons from different social groups to, you know, represent everyone. So that's i it it was not all uh not all plain sailing after those reforms.

Uh and as we mentioned a a little later on there is this tyranny, you know th i there's a ri reversal to these factional politics, lots of infighting and then eventually someone seizing power again. So in that respect it didn't all go well. What happened when you came back? Um yet we're not really told ex except that we're told that um and this is really thirty years or so after his reforms that he saw this tyrant Pisistratus who's been mentioned, uh emerging uh and warned people uh about that.

Um there is one poem in which he seems to to say that it had more or less. uh telling people um there's a tyrant coming now but it's your own fault, you know, you shouldn't have trusted this guy. Um so that that may have been one of his last poems if it genuinely referred to Pisistratus. But what happened in between uh in the thirty years uh we we really don't know. I think the stories don't tell us.

But we do know quite a bit about his poetry, Bill Allen, I I presume. So what poetry did he write and who was the audience? And can you give us some can you flesh that out? Yes, so he's the first Athenian poet we have who survives. There's a whole century between him and Aeschylus the second, the great tragic dramatist. Uh he writes on a variety on a variety of topics, so we have fragments on travel, on food, on homosexual desire.

But it's mainly the political poetry that survived. That's partly because he's a great political poet, and also because the ancient sources are primarily interested in citing his poetry to prove his wisdom as a as a statesman. He he is writing for different performance venues. He wants everybody to hear it. He wants the audience to be all Athenians.

So he's writing poetry that will appeal to a broad spectrum of the population and he writes for all the different performance venues of poetry. So at one end of the spectrum the symposium, the aristocratic drinking party, and there his persona in the poetry is I'm an aristocrat, you're my fellow aristocrats. I've got some advice for you. Look chat. If you don't give up some of your power, some of your wealth

There's gonna be an almighty revolution here, you might lose everything. Whereas the poetry he's writing for more public festivals, more a egalitarian and open settings. He's addressing the poorer citizens as well, and he's boasting of the fact that he liberate liberated them from slavery and death.

Yeah, it's not a not a bad thing to boast of, is it really? That's right. And he also unusually revels in the fact that everybody hates him. So the poor hate him because he didn't redistribute the land, and the wealthy hate hate him because he's uh curtailed their privilege and power. And he actually wears that as a badge of pride. He succeeded as a reconciler because everybody hates him.

Can you g is it possible to give us two or three lines of his poetry or is not in Greek please, but uh uh in translation. Yeah, there are I mean there are some um wonderful images. There's an image uh in poem five where he says I stood with my shield. over both sides, allowing neither side an unjust victory. And there he's picturing himself as this heroic

hoplite warrior in the first line of battle. But paradoxically he's not protecting just one side, he's protecting both sides, the rich and the poor. And the image there, he's playing with that Himmeric hoplite image. Oh Himmeric and Hoplite image to emphasise the fact that he's impartial and protects everyone.

Have you got another one? Uh lovely image at the end of poem thirty six where he says I tried to prevent civil war and now you Athenians are turned on me, and I have to defend defend myself like a wolf amongst a pack of dogs. And again that's a lovable image because he's been the social The communitarian, right, the the ultra social politician. He's being treated like the anti social predator, the wolf.

They're the pack of dogs who've turned against him. So he's got these lovely images that they're all geared towards proving that he's being treated unfairly and that his reforms were just. But he's playing with these traditional images uh to underline that idea.

I said, Melissa, can we continue with the pertrief for a while and talk a bit more about the metaphors? Yeah, so there are a number of other wonderful metaphors that he uses. So one of them is also to describe himself as a boundary stone that's set between the rich and the poor. demarcating this space for each of them. And I think that's quite important again when you asked, you know, what what made him successful, what made people think that he could succeed.

He one of our later sources says he was asked, Did you give the Athenians the best laws? And he says, I gave them the best that they would receive. So, you know, he they might not be the best laws, but he's making them tolerable to both sides, even though both sides might not like them, as Bill was saying. Another image that he uses again to say to show that he didn't become a tyrant in the poems is to say, you know, another person might have tried to skim off the cream.

But I didn't do that. I didn't try to skim the cream. I was sort of, again, you know, distributing fairly. Um so th so the the sense that he's he's the sort of unique solo bulwark of civil peace, um, demarcating fair terms between um rich and poor really pervades um the poetry. Do we know anything about his popularity or his lack of it at the time?

At the time was he imposing these laws of his? Well, you know, I I think as as we uh we we have to kind of infer from on the one hand the laws survive. So clearly, you know, he does strike a balance that people are willing to live with. Um

the images of himself as the wolf and so on, as Bill was saying, suggests that, you know, h there is opposition. You know, the the the the elite, his fellow elite might see him as having sold them out in some way, but the poor feel he didn't go far enough. He didn't redistribute the land as Hans was saying before. So, you know, there there seems to be both a sort a sort of grudging acceptance in a way, you know, um nobody loves him but everyone's willing to accept him and in a way

you know, it's perhaps the opposite of the saying that all political careers end in failure. In a way he ended in success, but but a success that, you know, no one kind of would have claimed for their own.

Can we talk about these wooden boards? How do they stand for centuries? Yes, yeah they well they they wrote it eventually and that we yeah there's some some references, there's a s a comic reference admittedly that says, you know, people are people are roasting their barley corn on them now. So evidently by then they disintegrated.

Um but it i it is interesting that they were written on on wood. Um uh and actually not not s strictly boards I suppose. It's um there seem to have been sort of wooden blocks with with more than one sign with text on them. Uh

mounted on a in a frame on an axle so you could turn them around. So I guess the idea is you have a lot of space to write lots of noise. Uh and people can access them by by, you know, turning the blocks. Um Yeah, it's pa I mean it is striking because I don't know of any parallel for that of Greek laws being specifically written onward or on on that format.

Um but on the other hand the laws written on stone are actually pretty rare at this point still. I mean that later on becomes a common thing. Uh but the very earliest we we know of uh f from Crete are More or less the same generation, maybe you know, a generation earlier where someone inscribed a law on on on a block of stone for for permanent

Uh and that becomes increasingly common as I say. But uh perhaps for Solon's time uh d the wooden text, presumably white uh washed board uh with uh painted text on them. uh would have perhaps been the norm. And and later on Greeks still used that a lot for all kinds of public documents that needed to be advertised. Yeah. Uh rather than put it on stone, you uh you paint it on a board. And they were

But on the on the Acropolis. So it's you know, to give them a degree of sanctity I guess. Uh and th but they were later moved apparently, this is what we're told anyway, into the into the Agara, so you know, uh down from the Acropolis into an in even more public space. So yes, it is quite remarkable that they would last. Um how successful are these reforms? Do we know?

Uh we do to some extent. So on the legal side, for example, his laws remained largely the foundation of the Athenian system for many centuries, many generations to come.

when the Athenians recodified the rules at the end of the fifth century, so four oh three B C They're said to have kept the greater part of Solon's laws, and if you look at the surviving judicial speeches, about hundred of them from the fourth century, the orators And the plaintiffs are still referring to their legal system as the Solonos Nomoi, the laws of Solon.

So there's a remarkable durability there. On the political side then I think there's a big as I mentioned this key figure Cleistenes in five hundred eighty BC, Cleistenes really is building on the institutions and the ideas that Solon first presented, these absolutely core democratic ideas that you must have equal access to the assembly and the law courts. And those two ideas, isonomia, equality before the law, equal access to the law, and democratia, the power of the people.

Were they're already there and so on, and Clistenes gives them an extra boost. and creates the the classical form of democracy that we know. Right. So it was foundational in that sense for Athenian democracy. Absolutely. And he he was he was literally worshipped as a hero. So he enjoyed hero cult. Right through antiquity. Hero cult means you sacrifice an animal, blood sacrifice, to the powerful dead. So he had Hero Cult shrines.

and he was worshipped as a powerful ancestor who would still protect and guide Athens from beyond the grave. So well two two thoughts. I mean one is I th I think that the the idea that the people have a significant role of power is there in Solon, but the word democratia is a fifth century word. So that comes later. But many later authors

retrojected and think that Solon was already laying the foundation kind of avant la lettre of the democracy. The other thing that we haven't mentioned is that So one of the important things that Solon had done was to reorganize the population, so to set up four property classes, and in particular perhaps introduce a top property class.

But one of the reasons that was important was that it moved away from just birth to wealth. And so in a way it opened things up because now you could be in the in a in a property class and have a share of

higher political power if you'd made your your fortune as a traitor, as perhaps he had done, you know, even if you hadn't been born an aristocrat, as he also had been. And Clysenes then reorganizes the people further and makes them into ten tribes um which all kind of draw from different geographic parts of Athens and the countryside of Attica. So that sort of organizing of the people to give them new affiliations, new identities.

That's a very important part of kind of refounding the social identity as a lawgiver, um, both for Solon and then for for what Cleisthenes also does. Those property classes are really interesting and complex, but a lot hangs on them, I think, in that, as Melissa says, it is clear that they define access to political office by wealth and not by birth, so that's a big change.

ond ond ond ond ond ond ond ond ond ond ond ond ond Partly the names of these classes and partly the the property qualification, you know, in in quantitative indication. Uh and and the the latter, if you work it out, actually rather suggests that this the property threshold was quite high. So maybe uh democratic uh democratic certainly

But uh a sort of a property elite democra democracy at this point and that becomes wider only later. Do we have any do we have any direct evidence that as a result of his laws? Athens generally became, in a general sense, richer, more powerful, stronger, You're nodding away, Minister. No, I I I I mean I think so. I think as I mentioned, you know, he really took an interest in the economic

situation and immigration and exports and inheritance law. You know, he reformed all of these things and so you know, it's really from this period um that that Athens becomes really distinctive and different from other Greek Palais and, you know, within the next century we really see its emergence to the point that it can, you know, play a significant role alongside Sparta in leading the Greeks against the Persians and the early

fifth century and then we sort of really move into the the heyday of the Athenian Empire um after that. So Solon really is at the beginning of that rise um of Athens over the next um century or so. Does it make any sense, uh, Bill, to talk of uh of Solon's work as a a cohesive soci ideology? Yes, uh from the point of view of subsequent generations of Athenians.

There's more than one ideology, in the sense that the Democrats if you ask a Democrat, he'll say, Oh yeah, he was a he he's protodemocratic. If you ask a more conservative figure, they'll claim him as his own. But if you strip aback those party politics, as it were, if you look at his words, the poetry that survived, then you can see a coherent body of thought, a coherent line, an ideology, if you like.

which is built around these ideas of the community, the cohesion of the community, the idea that the the wealth of the community should be for the benefit of all, that it should be used moderately. Uh, and that everyone matters. Everybody has a right to participate in the political community. And this continues. This is something he sets out. This is something he kicks into life and on it goes for the next two and a half thousand years. Indeed. You know, nodding yes, Melissa.

Yes. I mean I think one of the things that does change though again is that we've been stressing that Solon was was making a boundary and a kind of balance between the rich and the poor. The rich already had the power and that he curbs them and gives a share to the poor. Once you get into the classical period of Athenian democracy you could say the balance tips really, and now most of the power is with the poor. That is the Kratos of the demos, the democratia.

the poor's role in the juries, in the assembly, in the council is really decisive. And there's still some role for the elite, but the sort of balance of the power. So I think there is a kind of flip, but by even giving a share to the poor you know, he kind of opened that door that that then eventually would lead to to to that tipping.

Um it doesn't quite mean that it really continues for two and a half thousand years in that the a little thing called the Roman Empire in the Middle Ages intervene. But uh the important thing is these I these idea pi uh the ideas of behind Solon and you know and

also in in later Greek philosophy are picked up again, certainly from the Renaissance onwards, uh and then really i influence how people rethink democracy. And you know, I I guess it's only fair to say that modern democracy being a representative rather than a direct democracy is Fundamentally different and probably has really different origins as well from Athenian democracy. But at the level of theory, political thought, there's definitely important continuity.

Yeah. I mean I would stress actually there's some important moments in in Solon's work. The idea that the people can hold the magistrates to account, which is ascribed to him at least in in Aristotle's politics.

the idea that y that people get to choose the highest office holders even if they don't hold those offices themselves and then can hold them to account. I think that's actually a fundamental idea that is continuous between um ancient democracy and modern representative democracy that accountability is something that actually both um systems of of democracy have in common.

Well thank you very much. Thanks to Melissa Lane, Hans Van Wies and William Allen and to our studio engineer Duncan Hannant. Next week, Virginia Wolfe's groundbreaking work on criticism, A Room of One's Own. Thanks for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. What did we miss out, Melissa? Um, no, it's an interesting question.

Um, I mean I think we could say more about the very figure of the lawgiver, but which is just a really interesting thing that emerges in Greece at this time and it's an interesting way of thinking about politics. The idea that There's a lawgiver who had a purpose, a kind of set of values that they thought that the laws should embody. And to me, one of the things that's interesting is it's not that they invent the idea of law itself. Law seems to have kind of evolved.

But at this mo at a some kind of moment of crisis or a turning point in the law givers come in, they overhaul the laws, they look to laws of other societies as well, so it's not at all a parochial kind of role. Part of the wisdom that it requires is

knowing about laws elsewhere. And they they sort of lay this foundation for the values of society through laws, which then later generations can kind of look back to. So that that is a kind of organizing trope of politics, I think, is something that Solon participates in and is really distinctive of Greece in this period.

Hans, you want to I uh Yeah. Um one thing is I I I sort of thinking again about the the significance of the of the franchise, I you know the right to vote as opposed to the right to hold office because our sources tell us mainly, almost exclusively really, about the right to hold office.

Um and so uh because we're used uh when thinking about the history of democracy to think so much in terms of the franchise. I think we we we assume I think and we're really only assuming that that this was uh a thing that Solon did, you know, give everyone the vote.

Um but if you think back to for example Homeric epics, you know, scene assembly scenes in the Iliad or Odyssey, um Mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus, mae'r cyhoeddus.

they don't have a vote as such, but you know, there is a sort of sounding out of public opinion. So this idea that the whole community is at some level involved in public decision making might be already there. And so Whether Solon is actually used.

giving people the the v the vote as such uh or rather formalising the idea that, you know, the community should be involved and then uh uh allowing them specifically the point was made to to vote for magistrates who might previously have been picked by this ruling council. And that obviously would be a major transfer of of power to the assembly. But maybe the idea of an assembly that that a popular assembly that votes or even a council that votes.

might not be entirely new or you know as revolutionary as as you might assume because we we have no positive evidence that it did exist before that. Was there any lawgiver before Salon who made as big a mark as he did? Um well I mean so in Athens there's Draco, uh you mentioned uh he did make a mark but only in a negative sense that people thought he his laws were much too severe.

Uh there's a couple of others that I mentioned. There's um a a Carondas who is mentioned of uh of a Greek city in in southern Italy. Um but there we only have I mean he was like Solon re repu reputed as a s a great thinker and wise person. Uh but we don't get a good sense I think of what his laws were all about. Yeah, I mean so well in Greece we also have Zaleukos who's thought it also in an Italian city s which is thought to be the first

We have like Curgus and Sparta, who's probably the most significant other than Solon. The Romans would refer to him as the law giver, even above Solon. And hi and his laws are very interesting. We could talk more. But in other civilizations, I mean it's interesting later Greek authors

actually think about Moses on the model of a Greek lawgiver. So Philo and Josephus look back at Moses and say, he was an even greater lawgiver than the Greek lawgivers. And they they kind of write specifically to compare. But one of the things that's interesting about Hammurabi is that

he combines the role of king and law giver. And whereas we were stressing that Solon kind of separates them. He's the law giver but he doesn't become a king. What would Hammurabi sorry to interrupt you. What would Hammurabi? Um so that's much earlier, um I think twenty two five. Hundred B C Yeah, eighteen hundred, right.

Yeah. Well he went quite a long way laying down his laws, didn't he? Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. So that that's very important and I think those Near Eastern models and the Greeks are aware that um Egyptian and Near Eastern societies have

more ancient political systems. I mean they're very conscious of that, um of that fact. Well yeah on the legal side I would say the sources stress they do emphasize that he makes the system Less harsh, less draconian coming the generation after your Draco was basically had the death penalty for ov almost every offence.

And the saying was that his laws were written not in ink but in blood. And the sources emphasise that so on makes the system as a whole more humane. He abolishes the capital punishment except for cases of homicide. And that ties in with his wider persona in his in his poetry, as someone who cares for everyone, uh and uh believes in moderation rather than go into excess.

Th these Near Eastern law codes, I mean uh Hammurabi and even earlier, let's sort of go back even in the to the third millennium, they're interesting that you also quite frequently the the kings express an interest in stopping the the the strong from harming the weak and so forth. There's a so that that that sentiment in Solomon that he's he's out there to protect the vulnerable.

um is I mean in in Greek literature that seems quite new, but th the Near Eastern kings use the same kind of trope. Uh they also quite often uh cancel I think actually on a regular basis cancel debts. So you know when a new king comes to power uh all deaths are cancelled for uh you know for the duration. Um so i the the chronological and I think maybe also geographical gap is too great really to assume that that Solomon was borrowing that but

The the um the rhetoric at least uh exists even even there. And but those were clearly not uh you know, democratic or uh egalitarian societies, but nevertheless the the idea that it's a responsibility of those in power to to look after the weak. uh is is there already.

Yeah, and and I think also in Homer's poetry, you know, the idea that there's the image of the king or the ruler should be the shepherd of the people. So that idea that the fundamental responsibility of the ruler is to care for the good of the people is already there, often honored only in the breach, but still there as a as a kind of ideal. I thought another fun thing to mention might just be the Greek word for the cancellation of debt, which is Seesachea, which means

Literally it's from Sais like the seismic um, you know, um shaking. So it's the kind of shaking off of burdens, like we talk about an earthquake. It has that sort of valence of a of a of a s of a shaking of the of the burdens and sort of freeing people from those burdens. So there's a nice root there. Wouldn't it be entirely fanciful to think of the idea that the law maker and the king were in one person to trace that right ba right through to Christianity?

Interesting. Medieval kings I think did did very much have the same same idea. Yeah. So that that tradition. I think the the Near Eastern tradition there you can you can probably trace more more clearly and throughout than uh Although the Hellenistic kings also the king is described as a living law. So there is that ideal in the Greeks which then sort of that ideal is a monarch and that's

you know, just in the centuries just before the emergence of Christ. So I think that idea is definitely in in the culture at that moment. Bill, do you want to say anything? Yeah, uh maybe s come back to what Melissa said earlier about the seven sages. Uh it's interesting the Athenians I think what you've got here is different cities competing with each other. The Greeks love competition, and so each one puts forward a sophomore.

uh a wise man, um Thales from Miletus, Kylan from Sparta. And it's interesting just but the Athenians as it were put forward so on as their Sophotos most wise man, if you think of the number that they had to choose from. The th the classic number seven isn't attested I think until Plato, but it might go back a few generations. But you already see in Herodotus, who's writing in the 440s, 430s, 420s, he has this wonderful scene where...

Solon is visiting Croesus, the king of Lydia in Sardis, so what's now southwestern Turkey. And he gives Croesus warnings about the dangers of excessive wealth. the uncertainty of human life. Basically he gives him the warnings that are in the political poetry that survived and of course Croesus being a crazy king doesn't take it. He sees the Persian Empire rise, he thinks Oh I might take them on. He sends on a delegation to the Oracle at Delphi and asks

What should I do? And the oracle says, If you go to war, you'll destroy a great empire And he thinks, Yes, gotcha. and of course doesn't factor in the inscrutability and vagueness of oracles and of course does go to war and gets roundly smashed having not paid attention to so long. Well, thank you all very much. I think uh we're being approached by Luke here. That was fantastic. Would you all like a cup of tea? That'd be great.

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