Reforms of Solon (594 BC): Laying the Foundations of Athens

The reforms of Solon, traditionally dated to 594 BC, rescued Athens from a crisis of debt and civil strife and reshaped its society. Chosen as archon with special authority, Solon cancelled debts, ended the enslavement of Athenians for debt and ranked citizens by wealth instead of noble birth. His laws did not create democracy, but they laid the groundwork on which Athenian democracy was later built.

Background: a city in crisis

By the early sixth century BC Athens was deeply divided. Much of the land belonged to a few aristocratic families. Many small farmers owed dues to wealthy landowners: some, known as hektemoroi or “sixth-parters”, seem to have handed over a sixth of their harvest. Those who could not pay could be seized and sold into slavery, some of them abroad.

The written code of Draco of c. 621 BC had not solved these problems. According to the Constitution of the Athenians, written by Aristotle’s school in the fourth century BC, the poor were in revolt against the rich and the city was close to violent upheaval. Elsewhere in Greece such crises often ended with a tyrant seizing power.

Who was Solon?

Solon was an Athenian aristocrat of moderate wealth, probably born in the 630s BC. He was also a poet, and fragments of his verse survive, making him the first Athenian whose own words we can read. In them he describes the injustice of the rich and defends his own reforms.

He first won fame through the war with Megara over the island of Salamis around 600 BC, reportedly urging the Athenians to fight with a poem. Ancient writers counted him among the Seven Sages of Greece.

In 594/593 BC he was elected archon, the chief magistrate, and given authority to reform both the economy and the laws. Some modern historians argue that the reforms were enacted later, perhaps in the 570s BC, but 594 BC remains the traditional date.

The seisachtheia: shaking off the burdens

Solon’s most famous measure was the seisachtheia, the “shaking-off of burdens”. He cancelled debts that were secured on land or on the debtor’s own person. In his poems he boasts that he pulled up the marker stones, called horoi, that had been set in the land of Attica, freeing the earth that had been enslaved.

He freed Athenians who had been enslaved for debt within Attica and says he brought home others who had been sold abroad, some of whom, he wrote, no longer spoke Attic Greek. For the future, he forbade loans secured on the person of the borrower, ending debt slavery for Athenian citizens.

Notably, Solon refused the more radical demand of the poor for a redistribution of land. He presented himself as standing between the two sides, protecting each from the other.

A new political order

Solon replaced birth with wealth as the basis of political rights. He divided citizens into four classes according to the annual produce of their land, measured in medimnoi (a dry measure of grain) or the equivalent in liquid measures of oil and wine:

He is also credited with a Council of 400, a hundred men from each of the four Athenian tribes, to prepare business for the Assembly, though some historians doubt that this council existed so early. The Areopagus council of former archons remained the guardian of the laws.

Legal reforms

Solon repealed all of Draco’s laws except those on homicide and issued a new code covering family, inheritance, property and public conduct. The laws were written on rotating wooden tablets called axones, displayed in public.

Two measures had lasting importance. First, any citizen could now bring a prosecution on behalf of someone who had been wronged, rather than only the victim. Second, citizens could appeal a magistrate’s decision to a popular court, often identified with the heliaia. The Constitution of the Athenians calls these, together with the ban on debt slavery, his most democratic measures.

He also encouraged trade and crafts. Plutarch reports that he banned the export of agricultural produce except olive oil, and offered citizenship to foreign craftsmen who settled permanently in Athens. Older claims that Solon introduced Athenian coinage are now doubted, since Athens probably did not mint coins until some decades later.

Key people

• Solon (c. 630s–c. 560 BC): archon, lawgiver and poet, whose verses defend his reforms as a fair middle course between rich and poor.
• The hektemoroi: dependent farmers who paid part of their harvest to landowners and were the main beneficiaries of the seisachtheia.
• Damasias: archon who refused to give up office after his year, showing how unstable Athens remained after the reforms.
• Pisistratus: a younger relative of Solon according to some ancient writers, who became tyrant in 561 BC but preserved most of Solon’s laws.

Solon’s own poems make him unusual among early lawgivers. Figures such as Lycurgus of Sparta are known only through later legend, while Solon speaks in his own voice, describing the city’s troubles and insisting that he gave the common people as much power as was enough, and no more.

Aftermath and the road to tyranny

The reforms satisfied neither side completely. The rich resented the loss of their debts and the poor were disappointed that land was not redistributed. Rather than stay and be pressed to change his laws, Solon left Athens for about ten years, travelling, it is said, to Egypt and Cyprus.

Conflict continued. In two years no archon could be appointed, a situation the Greeks called anarchia, and a man named Damasias held on to the archonship for over two years before being removed. Rivalry among regional factions finally allowed Pisistratus to seize power as tyrant in 561 BC. Solon, by then old, is said to have warned the Athenians against him; he probably died soon afterwards, around 560 BC.

Pisistratus, however, largely kept Solon’s laws in force, and they survived to become the legal foundation of the classical city.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Solon advised King Croesus. Herodotus’ famous story of Solon telling Croesus of Lydia to “call no man happy until he is dead” is almost certainly fiction, since Croesus became king around 560 BC, after Solon’s travels.
• Myth: Solon brought the Atlantis story from Egypt. Plato’s dialogues Timaeus and Critias claim Solon learned of Atlantis from Egyptian priests. Historians regard this as Plato’s literary invention.
• Fact: Solon’s own poems survive in part. Quoted mainly by the Constitution of the Athenians and Plutarch, they are rare first-hand evidence for an early Greek reformer’s aims.

Timeline

• c. 630s BC: Solon is born into an aristocratic Athenian family.
• c. 600 BC: Athens wins Salamis from Megara, with Solon prominent.
• 594/593 BC: Solon serves as archon and enacts his reforms (some scholars prefer a later date).
• c. 593–583 BC: Solon travels abroad for about ten years.
• c. 582–580 BC: Damasias holds the archonship beyond his term and is expelled.
• 561 BC: Pisistratus seizes power as tyrant.
• c. 560 BC: Probable death of Solon.

Why it matters

Solon’s reforms ended debt slavery for Athenian citizens and made wealth, not birth, the key to political office. By opening the courts to every citizen, he gave ordinary Athenians a voice that later reformers, above all Cleisthenes in 508 BC, expanded into democracy. For later Athenians he remained the father of their laws.