Solon was born around 630 BC into a noble Athenian clan said to descend from the city’s ancient kings, yet he made his living in maritime trade, possibly because his family had lost wealth. When Athens kept losing Salamis to Megara, the assembly banned any proposal to retake it on pain of death. Solon got around the ban by reciting patriotic verses in the marketplace, reportedly while feigning madness, and around 595 BC he led the Athenians to victory, later confirmed by Spartan arbitration. Meanwhile Attica’s hektemoroi sharecroppers were falling into debt slavery, their land marked by horoi stones. In 594 BC both rich and poor made him archon with temporary absolute power to mediate.
His seisachtheia, the shaking off of burdens, cancelled debts, removed the horoi, banned loans secured on a person, freed Athenians enslaved for debt and bought back those sold abroad. He banned farm exports except olive oil, made fathers teach sons a trade, and offered citizenship to foreign craftsmen. He scrapped Draco’s code except the homicide laws, sorted citizens into four classes by harvest, admitted the poorest to the assembly and opened jury courts to them. He then had the magistrates swear to keep his laws and left for ten years, visiting Egypt, Cyprus and Lydia. Back in Athens in his 70s, he stood in armor outside his house urging resistance as Peisistratus seized power. He died soon after in Cyprus.
- Friends told of the debt cancellation in advance borrowed heavily to buy land and never repaid, while Solon himself lost money.
- Ending loans backed by a person also cut the poorest farmers off from credit.
- Later claims that he introduced Athenian coinage are wrong; Athens minted coins only after his death.
- A law stripped citizenship from anyone who stayed neutral during civil strife.
- He told King Croesus that no one can be called happy until his life has ended, a lesson Croesus recalled on a Persian pyre.
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