Identifying Solonian Laws

E. Poddighe, T. Pontillo (eds), Resisting and justifying changes II. Testifying and legitimizing innovation in Indian and Ancient Greek Culture (NUOVA BIBLIOTECA DI STUDI CLASSICI E ORIENTALI Supplementi alla rivista Studi Classici e Orientali, vol. 7), Pisa University Press 2023, 283-330., 2023

In a volume focused on the problem of legitimizing change and innovation (po- litical, legal, social, cultural) the Athenians’ oaths to observe Solon’s laws rep- resent a case study worth discussing since they demonstrate (at least in some of our sources) an explicit commitment to accept the new laws of Solon (which thus replaced those previously in force), while at the same time including a pledge not to change them in the future. Herodotus’ Histories, Aristotle’s Athenaion Po- liteia and Plutarch’s Life of Solon record the oaths and set the historical context, though they supply different details as to when and what the Athenians swore to. Herodotus tells us of “solemn oaths” taken by the Athenians before Solon laid down his laws and which contained the pledge to observe the code in its entirety for ten years. The Athenians, in the Herodotean account, accepted that Solon himself could abrogate any law, while they could not, because of their oaths. Aristotle and Plutarch record the oaths taken by the Athenians “to observe” the laws of Solon after his legislation (nomothesia), i.e. after he laid down his laws and when he decided to give them a validity of 100 years. Scholars almost uni- formly overlap the account of the sources, substituting Herodotus’ ten years for the Athenaion Politeia’s (and Plutarch’s) hundred years and so changing the ac- count of the pledge to observe the code in its entirety for ten years (a relatively brief testing period) into the story that Solon’s laws were intended to remain free from innovation for a hundred years. This chapter makes the point that we need to assess the different reconstructions of single sources and to distinguish when and what the Athenians swore to in their oaths. I will argue, on the one hand, that we should credit the Herodotean account of the pledge to observe the code in its entirety for ten years, and contend, on the other hand, that the oaths taken by the Athenians “to observe” the laws of Solon after his decision to give the laws the validity of 100 years did not mean that the laws could not be supplemented but only that they could not be cancelled or modified.

This is the Introduction to this book, which has now been published.

In the past decade, the Laws have achieved a prominent position in scholarship on Plato: the number of recent monographs and collec-tions on this work is considerable. After his "Médiation et coercition. Pour une lecture des Lois de Platon" (Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2005) André Laks, a leading expert on the Laws, has now published a second monograph on the dia-logue. The new book aims to “articulate the conceptual net that the Laws weave around the term ‘law’” (p. 154), but shares with the earlier one a very similar scholarly perspective and a focus on persuasion and the preambles. The book is subdivided into an introduction, ten chapters, a summary, followed by three ap-pendices, notes, bibliography, and two indices.

The Classical Review, 2014

DHA 47/2, 2021

Solon’ s so-called “law against neutrality” has been the subject of much debate. Its study has given rise to a vast body of literature, begging many questions such as its authenticity and purpose which, to authors of the ancient world, seemed to contradict the politics and spirit of Solon. My aim here is to demonstrate that his law on stasis was perfectly in tune with his reforms and the way in which he envisaged the government of Athens. Specifically, I will try to show, through the analysis of this law, that the sovereignty of the demos, understood above all politically as the civic body as a whole in assembly (ekklesia) and, therefore, as the city’ s legitimate power, along with representative council, the Boule of Four Hundred, already existed at that time.