Aristotle vs Plutarch:

A Comparison of Solonian

Reforms

Regine Labog

The Solonian Reforms as described in Aristotle's The Constitution of the

Athenians and Plutarch's Life of Solon have formed the foundations for Archaic Athens's

path to becoming a successful polis. Our main sources, Aristotle and Plutarch, do less to

contradict each other and more to simply omit information that did not align with the

purposes of their literature. Aristotle's goal was to lay out the chronology and change in

the Athenian constitution, and he begins with Solon because he had instituted the

majority of laws that were present even to Aristotle's time. Plutarch's goal was to

describe the life of Solon and, because it served a more literary purpose, Plutarch outlined

Solon's main legislation along with laws that affected Athenian lifestyle. Solon’s poetry

was at first, “a minor matter and a pleasant way of spending his spare time” but it evolved

into “philosophical maxims…in order to justify his actions and sometimes to advise,

rebuke, and scold the people of Athens. ”1 Here we will observe the differences between

Plutarch and Aristotle, check the credibility of Solon’s reforms by comparing the two

writers to other works, and discover whether Solon's poetry can be used as a resource to

describe aspects of Athens that occurred during Solon's lifetime.

When Solon is asked by the upper and lower classes to take control of Athens and

to settle their disputes, Plutarch and Aristotle provide two different accounts. Plutarch2

recounts how Solon's "desire to save the city led him to deal in an underhand fashion with

both parties, without his involvement being solicited. " Aristotle claims that both sides

agreed to give him power and includes the beginning of a Solonian poem and summarizes

it by saying that Solon "champions both sides against the other, and argues their position,

1 P. 48 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives 2 Plutarch places this in his life of Solon but he takes it from a work by Phanias of Lesbos

and then recommends an end to the prevailing rivalry. "3

Upon taking on the role as Archon, Solon faced two issues: the dependence of the

lower classes as a result of the greed of the ruling elites and the increasing debt of

Athens. The first issue is addressed below.

Aristotle highlighted the three most popular features of Solon's constitution4:

nobody can borrow money on the security of anyone's freedom, anyone can seek redress

on behalf of those wronged, and the right of appeal to the dikasterion. 5 These elements

are also present in Plutarch’s account.

The reforms highlighted above sought to address the economic conflicts and

level the playing field between the upper class and the lower class. The following

poem by Solon describes the motive for his legislation:

For I granted the people an adequate amount of power

And sufficient prestige—not more nor less.

But I found a way also to maintain the status

Of the old wielders of power with their fantastic riches.

I stood protecting rich and poor with my stout shield,

And saw that neither side prevailed unjustly. 6

The law forbidding loans on the security of anyone’s freedom, though

intended to prevent Athenian farmers from subscribing themselves or their families

3 p. 150 in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians 4 p. 153 in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians 5 p. 337 Hansen: The dikasteria were a separate and independent body of government. They were neither "the demos in its judicial capacity" nor "judicial committees of the ekklesia" nor were their powers "based on any kind of delegation from the ekklesia. ” 6 p. 62 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives

to slavery, also ended up removing the only security that small farmers with already

fully mortgaged plots could offer. 7 Though seemingly beneficial to the poor farmers,

Solon intended to drive out inefficient farmers off the land to benefit the Attican

economy.

The provision where anyone can seek redress on behalf of those wronged

was to protect the common people so that anyone with the resources and the desire

could file a lawsuit against the offender. On a deeper level, Plutarch says that Solon

was “conditioning the people of Athens to regard themselves as so many parts of a

single body, and so to share one another’s feelings and suffering. ”8 This attests to

Solon’s long-term goals of involving all citizens of Athens in the affairs of the state.

The right of appeal to the dikasterion was a “protection against

maladministration”9 by the magistrates, which Solon had closed off to only the three

upper classes: pentakosiomedimnoi, hippeis, and zeugitai. However, it also served as

a safeguard for the rest of Solon’s laws because the dikasterion was comprised of a

majority of Athenians whose vested interest it was to uphold the Solonian

constitution or risk returning to the socio-economic disparity that existed before

Solon’s Constitution.

Surprisingly, Aristotle does not consider seisachtheia to be a popular feature of

his reforms since it brought a dispute that tarnished Solon’s reputation as an honorable

legislator. This dispute, highlighted by both Plutarch and Aristotle, was before Solon had

instituted seisachtheia, and he told some of the leading citizens about his plan to cancel

7 p. 101 in “Factional Conflict and Solon’s Reforms” by J. R. Ellis and G. R. Stanton 8 p. 62 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives 9 p. 106 in in “Factional Conflict and Solon’s Reforms” by J. R. Ellis and G. R. Stanton

all debts and they borrowed large sums of money and bought huge tracts of land. 10

Plutarch described how Solon redeemed himself in the story of the Five Talents where he

lent five talents to an Athenian and cancelled his debts. Aristotle wrote how Solon had

either been outmaneuvered by his friends or, in more critical versions, he had been

accused of fraud. Aristotle and Plutarch defend Solon by arguing that, for someone who

“attaches the over-all blame for the strife to the rich,”11

it’s illogical for him to have told

the leading citizens on purpose.

The cancellation of debts was the antidote to the increasingly large disparity

between the rich and the poor and roadblock to a mob mentality that sought to

overtake Athens and enact a redistribution of land. Ellis et al. argues that

seisachtheia was simply an easing of the “unreasonable burdens for at least some of

the poor of Attika, at the expense of some of the richer. ”12

The second issue Solon addresses was the economic crises facing Athens.

Though Aristotle does not include Solon’s embargo on all exports besides olive oil,

Plutarch mentions this law in passing. 13 However, Thiel interpreted the law as

Solon foreseeing the “growing population of Attica should be fed with grain

imported from foreign countries and this imported grain should be paid for with

Attic oil and pottery above all other things. ”14 In order to protect the Athenian olive

growers, Solon also made sure the property classes depended on how much their

products fetched at the end of the year rather than the worth of their products

10 p. 60 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives 11 see Footnote 2 12 see Footnote 6 13 p. 68 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives 14 p. 8 in J. H. Thiel’s “On Solon’s System of Property-Classes”

before being sold. Also, to address the unemployment issue of Attica, Solon

encourages fellow citizens to take up manufacturing and created a law stating, “a

son who had not been taught one of the manufacturing arts by his father was under

no obligation to support him. ”15

One of Solon’s most lasting contributions to the constitutional framework of

Athens was the creation of the four property classes. Plutarch and Aristotle differ in

the translation, but essentially they are the pentakosiomedimnoi, hippeis, zeugitai,

and thetes. Manville comments that by separating government positions by

property classes, Solon created the first “legal citizenship” and created precise

boundaries of status and guaranteed privileges for each group. 16 Coupled with the

punishment that “anyone who did not choose one side or the other in such a

[factional] dispute should lose his citizen rights,”17 Solon forced Athenians to take

ownership of his laws because those who did not support the Solonian revolution

would not be allowed to reap the benefits of the city-state. Aristotle says Solon

required pentakosiomedimnoi to possess 500 measures of dry or liquid yearly

returns, hippeis to possess 300 measures, and zeugitai to possess 200 measures.

Rosivach questions Aristotle’s and Plutarch’s property requirements in order to

belong to a certain class. The one hundred medimnoi difference between the hippeis

and the zeugitai suggests that either the zeugitai belonged to the cultural elite

composed of pentakosiomedimnoi and hippeis rather than belonging with the poor

masses of thetes or that Aristotle, and therefore Plutarch, got their numbers wrong.

15 p. 66 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives 16 p. 217 in “Solon’s Law of Stasis and Atimia in Archaic Athens” by Brooke Manville 17 p. 153 in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians

18 Solon’s property class qualifications were used even into the late 420s BCE19

attesting to the longevity of Solon’s reign beyond the one hundred year requirement

he had instituted before he left Athens for his ten-year journey abroad. 20

Aristotle and Plutarch agreed on the existence of the Council of the

Areopagus prior to Solon however earlier writers reported the existence of the

Areopagus was instituted by Solon21. Aristotle writes that Solon “gave the

Areopagus the duty of watching over the laws, analogous to its earlier position of

guardian of the Constitution. ”22 Plutarch explains this is partly because Draco does

not refer to the Areopagus, but the ephetai, during cases of homicide. However, in

the thirteenth table containing Solon’s eight laws, it states:

Of the disenfranchised all those who were disenfranchised prior to the

archonship of Solon are to regain their rights except those who were

disenfranchised prior to the archonship of Solon are to regain their

rights except those who were convicted by the Areopagus, the

Ephetae, or the city hall (that is, the king-archons) of homicide,

murder or tyrannical ambition and were already in exile when this

law was published. 23

18 p. 36 in “The Requirements for the Solonic Classes in Aristotle, AP 7. 4” by Rosivach 19 p. 42 in “The Requirements for the Solonic Classes in Aristotle, AP 7. 4” by Rosivach 20 p. 70 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives 21 p. 63 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives 22 p. 153 in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians 23 p. 63 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives

This passage proves the existence of the Areopagus prior to Solon because there

would have been no other way for someone to have been convicted by the

Areopagus before Solon’s time.

Despite the existence of the dikasterion and its right of appeal, Solon’s

creation of the Boule of 400, composed of 100 Athenians from each of the four

tribes, was in reaction to the common people who were more assertive due to the

cancellation of debts and were still full of themselves. 24 The Boule would debate

issues before reaching the ekklesia and the dikasterion so the magistracies could

have some control in what topics would be discussed among the common people.

However, Ingle argues that due to the growing quantity of work being submitted to

the Ekklesia, it made sense that the smaller and more expeditious body of the Boule,

which already existed, would act as a committee to screen these cases. 25 Though

Aristotle only goes so far as to mention Solon’s role in the transformation of the

Boule into a screening body for the ekklesia, we find out later in Aristotle that much

of the judicial functions of the Boule transferred to the dikasterion after the

restoration of the democracy in 403 BCE. 26

In comparing the works of Plutarch and Aristotle with respect to Aristotle, a

commentary on their writing style should be provided. Hammond comments that

Aristotle arranged his narrative mainly by content, giving prior place to specific

constitutional points but indicating the chronology of two main bodies of reform in a

way that allows readers to rearrange the information he provides chronologically if

24 p. 62 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives 25 p. 236 in N. L. Ingle’s “The Original Function of the Boule at Athens” 26 p. 183 in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians

we wished. 27 Aristotle’s choice of order offers some degree of confusion with when

he instituted which reform, but Hammond believes that Solon was appointed

Eponymous Archon to solve economic problems and later appointed to an unnamed

office carrying full powers over the constitution in order to reform them. 28

As for Plutarch’s Solon, he and Aristotle share the common resource,

Androtion’s Atthis, when writing about Solon except Aristotle rearranges the work

to emphasize Solon’s constitutional points and pass verdicts on the constitutionalist

Solon. Plutarch, however, preserves Androtion’s order and possesses what

Hammond considers “the clearer form of the fourth-century tradition crystallized by

Androtion. ”29

After instituting his reforms, Solon commits his feelings into poetry in

response to the mixed feelings of the Athenians. In this case, Solon’s poems should

not be taken for anything more than purely literary for he vents the frustration that

he feels at the ignorance and stubbornness of the Athenians as can be seen when he

writes “now they are angry and look askance at me like an enemy. ”30 However, in

his poem, “Salamis” where he urges the Athenians to take up arms and recapture

Salamis, it matches the historical account of Athens’s victory over Megara and the

capture of Salamis. 31 The bulk of Solon’s poetry served to either express his feelings

towards the Athenians, justify a form of legislation, or to rebuke the citizens for

turning their backs on their city-state.

27 p. 76 in N. G. L. Hammond’s “The Seisachtheia and the Nomothesia of Solon” 28 see Footnote 27 29 p. 77 in N. G. L. Hammond’s “The Seisachtheia and the Nomothesia of Solon” 30 p. 155 in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians 31 p. 52 in Plutarch’s Greek Lives

After analyzing Plutarch and Aristotle’s accounts of Solon, we find their main

sources in writing their literary work were Solon’s poems, interpretations of later

historians (mainly Hellanikos and Androtion), and a historical imagination biased by

the current challenges of their own times.32 However, if I were to compare and

choose the more reliable source, Plutarch’s work deviated less from the

chronological order of Androtion, provided more content than Aristotle’s work, and,

despite being written later in time, possessed a more diverse array of Solon’s laws.

32 p. 244 in A. French’s “Land Tenure and the Solon Problem”

Works Cited

1. Aristotle. "Solon." Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy. Berkeley:

University of California, 1986. 150-57.

2. Ellis, J. R., and G. R. Stanton. "Factional Conflict and Solon's Reforms." Phoenix 22.2

(1968): 95-110.

3. French, A. “Land Tenure and the Solon Problem.” Historia:Seitschrift fur Alte

Geschichte 12.2 (1962): 242-247.

4. Hammond, N. G. "The Seisachtheia and the Nomothesia of Solon." The Journal of

Hellenic Studies 60 (1950): 71-83.

5. Hansen, Mogens Herman. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes:

Structure, Principles, and Ideology. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1999.

6. Manville, Brooke. "Solon's Law of Stasis and Atimia in Archaic Athens." Transactions

of the American Philological Association 110 (1980): 213-21.

7. Plutarch. "Solon." Greek Lives: A Selection of Nine Greek Lives. Oxford, Oxford

University Press, 2008. 42-77.

8. Rosivach, Vincent J. "The Requirements for the Solonic Classes in Aristotle." Hermes

130.1 (2002): 36-47.

9. Thiel, J. H. "On Solon's System of Property-Classes." Mnemosyne 4th ser. 3.1 (1950):

1-11.