Solon's reforms at Athens
- Date
- c. 594 BCE
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Greece (Attica)
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
Around 594 BCE the Athenians appointed the statesman and poet Solon as archon with extraordinary powers to resolve a grave social and economic crisis. Rampant debt had reduced many farmers to debt-bondage, threatening civil war between rich and poor.
Solon's central measure, the seisachtheia or 'shaking off of burdens', cancelled outstanding debts, freed those enslaved for debt, restored mortgaged land by removing the boundary markers (horoi), and banned loans secured on the borrower's own person. He reorganised the citizen body into four property classes that determined political rights and military obligations, opened the law courts to appeals by ordinary citizens, and allowed any Athenian, not only the injured party, to bring certain prosecutions. While Solon stopped short of full democracy, leaving real power with the wealthier classes, his reforms established the principle that the laws of the polis bound rich and poor alike and that citizenship carried civic rights. By averting tyranny-by-default and broadening participation in justice, Solon laid essential foundations on which Cleisthenes would later build Athenian democracy. He then reportedly left Athens for a decade so the new laws could take root.
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Empires active in c. 594 BCE
- Roman Kingdom753 BCE – 509 BCE
- Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire626 BCE – 539 BCE
- Scythians800 BCE – 300 BCE
- Zhou Dynasty1046 BCE – 256 BCE
- Carthaginian Empire650 BCE – 146 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE – 350 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Cleisthenes' reforms establish Athenian democracy508/507 BCE
- Cyrus the Great Founds the Achaemenid Persian Empire550 BCE
- Foundation of the Roman Republicc. 509 BCE (traditional)
- Rise of the sixteen Mahajanapadas in northern Indiac. 600 BCE
- Cyrus Conquers Babylon and the Cyrus Cylinder539 BCE
- Guan Zhong's Reforms and the First Hegemony (Qi)c. 685–645 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire
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