11
NEW WINE IN OLD WINESKINS


Solon, arete and the agathos


Lynette G.Mitchell

Solon was elected archon with full powers in 594 to cope with the social, political, and economic crisis in Athens. He was said to be the first champion of the people by the author of the Ath. Pol.,1 and from the late fifth century he was labelled the ‘father of democracy’.2 While Solon is no longer viewed as being consciously democratic, most modern commentators agree that his political agenda was intended to upset the old social and political order and to create a new order in which all had some access to the political processes.

It is this view that I wish to modify. It is indeed true that Solon did relieve the immediate economic difficulties of the poor and that he did give a share in political power to those who had been excluded. Nevertheless, the author of the Ath. Pol. himself says that Solon did not consistently support the many against the few, but encouraged them to reach a reconciliation,3 and in the Politics Aristotle says that Solon only gave to the demos the very minimum of power.4 I wish to argue that Solon was being much more conservative than is generally allowed, and that, rather than looking forward to the creation of a new social order through his reforms, he was in fact looking backwards to the maintenance of an older order, even if this was at the cost of allowing some sections of the community access to political power which they had previously been denied.5

First of all we need to consider the nature of the crisis in Athens in the late seventh and early sixth centuries. The Ath. Pol. says that tension arose out of the friction between the notables (hoi gnorimoi) and the multitude (to plethos), that the poor were enslaved to the wealthy, that the land was in the hands of the few, but that the harshest aspect of the constitution for the many (hoi polloi) was their enslavement: ‘notwithstanding they also had grievances on other grounds; for they, so to speak, did not happen to have a share in anything’.6 Plutarch adds that Draco’s laws were too harsh,7 and, although he mistakenly refers here to the groups of the time of Peisistratus, that there was also rivalry between competing political groups.8

In addition to these late sources, we also have the testimony of Solon himself through the fragments of his poetry.9 In these, Solon points to another problem which in some ways sits oddly beside the picture of economic depression: wealth and its corrupting influence.10 Wealth, Solon says, is the heart of the evil that is afflicting Athens, since it corrupts the leaders of the demos, who grow rich by unjust deeds and

…sparing neither sacred nor public property they steal by plunder, one from one place, one from another, and they do not guard the holy foundations of Justice (Dike), who, though silent, knows what is and what was before, and who assuredly comes in time to seek retribution.11

This is not to say that Solon objected to wealth itself. He himself was of good birth, and at least desired wealth,12 despite the Ath. Pol.s and Plutarch’s assertions that he was a man of the middle order.13 He says:

I desire to have possessions, but I do not wish to partake of them unjustly; for truly justice comes later.

Wealth which the gods give is certain for a man from the very bottom to the top,

but wealth which men honour out of arrogance comes not in an orderly way,

but, having succumbed to unjust deeds, does not attend willingly, but swiftly gets mixed up with infatuation: from a small beginning it is like a fire, a small thing at first, but troublesome in the end.14

For Solon, to have wealth was good, if it came from the gods, though even then it was not sure.15 The wealth Solon objected to was that which was ‘lusted after’, or led to unjust deeds. Even the poor were susceptible to this criticism, because they wanted a redistribution of land and a share in the wealth and reproached Solon when they did not get it.16 It is this obsession with the acquisition of wealth, he implies, which has led to Dysnomia, Disorder.17

The Dysnomia has not only found its expression in the distress of the hektemoroi and the enslavement of the poorer Athenians, but also it has caused stasis.18 This was not only between the gnorimoi and the plethos, but also between competing political groups,19 who probably found their leaders not only among the notables but also among those who had wealth but lacked political power.20 This was symptomatic of the social crisis which had sprung out of the political crisis.

Traditionally, social status was a corollary of political power. Arete (excellence) had been the mark of the noble (agathos), who because of his nobility had also held political control.21 Those with arete were agathoi; those without arete were of lower social status (kakoi).22 In the Homeric world, the most powerful words of commendation were agathos and arete, and they described the most highly sought values in society.23 To have arete, in the Homeric context, was to be good at something,24 and the Homeric agathos was good at war, and it was his job to protect the interests of the oikos. The ethos of the Homeric agathos was individual and competitive: his main role was to defend his household, and it was in this way that the agathos maintained his position.25 Although the emphasis tended to be upon his military prowess, the agathos was also a man who was successful in peace as well:26 he looked after his oikos, and he, for the most part, made decisions for his oikos and determined justice within it.27 The agathos was also, by nature, a wealthy man, and his material possessions were part of what defined his position in society.28 The agathoi were those with power within the community; those that had the rights to the greatest time (honour) because they were the protectors of society in war and peace.29 Arete was theirs by god-given birthright,(but it was also something they had to strive for.30

However, important political, economic and social changes beginning in the eighth century meant that the polis rather than the oikos became the most important organising principle in society.31 Nevertheless, success in war was still important, and Tyrtaeus considers that the agathos is the man who holds firm in the front-line of battle.32 But although arete is achieved through valour, and ‘the cowardly man has lost all arete’,33 military success is linked to the hoplite phalanx and the interests of the corporate demos rather than the individual warrior.34 In addition, other activities had also now acquired value for the community.35

Hesiod also reflects these developments. He points to the fact that arete could now be obtained by the acquisition of wealth (albeit a god-given wealth rather than wealth that is seized violently),36 but the important point was that wealth was no longer seen as intrinsic to arete, but could be a pathway to it; arete was linked to wealth and wealth could be achieved through hard work:

Through work men become both rich in flocks and wealthy; and, in working, they are much better loved by the immortals.
Work bears no reproach, but idleness does bear reproach.

If you were to work, the idle will soon envy you since you have grown rich. Arete and fame attend wealth.37

Hesiod’s arete is accessible to all who work hard. It is an arete propelled by eris, strife—not the strife that leads men to make war upon each other, but the competitive strife which stirs up the lazy to work, and makes neighbour vie with neighbour in his eagerness for wealth.38 For Hesiod, it is just for a man to earn his living by honest work, and not by cheating, and the observance of justice brings prosperity to the polis.39

That non-agathoi now had access to wealth had serious social and political implications to which Hesiod appears oblivious but which Solon had to deal with in very real terms. If one could attain arete, however defined, then surely one also had the right to political power. It was this equation that had given the Homeric heroes the right to their political stranglehold. In Hesiod’s world order, there was still a clear-cut division between the basileis, who had the right to power and the dispensation of justice—albeit a crooked justice—and his own class, who must obey. Although Hesiod redefined the basis of this division, he did not question the division itself.

The body of work attributed to Solon’s near-contemporary Theognis of Megara reflects similar themes. The Theognid corpus is not always consistent in its response to the new wealth, and this is indicative of the social upheaval that was taking place. On the one hand, it is claimed that there is an arete for the multitude, and that this is wealth;40 but, on the other hand, money can belong to many, but arete belongs to few;41 and elsewhere arete is contrasted with prosperity given to ‘useless’ men, and ascribed to the warlike man who saves the city.42 In the seventh century, Alcaeus claimed that a man is what he owns, and that no poor man is noble (esthlos) or honoured (timios).43 However, this inevitably produced complications in a world where the nobility can be poor, and the kakoi rich, if that is what the gods decree:

Do not be too worried about difficulties nor rejoice too much in good things, since it behoves an agathos to bear everything.

since it behoves an agathos to bear everything.
And it is necessary not to swear this: ‘This thing will never be.’

For the gods are angered by it, by whom the issue is fixed.
And they do indeed act: something becomes esthlos from kakos,

And they do indeed act: something becomes esthlos from kakos, and kakos from agathos, and at once a poor man becomes very rich, and he who had many things

suddenly loses it all in one night.
A prudent man errs; expectation is often fulfilled for the witless; and a kakos obtains a share of time.

and a kakos obtains a share of time.44

As a result of this confusion of position and wealth, the agathoi and the kakoi were inter-marrying.45 The traditional values of arete and the definition of the agathoi and kakoi were under review, and the line that divided the two socially was becoming blurred only to sharpen into a new wealth-based focus.

Ironically, perhaps, it is at Sparta that we first find a solution to this problem, though Tyrtaeus does not spell it out. Herodotus,46 Thucydides47 and Aristotle48 all attest to civil unrest in Sparta in this period, which almost undoubtedly arose out of the tension between those in the polis with power and those without. As we have already seen, in the Homeric period political control had been in the hands of the agathoi, and at Sparta, in an admittedly difficult passage of Plutarch quoting the Great Rhetra,49 the ‘Lycurgan’ reforms50 appear to have given formal sovereignty in the state to the demos (although with significant limitations).51 Tyrtaeus appears to confirm this when he says that the demos are charged with making straight responses.52 It was from these constitutional developments that the ideology of equality evolved in Sparta. The demos was vindicated in its corporate claim to be agathos. Just as all Spartan hoplites could attain arete, so all Spartan hoplites participated in the decision-making processes and were given the responsibility of maintaining ‘straight responses’.

The same social strain is apparent at Athens, and Solon’s property-classes were aimed at the politically impotent nouveaux riches.53 In order to allow these people a share in political power, Solon reconstructed the political system so that qualification for office was by wealth rather than by birth. Now any man could hold the archonship and enter the Areopagus if only he was rich enough. However, although Solon gave the nouveaux riches access to political power as a matter of expediency, this did not necessarily mean that he approved of them or thought himself one with them. In fact, although he was forced to make political concessions to this group, he did not make social concessions; and this brings us to the question of Solon’s intentions when he instituted his reforms.

The main thrust of Solon’s reforms, he tells us, was with the help of Dike, Justice, to create Eunomia, Good Order, out of the Dysnomia. Eunomia for Solon, as Ostwald has argued, was ‘the state of affairs which he hoped to create by means of his legislation’.54 The ‘state of affairs’ Solon hoped to achieve was civic harmony:

Eunomia produces good order and every perfect thing, and often encircles the feet of the unjust.

It smooths the rough, puts an end to excess, effaces insolence, withers the growing blooms of infatuation, straightens crooked judgements, and soothes out-cropping deeds.

It stops the acts of sedition, and puts an end to the anger of painful envy, and makes possible by itself every perfect and prudent thing among men.55

Solon’s legislation and reforms have often been interpreted as forwardlooking and intentionally revolutionary, if not radically so.56 Some of his reforms, such as the seisachtheia and the ban on slavery for debt,57 were obviously intended to relieve the condition of the poor and to bolster their position in society. Likewise the institution of the council of four hundred,58 if it can be believed,59 the introduction of a new law-code,60 public prosecutions61and the right of appeal against magistrates’ verdicts62 all meant that the members of the demos had a share in public affairs that they could not have dreamt of before.63 Nevertheless, while rescuing the poor from their immediate dire circumstances, however the seisachtheia is interpreted,64 Solon did little to prevent them falling into debt again.

In his social views Solon was conservative and resisted any alteration in the status quo.65 He, like his aristocratic predecessors, saw the world as divided basically into two groups, the lower classes (kakoi) and the notables (agathoi), and he made laws the same for each.66 But he did not think that the kakoi should have equal shares in the land with the esthloi (nobles).67 While granting the demos, of which the nouveaux riches were a part, certain political privileges, he did not seek to change their social position but to restore order. He only gave them as much as was sufficient,68 and seems to have thought them incapable of being trusted with too much wealth and power:69

In this way the demos would best go along with its leaders, neither being given too much rein, nor being forced too much.

Excess breeds arrogance, whenever great wealth attends such men as do not have sound intent.70

The term demos is used ambiguously in Solon’s poetry, sometimes referring to the whole people, but sometimes referring to the poor and sometimes simply to those who are not gnorimoi.71 Here he appears to be using it in this last sense, and makes it clear that his support is not for the demos but for those who have to handle them.72 Solon, like many aristocrats, had a poor opinion of the demos and their judgement, an opinion in which he claims he is vindicated by events:

If you have suffered misery through your own baseness (kakotes), do not lay the blame for your share of these things upon the gods, for you raised them up, giving them protection, and because of this you have base slavery.

Each one of you comes with the marks of a fox, but in all of you put together there is but empty wit;

you look to the tongue and words of a wily man, but see nothing of the deed which is being done.73

Diodorus74 and Plutarch75 believed that Solon was referring to Peisistratus’ tyranny,76 but he is at least probably referring to the demos’ demands for land redistribution, lust for wealth, and lack of judgement.

Playing on similar themes, many poems in the Theognidea also reflect an anxious aristocracy whose social position is being undermined. One of the responses was to divorce arete from wealth and define it purely by birth.77 Arete is not what a man owns, but who he is. It is the moral force that drives him, and this is a quality lacking in the kakoi. Therefore, Theognis says, it is fitting for an agathos to have wealth,78 since he will not abuse the privilege. Wealth is dangerous for the kakoi; it is too heady a wine, and will drive them to excess and injustice:

Cyrnus, an agathos always has presence of mind, and is able to hold firm both in bad times and in good; but if god gives livelihood and wealth to a kakos, being silly, he is not able to restrain his inferiority.79

Like Solon, Theognis believes that the true agathos has a moral fibre and stamina lacking in the kakos. A number of poems in the Theognidea make particularly vitriolic attacks on the integrity of the kakoi. Although

A number of poems in the Theognidea make particularly vitriolic attacks on the integrity of the kakoi. Although ‘all arete is summed up in justice, and every man is agathos who is dikaios’, elsewhere the kakoi, like the Homeric Cyclops, know neither justice nor established customs (nomoi), and this is the cause of all the problems of the polis:

Cyrnus, this polis is still the polis, but there are other people, who previously knew neither justice nor established customs, but who used to wear goat skins on their sides, and lived like deer outside this city.

And now they are agathoi, Polypaïdes, and those who before were esthloi are now deiloi. Who could endure looking on these things?

And they deceive each other and mock each other, not able to distinguish the principles of the kakoi or the agathoi.81

Although they are to a large extent the bitter murmurings of a disillusioned man, these poems do present us with a picture of the agathoi under threat in their role as the exclusive guardians of society. For Theognis, the agathos was becoming increasingly divorced from the traditional qualities that defined him.82 The instinct of self-preservation demanded that in order to retain their position of supremacy in society, the aristocracy had to redefine arete and the agathos in a way that made arete exclusive to the agathos and so gave him a social and moral superiority.83

Solon, like Theognis, is a member of an aristocracy under threat. In his reforms, he was prepared to give a certain amount away so that he could obtain civic harmony, but he still tried to preserve the old social order:

(For if another man had obtained this office)

he would not have restrained the demos, nor would he have stopped before he churned the milk and lost the cream, but like a horos in the middle I stood between them.84

Solon is concerned with balance within the polis; a balance that ensures that the demos do not encroach too far. He says:

If another had taken the goad as I had, and he had been a man of bad counsel and covetous, he would not have restrained the demos; for if I wished for those things which were pleasing to my opponents then, or again for those things which the others devised for them, this city would be bereft of many men.

For these reasons I made a defence on every side, and I turned like a wolf among many dogs.85

He did this by separating social class—defined by arete and therefore exclusive to the nobility—from political power which he defined by wealth.86 Although he allowed the kakoi to have a share in political power through the property classes, he did not allow them to become agathoi. Those who had wealth did not necessarily have arete, just as those who had arete did not necessarily have wealth:

For many kakoi are rich, and many agathoi are poor, but we would not exchange with them wealth for arete, since arete is always sure, but one man has money at one time, and another at another time.87

Arete transcends wealth and is something which only agathoi can truly obtain. For Hesiod, arete attended wealth; for Solon wealth may attend arete, but equally it may not.

In Solon’s Athens, to all appearances the social order was to remain the same: the agathoi were still agathoi and the kakoi were still kakoi, but this was no longer the basis for political power. For Solon, arete again becomes the exclusive possession of the noble. Effectively, he gives the nobility arete and the kakoi a share in political control in order to create civic harmony. Yet, as the turn of events was to show, arete could not be reinterpreted so narrowly. The Theognid corpus adds depth to the hints of social upheaval we can detect in the poems of Solon. Contrary to the usual interpretations of his work, Solon was simply trying to patch up a social order that was already broken, not create a new one. But it is small wonder that his reforms ultimately failed. Eunomia could not be obtained until the line between the noble and non-noble was broken. The problem was finally eased in Athens, as in so many other Greek states, by the popularly established tyranny, which naturally mixed up the social classes as all become subjects of one master.88 ‘Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved’ (Matt. 9.17).


NOTES

1 2.2.

2 For example, Isoc. 7.16; cf. Arist. Pol. 2.1274al–3.

3 Ath. Pol. 5.2.

4 2.1274al5–18.

5 Cf. Foxhall, pp. 120–2 above.

6 Ath. Pol. 2.2–3; cf. Plut. Sol. 13.2. See also Rhodes, Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia, 90–6.

7 Plut. Sol. 17.1.

8 Ibid. 13.1.

9 Herodotus in the fifth century says only that Solon was a wise man and a lawgiver (1.29–33), while Thucydides does not mention him at all.

10 Cf. Ath. Pol 5.3.

11 Fr. 4.12–16 West.

12 Fr. 13.7–8, 71–3.

13 Ath. Pol 5.3; Plut. Sol. 2.1–3.2; see Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 123–4.

14 Fr. 13.7–15.

15 Fr. 13.41–56.

16 Frs 33–4; cf. Plut. Sol. 15.1; see also Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 124.

17 On Dysnomia in Hesiod (Theog. 226–32) as the daughter of Strife, and as the sister of Toil, Forgetfulness, Famine, Afflictions, Fights, Battles, Murders, Manslaughters, Quarrels, Lies, Disputes, Fatuousness and Perjurious Oath, see Ostwald, Nomos and the Beginnings of Greek Democracy, 66–7.

18 Fr. 4.18–20.

19 Cf.Ath. Pol. 13.4.

20 Cf. fr. 4.6. Compare Cylon and his political group in the seventh century (Herodotus [5.71.1] suggests the importance of political groups in this coup) and the evident tension that existed after Solon’s reforms (Ath. Pol. 13.3–4). In addition, it appears that the division into political groups cut across class boundaries. This is suggested by those who allegedly joined Peisistratus’ ‘democratic’ group. These, the Ath. Pol. says, included those who were in difficulties after being deprived of their debts through Solon’s reforms and those who were not of pure Athenian descent (Ath. Pol. 13.5).

21 Cf. Robertson, pp. 152–4 below.

22 Cf. Finley, The World of Odysseus, 2nd edition, 53. See, however, Starr (The Economic and Social Growth of Early Greece, 119–20; The Aristocratic Temper of Greek Civilisation [henceforth=Aristocratic Temper], 7–15) who argues that the category ‘aristocrat’ is inappropriate for Homeric society, followed by Donlan (The Aristocratic Ideal in Ancient Greece, 19–25), who argues against the appropriateness of kakoi as a Homeric status indicator. On the function of kakos and agathos and their synonyms (e.g. deilos; esthlos) as indications of social status, see Adkins, Merit and Responsibility (henceforth=M&R), 30–40, 75–7; Moral Values and Political Behaviour in Ancient Greece (henceforth=Moral Values), 12–15, 23– 30, 35–57.

23 Adkins, M&R, 30–4.

24 Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus, 2nd edition, 158.

25 Finley, op. cit. (n. 22), 116–17.

26 Ibid.

27 On the oikos as the most powerful organising principle in the Homeric world, see Finley, op. cit. (n. 22), 105.

28 Ibid. (n. 22), 120–3; Adkins, M&R, 33, 160; id., BICS 7 (1960), 23–32.

29 Adkins, M&R, 35–6; Finley, op. cit. (n. 22), 97; cf. Donlan, op. cit. (n. 22), 4–25.

30 Donlan, op. cit. (n. 22), 15–18.

31 Cf. Finley, op. cit. (n. 22), 105–7.

32 Tyrtaeus, fr. 12.10–20 West; cf. 10.1–2.

33 Id. fr. 11.14.

34 Jaeger, Paideia, i. 84–90; Bowra, Early Greek Elegists, 65; Adkins, Poetic Craft in the Early Greek Elegists, 78; but contrast Lloyd-(Jones, op. cit. (n. 24), 45, who argues that Tyrtaeus’ definition of arete was essentially an expression of the Homeric ethos of arete, which sees that ‘the supreme kind of arete is martial valour’.

35 See Donlan, op. cit. (n. 22), 89–95, who discusses the equation of arete and the ‘quiet’ virtues by which the aristocracy defined their social superiority in the seventh and sixth centuries.

36 W.D. 320–41, 352.

37 Ibid. 308–13.

38 Ibid. 11–24.

39 Ibid. 213–47; cf. Lloyd-Jones, op. cit. (n. 24), 32.

40 Theognis, 699–

41 Id., 149–50.

42 Id., 865–8.

43 Alcaeus, fr. 360 Lobel and Page=169 LGS.

44 Theognis, 657–66.

45 Id., 193–6.

46 1.65.2.

47 1.18.1.

48 Pol 5.1306b29–31.

49 Lyc. 6.1.

50 Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia, 135; cf. Forrest, History of Sparta, 2nd edition, 48–9.

51 Cartledge, op. cit. (n. 50), 133–5.

52 Fr. 4.5–7, in which West combines the texts of Plutarch (Lyc. 6.10) and Diodorus (7.12.6): see Adkins, op. cit. (n, 34), 69.

53 Ath. Pol. 7.3–4; Plut. Sol. 18.1–2; cf. Arist. Pol. 2.1274al8–21; Hignett, History of the Athenian Constitution, 102–5; Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 95–6. On the property classes, see also Foxhall, pp. 129–32 above.

54 Ostwald, op. cit. (n. 17), 68 and n. 3 (for a critique of A. Andrewes [CQ 32 (1938), 89–102, especially 90 and n. 2], who defines eunomia more narrowly as the keeping of the laws themselves); cf. Ehrenberg, Aspects of the Ancient World, 81–6; Adkins, Moral Values, 51–7. Tyrtaeus in the seventh century also wrote a poem about eunomia at Sparta, although it is only known from brief notices in Aristotle (Pol. 5.1306b36–1307a2) and Strabo (362.8.4.10). It was said to be concerned with the demands for redistribution of land after some people became excessively poor and others excessively rich during the Messenian war.

55 Fr. 4.32–9.

56 Linforth, Solon the Athenian, 46–90; Hignett, op. cit. (n. 53), especially 102–9; Forrest, The Emergence of Greek Democracy, 160– 74; Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates, 2nd edition, 56–73; Donlan, op. cit. (n. 21), 68–74; Murray, Early Greece, 2nd edition, 181– 200, especially 188–9.

57 Ath. Pol. 6.1; Plut. Sol. 15.3.

58 Ath. Pol. 8.4; Plut. Sol. 19.1.

59 For a summary of the arguments, see Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 153–4.

60 Ath. Pol. 6.1; Plut. Sol. 16.3–17.1, 20–4.

61 Ath. Pol. 9.1.

62 Ibid. 9.1; Plut. Sol. 18.2.

63 See fr. 37.1–2.

64 For a survey of the problems concerning the hektemoroi, see Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 125–7. For recent views on the seisachtheia and the hektemoroi, see T.E.Rihll, JHS 111 (1991), 101–27, and Harris and Foxhall, pp. 103–11 and 113–32 above.

65 Adkins, Moral Values, 52. However, Adkins (50) does not think that Solon was concerned with arete and the agathos, or the new wealthy.

66 Fr. 36.15–20.

67 Fr. 34.8–9.

68 Fr. 5.1–2; cf. fr. 4c: see Stanton, Athenian Politics, c. 800–500 B.C., 43 n. 4.

69 Cf. Starr, Aristocratic Temper, 23.

70 Fr. 6.

71 Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 172.

72 See Stanton, op. cit. (n. 68), 43 n. 4.

73 Fr. 11.

74 9.20.

75 Sol. 30.2.

76 Despite the reference to ‘them’ (ôïýôïõò) in 1. 3: see Linforth, op. cit. (n. 56), 207 n. 3.

77 Theognis, 149–50.

78 Id., 523–6.

79 Id., 319–22; cf. 441–6.

80 Id., 147–8; cf. 465–6.

81 Id., 53–60.

82 See ibid., 233–4.

83 Donlan, op. cit. (n. 22), 77–95.

84 Fr. 37.7–10: see also Stanton, op. 84 Fr. 37.7–10: see also Stanton, op. cit. (n. 68), 48 n. 2. On this fragment see also Salmon and Foxhall, p. 68 with p. 73 n. 33 and p. 120 above.

85 Fr. 36.20–7.

86 Compare Adkins, Moral Values, 50.

87 Fr. 15. Plutarch (Sol. 3.2) uses this fragment wrongly to prove that Solon classed himself among the poor: see Stanton, op. cit. (n. 68), 53–4 n. 7; cf. Linforth, op. cit. (n. 56), 213–14. Adkins (Moral Values, 50) thinks that this fragment belongs more properly among the Theognidea, where it also appears at ll. 315–18.

88 On the effects of tyranny cf. Salmon, pp. 63–6 above.