What is the significance of solon

He is said to have discovered it while travelling in Egypt. Who was Solon? Croesus shows his treasures to Solon.

He explained his purpose in one of his poems:. To the people I have given such honor as is sufficient, neither taking away nor granting them more. For those who had power and were great in riches, I greatly cared that they should suffer nothing wrong.

Thus I stood, holding my strong shield over both, and I did not allow either side to prevail against justice. One prohibited dowries to stop marriages based on economic gain. Marriage, he wrote, should be for "pure love, kind affection, and birth of children. Other civil laws regulated the water supply to farms and even the distance between beehives for honey production.

To prevent shortages of food, he banned the export of all farm produce except olive oil. Solon reduced the number of crimes punished by the death penalty. He permitted, however, a husband to kill an adulterer caught in the act. He made penalties for theft heavier if committed at night or in a public place. In addition, he forbade publicly speaking evil of either the living or the dead. Solon also attempted to make the court system fairer to the lower classes. He made it possible for any citizen to step forward and seek justice for someone legally wronged.

Before only the actual victim of wrongdoing could make a complaint. Under the old system, the powerful could easily threaten weak and poor victims to discourage them from complaining. Most important, Solon gave the assembly, made up of all the classes, the authority to act as an appeals court. This was a check on the power of judges elected by the wealthy classes. I did those things with my power, bringing into harmony force and justice, and I finished them as I promised; and I made the laws equal for the poor man and the powerful fitting impartial justice on each.

Some asked Solon to remain in power as a tyrant to explain and perhaps change what he had decreed. But he believed that it was now up to the Athenians, not him, to make the new system work.

Thus, Solon reinforced his idea about citizen responsibility. He then left Athens and traveled outside Greece for 10 years. But conflicts among aristocratic factions continued. Most dismissed his words as the ravings of a mad man. One day Pisistratus entered the assembly wounded. He claimed his enemies had attacked him. He had actually wounded himself to gain the sympathy of the Athenians.

The assembly appointed 50 armed men to protect him. Pisistratus used this force to seize power and make himself tyrant with the support of the poor people. Solon blamed the Athenians for the "wretched servitude" they brought upon themselves by permitting the tyranny of Pisistratus. Soon after, Solon died.

Also, he gave any citizen the right to take legal action on behalf of another citizen and forced every man to take part in wars. This way he stressed out the importance to be politically active for the good of the state. When Solon completed his reformation works, he left Athens to sail around the world.

It is said that before he left, he made the Athenians sign a contract that they would keep those reformations for at least 10 years before they make any change in the political system.

This way Solon wanted to prevent any political instability until the town gets strong again and recover from its political problems. However, only four years after Solon had left, Pesistratus took over the power in Athens and established tyranny.

Solon, a strong opponent of Pesistratus, got killed in Cyprus shortly after the tyrant had taken over control. During his trips around the world, Solon met new people and civilizations and this made him a wise man.

In fact, Plutarch includes him among the ten wisest men of the Greek antiquity. In one of these trips in Egypt, as Plato narrates, Solon met a priest who told him the story of a prosperous town that got submerged in a single day and night due to the wrath of gods.

This town is today known as the lost Atlantis. In another journey to Lydia, Solon met the local king Croesus who praised that he was the happiest man on earth. Then, Solon replied Call no man happy before he dies , meaning that luck can turn unexpectedly and things might change from one day to the other. In fact, a few years later, king Croesus lost his kingdom to the Persians. In the years to follow his death, Solon was remembered as a wise man with innovative ideas.

Upon these ideas, Pericles , a few decades later, established the famous Athenian democracy. Today he is thought as the founder of this governmental system. This notion of political rights or citizenship depending on property is one found in many societies until relatively recent times. All the people were divided into four classes, and political power was distributed among them.

The pentekosiomedimnoi, those whose land produced at least medimnoi measures of grain a year which equals bushels. These were eligible for the highest offices. The hippeis knights , those who could afford the expense of maintaining a horse and whose property produced medimnoi a year.

The zeugitai teamsters , those who maintained a pair of oxen for plowing and whose land produced medimnoi a year. All other native-born citizens now possessed an important and basic right: they could not be enslaved by their fellow citizens. As early as the time of Homer, to be a thete was regarded as only just above a slave: "I would rather follow the plow as thete to another man, one with no land allotted to him and not much to live on, than be King over all the perished dead" Odyssey 2.

Members of this lowest class were not allowed to hold office, but were given the right to sit and vote in the assembly and to sit as jurors in the lawcourts. Over time this last right became exceedingly important.