by Oswyn Murray
Solon describes his political reforms:
To the people I gave as much privilege as is enough
neither taking away nor adding to their honour;
while those who had power and were famed for their wealth,
for them I took care they should suffer no slight.
I stood holding my strong shield over both,
and I did not allow either to triumph unjustly.
(Fragment 5)
Two revolutionary points stand out in this apparently modest proposal. The first is that the dēmos is considered worthy of privilege at all: the word geras is the old word used by the Homeric nobility for their share of booty. The second point is that nobility of birth is discarded: wealth alone is the criterion for political power. It is in these two directions that the Solonian constitution extends the principles already seen in Sparta.
The basis of the Solonian constitution was a new criterion for the distribution of political power. Solon created four property classes, based on land yield ‘in wet or dry measures’ (that is in corn, oil or wine): the pentakosiomedimnoi (‘five hundred bushel men’), the hippeis (mounted warriors, whose land produced 300 medimnoi or more), the zeugitai (‘men of the yoke’, 200 medimnoi or more), and the thētes. It is not possible to translate these returns into acreage with any great accuracy because of the difficulty of calculating the yield per acre for any crop in antiquity; but the most reasonable figures suggest that a zeugitēs would have needed around 12+ acres of productive land (excluding fallow), a hippeus 18 +, and the highest group 30 acres or more. The creation of this last class was a deliberate provocation of the old aristocracy: the nobility of the ‘men of good birth’ was to give way to a nobility of ‘five hundred bushel men’. The other classes are probably reformulations of the already existing military divisions between cavalry, hoplites (‘men of the yoke’, either because they possessed a yoke of oxen, or more probably because their shields were yoked together), and those below the military census. Nothing is known of how the property classes were created or how they were revised, though Aristotle records an interesting inscription on the Acropolis showing that this did indeed happen:
Anthemion son of Diphilos set this up to the gods
having been raised to the status of knight from the thetes.
(Constitution of the Athenians 7)
The various offices of state were distributed among these property classes, the nine archons and the state treasurers of Athens being reserved for the highest class; ‘but the thetes had no share in any office, which is why even now when the question is being put to anyone being chosen by lot for any office, “what is his property class?” no one would ever reply, “thete”’. Aristotle also attributes to Solon the introduction of the lot for the choice of the archons in a curious system by which, after direct election of 40 candidates by the four tribes, the successful nine were selected by lot; the system fell into disuse under the tyranny and was revived in a modified form in 487/6 (Constitution of the Athenians 8 and 22.5). This account is not always believed by modern scholars, who have often seen it as part of the tendency to credit Solon with the invention of the foundations of Athenian democracy: for the lot was later rightly held to be the only principle of choice compatible with true radical democracy, since it ensured equality of opportunity for all, and prevented the creation of political parties or other undemocratic pressure groups. I do not find this scepticism convincing: the Solonian institution is merely a modified form of direct election, probably intended to break the Eupatrid hold over the archonship and prevent faction by placing the ultimate choice in the hands of the gods.
Office belonged to the aristocracy; but the people as a whole still met in assembly. It was here that Solon departed most radically from the political structures traditional in Greece, and confirmed in the hoplite constitution of Sparta, by which the power of directing the decisions of the warrior assembly lay effectively with an aristocratic council. Alongside the council of the Areopagus, Solon created a people’s council of four hundred, a hundred from each tribe (Constitution of the Athenians 8); it is uncertain how they were chosen (perhaps by lot, as later), or whether all citizens including the thetes were eligible. The later radical descendant of this council possessed two functions: it was the chief administrative body of the Athenian state, responsible for overseeing the work of all public boards of officials; and it also prepared all business for the assembly. Again sceptics have disputed the attribution to Solon, chiefly on the grounds that it is hard to envisage what its functions may have been at this stage. But the Athenians accepted the existence of the Solonian council of four hundred at least by the late fifth century; for in the year 411 a small group of oligarchic revolutionaries went to great lengths to increase their numbers to this respected traditional figure. And two pieces of evidence seem to support its existence under Solon. The first is the discovery of a complex of buildings of the early sixth century on the site of the later council chambers. They have been plausibly identified as offices, a public dining-room with kitchen, and an open space for council meetings: the argument from position to continuity of function is at the least persuasive. The second is an archaic inscription from the island of Chios, recording a constitutional law of about 575–550. The front is difficult to decipher, but concerns fines, and ‘anyone being a dēmarchos (people’s officer) or basileus (aristocratic officer)’; one side and the back can be read fairly consecutively:
…] If he is wronged in the court of the dēmarchos [?let him deposit x] staters [and] let him appeal to the people’s council. On the third day after the Hebdomaia let the council be assembled, the people’s, under penalty (for non-attendance; or possibly ‘with power to inflict penalties’) chosen fifty from each tribe. Let it perform the other business of the people, and also all those judgements which may be under appeal of the month, let it [? …
(Greek Historical Inscriptions no. 8= 19F)
The chief uncertainty in the document is whether the council was itself to hear cases of appeal from the decisions of the magistrates, or whether it merely prepared such cases for the assembly. Nevertheless the inscription provides evidence for a people’s council, as distinct from (and presumably coexisting with) an aristocratic council, performing ‘the other business of the people’, and also involved in appeals from the decisions of magistrates. The similarities with the Solonian system are such that it is hard to resist the conclusion that the Chian law is modelled on the work of Solon.
There must have been many such references to the people’s council in the laws of Solon; for the chief function of both council and assembly is likely to have been the hearing of judicial appeals. Solon made two important procedural changes in the law: according to Aristotle, his second and third most democratic reforms were the rule that anyone who wishes might take action on behalf of those wronged, and the institution of the right of appeal against a magistrate’s decision to a popular jury-court (Constitution of the Athenians 9). The first of these essentially transformed the legal system from one developed from arbitration procedures to one based on public law: whereas before only the aggrieved party could seek ‘compensation’ in a dikē before the magistrates, now another category of non-personal actions was recognized, in which the public interest was involved, and in which any citizen could prosecute by laying a written charge (graphē). The second reform removed the ultimate power of judgement from the aristocratic magistrate, and gave it to the people – in this period probably the whole people sitting in assembly; this was the origin of the mass jury-courts chosen by lot, which were recognized to be (alongside the assembly) the most important source of popular power in the developed democracy. Aristotle was right in his assessment of the effect of these two reforms.
Ultimately the quality of justice depends as much on the detailed provisions of the law as on its administration. Solon’s lawcode was his most important and most lasting reform. Even from the scattered evidence which remains, it can be shown to have covered all area
s of the law: criminal (homicide, theft, rape), political (high treason, amnesty for exiles, rights to public dinners, taxation, political quietism – it was an offence not to take up arms in a time of civil war), public morals (prostitution, homosexuality, slander of the dead, limitation of display at funerals, vagrancy), family law (legitimacy, marriage, inheritance, heiresses, adoption), land law (boundaries, sharing of wells), tort, evidence, commercial law (loans, exports) and religious law. Throughout the legislation runs a sense of the application of reason to social problems, and of a controlled freedom from tradition: in this it is wholly different from the Draconian law of homicide, which still reflects a world of the blood feud and the need for ritual purification of the community. Solon for instance permitted a man to dispose of his property as he wished, provided he had no sons, and was not under undue influence (Plutarch Solon 21) – a major departure in a society where custom could scarcely envisage land leaving the family. There was also a certain amount of direction of the economy: he prohibited the export of agricultural products, except for olive oil (probably the only product in surplus); two measures encouraged craft-industry in the city; only those who had taught their sons a trade were entitled to their support in old age; and citizenship was permitted only to permanent exiles, and those who came with their entire household to practise a trade. This last provision is perhaps reflected in the strong influence of Corinthian pottery on early sixth century Attic black figure ware, and in the dramatic increase in the spread of Attic pottery, as it began to achieve international recognition. There is some evidence also that Solon changed the Athenian weights and measures system, apparently in order to break from Aeginetan commercial dominance and conform with the system used by Athens’ new ally, Corinth.
But the essential characteristic of Solon’s legislation was the same as in his division of political power, the establishment of just boundaries between individuals, so that conflicts should not occur. His law fixed the traditions of generations of arbitrators: it is no coincidence that the image of the marker-stone recurs in his poetry, for all his work was concerned with boundaries, and the arbitrator is himself in essence ‘a marker-stone in boundary land’. His law on boundaries can therefore stand as typical, in its attention to detail and lively sense of what actually causes disputes between neighbours (part of it is often curiously misinterpreted as a law on scientific agriculture, concerning the proper distances between trees: it clearly concerns only trees planted on boundaries):
If a man build a fencing wall by another’s land or a fence it may not cross the boundary; if a building wall he must leave a foot, or if a house two feet. If he dig a ditch or gulley he must leave a distance equal to its depth, if a well a span. He may plant an olive tree or fig up to nine feet from his neighbour’s property, other trees up to five feet.
(Quoted verbatim in Justinian’s Digest 10.1.13)
Much of Solon’s political work failed. The archonship became a source of bitter feuds: no officers were appointed in 590 and 586; the archon of 582 held office for two years and two months until he was expelled by force, and a board of ten archons was appointed – five eupatrids, three farmers and two craftsmen (showing the continuing conflict between birth and wealth). Three parties arose, based on territorial allegiances but doubtless also with some differing economic interests: the party of the Shore (under Megakles the Alkmaionid), the party of the Plain (the rich and noble families of the plain between Athens and Eleusis), and the party of the Highlands under Peisistratos. In 561 Peisistratos seized power as tyrant, but the other two groups drove him out; after a marriage alliance with Megakles he returned, but was again expelled, and only finally seized power after a battle in 546 (p. 269). Solon had warned the people against Peisistratos, and when he died soon after the first attempt at the tyranny he must have been a disappointed man. His freeing of the hektēmoroi and his political reforms had been too advanced for his society: it was not until eighty years had passed that another reformer finally destroyed the power of the aristocracy.
But in other respects Solon had succeeded. He had taken a traditional society and made it in social terms one of the most advanced in Greece. His reforms might look less radical than those of two generations earlier at Sparta. But whereas Spartan institutions were directed at the hoplite virtues of discipline and courage and the closed society, Athens was set on a more flexible course, towards social justice: it is in this sense that Solon was rightly seen as the founder of Athenian democracy. Plato, his distant relative, some six generations later, was no lover of democracy; but even he had to begin his discussion of the ideal Republic with Solon’s fundamental question, ‘what is justice?’.
XII
Life Styles: the Aristocracy
THE HISTORICAL period is not an artificial creation for the convenience of historians: certain ages in history exhibit a homogeneity or a structural interrelationship such that they must be considered almost as biological entities, with a separate existence and even a ‘life cycle’ of their own. It is particularly cultural historians who are aware of such problems, for their chief concern is with the relations between different phenomena within a society, and with how societies change their general character over time. Perhaps the best way of defining the nature of the cultural period is to say that it consists of a set of interlocking life styles; because such phases of culture are so often revealed through stylistic changes in one or other of their leading art forms, they often acquire names which originally referred to a particular artistic phenomenon.
Two such cultural periods in Greek history have already been distinguished, the Homeric or Geometric period, and the orientalizing period. Both show distinctive parallel phenomena in different areas of culture, resting on a clear interrelationship of life styles, though the former is a static period, while the latter has a dynamic aspect which often causes it to be mistaken for ‘an age of transition’, without any central cultural homogeneity. The archaic period of Greek culture on the other hand is universally recognized: it is arguably the greatest period of Greek art, surpassing in many respects even the classical age; in literature its lyric poetry is equalled only by that of twelfth century medieval Europe; and it was this age which laid the foundations of western philosophy, science and mysticism. The culture that sustained these artistic and intellectual achievements lasted from about 600to 460, through a time of major political and military events which affected it remarkably little. The coming of the Persians to the Asia Minor coast in 546 merely extended the culture to Sicily and Italy, as Ionian refugees moved westwards; and it survived the Persian Wars themselves by some twenty years.
Throughout the period, despite the existence of a self-conscious hoplite class, political leadership (as distinct from political power) was still in the hands of the aristocracy; and this is reflected in the dominance of social forms related to their life style. The disappearance of the military function of the aristocratic warrior elite with the coming of hoplite tactics caused both a transformation and an adaptation of Homeric social institutions and values, in which many of the old attitudes remained. The period was best described by the greatest of all cultural historians, Jacob Burckhardt, as ‘the age of agonal man’. The agon or contest was rooted in the competitive ethic of Homeric man which sustained his role of military champion; but in the archaic age it was transformed into a cultural activity – the contest for its own sake, as a form of conspicuous display. Merit and birth were equated: the word ‘aristocracy’ itself meant ‘the rule of the best men’, and their aretē (excellence) was proved by success in contest.
Deprived of significance in the military sphere, the agon centred on sport: Greek society is the first to exhibit the cult of the sportsman. Athletic contests were already important in the Homeric age, and already served to distinguish aristocrat from commoner: the taunt flung at Odysseus (p. 69) implies that because he is a trader he cannot be an athlete; already physical fitness is equated with leisure for exercise rather than hard work, and already an importan
t aspect of the skills of the athlete is their uselessness. The games that Odysseus attended were laid on specially for him, but in general it is clear that the funeral was the great occasion for such contests, which need not only be in sport: Hesiod won his tripod for poetry at the funeral games of Amphidamas. In the early sixth century the funeral games were replaced by regular festivals in honour of a particular god, presumably because regularity and public status now mattered to an aristocracy which wished to display its talents at an international level. The four great festivals of games were the Olympic (the oldest, instituted in 776), the Isthmian (581), the Nemean (573) and the Pythian (582, at Delphi); their interdependence as a regular athletic circuit is shown by their geographical position around the north Peloponnese, by their similarities in organization and contests, and by the fact that they were arranged in four-year (Olympic and Pythian) or two-year (Nemean and Isthmian) cycles, so that in every year there were either one or two major festivals. All four festivals were connected with religious shrines rather than with particular cities, and it is for this reason that they attained greater international prestige than such festivals as the Panathenaia at Athens, which were too much under the control of one city. The international status of Olympia in particular was protected by a sacred truce of one or more months for the games, by which safe passage was proclaimed for athletes and spectators; this meant that although wars did not stop, the games were held in spite of them. They were even held in 480 during the Persian invasion, when the famous athlete Phayllos of Croton, sailing to Greece in his own ship, chose to forego his best chance of an Olympic crown and won greater honour as the commander of the only western Greek ship to fight at Salamis.