Cylon (632 BC)
Cylon, an Athenian noble and a winner at Olympia (640 BC?), married the daughter of Theogenes, tyrant of Megara. In an Olympic year (632 BC), Cylon, intending a tyranny, seized the Acropolis but the people did not support him. He escaped the citadel with his brother but the remaining conspirators were forced to seek shelter in the temple of Athena. In exchange for their surrender these conspirators were promised that their lives would be spared. For unknown reasons Megacles (1) the archon betrayed the promises and ordered the conspirators killed. In line with beliefs surrounding the act of murder and in the tradition of blood feuds the Athenians deemed this act to be a great pollution of their city. Megacles and his family, the Alcmaeonidae, were cursed and banished from Attica.
Draco (fl.c.621 BC)
It appears that the people of Athens became increasingly unwilling to accept the arbitrary court rulings by the Eupatridae, and asked for the laws to be written down. In c.621 BC Draco codified Athenian law for the first time. A conviction of many of the crimes enumerated in his written code meant death for the accused. So severe were the penalties for crimes ranging from murder to the theft of vegetables that the word ‘draconian’ is still used to denote harsh laws or regimes. When asked why he specified death for so many offences, he replied that small offences deserved death and he knew of no severer penalty for great ones. The saying that ‘Draco wrote his laws in blood not ink’ is attributed to Demades (c.380-318 BC).
Solon (archon 594/3 BC)
Solon (c.638-c.558 BC) was an Athenian statesman of noble descent but moderate means. He was prominent in Athens’ war with Megara for the possession of Salamis, urging his countrymen to renewed efforts when they despaired of success (c.600 BC?). At some stage, during his archonship (594/3 BC) or more probably about twenty years later, he was asked to revise the law-code. After his reforms he is said to have spent ten years in overseas travel. It may be true that he returned at the time of the troubles and tried to warn the Athenians against Pisistratus (r.c.561*527 BC).
Primogeniture not being recognised in Athens, there was a tendency for ancestral plots of land to be progressively subdivided, with the result that some properties were hardly large enough to support a family. In difficult times some small-holders had to borrow corn from wealthier neighbours. On default of payment they became hectemoroi (‘sixth-part men’), they had to give their creditors one sixth of the produce of the land on penalty of enslavement for themselves and their families. Solon’s Seisachtheia (‘shaking off of burdens’) cancelled all debts for which land or liberty was the security and so released the peasants from serfdom, restored their farms, redeemed all those who had been sold into slavery and forbade all borrowing on the security of person in future.
Solon replaced distinctions of birth with four economically defined classes: pentacosiomedimni (‘500-bushel-men’), the highest property class; hippeis (‘cavalry’, ‘knights’); zeugitae (‘yoke-men’); and thetes, hired labourers, the lowest class of free men. The major offices and the Areopagus were reserved for the two highest classes; the zeugitae were eligible for the minor offices; the thetes could not hold office but could attend the Ecclesia and also the Heliaia, an assembly of citizens that met to hear appeals against magistrates’ verdicts. Solon created a new elective council (boule) of four hundred to perform the task of probouleusis (‘advance deliberation’) before the Ecclesia’s meetings.
To counter the pauperization that made borrowing necessary, Solon began the task of moving Athens from a purely agricultural to a primarily trading economy by offering grants of citizenship to immigrant craftsmen and prohibiting the export of agricultural products other than olive oil, encouraging the growth of olives. Athens at the time was using the coinage associated with the great trading state of Aegina, the Pheidonian standard. Solon switched to the Attic (Euboic) standard, equivalent in weight to that minted in Corinth, opening the way for increased contact with the rich Corinthian trade with the Greek settlements in the west. Some see this is a kind of currency inflation.
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