WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.220 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are stripping 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:06.110 away You know, the white marble columns, the 00:00:06.110 --> 00:00:08.730 pristine statues, and that soft philosophical 00:00:08.730 --> 00:00:11.070 lighting we usually associate with ancient Greece. 00:00:11.250 --> 00:00:13.189 We are, yeah. We're going back to a time before 00:00:13.189 --> 00:00:16.730 the Golden Age, to a version of Athens that feels 00:00:16.730 --> 00:00:20.289 less like a university campus and more like a 00:00:20.289 --> 00:00:22.050 city on the verge of a violent, nervous breakdown. 00:00:22.190 --> 00:00:24.010 It really is a completely different world. We're 00:00:24.010 --> 00:00:26.449 dialing the clock back to the early 6th century 00:00:26.449 --> 00:00:30.710 BC, so roughly around 630 to 560 BC. And the 00:00:30.710 --> 00:00:33.700 man we're focusing on today, Solon. is often 00:00:33.700 --> 00:00:36.259 just just a footnote in history classes right 00:00:36.259 --> 00:00:38.520 you might remember the name maybe you know he 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:41.659 was a lawgiver but his actual story is wild he's 00:00:41.659 --> 00:00:43.700 the man who arguably invented the concept of 00:00:43.700 --> 00:00:45.899 the citizen and he did it while writing poetry 00:00:45.899 --> 00:00:48.679 and you know managing a society that was about 00:00:48.679 --> 00:00:51.020 five minutes away from eating itself alive that's 00:00:51.020 --> 00:00:53.179 a massive claim inventing the citizen because 00:00:53.179 --> 00:00:55.479 before this if you lived in athens what were 00:00:55.479 --> 00:00:58.179 you just a subject or like a member of a tribe 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:00.960 Exactly. You were defined by your family, your 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:04.200 tribe or your debt. You were a subject to the 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:07.180 powerful. Solon comes along and essentially tries 00:01:07.180 --> 00:01:10.299 to hack the operating system of Athens. And the 00:01:10.299 --> 00:01:12.700 most cinematic part is how he did it. He wasn't 00:01:12.700 --> 00:01:15.140 a general who marched in with an army. He was 00:01:15.140 --> 00:01:18.920 a poet who was handed absolute autocratic power 00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:21.060 by people who were just desperate for someone, 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:23.579 anyone to fix the mess. It sounds like the plot 00:01:23.579 --> 00:01:26.549 of a political thriller. The Poet Dictator. But 00:01:26.549 --> 00:01:28.890 before we get to his solutions, we have to understand 00:01:28.890 --> 00:01:31.230 the problem. Because I think when we picture 00:01:31.230 --> 00:01:33.709 Athens, we picture democracy, people voting, 00:01:33.969 --> 00:01:36.170 you know, philosophers chatting in the Agora. 00:01:36.829 --> 00:01:39.370 But that's not the Athens Solon walked into, 00:01:39.510 --> 00:01:41.950 is it? Not even close. That famous democracy 00:01:41.950 --> 00:01:44.689 is a century away. The Athens of Solon's time 00:01:44.689 --> 00:01:47.510 was, for all intents and purposes, a failed state. 00:01:47.629 --> 00:01:50.849 It was a nightmare scenario. Imagine a city that 00:01:50.849 --> 00:01:54.180 is completely... paralyzed by inequality, where 00:01:54.180 --> 00:01:56.319 the rich have everything, the poor have nothing, 00:01:56.420 --> 00:01:58.319 and the tension is so thick you could cut it 00:01:58.319 --> 00:02:00.260 with a knife. It wasn't a debate club. It was 00:02:00.260 --> 00:02:02.799 a powder keg. So the mission of this deep dive 00:02:02.799 --> 00:02:06.739 is to figure out how this one man, Solon, managed 00:02:06.739 --> 00:02:09.319 to walk into that burning building and not only 00:02:09.319 --> 00:02:13.479 survive, but... but lay the foundation for Western 00:02:13.479 --> 00:02:15.840 civilization. It's an incredible story. We're 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:17.500 going to look at his radical economic reforms, 00:02:17.719 --> 00:02:20.620 his rewriting of the Constitution, and this fascinating 00:02:20.620 --> 00:02:24.360 idea he had of holding a shield of might over 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:26.419 both the rich and the poor. And we're going to 00:02:26.419 --> 00:02:29.740 ask the big question, did it actually work? Because 00:02:29.740 --> 00:02:31.960 as we'll see, in his own lifetime, the answer 00:02:31.960 --> 00:02:35.490 was, well, it was a bit complicated. And just 00:02:35.490 --> 00:02:37.490 to flag our sources today, we are pulling from 00:02:37.490 --> 00:02:39.789 a great stack. We've got historical records. 00:02:39.930 --> 00:02:42.169 We've got the heavy hitters like Plutarch, Herodotus, 00:02:42.169 --> 00:02:44.810 and Aristotle. But coolest of all, we have fragments 00:02:44.810 --> 00:02:47.569 of Solon's own poetry. Which is so rare. It's 00:02:47.569 --> 00:02:49.530 amazing. You get the actual voice of the person 00:02:49.530 --> 00:02:52.550 from 2 ,600 years ago. It is. It gives us a window 00:02:52.550 --> 00:02:54.949 into his psychology, his motives, that we just 00:02:54.949 --> 00:02:57.210 don't get with other figures from this period. 00:02:57.430 --> 00:02:59.389 Okay, so let's set the scene properly. Section 00:02:59.389 --> 00:03:02.699 one, the crisis. How bad was it really? You use 00:03:02.699 --> 00:03:05.360 the phrase nightmare scenario. It was catastrophic. 00:03:05.439 --> 00:03:08.879 The primary driver was the wealth gap. But we're 00:03:08.879 --> 00:03:11.319 not talking about, you know, the 1 % owning more 00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:13.819 stocks than the 99%. No, this is more fundamental. 00:03:14.099 --> 00:03:16.979 It's about land and liberty. The arable land 00:03:16.979 --> 00:03:20.120 in Attica, that's the region around Athens, was 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:23.180 almost entirely in the hands of a few noble families 00:03:23.180 --> 00:03:25.439 called the Eupatrids. Eupatrids, that sounds 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:28.500 fancy. It literally means the well -born or those 00:03:28.500 --> 00:03:30.759 with good fathers. Of course it does. They controlled 00:03:30.759 --> 00:03:33.550 the politics. the religion, and most importantly, 00:03:33.689 --> 00:03:36.969 the economy and the poor. They were suffering 00:03:36.969 --> 00:03:40.449 under a brutal, absolutely brutal system of debt. 00:03:40.569 --> 00:03:43.129 Let's unpack that debt. Because today, you know, 00:03:43.129 --> 00:03:45.150 if you have debt, maybe your credit score tanks, 00:03:45.449 --> 00:03:48.169 maybe the bank takes your car. But in Solon's 00:03:48.169 --> 00:03:50.289 Athens, the stakes were a little higher. Much 00:03:50.289 --> 00:03:52.870 higher. The horror of debt in this period was 00:03:52.870 --> 00:03:55.189 that the collateral wasn't your property. It 00:03:55.189 --> 00:03:57.860 was your body. It was your body. If you were 00:03:57.860 --> 00:04:00.860 a poor farmer, a sharecropper, and you had a 00:04:00.860 --> 00:04:03.659 bad harvest or a drought hit, you still owed 00:04:03.659 --> 00:04:05.800 your rent or your loan payments to the Eupatrid 00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:08.960 Lord. If you couldn't pay, the creditor had the 00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:11.479 legal right to seize you. your wife and your 00:04:11.479 --> 00:04:13.620 children, and sell you into slavery. That is 00:04:13.620 --> 00:04:15.759 absolutely terrifying. You could wake up a free 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:18.420 Athenian, have a bad season of rain, and end 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:20.339 up being shipped across the Mediterranean as 00:04:20.339 --> 00:04:22.040 a piece of property. It happened constantly. 00:04:22.279 --> 00:04:24.680 The sources described the countryside as being 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:27.000 filled with these visual symbols of oppression 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:30.220 called horos. Horos. I saw that term in the notes. 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:33.600 These were what, boundary markers? Yes, usually 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:36.379 stone or wooden pillars standing on the farmland. 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:39.100 But they weren't just fences marking where your 00:04:39.100 --> 00:04:42.079 land ended and mine began. If you saw a horo 00:04:42.079 --> 00:04:44.180 standing on a field, it was a public declaration 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:47.920 of a mortgage. Like a foreclosure sign, but infinitely 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:50.199 worse. Worse, because it meant the person working 00:04:50.199 --> 00:04:52.000 that land didn't really own their labor anymore. 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:54.939 It was a sign that said, this land and the people 00:04:54.939 --> 00:04:58.040 on it are under obligation to a creditor. It 00:04:58.040 --> 00:05:00.259 was a constant physical reminder that you were 00:05:00.259 --> 00:05:03.100 living on borrowed time. The farmers working 00:05:03.100 --> 00:05:06.079 this land were often called hektomeroi or sixth 00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:08.459 parters. Sixth parters. Does that mean they kept 00:05:08.459 --> 00:05:10.220 a sixth of their crop or they had to give away 00:05:10.220 --> 00:05:12.540 a sixth? Scholars debate it, but the prevailing 00:05:12.540 --> 00:05:14.860 view is often that they had to hand over a sixth 00:05:14.860 --> 00:05:18.600 of their produce. Or maybe. Even worse, they 00:05:18.600 --> 00:05:20.660 only got to keep a sixth. Either way, you're 00:05:20.660 --> 00:05:22.980 not getting rich. You're not. You're living on 00:05:22.980 --> 00:05:25.180 the razor's edge of subsistence. And if they 00:05:25.180 --> 00:05:28.680 missed that quota, it was slavery. So you have 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:33.540 a population that is terrified. hungry, and watching 00:05:33.540 --> 00:05:35.420 their neighbors disappear into slavery. That 00:05:35.420 --> 00:05:38.079 is the definition of a pre -revolutionary situation. 00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:41.300 Exactly. And this economic misery fractured the 00:05:41.300 --> 00:05:44.620 city into three distinct rival factions. And 00:05:44.620 --> 00:05:46.439 what's fascinating is that the ancient historians 00:05:46.439 --> 00:05:49.860 describe these factions geographically. It feels 00:05:49.860 --> 00:05:52.939 almost like a fantasy novel or a dystopian YA 00:05:52.939 --> 00:05:55.759 book. I love this detail. You had the hill, the 00:05:55.759 --> 00:05:58.040 plain, and the coast. Okay, it makes it so visual. 00:05:58.160 --> 00:06:00.649 Who were the people of the hill? The hill represented 00:06:00.649 --> 00:06:02.990 the poor, the people in the highlands where the 00:06:02.990 --> 00:06:07.170 soil was rocky and bad. These were the radical 00:06:07.170 --> 00:06:10.129 Democrats, the people who had nothing to lose. 00:06:10.290 --> 00:06:12.089 They wanted to flip the table. They wanted a 00:06:12.089 --> 00:06:14.449 total redistribution of land. The radicals. Then 00:06:14.449 --> 00:06:16.709 you have the plain. I'm guessing that's where 00:06:16.709 --> 00:06:19.910 the good farmland was. Right. The rich landowners, 00:06:20.089 --> 00:06:22.370 the Eupatrids, they were the oligarchs. They 00:06:22.370 --> 00:06:24.689 wanted to keep the system exactly as it was because, 00:06:24.730 --> 00:06:26.790 well, it was making them rich. They were the 00:06:26.790 --> 00:06:29.279 conservatives. And the coast. The coast was the 00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:32.000 middle ground. Traders, fishermen, craftsmen, 00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:34.819 they were the moderates. They didn't want the 00:06:34.819 --> 00:06:37.500 radical anarchy of the hill, but they didn't 00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:39.899 want the stifling oppression of the plain either. 00:06:40.120 --> 00:06:41.860 They just wanted stability. They just wanted 00:06:41.860 --> 00:06:43.839 stability so they could do business. So you have 00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:46.360 the radicals, the reactionaries, and the moderates 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:49.540 all hating each other. And on top of that, the 00:06:49.540 --> 00:06:52.269 rich families were fighting each other too. Oh, 00:06:52.350 --> 00:06:54.709 the clan rivalries were intense. This wasn't 00:06:54.709 --> 00:06:57.389 just class warfare. It was Game of Thrones -style 00:06:57.389 --> 00:07:00.230 feuds between powerful families. The city was 00:07:00.230 --> 00:07:02.930 paralyzed. They couldn't make decisions. They 00:07:02.930 --> 00:07:06.970 were weak. Enter Solon. Who was this guy? Where 00:07:06.970 --> 00:07:10.250 did he fit into this three -way cage match? And 00:07:10.250 --> 00:07:12.629 that's the key to his rise. He was a living contradiction. 00:07:13.129 --> 00:07:15.910 By blood, he was a eupatrid. He was born into 00:07:15.910 --> 00:07:19.089 a noble family. He could trace his lineage back 00:07:19.089 --> 00:07:22.680 to the legendary King Kodris. Okay. So socially, 00:07:22.839 --> 00:07:25.420 he sat at the high table. The witch trusted him 00:07:25.420 --> 00:07:27.839 because he was one of them. But he didn't act 00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:31.220 like a typical snobby aristocrat? No. His father 00:07:31.220 --> 00:07:32.899 had apparently diminished the family fortune 00:07:32.899 --> 00:07:36.019 through generosity, so Solon had to work. He 00:07:36.019 --> 00:07:38.439 became a merchant. He traveled. He got involved 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:41.360 in commerce. Which was really unusual for nobles 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:43.259 back then, right? Didn't they usually look down 00:07:43.259 --> 00:07:45.579 on anyone who had to work for a living? Extremely 00:07:45.579 --> 00:07:48.399 unusual. Most nobles thought trade was vulgar. 00:07:48.579 --> 00:07:51.379 But this gave Solon a unique perspective. He 00:07:51.379 --> 00:07:53.279 understood the economic realities of the traders 00:07:53.279 --> 00:07:55.379 on the coast. He understood the struggles of 00:07:55.379 --> 00:07:57.899 the poor. But he spoke the language of the rich 00:07:57.899 --> 00:07:59.699 on the plain. He was the only person who could 00:07:59.699 --> 00:08:01.860 talk to everyone. He also had a bit of a flair 00:08:01.860 --> 00:08:03.819 for the dramatic. We have to tell the Salama 00:08:03.819 --> 00:08:06.079 story. This is the moment where he goes from 00:08:06.079 --> 00:08:10.079 respected merchant to like national hero. This 00:08:10.079 --> 00:08:12.629 is a great story. So Athens had been fighting 00:08:12.629 --> 00:08:15.569 a long losing war against its neighbor, Megara, 00:08:15.790 --> 00:08:18.689 for control of the island of Salamis. It was 00:08:18.689 --> 00:08:21.850 a disaster. Total humiliation. Total humiliation. 00:08:22.189 --> 00:08:25.129 The Athenians were so demoralized that the assembly 00:08:25.129 --> 00:08:28.089 passed a law making it a capital crime punishable 00:08:28.089 --> 00:08:30.850 by death to even propose continuing the war. 00:08:31.029 --> 00:08:33.909 That is profound denial. Yeah. We are losing 00:08:33.909 --> 00:08:36.629 so badly that if you mention the war, we will 00:08:36.629 --> 00:08:40.250 kill you. They had completely given up. But Solon 00:08:40.250 --> 00:08:42.230 couldn't accept the shame of it. He was a patriot. 00:08:42.570 --> 00:08:45.230 But he couldn't speak out legally. So Plutarch 00:08:45.230 --> 00:08:48.370 tells us he feigned madness. He pretended to 00:08:48.370 --> 00:08:50.649 have a mental breakdown. He put on a traveler's 00:08:50.649 --> 00:08:52.850 cap, which was weird to wear indoors in the city, 00:08:52.929 --> 00:08:55.250 and he ran into the marketplace, jumped up on 00:08:55.250 --> 00:08:57.110 the herald's stone, and just started screaming 00:08:57.110 --> 00:09:00.049 a poem he had written. A poem, of course. It 00:09:00.049 --> 00:09:02.190 always comes back to poetry with this guy. It 00:09:02.190 --> 00:09:05.169 was a nationalist anthem. Let us go to Solomus 00:09:05.169 --> 00:09:07.090 to fight for the lovely island and wipe away 00:09:07.090 --> 00:09:09.600 our shame. Because he was acting mad, he couldn't 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:11.639 be prosecuted under the law. That's brilliant. 00:09:11.860 --> 00:09:13.960 But the poem was so powerful and his performance 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:16.519 was so electric that the crowd got fired up. 00:09:16.580 --> 00:09:19.159 He literally rafted his way into a military campaign. 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:21.740 Essentially. The young men grabbed their weapons, 00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:24.700 Solon was put in charge, and they actually won. 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:27.320 They took the island back. That showed he had 00:09:27.320 --> 00:09:30.039 charisma. He could manipulate public opinion. 00:09:30.340 --> 00:09:34.799 Exactly. So fast forward to 594 BC. The debt 00:09:34.799 --> 00:09:37.870 crisis is peaking. The poor are sharpening their 00:09:37.870 --> 00:09:40.490 farming tools, ready to revolt. The rich are 00:09:40.490 --> 00:09:42.470 terrified of being slaughtered in their homes. 00:09:42.850 --> 00:09:46.370 And both sides look at Solon, the hero of Solomus, 00:09:46.409 --> 00:09:49.789 the noble merchant, and say, you fix it. He was 00:09:49.789 --> 00:09:52.149 chosen as archon, right? Chief magistrate. Yes, 00:09:52.169 --> 00:09:54.690 the chief magistrate. But they gave him extraordinary 00:09:54.690 --> 00:09:57.590 powers. He was basically made a dictator for 00:09:57.590 --> 00:09:59.789 a limited time to rewrite the laws and save the 00:09:59.789 --> 00:10:02.149 city. So no pressure. You have absolute power. 00:10:02.490 --> 00:10:05.559 Everyone hates everyone. And if you fail... The 00:10:05.559 --> 00:10:08.240 city burns. Where does he even start? He starts 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:10.259 with the most immediate source of pain, the debt. 00:10:10.419 --> 00:10:12.820 He enacts a set of reforms known as the Scythia. 00:10:13.460 --> 00:10:15.500 Scythia, that's a great word. What does it translate 00:10:15.500 --> 00:10:18.879 to? The shaking off of burdens. It's poetic, 00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:22.039 but the action was concrete and immediate. He 00:10:22.039 --> 00:10:24.519 ordered the removal of the Horus markers. So 00:10:24.519 --> 00:10:26.960 those stones in the fields, he just said, rip 00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:29.399 them out. Rip them out, smash them. He annulled 00:10:29.399 --> 00:10:32.179 the contracts. If you owed money that was secured 00:10:32.179 --> 00:10:35.259 by your land or your person, that debt was wiped 00:10:35.259 --> 00:10:37.720 out. Gone. It was a massive debt jubilee. That 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:40.120 is radical. Oh. But the biggest change was the 00:10:40.120 --> 00:10:43.399 one about slavery, right? Yes. This was the fundamental 00:10:43.399 --> 00:10:46.379 shift. He prohibited for all time the practice 00:10:46.379 --> 00:10:48.679 of using a person's body as collateral for a 00:10:48.679 --> 00:10:51.399 loan. He established a fundamental human right 00:10:51.399 --> 00:10:54.279 for Athenians. No matter how poor you are, you 00:10:54.279 --> 00:10:56.919 cannot be enslaved by your fellow citizen. So 00:10:56.919 --> 00:10:59.159 he didn't just cancel the current debts. He changed 00:10:59.159 --> 00:11:01.779 the rules of the game forever. He even went further. 00:11:01.980 --> 00:11:04.600 He used state funds to track down Athenians who 00:11:04.600 --> 00:11:06.659 had been sold abroad into slavery, bought them 00:11:06.659 --> 00:11:09.039 back and brought them home. The sources say some 00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:11.080 of them had been gone so long they had forgotten 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:14.600 the attic. That is an incredible image. These 00:11:14.600 --> 00:11:17.159 people returning home, relearning their language, 00:11:17.279 --> 00:11:21.080 regaining their freedom. But there is always 00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:23.460 a but. I have to imagine the people who were 00:11:23.460 --> 00:11:25.980 owed that money were absolutely furious. Oh, 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:28.720 the rich were livid. He was destroying their 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:31.360 wealth. He was vaporizing their assets. And to 00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:33.919 make matters worse, there was a huge scandal. 00:11:34.080 --> 00:11:36.679 A scandal, do tell. Well, the story goes that 00:11:36.679 --> 00:11:39.100 shortly before Solon announced the Sisekdea, 00:11:39.299 --> 00:11:42.139 he confided in a few close friends aristocrats 00:11:42.139 --> 00:11:45.419 with names like Conan and Clinius. He told them, 00:11:45.460 --> 00:11:47.779 hey, I'm going to cancel the debts, but I'm not 00:11:47.779 --> 00:11:50.250 going to redistribute the land. Oh, no. That 00:11:50.250 --> 00:11:52.769 sounds like insider information. It was. These 00:11:52.769 --> 00:11:55.029 friends immediately went out and borrowed huge 00:11:55.029 --> 00:11:57.409 sums of money. They used that cash to buy up 00:11:57.409 --> 00:12:00.429 massive amounts of land. A few days later, Solon 00:12:00.429 --> 00:12:03.129 cancels the debts. So they keep the land. They 00:12:03.129 --> 00:12:04.769 keep the land they just bought, but they don't 00:12:04.769 --> 00:12:07.070 have to pay back the loans. They made a killing. 00:12:07.309 --> 00:12:10.070 That looks terrible. It looks like Solon rigged 00:12:10.070 --> 00:12:13.200 the system to enrich his buddies. It looked incredibly 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:15.980 suspicious. Solon was accused of being in on 00:12:15.980 --> 00:12:18.279 the con, he had to publicly defend himself, and 00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:21.080 his defense was basically, look, I lost money 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:24.419 too. He claimed he had loaned out five talents 00:12:24.419 --> 00:12:26.899 of his own money, which was a fortune, and he 00:12:26.899 --> 00:12:29.320 canceled those debts along with everyone else's. 00:12:29.399 --> 00:12:32.580 He argued, why would I cost myself a fortune 00:12:32.580 --> 00:12:35.360 just to help these guys? I'm broke too, so I 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:37.740 must be innocent. It's a bold defense. It worked 00:12:37.740 --> 00:12:40.320 enough to keep him in power. But here's the kicker, 00:12:40.340 --> 00:12:42.659 and this really shows the tightrope he was walking. 00:12:43.379 --> 00:12:46.539 The Scythia made the rich hate him because they 00:12:46.539 --> 00:12:49.480 lost money, but the poor were angry too. Why? 00:12:49.799 --> 00:12:51.580 He saved them from slavery. They wanted more. 00:12:51.700 --> 00:12:54.580 They wanted what the hill faction promised, land 00:12:54.580 --> 00:12:57.600 redistribution. They wanted Solon to take the 00:12:57.600 --> 00:12:59.740 big estates of the wealthy and chop them up into 00:12:59.740 --> 00:13:02.080 equal plots for everyone. But Solon refused. 00:13:02.399 --> 00:13:04.500 He refused. He said, I gave you your freedom. 00:13:04.539 --> 00:13:06.679 I'm not going to destroy the social order completely. 00:13:06.980 --> 00:13:09.860 He described himself in his poetry as a wolf 00:13:09.860 --> 00:13:12.600 surrounded by yapping dogs. He was being attacked 00:13:12.600 --> 00:13:15.179 from all sides. That brings us to the shield 00:13:15.179 --> 00:13:17.139 metaphor we mentioned. He wasn't trying to make 00:13:17.139 --> 00:13:18.919 one side win. He was trying to stop the fight. 00:13:19.159 --> 00:13:22.360 Exactly. But once he stopped the immediate bleeding 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:24.799 with the debt relief, he had to perform the surgery. 00:13:24.980 --> 00:13:27.720 He had to fix the broken system that caused the 00:13:27.720 --> 00:13:30.299 mess in the first place. He had to rewrite the 00:13:30.299 --> 00:13:32.960 Constitution. This is Section 3. And this is 00:13:32.960 --> 00:13:35.600 where so long really changes history. Because 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:38.580 up until this point, Power in Athens was all 00:13:38.580 --> 00:13:40.940 about your bloodline. It was about who your daddy 00:13:40.940 --> 00:13:44.179 was. Correct. It was an aristocracy. Solon shifted 00:13:44.179 --> 00:13:47.440 the entire basis of political power from aristocracy 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:50.539 to timocracy. Timocracy. That's a word we don't 00:13:50.539 --> 00:13:52.960 hear often. It means power based on wealth, or 00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:55.039 more specifically, power based on production. 00:13:55.759 --> 00:13:58.000 Solon looked at Athens and said, it shouldn't 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:00.320 matter if your last name is Codrus. It matters 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:03.220 what you contribute to the economy. So he divided 00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:06.240 the citizens into four classes based on how many 00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:08.960 measures of agricultural produce their land yielded. 00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:12.019 So he created a tax bracket system that doubled 00:14:12.019 --> 00:14:14.600 as a political hierarchy. Let's run through the 00:14:14.600 --> 00:14:17.120 classes. Who was at the top? At the very top, 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:19.620 you had the Pentecostal Indemnoy. Pentecostal 00:14:19.620 --> 00:14:22.799 Indemnoy. Try saying that three times fast. It 00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:25.730 translates to 500 measurements. These were the 00:14:25.730 --> 00:14:29.110 super rich. Their estates produced 500 bushels 00:14:29.110 --> 00:14:32.049 of grain or measures of oil. And because they 00:14:32.049 --> 00:14:34.509 produced the most, they were eligible for the 00:14:34.509 --> 00:14:37.950 highest offices. Archon, general, treasurer. 00:14:38.110 --> 00:14:41.210 They paid the most taxes, but they held the executive 00:14:41.210 --> 00:14:44.190 power. Okay, next level down. The Hippaeus. This 00:14:44.190 --> 00:14:47.539 means knights or horsemen. They produced... 300 00:14:47.539 --> 00:14:49.779 measures. The name tells you their social function. 00:14:50.019 --> 00:14:52.320 They were rich enough to own and maintain a war 00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:54.639 horse, so they served as the cavalry in the army. 00:14:54.840 --> 00:14:57.539 Then the middle class. The zugate, the yoke men. 00:14:57.720 --> 00:15:00.639 They produced 200 measures. The term yoke refers 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:03.399 to a yoke of oxen. These were the solid farmers, 00:15:03.500 --> 00:15:05.759 the backbone of the state. And in a war. In a 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:08.120 war, they could afford the bronze armor and shield 00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:10.679 to fight as hoplites, the heady infantry. And 00:15:10.679 --> 00:15:13.200 finally, the vast majority of people. The feats. 00:15:13.220 --> 00:15:15.700 Anyone producing less than 200 measures. These 00:15:15.700 --> 00:15:17.899 were the manual laborers, the landless, the poor 00:15:17.899 --> 00:15:20.700 sharecroppers. Under the old system, these people 00:15:20.700 --> 00:15:23.440 were political zeros. They had no voice, no power, 00:15:23.500 --> 00:15:26.220 nothing. Oh, Solon changes that. He does. And 00:15:26.220 --> 00:15:28.299 this is the democratic breakthrough, even if 00:15:28.299 --> 00:15:30.799 it didn't look like full democracy yet. Solon 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:33.500 admitted the feats to the ecclesia, the assembly, 00:15:33.740 --> 00:15:36.240 and to the helia, which were the jury courts. 00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:39.240 Okay, so they couldn't be archon. They couldn't 00:15:39.240 --> 00:15:42.059 run the city. But they could vote on who did 00:15:42.059 --> 00:15:44.360 run the city? Yes, they could vote in elections. 00:15:44.740 --> 00:15:48.200 But even more powerful was the jury. Solon allowed 00:15:48.200 --> 00:15:50.620 the common people to sit in judgment of the powerful. 00:15:51.019 --> 00:15:54.539 If an archon was corrupt or stole money or abused 00:15:54.539 --> 00:15:57.519 his power, a jury of common citizens could put 00:15:57.519 --> 00:15:59.919 him on trial after his term was over. That is 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:02.960 huge. Accountability. Aristotle called Solon 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:05.200 the first people's champion because of this. 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:07.639 He didn't give the poor the steering wheel, but 00:16:07.639 --> 00:16:10.090 he gave them the emergency brake. He gave them 00:16:10.090 --> 00:16:12.029 the power to protect themselves from the government. 00:16:12.230 --> 00:16:14.710 It's a brilliant check and balance. The rich 00:16:14.710 --> 00:16:16.950 get the prestige of office, but they have to 00:16:16.950 --> 00:16:19.350 answer to the poor if they mess up. Precisely. 00:16:19.870 --> 00:16:23.649 Solon also supposedly created a council of 400, 00:16:23.789 --> 00:16:27.289 100 men from each of the four tribes to steer 00:16:27.289 --> 00:16:29.950 the assembly and prepare its business. He compared 00:16:29.950 --> 00:16:32.350 the council and the old aristocratic court, the 00:16:32.350 --> 00:16:35.629 Areopagus, to two anchors holding the ship of 00:16:35.629 --> 00:16:38.370 state steady. He was obsessed with balance. So 00:16:38.370 --> 00:16:40.470 he rewires the economy. He rewires the government. 00:16:40.669 --> 00:16:42.789 But he didn't stop there. He started getting 00:16:42.789 --> 00:16:45.250 into what we would call social engineering. And 00:16:45.250 --> 00:16:48.649 some of these laws are, frankly, weird. They 00:16:48.649 --> 00:16:50.330 are weird to us, but they were very strategic. 00:16:50.649 --> 00:16:52.549 He wasn't just fixing laws. He was trying to 00:16:52.549 --> 00:16:55.029 fix the culture. Let's look at his economic policy. 00:16:55.230 --> 00:16:58.129 He banned the export of all agricultural products 00:16:58.129 --> 00:17:01.110 except for olive oil. Why specifically olive 00:17:01.110 --> 00:17:03.009 oil? Well, think about the terrain of Attica. 00:17:03.269 --> 00:17:06.670 It's rocky. It's dry. It's sun -baked. It is 00:17:06.670 --> 00:17:09.250 terrible for growing wheat, but olive trees. 00:17:09.390 --> 00:17:11.650 They love that environment. They love it. Solon 00:17:11.650 --> 00:17:13.710 realized farmers were starving because they were 00:17:13.710 --> 00:17:15.750 trying to grow grain on land that wanted to grow 00:17:15.750 --> 00:17:18.880 olives. So he forced a shift. He pushed Athens 00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:21.500 toward a cash crop economy. We are going to be 00:17:21.500 --> 00:17:23.940 the olive oil capital of the world. And it worked. 00:17:24.259 --> 00:17:26.539 But think about the knock -on effects. If you're 00:17:26.539 --> 00:17:29.119 exporting massive amounts of oil, what do you 00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:31.559 need? You need containers. So the Athenian pottery 00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:34.779 industry explodes. Those famous black figure 00:17:34.779 --> 00:17:37.359 and red figure vases, that starts here. Right. 00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:39.579 And you need ships to carry the oil, so the merchant 00:17:39.579 --> 00:17:42.440 navy expands. Which eventually turns Athens into 00:17:42.440 --> 00:17:45.579 a naval superpower. Exactly. One law about olives 00:17:45.579 --> 00:17:47.799 eventually leads to the Athenian Empire. It's 00:17:47.799 --> 00:17:50.000 an incredible chain of events. He also had a 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:51.940 law about fathers and sons, right? Something 00:17:51.940 --> 00:17:55.460 about trades. Yes. He decreed that a father must 00:17:55.460 --> 00:17:58.160 teach his son a trade. If he didn't, the son 00:17:58.160 --> 00:18:00.740 had no legal obligation to care for the father 00:18:00.740 --> 00:18:03.259 in his old age. I love that. Teach me a skill, 00:18:03.380 --> 00:18:05.460 Dad, or you're on your own when you're 80. It 00:18:05.460 --> 00:18:07.680 was brilliant. Athens was attracting immigrants, 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:10.599 but they couldn't own land. Solon needed to give 00:18:10.599 --> 00:18:13.240 them a way to survive. He wanted to dignify labor. 00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:16.180 In many aristocratic societies, working with 00:18:16.180 --> 00:18:18.660 your hands was considered shameful. Right. Solon 00:18:18.660 --> 00:18:21.099 said, no, a tradesman is a valuable citizen. 00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:24.299 He even offered citizenship to foreign craftsmen 00:18:24.299 --> 00:18:26.140 who moved their families to Athens permanently. 00:18:26.660 --> 00:18:29.720 That's a brain drain strategy. Stealing the best 00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:32.940 talent from other cities. It is. Now, here is 00:18:32.940 --> 00:18:34.660 the law that I think is the most provocative 00:18:34.660 --> 00:18:38.400 for us today. The law against neutrality. This 00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:41.940 one blew my mind. Tell us about it. Solon passed 00:18:41.940 --> 00:18:44.759 a law stating that if the city is in a state 00:18:44.759 --> 00:18:49.140 of stasis, civil strife or civil war, any citizen 00:18:49.140 --> 00:18:51.559 who does not take up arms and pick a side is 00:18:51.559 --> 00:18:54.920 disenfranchised. You lose your citizenship. That 00:18:54.920 --> 00:18:57.500 feels completely backwards. Usually we think 00:18:57.500 --> 00:18:59.400 the good citizens are the ones who stay out of 00:18:59.400 --> 00:19:02.119 the street fights. Solon is saying. If you don't 00:19:02.119 --> 00:19:04.019 fight, you're out. It's so counterintuitive, 00:19:04.039 --> 00:19:06.779 but follow his logic. He was terrified of apathy. 00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:09.180 He believed that the fanatics, the extremists, 00:19:09.180 --> 00:19:11.500 the people who want to burn the city down, they're 00:19:11.500 --> 00:19:13.740 always motivated. They will always show up. But 00:19:13.740 --> 00:19:15.779 the moderate, reasonable people just want to 00:19:15.779 --> 00:19:18.160 stay home and lock the doors. Exactly. And if 00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:20.160 the reasonable people stay home, the fanatics 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:23.859 win. Solon wanted to force the sensible center 00:19:23.859 --> 00:19:26.299 to get into the ring. He figured that if the 00:19:26.299 --> 00:19:28.359 moderates were forced to pick a side, they would 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:30.559 dilute the extremism and bring about a settlement 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:33.319 faster. So neutrality isn't a virtue. It's a 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:36.200 dereliction of duty. He demanded skin in the 00:19:36.200 --> 00:19:38.660 game. If you want the rights of a citizen, you 00:19:38.660 --> 00:19:40.740 have to risk your safety for the state. It's 00:19:40.740 --> 00:19:43.099 a radical idea. We also have to touch on his 00:19:43.099 --> 00:19:45.599 social laws regarding women and morality. This 00:19:45.599 --> 00:19:48.690 wasn't exactly a feminist paradise. No. Not at 00:19:48.690 --> 00:19:51.690 all. Solon's laws regarding women were restrictive 00:19:51.690 --> 00:19:54.369 and mostly focused on property. For example, 00:19:54.569 --> 00:19:57.609 he regulated dowries to prevent men from marrying 00:19:57.609 --> 00:20:00.470 just for money. And he had very specific laws 00:20:00.470 --> 00:20:03.029 for the epiclarus, the heiress. How did that 00:20:03.029 --> 00:20:06.150 work? If a father died with no sons, his daughter 00:20:06.150 --> 00:20:08.920 carried the estate. But she didn't... own it 00:20:08.920 --> 00:20:11.579 in the modern sense, Solon mandated that she 00:20:11.579 --> 00:20:14.039 had to marry her nearest paternal relative, usually 00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:16.819 an uncle or a cousin, to keep the property within 00:20:16.819 --> 00:20:19.039 the clan. That sounds incredibly awkward. Sorry, 00:20:19.099 --> 00:20:20.480 you have to marry your uncle because of the real 00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:22.819 estate. It was strictly business. Marriage was 00:20:22.819 --> 00:20:24.819 about the transmission of property and citizens. 00:20:25.160 --> 00:20:27.880 But Solon also regulated morality in other ways. 00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:30.900 There is a claim by the playwright Philemon that 00:20:30.900 --> 00:20:33.640 Solon established state -funded brothels. The 00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:35.440 government ran the brothels. That's the claim. 00:20:35.559 --> 00:20:38.089 The idea was to democratize pleasure. to make 00:20:38.089 --> 00:20:41.150 it affordable and available to all men, and supposedly 00:20:41.150 --> 00:20:43.410 to protect respectable women from seduction. 00:20:43.569 --> 00:20:46.349 It fits his theme of moderation and order, even 00:20:46.349 --> 00:20:49.069 if it seems strange to us. And he also regulated 00:20:49.069 --> 00:20:52.950 the gymnasiums, the wrestling halls. Yes, specifically 00:20:52.950 --> 00:20:55.430 regarding pederasty, the relationships between 00:20:55.430 --> 00:20:59.170 older men and boys. He banned slaves from entering 00:20:59.170 --> 00:21:01.650 the wrestling schools or engaging in these relationships. 00:21:01.849 --> 00:21:04.890 He was drawing a hard line. This is for citizens 00:21:04.890 --> 00:21:07.970 only. He was reinforcing the exclusivity of the 00:21:07.970 --> 00:21:10.609 citizen club. Now, practically speaking, how 00:21:10.609 --> 00:21:12.869 did people know all these laws? Did they have 00:21:12.869 --> 00:21:15.930 like a handbook? They had the axons. These were 00:21:15.930 --> 00:21:18.809 large wooden pillars. Some sources say they were 00:21:18.809 --> 00:21:21.490 four sided. Some say triangular that rotated 00:21:21.490 --> 00:21:24.069 on an axis. They were set up in the praetania 00:21:24.069 --> 00:21:25.829 in the center of government. So you could literally 00:21:25.829 --> 00:21:28.369 walk up, spin the pillar and read the law. Yes. 00:21:28.529 --> 00:21:31.430 It was a tangible, interactive user interface 00:21:31.430 --> 00:21:33.970 for the law. Before this, the law was whatever 00:21:33.970 --> 00:21:36.269 the noble judge said it was. Now the law was 00:21:36.269 --> 00:21:38.230 written down, public, and accessible to anyone 00:21:38.230 --> 00:21:41.769 who could read. It was a huge step. So, Solon 00:21:41.769 --> 00:21:44.049 does all this work. He rewires the economy, the 00:21:44.049 --> 00:21:46.250 government, the culture. He must be the most 00:21:46.250 --> 00:21:49.049 popular man in Athens. Far from it. He was miserable. 00:21:50.079 --> 00:21:53.000 Because he compromised, he managed to annoy everyone. 00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:55.619 The rich were nagging him about their lost debts. 00:21:55.819 --> 00:21:58.200 The poor were nagging him about not getting any 00:21:58.200 --> 00:22:00.619 land. People were stopping him in the street 00:22:00.619 --> 00:22:03.660 to critique his poetry and his laws. Sounds exhausting. 00:22:03.980 --> 00:22:06.859 So what does he do? He pulls the ultimate mic 00:22:06.859 --> 00:22:09.799 drop. He extracts a solemn oath from the Athenians 00:22:09.799 --> 00:22:11.900 that they will not change his laws for 10 years. 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:14.099 And then he leaves. He just takes a vacation. 00:22:14.359 --> 00:22:17.640 A 10 -year vacation. A sabbatical. He realized 00:22:17.640 --> 00:22:19.640 that if he stayed, he would become a de facto 00:22:19.640 --> 00:22:22.420 tyrant. People would constantly ask him to interpret 00:22:22.420 --> 00:22:25.220 the laws or tweak them. He wanted the laws to 00:22:25.220 --> 00:22:28.200 rule, not Solon. He wanted the Athenians to learn 00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:30.359 to live by the written word without their daddy 00:22:30.359 --> 00:22:33.339 holding their hand. That is profound self -restraint. 00:22:33.400 --> 00:22:35.180 So where did he go? He went on a grand tour. 00:22:35.359 --> 00:22:37.339 He went to Egypt, which was seen as the center 00:22:37.339 --> 00:22:39.619 of ancient wisdom. He hung out with the pharaoh 00:22:39.619 --> 00:22:42.640 Amasis II and the priests of Sais. Is this where 00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:45.269 the Atlantis connection comes in? It is. According 00:22:45.269 --> 00:22:47.950 to Plato, the Egyptian priests told Solon the 00:22:47.950 --> 00:22:51.230 story of the lost civilization of Atlantis. Solon 00:22:51.230 --> 00:22:53.650 wrote it down, intending to turn it into an epic 00:22:53.650 --> 00:22:56.490 poem. He never finished it, but the notes passed 00:22:56.490 --> 00:22:58.990 down through his family to his descendant, Plato. 00:22:59.329 --> 00:23:01.910 That's amazing. Solon is the reason we have the 00:23:01.910 --> 00:23:03.930 Atlantis myth. Where else did he go? He went 00:23:03.930 --> 00:23:06.230 to Cyprus and helped a local king design a new 00:23:06.230 --> 00:23:09.089 capital city. The king was so grateful he named 00:23:09.089 --> 00:23:11.579 the city Soloi after him. Nice to have a city 00:23:11.579 --> 00:23:14.200 named after you. But the most famous stop was 00:23:14.200 --> 00:23:17.680 Lydia, right? To meet King Croesus. Yes. This 00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:20.700 is the centerpiece of Herodotus' history. Croesus 00:23:20.700 --> 00:23:23.079 was the king of Lydia, a man of unimaginable 00:23:23.079 --> 00:23:26.000 wealth. The phrase, rich as Croesus, exists for 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:28.700 a reason. So Solon, the wise philosopher, meets 00:23:28.700 --> 00:23:31.380 Croesus, the billionaire. Croesus gives Solon 00:23:31.380 --> 00:23:33.440 the grand tour. He shows him the gold, the treasury, 00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:36.259 the jewels. He's flexing. And then he asks Solon 00:23:36.259 --> 00:23:39.200 a loaded question. Who is the happiest man you 00:23:39.200 --> 00:23:41.200 have ever seen? And obviously he expects Solon 00:23:41.200 --> 00:23:44.099 to say, you, your majesty, it's you. Naturally, 00:23:44.140 --> 00:23:46.599 but Solon thinks for a moment and names an obscure 00:23:46.599 --> 00:23:49.240 Athenian named Tellus. Croesus must have been 00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:53.000 insulted. Who on earth was Tellus? Solon explains. 00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:56.240 Tellus lived in a flourishing city, he had fine 00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:59.420 sons, he saw his grandchildren born, and he died 00:23:59.420 --> 00:24:01.779 a glorious death in battle defending his country 00:24:01.779 --> 00:24:05.059 and was honored with a public funeral. So a good 00:24:05.059 --> 00:24:07.839 life and a good death. Croesus is annoyed, but 00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:10.920 he asks, OK, who is the second happiest, expecting 00:24:10.920 --> 00:24:14.200 to be at least the runner up? Solon names Cleobus 00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:17.180 and Byton, two brothers from Argos. What was 00:24:17.180 --> 00:24:19.539 their story? They were strong athletes who died 00:24:19.539 --> 00:24:21.660 in their sleep after performing a great act of 00:24:21.660 --> 00:24:24.309 devotion to their mother. Again, a noble life 00:24:24.309 --> 00:24:27.289 and a peaceful end. Croesus finally snaps. He 00:24:27.289 --> 00:24:29.450 yells, what about me? Is my happiness nothing 00:24:29.450 --> 00:24:32.490 to you? Look at all this gold. And this is where 00:24:32.490 --> 00:24:34.650 Solon drops the wisdom bomb. Solon says, count 00:24:34.650 --> 00:24:37.710 no man happy until he is dead. That sounds incredibly 00:24:37.710 --> 00:24:40.289 grim. It sounds grim, but it's practical. He 00:24:40.289 --> 00:24:42.589 explains to the king, life is long and full of 00:24:42.589 --> 00:24:44.529 changes. You are rich today, but a lucky man 00:24:44.529 --> 00:24:47.269 is not the same as a happy man. Disaster can 00:24:47.269 --> 00:24:49.690 strike at any moment. Until the story is over, 00:24:49.750 --> 00:24:51.839 we can't judge the quality of the life. He's 00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:54.400 saying happiness isn't a state of being. It's 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:56.539 the final score at the end of the game. Exactly. 00:24:56.880 --> 00:24:59.180 Croesus dismisses him as a fool and sends him 00:24:59.180 --> 00:25:02.779 away. But history has a way of proving Solon 00:25:02.779 --> 00:25:05.960 right. Years later, Croesus loses his kingdom 00:25:05.960 --> 00:25:08.960 to the Persians. He is captured by Cyrus the 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:10.500 Great. And he's about to be executed, right? 00:25:10.579 --> 00:25:13.059 Burned alive. He is tied to a pyre to be burned 00:25:13.059 --> 00:25:15.619 alive. And as the flames are being lit, the reality 00:25:15.619 --> 00:25:18.460 hits him. He remembers Solon's warning and he 00:25:18.460 --> 00:25:22.779 starts screaming, Solon! Solon! So what? Talk 00:25:22.779 --> 00:25:25.480 about a callback. Cyrus hues him and asks, who 00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:28.460 are you calling for? Is it a god? Croesus tells 00:25:28.460 --> 00:25:30.279 him the story of the Greek sage who warned him 00:25:30.279 --> 00:25:33.000 that wealth doesn't equal happiness. Cyrus is 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.279 so moved by the story, realizing that he too 00:25:35.279 --> 00:25:37.980 is just a man whose luck could change, that he 00:25:37.980 --> 00:25:40.579 orders the fire extinguished and spares Croesus' 00:25:40.680 --> 00:25:43.539 life. So Solon's philosophy literally saved a 00:25:43.539 --> 00:25:45.900 king's life years after he said it. That is a 00:25:45.900 --> 00:25:48.299 powerful legacy. It is. But unfortunately, his 00:25:48.299 --> 00:25:50.799 legacy back in Athens wasn't quite as secure. 00:25:51.059 --> 00:25:53.400 Right. So Solon eventually returns to Athens 00:25:53.400 --> 00:25:56.069 after his 10 years. He's an old man now. Does 00:25:56.069 --> 00:25:58.430 he find the stable, law -abiding city he dreamed 00:25:58.430 --> 00:26:02.269 of? Sadly, no. He returns to find the factions 00:26:02.269 --> 00:26:05.349 fighting again. The system was straining. And 00:26:05.349 --> 00:26:08.210 worst of all, a new threat was rising. A man 00:26:08.210 --> 00:26:11.309 named Pisistratus. Who was Pisistratus? He was 00:26:11.309 --> 00:26:14.569 a relative of Solon. He was a war hero, charismatic, 00:26:14.769 --> 00:26:17.910 and very ambitious. He was positioning himself 00:26:17.910 --> 00:26:21.940 as the champion of the hill. the poor. He was 00:26:21.940 --> 00:26:24.680 promising them the land redistribution that Solon 00:26:24.680 --> 00:26:28.079 had refused. So he's a populist. A classic populist 00:26:28.079 --> 00:26:31.140 demagogue. Solon saw right through him. He warned 00:26:31.140 --> 00:26:33.559 the Athenians. He went into the Agora and told 00:26:33.559 --> 00:26:36.799 them, he is a fox. Do not trust him. But the 00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:38.900 people were charmed. Mr. Stratus pulled a stunt 00:26:38.900 --> 00:26:41.539 to get power. A famous one. The oldest trick 00:26:41.539 --> 00:26:44.299 in the book. He wounded himself, cut his own 00:26:44.299 --> 00:26:46.859 body, and had his mules wounded, and then rode 00:26:46.859 --> 00:26:49.480 into the marketplace covered in blood. He claimed 00:26:49.480 --> 00:26:51.539 his political enemies had tried to assassinate 00:26:51.539 --> 00:26:53.539 him because he loved the people so much. Look 00:26:53.539 --> 00:26:55.380 what the elites did to me. I need protection. 00:26:55.599 --> 00:26:58.259 Exactly. He asked the assembly for a bodyguard 00:26:58.259 --> 00:27:00.880 of club bearers. Solon begged them not to do 00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:03.220 it. He knew a bodyguard was the first step to 00:27:03.220 --> 00:27:05.740 a private army. There's a dramatic image of Solon 00:27:05.740 --> 00:27:08.720 here that I really like. His last stand. Yes. 00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:12.359 Old Solon, now in his 70s, went into his house, 00:27:12.460 --> 00:27:15.440 put on his full military armor, took his shield 00:27:15.440 --> 00:27:18.380 and spear, and stood outside his door. What was 00:27:18.380 --> 00:27:20.619 he trying to say? It was a symbolic protest. 00:27:21.220 --> 00:27:23.819 He told the Athenians, I am holding out alone 00:27:23.819 --> 00:27:26.339 to defend my country and its laws. He called 00:27:26.339 --> 00:27:28.819 them cowards for letting Pasistratus fool them. 00:27:29.059 --> 00:27:31.880 He said, it is easy to stop a tyranny while it 00:27:31.880 --> 00:27:33.940 is young, but hard to cut it down when it has 00:27:33.940 --> 00:27:36.779 grown tall. But they didn't listen. No, they 00:27:36.779 --> 00:27:39.230 voted for the bodyguard. Pisistratus used the 00:27:39.230 --> 00:27:41.769 club bearers to seize the Acropolis and declared 00:27:41.769 --> 00:27:44.809 himself tyrant. That is heartbreaking. Solon 00:27:44.809 --> 00:27:47.250 spent his whole life trying to prevent tyranny, 00:27:47.309 --> 00:27:49.289 and he has to watch it happen right before he 00:27:49.289 --> 00:27:52.730 dies. He died shortly after, around 560 BC. His 00:27:52.730 --> 00:27:55.109 ashes were scattered by his request on the island 00:27:55.109 --> 00:27:57.710 of Selemis, the island he won back for Athens. 00:27:58.029 --> 00:28:00.829 So we have to ask the hard question. Was Solon 00:28:00.829 --> 00:28:03.230 a failure? If you look at the short term, yes, 00:28:03.390 --> 00:28:05.210 absolutely. The constitution failed. Tyranny 00:28:05.210 --> 00:28:07.460 took over. But if you zoom out... Absolutely 00:28:07.460 --> 00:28:10.259 not. How so? Because Pasistratus, the tyrant, 00:28:10.359 --> 00:28:13.539 was actually a smart guy. He didn't tear up Solon's 00:28:13.539 --> 00:28:16.079 laws. He kept the structure. He kept the archons, 00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:18.640 the assembly, the courts. He just made sure his 00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:20.779 friends won the elections. So the hardware remained, 00:28:21.079 --> 00:28:24.079 even if the software was hacked. Exactly. And 00:28:24.079 --> 00:28:26.839 because the structure survived, the idea survived. 00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:29.960 Solon had broken the monopoly of the bloodline 00:28:29.960 --> 00:28:32.799 aristocracy. He established the principle that 00:28:33.079 --> 00:28:35.660 A citizen is someone who participates in justice. 00:28:36.039 --> 00:28:39.059 That idea of the jury, that a poor man can judge 00:28:39.059 --> 00:28:42.740 a rich man, that didn't go away. It didn't. Solon 00:28:42.740 --> 00:28:45.539 created the mental space for democracy. He planted 00:28:45.539 --> 00:28:48.079 the seeds. It took another generation for Cleisnes 00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:50.079 to come along and do the next round of reforms, 00:28:50.339 --> 00:28:53.259 and then Pericles later on. But Solon did the 00:28:53.259 --> 00:28:55.920 heavy lifting. He moved Athens from a tribal 00:28:55.920 --> 00:28:58.599 oligarchy to a state based on written law. And 00:28:58.599 --> 00:29:00.519 he did it by refusing to be a tyrant himself. 00:29:01.320 --> 00:29:02.740 That's the thing that sticks with me. He had 00:29:02.740 --> 00:29:04.599 the power. He could have been to sister at us, 00:29:04.660 --> 00:29:07.559 but he chose to walk away. He chose the law over 00:29:07.559 --> 00:29:09.759 himself. And I think the best way to sum him 00:29:09.759 --> 00:29:11.960 up is to go back to his poetry. He used that 00:29:11.960 --> 00:29:13.740 metaphor of the shield, the shield of might. 00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:17.440 He wrote before them both. I held my shield of 00:29:17.440 --> 00:29:20.099 might and let not either touch the others. Right. 00:29:20.759 --> 00:29:23.460 He saw himself as the protector of both the rich 00:29:23.460 --> 00:29:26.329 and the poor. Protecting the rich from the poor's 00:29:26.329 --> 00:29:29.170 desire for total confiscation and protecting 00:29:29.170 --> 00:29:31.470 the poor from the rich's desire for slavery. 00:29:31.630 --> 00:29:34.170 And that is a thankless job. You end up hated 00:29:34.170 --> 00:29:37.210 by both sides. But that is the burden of a true 00:29:37.210 --> 00:29:40.410 lawgiver. He wasn't trying to be popular. He 00:29:40.410 --> 00:29:43.410 was trying to be just. It's a fascinating legacy. 00:29:44.829 --> 00:29:46.990 I can't stop thinking about that neutrality law 00:29:46.990 --> 00:29:48.950 we discussed. That seems like the most relevant 00:29:48.950 --> 00:29:51.390 takeaway for us. The law against apathy. Yes. 00:29:51.890 --> 00:29:54.329 We live in such a polarized world now. You often 00:29:54.329 --> 00:29:56.730 hear people say, I hate politics. It's toxic. 00:29:56.869 --> 00:29:58.089 I just want to stay out of it. I'm just going 00:29:58.089 --> 00:29:59.990 to tend my garden. And Salon would say that is 00:29:59.990 --> 00:30:02.049 the most dangerous attitude of all. Exactly. 00:30:02.309 --> 00:30:04.269 He would tell us that neutrality isn't a virtue. 00:30:04.349 --> 00:30:06.990 It's a surrender. He would say that if you care 00:30:06.990 --> 00:30:09.289 about the stability of your state, you have to 00:30:09.289 --> 00:30:11.269 get in the ring. You have to pick a side. Or 00:30:11.269 --> 00:30:13.549 at least pick up your shield and stand for something. 00:30:14.140 --> 00:30:16.619 Because if the reasonable people disengage, the 00:30:16.619 --> 00:30:18.940 unreasonable people take over. Well, on that 00:30:18.940 --> 00:30:21.819 provocative note, we will leave you to think 00:30:21.819 --> 00:30:24.859 about Solon, the poet politician who invented 00:30:24.859 --> 00:30:27.299 the citizen. Thanks for diving deep with us. 00:30:27.460 --> 00:30:28.680 It was a pleasure. See you next time.