The Rise of Athens

“I am not prepared” Sol Frag 13.

“owns much silver” Ibid., 24.

“I know, and the pain” Arist Con 5 2.

elected Eponymous Archon, in 594/93 B.C. Dates are uncertain at this time in Athenian history. Some argue for 592/1, and others for twenty years further on. 594/3 seems the likeliest. The sheer quantity of Solon’s reforms makes one wonder whether he was allowed to serve for more than one year.

a wolf at bay encircled Arist Con 12 4.

“Many evil men are rich” Plut Sol 3 2.

“I have given the masses” Arist Con 12 1.

four economic groups Ibid., 7 3.

the principle of randomness There are divided opinions about Solon’s introduction of sortition for the Archons. Arist Con 8 1 is likely to be right, even if contradicted by Arist Pol 2 1273b–1274a, 3 1281b. Presumably the innovation was repealed by the tyranny; if so, it was reintroduced in 487/6.

a citizen who held back Plut Sol 20 1.

the lawgiver lost an eye Ibid., 16 1.

“And if I spared my homeland” Ibid., 14 5.

“I grow old, forever learning” Ibid., 31 3.

lost island of Atlantis Plato Tim 24e–25a, Crit 113a–121c.

“It so accurately fits” Plut Sol 27 1.

“A man to whom I would pay a fortune” Her 86 4.

“Cyrus learned through interpreters” Ibid., 1 86 6.

“on the knees of the gods” Hom Il 17 514 and elsewhere.

“Have you enacted” Plut 15 2.

5. FRIEND OF THE POOR

The main sources are Plutarch’s life of Solon, Herodotus, and Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens,

13–17.

“I have come as a herald” Plut Sol 8 1–3.

“Let us go to Salamis” Diog Laert 1 47.

“Ajax brought twelve warships” Hom Il 2 557. If the interpolation took place, it has survived in the canonical text, although eyebrows have been raised.

this is not implausible Modern scholars have doubted the story.

“with a boy in the lovely flower of youth” Solon F25, Plut Amat 751b.

“Aren’t you pregnant yet?” Plut Amat 768f.

Achilles is presented as the erastes In other accounts, Patroclus is the erastes, and Achilles the eromenos.

“And you rejected my holy reverence” Ath 13 601A–B.

in neighboring Boeotia, man and boy Xen Con Spart 2:12.

“Here a man solemnly” IG I3 1399.

“There is a certain pleasure” Theog 1345–48.

“I swear by Apollo of Delphi” Insc Graec XII.3 543.

“Barbax dances well” Ibid., 537.

“great friend of the poor” Plut Sol 29 2.

the aged Solon arrived The historicity of Solon’s late appearances has been challenged. There seems to be no solid reason for doubting them.

“You listen to the words of a crafty man” Diod 9 20 3.

“Men of Athens” Her 1 60 5.

“the silliest idea I have ever heard of” Ibid., 60 3–5.

“These were people” Ibid., 1 62 1.

bee-loud Mount Hymettus Hymettus honey is still available in shops today.

“The net has been cast”

Her., 1 62 4.

6. CHARIOTEERS OF THE SOUL

The sources for this chapter include Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution and Herodotus. For the agora, see Camp, pp. 32–37. For Harmodius and Aristogeiton, see principally Thucydides 6 56–59 and Athenian Constitution 18.

the famous agora of Athens There may have been an earlier marketplace somewhere else in the city, but if so it has not been found.

“humane, mild and forgiving” and “more like a citizen than like a tyrant” Arist Con 16 2. The policy of Pisistratus recalls that of Augustus, Rome’s first emperor, who preserved the forms and offices of the Roman Republic while in fact exercizing autocratic power as an open secret. One wonders whether he learned from Pisistratus’s example.

He left the constitution and institutions Her 1 59 5.

“Onetorides” IS I31031a.

step-uncle of the Miltiades For the account of Miltiades and the Chersonese, see Her 6 35–36.

centuries before the building was completed The Roman emperor Hadrian brought the project to fruition in the second century A.D.