Map 2 The Peloponnese
About two years later, although Cleomenes is not mentioned by name, the Spartans summoned a meeting of their allies and proposed the restoration in Athens of the ex-tyrant Hippias; but this was rejected on Corinthian advice by all of the delegates and the policy of launching an expedition against Athens was abandoned (Herodotus 5.91–93). This evolution from total Spartan dominance over the allies in the execution of Spartan foreign policy into the ‘Peloponnesian League’ in c.504 (see Chapter 12 for the constitution of the League) might seem, at first sight, to have weakened Sparta. In reality, a genuine partnership had been formed in which, because the Peloponnesian allies had been given a safeguard against Sparta acting irresponsibly, there could be closer cooperation and greater trust between the hegemon (leader) and the Peloponnesian allies. The result was the growth of the most formidable alliance in Greece which a generation later supplied the leadership and the backbone of the forces that saved Greece from Persian conquest.
Bibliography
Andrewes, A. ‘Government of Classical Sparta’,in Ancient Society and Institutions (dedicated to V. Ehrenberg).
——The Greek Tyrants, ch. 6.
Cartledge, P. Sparta and Lakonia, chs 8–10.
de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. Origins of the Peloponnesian War, ch. 4.
Finley, M. I. The Use and Abuse of History, ch. 10.
Forrest, W. G. A History of Sparta 950–192 BC, chs 3–8 and Excursus 1.
Michell, H. Sparta, chs 2–6.
Murray, O. Early Greece, 2nd edn, chs 8 and 10.
Toynbee, A. Some Problems of Greek History, part III, chs 2 and 3.
Wade-Gery, H. T. ‘The Spartan Rhetra in Plutarch Lycurgus VI’,in Essays in Greek History.
Bibliography for Second Edition
Cartledge, P. Sparta and Lakonia, ch. 14
——Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, chs 5, 10, 21, 22
Flower, M. A. ‘The Invention of Tradition in Classical and Hellenistic Sparta’,in Sparta: Beyond the Mirage, Powell, A. and Hodkinson S. (ed.), ch. 7.
Hooker, J. T. ‘Spartan Propaganda’,inClassical Sparta: Techniques Behind Her Success, Powell, A. (ed.)
Hodkinson, S. Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta, ch. 2
——‘Warfare, Wealth, and the Crisis of Spartiate Society’ in War and Society in the Greek World, Rich, J. and Shipley, G. (ed.), ch. 8
——‘Spartan Society In The Fourth Century: Crisis And Continuity’ in Le IVe siecle av. J.-C. Approches historiographiques, Carlier, P. (ed.)
Powell, A. Athens and Sparta, ch. 6
Rawson, E. The Spartan Tradition in European Thought, chs 3–5
Talbert, R. J. A. Plutarch on Sparta, Penguin Classics
Tigerstedt, E. N. The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, Book 2, chs V.1 and VII.3
5
THE REFORMS OF SOLON
The sources
The survival in later writers of Solon’s poems, in which he outlines the problems that were afflicting Athens at the beginning of the sixth century (599–500) or rather his solutions to them, has supplied the historian with the best evidence of all the major political events in early Greek history. As a contemporary of the crisis, and as the leading actor in the attempts to resolve it, his evidence is invaluable. However, his pre-reform poems also reveal his concern for social justice and the well-being of the community, and thus state, in the broadest terms, his moral principles and his condemnation of the current evils: Solon clearly thought it wise, in his attempt to be accepted by both sides as the mediator in this crisis, not to publish any specific proposals or reforms that might lead to him alienating one side or the other. In his post-reform poems, there was no need to state all the details of his legislation because everyone knew them, and so he concentrated on the justice of his solutions. Therefore, the historian must deduce the particular social, economic and political grievances from a combination of, first, the poems which give some insight into Athens’ problems, and, second, the actual legislation that can be identified with reasonable accuracy as Solonian.
The second source of evidence is the laws themselves. These laws were written down on wooden tablets and published so that all Athenians could have access to them. Although some modern historians have expressed doubt, they seem to have survived at least to the fourth century and probably later: Plutarch claimed to have seen fragments of them in the second century AD (Life of Solon 25) and there are four commentaries on Solon’s laws from the fourth century onwards. However, Solon’s laws were the only official law code until there was a general revision of the laws, begun in 410 and completed in 400, after the restoration of democracy at the very end of the fifth century, and it is reasonable to assume that copies were made, probably on papyrus, as the wood deteriorated. These copies would have contained Solon’s laws, but they would also have been updated to include new provisions, new procedures and, as coinage came into common usage from the second half of the sixth century (550–500), the imposition of fines as punishments. Thus it is difficult to separate out the original Solonian laws. This becomes doubly difficult because public speakers in Athens were always ready to assign any law to Solon, if it improved their chances of success in the Assembly or the law courts, and thus such references have to be treated with caution.
Herodotus is of limited use, as he was more interested in and impressed with Solon’s reputation as one of the ‘Seven Wise Men’ of the ancient world, and consequently concentrates more on his wisdom, e.g. his alleged advice to Croesus (Herodotus 1.29–33), than on his role as law-maker. Finally, there are the Athenaion Politeia (Constitution of the Athenians: Ath. Pol.), written by Aristotle or one of his pupils (see Chapter 1), a few scattered references in his Politics, and Plutarch’s Life of Solon. Some scholars are very sceptical about their worth on the grounds that they are based on the work of Atthidographers, i.e. the local historians of Attica, who were very partisan in their political views, and thus Aristotle’s and Plutarch’s works are tainted with their political bias. However, others scholars believe that there is much to commend in these works, as the authors have made use of Solon’s poems, even including quotations, and almost certainly consulted what purported to be the laws themselves.
The economic and political crisis in Athens
The problems that led the opposing sides to choose Solon as the mediator in 594 had their roots in the seventh century (699–600). That there was discontent in Athens can be seen by the attempt to establish a tyranny in c.630 by the Olympic victor Cylon who was helped by his father-in-law, Theagenes, the tyrant of Megara. The coup failed, either because the people’s plight was not so desperate as to persuade them to give their wholehearted support to a tyrant, or because they resented, due to their dislike of the Megarians, a Megarian-backed coup. Soon after this in c.621, possibly as a reaction to Cylon, Draco’s Law Code was passed. Very little is known about this code of laws, and it seems very likely that the full description of its provisions in Aristotle’s Ath. Pol. (section 4) was a later invention. It certainly dealt with the crime of homicide, and may have laid down the regulations for or even instituted the status of the ‘hectemoroi’ (one-sixth-parters – see below). Its frequent recourse to the death penalty as a punishment made the law code proverbial for its harshness:
Therefore Demades later on gained fame when he said that Draco had written his laws not in ink, but in blood.
(Plutarch, Solon 17.2)
Nevertheless, this may still be seen in retrospect as the first step on the road to democracy, as the publication of the laws curbed the power of the aristocrats to interpret the law in a purely arbitrary fashion, which had been the subject of bitter complaints by Hesiod in c.700 BC (see Chapter 2).
By 594, the civil strife between the notables (‘gnorimoi’) and the multitude (‘plethos’) had reached such a pitch that both sides were willing to appoint Solon as a m
ediator to resolve the economic and political crisis that would inevitably lead to tyranny, unless a solution could be found. Aristotle succinctly sums up the problems that faced Solon:
After this [i.e. Cylon’s attempted tyranny] it happened that a long period of civil strife took place between the notables (gnorimoi) and the multitude (plethos). For their constitution was in all ways oligarchic; moreover the poor and their children and wives were enslaved by the rich. They were called pelatai [see below] and hectemoroi (one-sixth parters). For, in return for this rent, they worked the fields of the rich – the whole land was in the hands of a few – and if they did not pay their rents, they themselves and their children became liable to seizure as slaves (‘agogimoi’). All borrowing was based on the debtor’s person as security until the time of Solon – he was the first to become the champion of the people. This slavery, sanctioned under the constitution, was to the people the harshest and most bitter feature of the regime, although they were also discontented about everything else, for they had virtually no share in government.
(Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 2.2–3)
The use of the word ‘enslaved’ should not necessarily be taken literally, as it could cover any status that involved subjection or dependence on another. However, it is Aristotle’s deceptively simple words about the economic problems that have led to much scholarly debate and disagreement about the nature of land tenure and of debt in pre-Solonian Athens.
The first problem is the identity of the pelatai and the hectemoroi: are these alternative names for the same class of people, or are these two separate classes? Later writers, including Plato (Euthyphro 4c), consider the pelatai to be the same as ‘thetes’, i.e. a class of free men who work for others; and Plutarch (Solon 13.2) equates the hectemoroi with the thetes. Thus the most probable answer is that pelatai was a general term or name to cover all types of dependent agricultural labourers; and that the hectemoroi, who were obliged to pay one-sixth of their crop, were one particular type of pelatai. A far more complex problem concerns debt, upon which Aristotle in the above quotation and other later writers concentrated: were the hectemoroi in this position because they had fallen into debt through borrowing – if so, how had this situation arisen? or should the hectemoroi be considered as a separate group, not to be associated with the ‘borrowers’ who, as Aristotle states above, used their own persons as security for their debt?
One theory holds that the hectemoroi were previously independent small landowners but, falling on hard times due to bad harvests, had mortgaged their land as security for borrowing. When they were unable to repay the debt, their creditors kept them tied to the land as dependent agricultural labourers, who paid them one-sixth of their crop with no specific date set to end this dependent status. The mortgaging of their land was probably marked by ‘horoi’ (marker stones) which Solon mentions in his poem about freeing the land (see below). Eventually many hectemoroi, who had previously found it difficult to survive even when they had full possession of their land, now found it impossible to live on five-sixths of their crop, and defaulted in their payment of one-sixth to their creditor. The result was both the loss of their land to and enslavement by their creditor, who was legally entitled to sell the former hectemoroi abroad as slaves.
Two other theories have been advanced to support this interpretation. The first centres around the introduction of coinage, which made it easier for the poor to borrow but harder to repay, especially with a high fixed rate of interest; previously, in pre-coinage days, the loan had been in the form of food, seed or farm animals, thus setting a reasonable limit to the amount of debt and making repayment a genuine possibility. The second theory is based on the dramatic growth of population in Attica in the eighth century. The division of land between too many sons (Hesiod had advised farmers to have only one son) and the consequent need to overwork the reduced land-holding to feed the increasing numbers led to soil exhaustion and a smaller yield of crops; it was this lack of sufficient crops to sustain his family that led the farmer onto the slippery slope of hectemoroi status and worse.
Attractive as this interpretation might appear, there are serious objections to it. Aristotle in the above quotation does seem to be drawing a distinction between a class of hectemoroi who pay rent as tenants, and a class of borrowers who pledge their persons as security for their loan. Plutarch is even more explicit about the distinction:
All the people were in debt (‘hupochreos’) to the rich. For they either farmed their lands for them and paid one-sixth of the produce, being called ‘hectemoroi’ or thetes; or they took out loans on the security of their person and were liable to seizure by their creditors – some of the debtors becoming enslaved at home, others being sold as slaves in foreign countries.
(Plutarch, Solon 13.2)
At first sight this quotation would seem to include the hectemoroi among the debtors, but the Greek word ‘hupochreos’ can also mean ‘under obligation to’, ‘dependent on’; and this must be the correct translation, as Plutarch immediately makes a clear distinction between the hectemoroi who pay rent to the rich and the debtors who pledge their persons to the rich. It is also a fact that Solon in his surviving poems never mentions debt as a cause of the plight of the hectemoroi.
In addition, one-sixth of the produce seems a very small rate of return for the creditor; a half or more would be expected, as the Helots paid to their Spartan masters (Tyrtaeus fr. 6). It also seems hard to believe that all the creditors came together and agreed a uniform rate of interest rather than a variety of rates. Furthermore, this interpretation argues that the peasant farmers underwent two stages of borrowing and of default. It would be very naive on the part of the creditors to lend a second time to desperately poor peasant farmers (now hectemoroi), who had already failed to make a living with the full produce from their farms, even with the aid of the first loan; with one-sixth of their production already accounted for, the hectemoroi would inevitably default on the second loan. Finally, coinage did not become a factor in Athenian life until a generation after Solon, and small coinage, which is the usual means of transacting business among the poor, not until much later.
Other scholars, therefore, do not believe that the hectemoroi had come into existence through debt, but through hereditary serfdom. At some time in the past, the small landowners had voluntarily or semi-voluntarily accepted the status of being hectemoroi: they agreed to a quasi-feudal system, in which they would receive support and protection from the aristocrats in return for a share of their crop. This institution might go back as far as Mycenaean times when some form of conditional land tenure was standard. Alternatively, it may have arisen in the dangerous and unsettled Dark Ages (1200–900BC), or in the eighth century (799–700) when aristocratic power was at its peak and internal colonization of Attica, led by the aristocrats, was taking place due to population growth.
The most recent and radical interpretation (by Rihll) puts forward the view that the hectemoroi system was introduced as a result of conflict about the use of public land, and had nothing to do with private land. It is argued that the right of individuals to cultivate any vacant or unused public land was causing problems for the community, which was also making greater demands on this land, for example, hunting, pasturing and social events. Therefore Draco, in his law code of c.621/0, attempted to resolve this problem by establishing the hectemoroi system: the individual Athenian was allowed to cultivate public land, but compensated the community by the payment of one-sixth of the produce. The legal provision of seizure and slavery abroad upon default was included to ensure that the hectemoroi met their obligations. However, this system soon came to crisis point as a result of the rich, who controlled the law, exploiting it for their own benefit – they ignored this law in their own and their friends’ cases, thereby taking control of public property; but implemented the law with its full force against others, sometimes illegally (see below).
If debt and Rihll’s interpretation are put aside, then the institution of the hecte
moroi had originated in the acceptance of hereditary serfdom by small landowners, but it was this system of ‘conditional tenure’ that the later writers did not fully understand. In a legally sophisticated society, such as Aristotle’s Athens in the fourth century (399–300), definition of ownership was relatively precise; but in archaic Athens which had no written law-code until Draco’s in 621/0, and that was very rudimentary, the issue of ownership was not so clear-cut. The peasant farmer ‘owned’ his land in the sense that he tilled the soil, as his ancestors had done, bequeathed it to his sons, and retained control of it, provided he paid his one-sixth dues. On the other hand, the local aristocrat also ‘owned’ the land in the sense that a one-sixth share of the produce was owed to him and, if it was not paid, he had the right to enslave the peasant farmer and take over his land. It was probably this ambiguity over land ownership that led Aristotle to speak of ‘the whole land was in the hands of a few’.
This hectemoroi system appears to have worked satisfactorily for a long time, but by the time of Solon it had become a major cause of tension. In addition, there was still slavery for debt. Moreover, Aristotle’s division of Athens into the rich and the poor, either hectemoroi or the enslaved, is too simplistic: there must have been a class of independent landowners, some affluent, some poor, who deeply resented the current situation in Athens. It was the economic and political grievances of these groups that had made Athens by 594 so politically unstable that a mediator was required to halt the slide into tyranny. What had gone wrong?
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 14