Solon

Solon was an Athenian lawgiver and statesman of the early sixth century BC. His reforms addressed debt, enslavement and political participation, becoming a foundational part of later Athenian accounts of constitutional development.

Later Athenians remembered Solon as the lawgiver who cancelled debt bondage, reorganised political participation and attempted to reduce conflict between rich and poor. The surviving poetry attributed to him shows a statesman reflecting directly on faction, justice and civic order. Although later tradition embellished his career, his reforms became a central reference point in Athenian arguments about the origins and meaning of democracy.

In Plutarch’s The Rise and Fall of Athens, this Plutarch collection gives biographical sources for Athens from legendary Theseus through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades and Lysander.