Solon of Athens, one of the seven wise men of Greece

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Solon was an Athenian poet, political reformer, legislator and statesman. He was born in 683 BC in Athens and died in 558 BC in Cyprus. He was an important representative of the Athenian republic, continuing the line of King Codro, from whom he descends, and Draco. As is characteristic of ancient Greece, he is a historical and also a legendary and mythological hero.

The Seven Sages of Greece from the 6th century BC. C. are exceptional personalities distinguished by their extraordinary wisdom and knowledge, as scientists, philosophers, statesmen and legislators.

The other wise men were Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mytilene, Cleobulus of Lindos, Chilon of Sparta and Periander of Corinth.

King Codro and the Dorian War

Codrus was the last of the kings of Attica, a historical region of Greece that includes the city of Athens. He was the son of Melanthus and king of Athens.

In Attica, the native Pelasgian people, typically Mediterranean, mixed with the Achaeans and Ionians fleeing the Peloponnese and Boeotia from the Dorian invaders they always hated. The Dorians were one of the four ancient tribes of Greece. The other three were the Achaeans, the Ionians and the Aeolians, in 1200 BC

King Theseus, survivor of the Minotaur’s enterprise, unified those scattered towns into a single city, Athens. The city began to develop in the shadow of the Acropolis founded by the Achaeans of Mycenae.

According to tradition, shortly after the arrival of the Dorians in the Peloponnese (1068 BC) their attack on Attica took place. The Dorians had received from the oracle that they would conquer the city as long as the Attic king Codro remained alive.

In this way, the Dorians took the necessary precautions to wage war without destroying the king of Athens. There are many versions of Codro’s ending.

One of them is that King Codro, informed of this oracle, decided to sacrifice himself to save the city, dressing as a beggar to simulate that he was going in search of firewood, he left the city and encountered two enemies of whom he killed one and The second one killed him.

After Coder’s death, the Athenians claimed his body for burial, and the Dorians realized that they could not defeat Athens and returned to their land. Codro was succeeded by his eldest son, Medonte.

In recognition of King Codro’s patriotism, the Athenians decided that the top leaders of the polis would be called archons.

According to Plutarch, it is likely that Solon was the son of Execetidas, a descendant of Codro and, therefore, of Melantid ancestry (Melantius was Ulysses’ goatherd). During his youth, after his family fell into poverty, he had to dedicate himself to commerce and writing poetry. At first he did the latter for no other purpose than to entertain himself, but he progressively turned the tone of his verses towards a more philosophical and political side.

Solon and the Athenian Republic

After the death of King Codro, who saved the city from the Doric invasion, the monarchy was abolished and the republic was established, handing power to an archon, first for life, then for ten years and finally to nine archons for one year.

There were three types of Archons:

• Basileo had functions as Pope.

• Polemarch, commander-in-chief of the army.

• Eponymous, who wrote the calendar and gave the name to the year.

This Constitution corresponded to the structure of society dominated by the hereditary “eupatrid” aristocracy or patricians who exercised power over a population divided into three ranks.

• Hippes or knights, high bourgeoisie.

• Those who had a pair of oxen and with their carts formed the armored armored troops

• The employees who did not have assets and were the infantry.

The Dracon Archon

The Dracon Archon, in the 7th century, tries to bring order since wealth was in the hands of a privileged few, creating an increasingly numerous plebs. He was known for his severe “draconian” punishments or especially cruel or severe sentences or provisions or decrees that transgressed the laws of justice.

He is credited with the first codification of the city’s laws, which until then were transmitted orally. His most important contributions were common law and against homicide to end family revenge.

A robbery could mean a death penalty, an unpaid debt turned the debtor into a slave at the service of the creditor, etc. He had to go into exile to Aegina.

Solon the Archon

Solon regulated the laws of Dracon in 594 BC and also gave citizenship to the lower classes, taking important steps for the republic of Athens. Solon was a eupatrid who descended from Codrus, who in turn descended from Poseidon.

It is said that he composed poetry and in his adulthood he restored his failing estate with great assets and a solid reputation for sagacity and honesty.

According to Plutarch, Athens fought with Megara for the possession of Salamis. A poem by Solon in the public square convinced the Athenians that they should not surrender. With Solon at the head Salamis was recovered.

He was appointed eponymous Archon. At the age of 45 he abolished slavery, freeing those who had fallen due to debts that were cancelled. He devalued the currency – drachma – to facilitate payments.

He abolished slavery by freeing those who had fallen due to debt

Solon’s great revolution was to subdivide the population according to the census. They were all free and subject to the same laws, but their rights were in line with the taxes they paid and higher command positions fell to them in peace and war.

Athens became a democracy that served as a model for all other cities. For Shelley it was “the first throne” of freedom. For Goethe Solon and his successor Cleisthenes were the two great architects of the democratic Constitution.

He also reformed the moral code, calling leisure a crime and condemning those who remained neutral in the revolutions to the loss of citizenship. Legalized prostitution. He prescribed a fine for anyone who seduced someone else’s wife and refused to inflict penalties on celibates.

He loved justice but without moralizing acrimony and with great indulgence for the weaknesses of his fellow men.

Unlike Lycurgus in Sparta and Numa in Rome, he did not claim to have received the text of those laws “from God” and accepted the criticism. He retired at the age of 75, giving up on staying for life, “it’s time,” he said, “for me to start studying something.”

Asked by Croesus, the last king of Lydia, if he considered himself among the happy men, Solon replied:

“We Greeks, Your Majesty, have received from God a wisdom that is too homely and limited to be able to foresee what will happen tomorrow and proclaim happy a man still engaged in his battle.”

When they asked him what the order consisted of, he said:

“In the fact that the people obey the rulers and that the rulers obey the laws.”

Plutarch highlights the austerity of Solon’s life and highlights some of his verses in which the poet does not distinguish the difference between:

• …he who owns a great cup of gold and silver

• …extensive fields of abundant crops

• …and he who has an honest income that is enough to eat and dress comfortably

• …and if in wife and children you add to this

• …beauty and youth, happiness is full

He was inscribed among the seven wise men of Greece and the motto he had engraved was “meden agan”, that is, “nothing in excess”.

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