Transcript 6.3 Solon`s Reform

The Rise of Athens:
Solon and His Reform &Intellectual Climate
Teacher: Wu Shiyu
Email: [email protected]
(http://sla.sjtu.edu.cn/bbs)
Questions to Think of
(1)Absolute equality achieved by Lycurgus in his
reform.
(2) Civic virtue: to subordinate his interest to the good
of the community.To instill civic virtue to its citizens.
(3) Lycurgus’ "balanced consitituion”
(Elements:"monarchy, democracy, and aristocarcy“)
(4) The Spartan Way of Life and Sparta
(5) The Status of women in Sparta
几个关键词
 Athens,
 Athenians
 Sparta
 Spartans
 Lycurgus
 Solon
The National Academy in Athens, with Apollo and Athena
on their columns, and Socrates and Plato seated in front.
6.1 Introduction
Athens and Sparta are two great states
of classical Greek history. It is the Sparta
and Athens which standing side by side,
drove back the Persian threat of conquest.
It was the Sparta and Athens who would
engage in a Great War, the Peloponnesian
War from 431 to 404, fighting against one
another and ultimately bringing the golden
age of Greece to its end.
6.1 Introduction
Clear contrasts between Sparta and Athens:
(1)Sparta, the land of freedom but the freedom under the law,
Athens also the land of freedom, but one that focused upon
individual freedom; Sparta, forbidding commerce, Athens,
a great commercial democracy.
(2) Sparta, a land that trained its soldiers to citizenship and to
civic virtue, Athens also a land of mighty warriors who
took great pride in their patriotism, but were also creative,
setting standard in art and architecture, and literature that
would forever define the very concept of what is classic.
(3) And these foundations for Athens as the great commercial
democracy, the land of creativity, were laid by Solon, one
of the seven wise men of Greece, in later tradition, like
Lycurgus.
Athens Church
6.2 Social Background
By 549 B.C., Athens, like many other
Greek city-states, had become enmeshed
（使陷入) into political chaos, economic
turmoil:
(1) Commerical expansion;
(2) Coinage was invented in the Greek
world. made it easier for people to go into
debt, and small farmers began to lose their
land, lose it to large landowners, and by
the time of 600 B.C., great gulfs between
the rich and poor had arisen.
EarlyAthenian Coin
6.2 Social Background
At the same time this economic dissension(分
歧) had brought forth political dissension, and
Athens was divided into three parties:
(1) The Party of the Plain (wealthy landowners
who came from the aristocratic families ):They
dominated the full share of the politics.
(2) The Party of the Coast :representing the
trading commercial class but did not have a full
share in politics.
(3) The Party of the Hill:crushed between the two
like the millstone, as Solon would describe it.
6.3 Solon
Fearing the outbreak of the civil war, Solon was asked to give
them new laws, to be like Lycurgus, to be a law giver to
them:
(1) Solon himself came from the Aristocratic family, but his
father had squandered their wealth, and solon had to go
out and earned a living, he turned to trade, despite what we
some times read, the Athenians always believed that
trading and commerce were a very respectable way of
earning an income.
(2) Solon believed that money was a good thing, and he
made quite a bit of it as a merchant, going as far as Egypt
and going to Ionia, but he was not simply in search of
wealth, he was also in search of wisdom, one of his
favorite sayings was “grow older every day, and learn
something new every day,”
Grow older every day, learn something new every day
.
6.3 Solon
(3) So while he was in Asia Minor, in cities like
Miletus, he studied and learned, he took part in the
scientific developments of the time, and so he
came back to Athens, a well-rounded individual,
wealthy, aware of the outside world, and imbued
with the idea that the worse thing you could do is
be excessive.
(4) “nothing in excess” and “know thyself”
(5) Solon was also a poet. Poets were believed to be
inspired by the gods, and poetry was used to
convey political wisdom.
Athènes ( statues of the Erechtheion on its Acropolis)
6.3 Solon’s Reform
(1) His intention: no one should suffer unduly from
the constitution that he would put in place:
The rich will not be stripped of their wealth; the
poor would not be ground under. “I wanted to
find the middle way”, he said, “I wanted to guide
the ship of state through the narrow channels
safely in the middle. He took the middle ground,
(2) His goal was to establish a balanced constitution
for Athens: to establish social equality, essential
to such democracy, and to establish the economic
opportunity, critical to both social equality and
democracy.
6.3 Solon’s Reform
His first step was the casting off of burdens,
throwing off the burden of slavery, and, once and
for all, he abolished all debts, all debts were
gone, and those who had been sold into slavery
were brought back home, from far away back to
the land of Athens.
It is a very bold political reform. it was even
said he had made money on the deal, he had
borrowed a lot of money, bought a lot of land, and
then of course the debts were abolished, he was
home free, he said “I did not do that!” he said.
6.3 Solon’s Reform
 And the next thing he wanted to do was to make
sure that this never happen again, and so it was
forbidden to sell yourself into slavery, or to sell
your children into slavery. The child was yours,
but not your property.
 But Solon also wanted to make sure that the
economy of Athens prospered, and so he
fostered commerce and trade, he made a law and
the law was written down, he made a law that
every parent had to teach his son a trade, and if
your father had not taught you trade, you did not
have to take care of him in his old age .
6.3 Solon’s Reform
 He wanted the Athenians to be merchants,
and he wanted Athens to produce goods
that other merchants would come to buy,
because who come to the city he said,
where there is nothing to buy? And so the
produce of Athens became famous, above
all its magnificent pottery, which began to
flourish at the time of Solon, spotted all
over in Greek world, even to regions
beyond it.
The ruins of the Roman Agora, the second commercial centre
of ancient Athens.
6.3 Solon’s Reform
 He also believed that agriculture was
essential, to the economy and so he had
really a plan to the economy, he is
undertaking, and most agricultural goods
can not be exported, they had to be kept
there in Athens, to prevent the market from
rising too high so that people could buy
stables like bread, and so a plan to
economy, fostering trade and commerce.
6.3 Solon’s Reform
Solon also encouraged foreigners to come to
Athens, anybody who had a trade, who would
move to Athens with their families, and who
would swear allegiance (忠诚) to Athens, and break
their allegiance to their former country, could
become Athenian citizen. This is again very
unusual in the ancient world, you had to be born
generally a citizen, in order to be a citizen of a
country, no one could ever become a citizen of
Sparta without being born a Spartan, but the view
of Solon was very similar to the view of American
founding fathers, invite people from all over the
world, let them come and let them find
opportunity here, and all will prosper.
6.3 Solon’s Reform
 Solon also wanted Athens to move towards
a balanced democracy.
 He abolished the Draconian Law: The
laws of Draco were written and published
and set up in the stone, the trouble is they
were awfully harsh, if you stole a cabbage
you were put to death.
6.3 Solon’s Reform:Timocracy
Solon established a timocracy (timor=wealth or honor;
cracy=to rule):one based upon wealth:
A. Recognized the importance of wealth and divided the
Athenians into four categories based on their wealth:
(1)At the very top were those men whose estate, was
worth 500 bushels of grain( oil, produce, cash, all of
these that’s reckoned up)
(2) those whose estate was between 300 and 500 bushels.
(3) Next lowest were 200 to 300 hundred
B. He reserved office holding for the wealthy: only those who
had 500 bushels or more, should hold the highest office of
the state, and these alone could be archon(执政官),
holding the highest magistracy (地方行政官,执法官).
6.3 Solon’s Reform: Timocracy
C. He gave every citizen the right to vote. Even the poorest could vote, and
so be responsible for the civic obligation, and also be able to reward
those who served well.
D. Every citizen could serve on jury: To put ordinary citizens in the role of
jurors. Juries at Athens were large, 501 would sit on a particular case,
that was the key to make him a democracy
E. He also thought that citizens should sue one another, and he
encouraged them to sue, to bring charges and accusations both civil and
criminal, on the idea that this is how you learn to use power, how you
made magistrates (地方法官, 治安官) afraid of ordinary citizen, by
bringing them upon charges, and so Solon laid the bases which some
later thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle would criticize Athens, he
made them the most litigious (好打官司的; 好争论的) people in the
world, he did so knowingly.
6.3 Solon’s Reform: Timocracy
F. Solon set up a system of check the power of the Assembly
of all Athenians:
1. He set up a supreme court (最搞法院), to check the law
passed by the assembly of all the Athenians.
2. It was composed of ex-magistrate (who had served as
members of magistrate): They serve for life, so in a sense,
since they’d been elected by the people, they were
indirectly selected by the people.
3. It could declare a law passed by the people as
unconstitutional;
4. Solon also set up a Council of Four Hundreds, chosen
by lot, to prepare legislation for presentation to the
Assembly.
6.3 Solon’s Reform: Timocracy
So at both stages, before they passed
the law, after a law had been passed, there
was a check, and this was what made solon
the eyes of the founder of countries like
American, such a good statesman, such an
admirable figure, for he had seen the
importance of democracy, but also saw the
need of checks, and balances
6.3 Solon’s Reform
Solon introduced sumptuary legislation that limited
conspicuous consumption by the wealthy:
A. Dowries were limited.
B. Women could not wear more than three cloaks at
a time or ride in a particular kind of chariot.
C. It was forbidden to hold excessive funerals.
D. These reforms encouraged the rise of whistle
blowers.
Athenian aristocrats decided important matters of state during Solon's time.
( The Areopagus )
6.3 Significace of Solon’s Reform
So Solon had established the commercial
foundation, for broadening the economy, and
economic viability for democracy, he gave the
instruments of balanced democracy to the
Athenians, and he also set the precedent, for the
dependency of democracy, to want to regulate
every aspect of the individual citizens’ lives, for he
passed sumptuary (限制费用的,禁止奢侈的)
legislation, that is the Athenian state could decide
how much you could spend on luxury items.
6.3 After the Reform
And then having carried out his reforms, he
stepped back. He set sail, traveled. “People
thought that I was a fool,” he wrote it in his
poems, “I had absolute power and could have
done anything I wanted, and yet I chose not to, I
chose not to abuse my power, I set the ship of state
in place, and let it sail.” And so he went, he
traveled to Egypt and there spent a considerable
time, we are told studying with priests of Egypt
and learning from them about a faraway island,
called Atlantis.
6.3 After the Reform
When he came back to Athens that was
going to be his life’s work, to write a long
epic poem, about the fate of Atlantis, he
traveled to Asia Minor, he met the king of
Lydia, King Croesus. and then right been
years came back to Athens, once more time,
and then lived the long and fruitful life, and
contiunually to learn something new every
day.
6.4 Intellectual Climate of Solon’s Age
The age when Solon lived in 8th
century B.C., was a time of tremendous
intellectual and spiritual creativity, wise
men like Periander, Thales were counterpart
in their cities to Solon. They were interested
in science.
Thales, for example, was to predict
the first eclipse that we know about
European history.
Thales' Theorem :
6.4 Intellectual Climate of Solon’s Age
They were also interested in looking for a
unifying element, asking the question: what is
there behind all the constant change?: The seasons
that come, the rain, the snow, the heat and the
cold, wherein is there a unity? Thales thought it
existed in water, all things in some way, went back
to water. Others would later find the ideal of
atoms, small units, and so this scientific quest,
geography, drawing the first maps, all of these
were part of Greek world, of Greek mind in the
sixth century B.C., the intellectual climate that
made Solon want to learn something new every
day.
Historic map of Athens by Piri Reis.
6.4 Intellectual Climate of Solon’s Age
It was also a time of spiritual longing, was a
time in which the gods described by Homer no
longer satisfied questioning mind. Xenophanes,
one of the wise man of the age, asked the
question: why, if the god insists on the morality (
道德) for us, don’t they act the moral way? Why is
Zeus having all these affairs? Now I tell you
something, said, Xenophanes, “If dogs have gods,
they would look like dogs; if frogs have gods, they
would like frogs. All of these just are just our
reading of ourselves into the world of a divine.
6.4 Intellectual Climate of Solon’s Age
Xenophanes also criticized the worship of
Athletes of his age. “Why do we pay so much
attention to these overweight muscled-up boxers
who went to the Olympic Game? What have they
ever done to serve anyone? Why should they
receive food and board to their rest of their lives
and make fortunes?
 So it is a time of questioning social values.
 Heraclitus was another this wise man and he too
wondered why everything changes. “Every thing
flows,” he said, “We never step into the same river
twice.”
6.4 Intellectual Climate of Solon’s Age
Of these men, none was more mysterious than Pythagoras:
 Traditionally, he was born in Samos 560 B.C.
 He was a follower of the religious of Orpheus, which believed
in the existence of the soul and in the transmigration of
souls.
 He established a community, a community of wise men
seeking after the truth, he followed science, discovering
harmonies in music, geometrical (几何) discoveries. And so
teaching this wisdom. But this was too much for his age, the
community was persecuted. He was driven to exile in Italy
and was later set upon fired (burned).
6.4 Intellectual Climate of Solon’s Age
 He was credited with numerous
fundamental discoveries in arithmetic,
music (harmony), and geometry.
 He taught that knowledge should be sought
out and shared with others as the ultimate
statement of civic virtue.
The Pythagorean theorem: The sum of the areas of the two squares on the
legs (a and b) equals the area of the square on the hypotenuse (c).
Medieval woodcut showing Pythagoras with bells in Pythagorean tuning
Pythagoras, the man in the center with the book, teaching music, in
The School of Athens
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