Solon The Law-giver Of Athens
We have told how Sparta came to have an aristocratic government, under
the laws of Lycurgus. We have now to tell how Athens came to have a
democratic government, under the laws of Solon. These formed the types
of government for later Greece, some of whose nations became
aristocracies, following the example of Sparta; others became
democracies, and formed their governments on the model of that of
Athens.
As before Lycurgus the Spartan commonwealth was largely without law, so
was Athens before Solon. In those days the people of Attica--of which
Athens was the capital city--were divided into three factions,--the
rich, the middle class, and the poor. As for the poor, they were in a
condition of misery, being loaded down with debt, and many of them in a
state of slavery to the rich, who owned nearly all the land.
At that period what law existed was very severe against debtors. The
debtor became the slave of his creditor, and was held in this state
until he could pay his debt, either in money or in labor. And not only
he, but his younger sons and his unmarried daughters and sisters, were
reduced to slavery. Through the action of this severe law many of the
poor of Attica were owned as slaves, many had been sold as slaves, some
had kept their freedom only by selling their own children, and some had
fled from the country to escape slavery. And this, too, had arisen in
many cases through injustice in the courts and corruption of the judges.
In the time of Solon the misery and oppression from these laws became so
great that there was a general mutiny of the poor against the rich. They
refused to submit to the unjust enactments of their rulers, and the
state fell into such frightful disorder that the governing class, no
longer able to control the people, were obliged to call Solon to their
aid.
Solon did not belong to the rich men of Athens, though he was of noble
birth, and, like so many of the older Greeks, traced his family line
back to the gods. Neptune, the ocean deity, was fabled to be his far-off
ancestor. He was born about 638 B.C. His father had spent most of his
money, largely in kind deeds to others, and the son found himself
obliged to become a merchant. In this pursuit he travelled in many parts
of Greece and Asia, and in his journeys paid more heed to the gaining of
knowledge than of money, so that when he came back his mind was fuller
than his purse. Men who seek wisdom rarely succeed in gaining much
money, but Solon's story goes to show that wisdom is far the better of
the two, and that a rich mind is of more value than a rich purse. When
he returned to Attica he gained such fame as a poet and a man of
learning and wisdom that he has ever since been classed as one of the
Seven Wise Men of Greece.
Of these wise men the following story is told. Some fishermen of Cos
cast their net into the sea, and brought up in its meshes a golden
tripod, which the renowned Helen had thrown into the sea during her
return from Troy. A dispute arose as to whom the tripod should belong
to. Several cities were ready to go to war about it. To prevent
bloodshed the oracle of Apollo was applied to, and answered that it
should be sent to the wisest man that could be found.
It was at first sent to Thales of Miletus, a man famous for wisdom. But
he decided that Bias of Priene was wiser than he, and sent it to him.
And thus it went the round of the seven wise men,--Solon among them, so
we are told,--and finally came back to Thales. He refused to keep it,
and placed it in the temple of Apollo at Thebes.
An evidence alike of Solon's wisdom, shrewdness, and political skill
arose in the war for the island of Salamis, which adjoined the two
states of Megara and Attica, and for whose possession they were at war.
After the Athenians had been at great loss of men and money in this
conflict, Megara gained the island, and the people of Athens became so
disgusted with the whole affair that a law was passed declaring that any
man who spoke or wrote again about the subject should be put to death.
This Solon held to be a stain on the honor of Athens. He did not care to
lose his life by breaking the law, but was not content that his country
should rest under the stigma of defeat, and should yield so valuable a
prize. He accordingly had it given out that he had gone mad; and in
pretended insanity he rushed into the public square, mounted the
herald's stone, and repeated a poem he had composed for the occasion,
recalling vividly to the people the disgrace of their late defeat. His
stirring appeal so wrought upon their feelings that the law was
repealed, war was declared, and Solon was placed in command of the army.
Megara sent out a ship to watch the proceedings, but this was seized by
Solon's fleet and manned by part of his force. The remainder of his men
were landed and marched towards the city of Salamis, on which they made
an assault. While this was going on, Solon sailed up with the ship he
had captured. The Megarians, thinking it to be their own ship, permitted
it to enter the port, and the city was taken by surprise. Salamis, thus
won, continued to belong to Athens till those late days when Philip of
Macedon conquered Greece.
To Solon, now acknowledged to be the wisest and most famous of the
Athenians, the tyrants who had long misruled Athens turned, when they
found the people in rebellion against their authority. In the year 594
B.C. he was chosen archon, or ruler of the state, and was given full
power to take such measures as were needed to put an end to the
disorders. Probably these autocrats supposed that he would help them to
continue in power; but, if so, they did not know the man with whom they
had to deal.
Solon might easily have made himself a despot, if he had chosen,--all
the states of Greece being then under the rule of despots or of
tyrannical aristocrats. But he was too honest and too wise for this. He
set himself earnestly to overcome the difficulties which lay before him.
And he did this with a radical hand. In truth, the people were in no
mood for any but radical measures.
The enslaved debtors were at once set free. All contracts in which the
person or the land of the debtor had been given as security were
cancelled. No future contract under which a citizen could be enslaved or
imprisoned for debt was permitted. All past claims against the land of
Attica were cancelled, and the mortgage pillars removed. (These pillars
were set up at the boundaries of the land, and had the lender's name and
the amount of the debt cut into the stone.)
But as many of the creditors were themselves in debt to richer men, and
as Solon's laws left them poor, he adopted a measure for their relief.
This was to lower the value of the money of the state. The old silver
drachmas were replaced by new drachmas, of which seventy-three equalled
one hundred of the old. Debtors were thus able to pay their debts at a
discount of twenty-seven per cent., and the great loss fell on the rich;
and justly so, for most of them had gained their wealth through
dishonesty and oppression. Lastly, Solon made full citizens of all from
whom political rights had been taken, except those who had been
condemned for murder or treason.
This was a bold measure. And, like such bold measures generally, it did
injustice to many. But the evil was temporary, the good permanent. It
put an end to much injustice, and no such condition as had prevailed
ever again arose in Athens. The government of the aristocracy came to an
end under Solon's laws. From that time forward Athens grew more and more
a government of the people.
The old assembly of the people existed then, but all its power had been
taken from it. Solon gave back to it the right of voting and of passing
laws. But he established a council of four hundred men, elected annually
by the people, whose duty it was to consider the business upon which the
assembly was to act. And the assembly could only deal with business that
was brought before it by this council.
The assemblies of the people took place on the Pnyx, a hill that
overlooked the city, and from which could be seen the distant sea. At
its right stood the Acropolis, that famous hill on which the noblest of
temples were afterwards built. Between these two hills rose the
Areopagus, on which the Athenian supreme court held its sessions. The
Athenians loved to do their business in the open air, and, while
discussing questions of law and justice, delighted in the broad view
before them of the temples, the streets, and the crowded marts of trade
of the city, and the shining sea, with its white-sailed craft, afar in
the sunny distance.
Solon's laws went further than we have said. He divided the people into
four ranks or divisions, according to their wealth in land. The richer
men were, the more power they were given in the state. But at the same
time they had to pay heavier taxes, so that their greater authority was
not an unmixed blessing. The lowest class, composed of the poorest
citizens, had no taxes at all to pay, and no power in the state, other
than the right to vote in the assembly. When called out as soldiers arms
were furnished them, while the other classes had to buy their own arms.
Various other laws were made by Solon. The old law against crime,
established long before by Draco, had made death the penalty for every
crime, from murder to petty theft. This severe law was repealed, and the
punishment made to agree with the crime. Minor laws were these: The
living could not speak evil of the dead. No person could draw more than
a fixed quantity of water daily from the public wells. People who raised
bees must not have their hives too near those of their neighbors. It was
fixed how women should dress, and they were forbidden to scratch or tear
themselves at funerals. They had to carry baskets of a fixed size when
they went abroad. A dog that bit anybody had to be delivered up with a
log four feet and a half long tied to its neck. Such were some of the
laws which the council swore to maintain, each member vowing that if he
broke any of them he would dedicate a golden statue as large as himself
to Apollo, at Delphi.
Having founded his laws, Solon, fearing that he would be forced to make
changes in them, left Athens, having bound the people by oath to keep
them for ten years, during which time he proposed to be absent.
From Athens he set sail for Egypt, and in that ancient realm talked long
with two learned priests about the old history of the land. Among the
stories they told him was a curious one about a great island named
Atlantis, far in the western ocean, against which Athens had waged war
nine thousand years before, and which had afterwards sunk under the
Atlantic's waves. It was one of those fanciful legends of which the past
had so great a store.
From Egypt he went to Cyprus, where he dwelt long and made useful
changes. He is also said to have visited, at Sardis, Croesus, the king
of Lydia, a monarch famous for his wealth and good fortune. About this
visit a pretty moral story is told. It is probably not true, being a
fiction of the ancient story-tellers, but, fiction or not, it is well
worth the telling.
Croesus had been so fortunate in war that he had made his kingdom
great and prosperous, while he was esteemed the richest monarch of his
times. He lodged Solon in his palace and had his servants show him all
the treasures which he had gained. He then, conversing with his visitor,
praised him for his wisdom, and asked him whom he deemed to be the
happiest of men.
He expected an answer flattering to his vanity, but Solon simply
replied,--
"Tellus, of Athens."
"And why do you deem Tellus the happiest?" demanded Croesus.
Solon gave as his reason that Tellus lived in comfort and had good and
beautiful sons, who also had good children; and that he died in gallant
defence of his country, and was buried by his countrymen with the
highest honors.
"And whom do you give the second place in happiness?" asked Croesus.
"Cleobis and Bito," answered Solon. "These were men of the Argive race,
who had fortune enough for their wants, and were so strong as to gain
prizes at the Games."
"But their special title to happiness was," continued Solon, "that in a
festival to the goddess Juno, at Argos, their mother wished to go in a
car. As the oxen did not return in time from the fields, the youths,
fearing to be late, yoked themselves to the car, and drew their mother
to the temple, forty-five furlongs away. This filial deed gained them
the highest praise from the people, while their mother prayed the
goddess to bestow upon them the highest blessing to which mortals can
attain. After her prayer, the youths offered sacrifices, partook of the
holy banquet, and fell asleep in the temple. They never woke again! This
was the blessing of the goddess."
"What," cried Croesus, angrily, "is my happiness, then, of so little
value to you that you put me on a level with private men like these?"
"You are very rich, Croesus," answered Solon, "and are lord of many
nations. But remember that you have many days yet to live, and that any
single day in a man's life may yield events that will change all his
fortune. As to whether you are supremely happy and fortunate, then, I
have no answer to make. I cannot speak for your happiness till I know if
your life has a happy ending."[1]
Solon, having completed his travels, returned to Athens to find it in
turmoil. Pisistratus, a political adventurer and a favorite with the
people, had gained despotic power by a cunning trick. He wounded
himself, and declared that he had been attacked and wounded by his
political enemies. He asked, therefore, for a body-guard for his
protection. This was granted him by the popular assembly, which was
strongly on his side. With its aid he seized the Acropolis and made
himself master of the city, while his opponents were forced to fly for
their lives.
This revolutionary movement was strenuously opposed by Solon, but in
vain. Pisistratus had made himself so popular with the people that they
treated their old law-giver like a man who had lost his senses. As a
last appeal he put on his armor and placed himself before the door of
his house, as if on guard as a sentinel over the liberties of his
country! This appeal was also in vain.
"I have done my duty!" he exclaimed; "I have sustained to the best of my
power my country and the laws."
He refused to fly, saying, when asked on what he relied for protection,
"On my old age."
Pisistratus--who proved a very mild despot--left his aged opponent
unharmed, and in the next year Solon died, being then eighty years of
age.
His laws lived after him, despite the despotism which ruled over Athens
for the succeeding fifty years.
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From west to east across Europe had marched the army of the great conqueror, no nation daring to draw a hostile sword, none venturing to place an obstacle in its path. Across Russia it had marched almost as triumphantly, breaking irresistibly throug... The Burning Of The Summer Palace
The "sublime" emperor, the supreme head of the great realm of China and its hundreds of millions of people, dwells in a magnificence and seclusion unknown to the monarchs of other lands. His palace enclosure within the city of Peking, the "Purple Fo... The Captivity Of Captain Golownin
Japan was persistent in its policy of isolation. To its people their group of islands was the world, and they knew little of and cared less for what was going on in all the continents outside. The Dutch vessel that visited their shores once a year s... The Captivity Of Richard Coeur De Lion
In the month of October, in the year of our Lord 1192, a pirate vessel touched land on the coast of Sclavonia, at the port of Yara. Those were days in which it was not easy to distinguish between pirates and true mariners, either in aspect or avoc... The Career Of A Desert Chief
In looking upon a modern map of the empire of China, it will be seen to cover a vast area in Asia, including not only China proper but the wide plains of Mongolia and the rock-bound region of Thibet. Yet no such map could properly have been drawn tw... The Career Of A Knight-errant
Mediaeval history would be of greatly reduced interest but for its sprightly stories of knights and their doings. In those days when men, "clad in complete steel," did their fighting with spear, sword, and battle-axe, and were so enamoured of hard b... The Career Of Bishop Hatto
We have now to deal with a personage whose story is largely legendary, particularly that of his death, a highly original termination to his career having arisen among the people, who had grown to detest him. But Bishop Hatto played his part in the...