Great Actions of Great Leaders: Solon and The Island of Salamis

According to Plutarch, Solon was ashamed of his fellow Athenians for they had failed to conquer the Megarians controlling the island of Salamis. The Athenians had tried to take the island but were unsuccessful and soon the violence started to take it's toll. Eventually they decided to make a law which prohibited anyone from advocating, or making an attempt to, continue the fight for Salamis. This law, by the way, was punishable by death. Solon and many other Patriotic Athenians soon grew weary of the feelings of failure and shame, in those days a man was proud of his family and his city and to give up a fight before it was over would be a disgrace.

But Solon had a plan!

"... by his own family it was spread about the city that he was mad. He then secretly composed some elegiac verses, and getting them by heart, that it might seem extempore, ran out into the market-place with a cap upon his head, and, the people gathering about him, got upon the herald's stand, and sang that elegy which begins thus-

"I am a herald come from Salamis the fair, My news from thence my verses shall declare."

The poem is called Salamis; it contains an hundred verses very elegantly written; when it had been sung, his friends commended it, and especially Pisistratus exhorted the citizens to obey his directions; insomuch that they recalled the law, and renewed the war under Solon's conduct. The popular tale is, that with Pisistratus he sailed to Colias, and, finding the women, according to the custom of the country there, sacrificing to Ceres, he sent a trusty friend to Salamis, who should pretend himself a renegade, and advise them, if they desired to seize the chief Athenian women, to come with him at once to Colias; the Megarians presently sent off men in the vessel with him; and Solon, seeing it put off from the island, commanded the women to be gone, and some beardless youths, dressed in their clothes, their shoes and caps, and privately armed with daggers, to dance and play near the shore till the enemies had landed and the vessel was in their power. Things being thus ordered, the Megarians were lured with the appearance, and, coming to the shore, jumped out, eager who should first seize a prize, so that not one of them escaped; and the Athenians set sail for the island and took it."

- Plutarch, Life of Solon

Even though there was a law forbidding a rally to fight the Megarians, Solon used his political genius to succeed anyway! This was all before he became archon, by the way, because as we all know...

If the archon does it, that means it's not illegal.

So says Plutarch.

Solon of Athens

Most history books explain that Democracy began in ancient Greece, in the days of the so-called Seven Wise Men or "Seven Sages." These men were the intellectual giants of their time, and enjoyed reputations as prophets who had an understanding of nature and the gods. Ancient doxographical writings contain fantastic, semi-mythic, and often times humorous, anecdotes about the Sages, who had been idealized in the minds of men over the centuries. Of the accounts, that found in Plutarch's Life of Solon, and those scattered throughout The Histories of Herodotus, seem to be the most substantial.

While much of Solon's political thought is compatible with modern day democratic ideas, at that time Athens was in no way what we would call a Democracy. Solon, however, made important contributions to politics and is a major figure in the history of Western civilization.

Solon was elected ruler, or “archon,” of Athens in the year 594 – 593 BCE. One of the Solon’s first official actions was to limit how much land a single owner could obtain. Solon’s law had a two-fold effect:

1) The wealthy would have a more difficult time sustaining power in government, (for representation was based on land-ownership)

2) There would have been more land available for the rising low and middle class citizens and thus greater opportunities were within their reach.

Solon also enacted his most famous legislation, the “shaking-off of burdens” or in Greek the seisachtheia. As the name implies, this was an act which nullified all debts that had not been paid, also, more importantly, Solon liberated people who had been forced into slavery in order to pay off a debt. At first, this might seem like an abuse of power, and one would expect the nobility to be upset, however the amount that the wealthy had to forego with the enactment of the seisachtheia was comparatively little considering the state of the polis as a whole.


Solon’s plan did not stop there though, the invention of coined money was an advancement which Solon used to help stabilize the economy. He standardized the weights and measures of coinage in order to to regulate costs, and the new agora constructed under Solon’s guidance facilitated sales. Solon’s reforms were a vast improvement over the previous system (which was instated by the infamous Dracon); finally, there were a set of reasonable laws founded on the ideals of justice and freedom. But Athens was not the picture perfect democracy which the 4th century politicians and philosophers painted it to be, for economic and social class still dictated politics. Despite this tradition, Solon utilized the concept of Justice to promote a healthy sense of unity amongst the Athenians.