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The Rise of Athens: Solon and His Reform &Intellectual Climate Teacher: Wu Shiyu Email: shiyuw@sjtu.edu.cn. Questions to Think of. Absolute equality achieved by Lycurgus in his reform.
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The Rise of Athens:Solon and His Reform &Intellectual Climate Teacher: Wu ShiyuEmail: shiyuw@sjtu.edu.cn
Questions to Think of • 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.
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.
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: • The Party of the Plain(wealthy landowners who came from the aristocratic families ):They dominated the full share of the politics. • The Party of the Coast :representing the trading commercial class but did not have a full share in politics. • 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,”
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.
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 theeconomy 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 thatagriculture 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: • Dowries were limited. • Women could not wear more than three cloaks at a time or ride in a particular kind of chariot. • It was forbidden to hold excessive funerals. • 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.
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.
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. • Heraclituswas 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.
