Solon

b. circa 640; d. circa 559 BC

Athenian legislator. Having early distinguished himself as a poet, first in a light and amatory vein, then in the gnomic style, Solon took part in the dispute between Athens and Megara (c. 596), and moved a decree initiating the first Sacred War. Such indeed was his reputation that he was called upon to end the civil strife with which Attica was rent. In 594 he was chief archon, and some time later, during a period of economic distress and conflict, was given unlimited power, which he exercised to cancel all existing debts and to forbid loans on the security of the borrower's person. He likewise encouraged trade by revising the Athenian coinage, and gave fresh impulse to industry by offering citizenship to immigrant craftsmen. So popular were these measures that Solon was invited to reorganise the constitution. He began by repealing the Laws of Draco, except those relating to homicide. Next, he divided the citizens in classes according to their landed property, thus constituting a limited oligarchy; enlarged the functions of the Ecclesia (general assembly); instituted the Boulë, a deliberative council; and probably entrusted the guardianship of the laws and public morality to the court of Areopagus. Having enacted these reforms as well as some other laws, Solon left Athens for a period of ten years, visiting Egypt, Cyprus and possibly Lydia. Old quarrels were revived during his absence, and shortly after his return to Athens power was seized by Pisistratus, to whom Solon is said to have given sage counsel on more than one occasion. Considerable fragments of Solon's poems have survived.

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