Beacon Lights of History, Volume 03 | Page 4

the State. He was contemporary with Pisistratus

and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon applied himself
to merchandise,--always a respectable calling in a mercantile city. He
first became known as a writer of love poems; then came into
prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer forces in a
disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his countrymen
so completely that in a period of anarchy, distress, and mutiny,--the
poor being so grievously oppressed by the rich that a sixth part of the
produce of land went to the landlord,--he was chosen archon, with
authority to revise the laws, and might have made himself king. He
abolished the custom of selling the body of a debtor for debt, and even
annulled debts in a state of general distress,--which did not please the
rich, nor even the poor, since they desired a redivision of lands such as
Lycurgus had made in Sparta. He repealed the severe laws of Draco,
which inflicted capital punishment for so many small offences,
retaining the extreme penalty only for murder and treason. In order
further to promote the interests of the people, he empowered any man
whatever to enter an action for one that was injured. He left the great
offices of state, however, in the hands of the rich, giving the people a
share in those which were not so important. He re-established the
council of the Areopagus, composed of those who had been archons,
and nine were appointed annually for the general guardianship of the
laws; but he instituted another court or senate of four hundred citizens,
for the cognizance of all matters before they were submitted to the
higher court. Although the poorest and most numerous class were not
eligible for office, they had the right of suffrage, and could vote for the
principal officers. It would at first seem that the legislation of Solon
gave especial privileges to the rich, but it is generally understood that
he was the founder of the democracy of Athens. He gave the Athenians,
not the best possible code, but the best they were capable of receiving.
He intended to give to the people as much power as was strictly needed,
and no more; but in a free State the people continually encroach on the
privileges of the rich, and thus gradually the chief power falls into their
hands.
Whatever the power which Solon gave to the people, and however
great their subsequent encroachments, it cannot be doubted that he was
the first to lay the foundations of constitutional government,--that is,

one in which the people took part in legislation and in the election of
rulers. The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the
laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to
protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited
fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves,--an
abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic.
Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the
exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of
olive-oil alone,--a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile
State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he
released sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents had
neglected to give them a trade. He encouraged all developments of
national industries, knowing that the wealth of the State depended on
them. Solon was the first Athenian legislator who granted the power of
testamentary bequests when a man had no legitimate children. Sons
succeeded to the property of their parents, with the obligation of giving
a marriage dowry to their sisters. If there were no sons, the daughters
inherited the property of their parents; but a person who had no
children could bequeath his property to whom he pleased. Solon
prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals; he forbade evil-speaking of the
dead, and indeed of all persons before judges and archons; he
pronounced a man infamous who took part in a sedition.
When this enlightened and disinterested man had finished his work of
legislation, 494 B.C., he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his
leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a prisoner
in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of Lydia, and
gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life. After a
prolonged absence, Solon returned to Athens about the time of the
usurpation of his kinsman Peisistratus (560 B.C.), who, however,
suffered the aged legislator and patriot to go unharmed, and even
allowed most of his laws to remain in force.
The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a
hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party
under Cleisthenes gained complete