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160-531: Critias was the scion of one of the premier families in Athens. The evidence for his lineage comes from several sources and there are numerous gaps in what they have to say. The reconstruction in Davies' Athenian Propertied Families is the most reliable and his discussion covers all the unknowns and suppositions. Without detailing the uncertainties here, as best we know, his ancestors were: The progenitor of

320-422: A phyle or tribe and one of its subdivisions, the phratry or brotherhood, but also to an extended family, clan or genos . It has been argued that these interconnecting units of kinship reinforced a hierarchic structure with aristocratic clans at the top. Thus rivalries between aristocratic clans could engage all levels of society irrespective of any regional ties. In that case, the struggle between rich and poor

480-690: A "war party" led by Alcibiades. The peace established in Sicily at the Congress of Gela did not last long. Shortly after the Congress, Syracuse intervened in an episode of civil strife between the democratic and oligarchic parties in Leontini , supporting the oligarchs. Before too long, the prospect of foreign domination had united the Leontinians, and the two parties united in war against Syracuse. Athens had sent an emissary to Sicily in 422 to sound out

640-612: A 2nd-century CE Roman senator and rhetorician, attempted a revival of Critias’ works in the 2nd century CE. Among his extensive comments on Herodes, Philostratus inserted this: For while he devoted himself to the study of all the older writers, from Critias he was inseparable, and he made the Greeks better acquainted with him, since he had hitherto been neglected and overlooked. Our judgment today would not be much different than that of Philostratus, since Critias' extant works have diminished still further. What fragments survive were collected by

800-551: A convenient basis for an overview of the issues involved. Economic and ideological rivalry is a common theme in ancient sources. This sort of account emerges from Solon's poems, in which he casts himself in the role of a noble mediator between two intemperate and unruly factions. This same account is substantially taken up about three centuries later by the author of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia but with an interesting variation: ... there

960-428: A convenient framework within which to consider the laws that have been attributed to Solon. Some short-term consequences of his reforms are considered at the end of the section. Depending on how we interpret the historical facts known to us, Solon's constitutional reforms were either a radical anticipation of democratic government, or they merely provided a plutocratic flavour to a stubbornly aristocratic regime, or else

1120-634: A crucial period of economic transition, when a subsistence rural economy increasingly required the support of a nascent commercial sector. The specific economic reforms credited to Solon are these: It is generally assumed, on the authority of ancient commentators, that Solon also reformed the Athenian coinage . However, recent numismatic studies now lead to the conclusion that Athens probably had no coinage until around 560 BC, well after Solon's reforms. Nevertheless, there are now reasons to suggest that monetization had already begun before Solon's reforms. By

1280-539: A cunning trick or more directly through heroic battle around 595 BC. The Megarians, however, refused to give up their claim. The dispute was referred to the Spartans, who eventually awarded possession of the island to Athens on the strength of the case that Solon put to them. Plutarch professes admiration of Solon's elegy. The same poem was said by Diogenes Laërtius to have stirred Athenians more than any other verses that Solon wrote: Let us go to Salamis to fight for

1440-745: A death sentence in absentia , his guilt seemingly proven. In Sparta, Alcibiades gave the members of the Peloponnesian League critical information on the Athenian Empire. In Sicily, the fleet was redivided into two parts. The first contingent, commanded by Nicias, sailed to Segesta and forced the Segestans to pay the thirty talents they had promised the Athenians for their assistance against their rival Selinus . The second contingent, under Lamachus, sailed to and stormed Hyccara,

1600-401: A disaster." After lengthy preparations, the fleet was ready to sail. The night before they were to leave, someone destroyed many of the hermai —the stone markers representing Hermes , placed around the city for good luck. This event was taken very seriously by the Athenian people as it was considered a bad omen for the expedition, as well as evidence of a revolutionary conspiracy to overthrow

1760-474: A family might voluntarily pledge part of its farm income or labour to a powerful clan in return for its protection. Farmers subject to these sorts of arrangements were loosely known as hektemoroi indicating that they either paid or kept a sixth of a farm's annual yield. In the event of 'bankruptcy', or failure to honour the contract stipulated by the horoi , farmers and their families could in fact be sold into slavery. Solon's reform of these injustices

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1920-419: A force to Sicily, and warned that they would be opening hostilities with enemies too difficult and numerous to conquer and rule. Nicias also attacked Alcibiades's credibility, claiming that he and his allies were inexperienced and self-aggrandizing young men eager to lead Athens into war for their own ends. In response, Alcibiades dismissed the attack on himself by pointing to the good he had done for Athens as

2080-580: A good man toward the end of his life, inasmuch as he employed tyranny as his winding-sheet [burial shroud]. But let it be declared on my part that none among men died well in behalf of a poor choice. And it seems to me that for this reason the man's wisdom and his thoughts were taken less seriously by the Greeks. Unless speech corresponds to character, we shall appear to be discoursing in an alien language, as though we were playing flutes. Xenophon lumped Critias in with his friend Alcibiades in his criticism: Critias and Alcibiades became disciples of Socrates and did

2240-478: A great degree because of the person who first brought them news of it. For a certain stranger, it seems, coming to Piraeus, and there sitting in a barber's shop, began to talk of what had happened, as if the Athenians already knew all that had passed; which the barber hearing, before he acquainted anybody else, ran as fast as he could up into the city, addressed himself to the Archons , and presently spread it about in

2400-435: A herdsman who lets his cattle decrease and go to the bad should not admit that he is a poor cowherd; but stranger still that a statesman, when he causes the citizens to decrease and go to the bad, should feel no shame nor think himself a poor statesman. At another point, his critique became more personal. Xenophon related that Socrates took his old friend to task for being overly enamored with a young man. Critias seems to have

2560-619: A law relating to homicide, yet there is consensus among scholars that it did not amount to anything like a constitution. During his visit to Athens, Pausanias , the 2nd century AD geographer reported that the inscribed laws of Solon were still displayed by the Prytaneion. Fragments of the axones were still visible in Plutarch 's time but today the only records we have of Solon's laws are fragmentary quotes and comments in literary sources such as those written by Plutarch himself. Moreover,

2720-523: A long and illustrious (if at times contentious) history in Athenian politics. In addition to the Solon connection, they were related to Plato 's family, equally well established among the Athenian elite, and also to the family of the orator Andocides . Little is known of Critias' early years. Athenaeus reported that he was a trained aulos player.  He was best attested as a poet, with a variety of forms to his credit: hexameters, elegies, and dramas. Among

2880-547: A member of the Four Hundred, but there is little evidence of this. Arguing against that possibility is that in the days following their deposition he was recorded as proposing two decrees before the reconstituted Assembly: one to hold a post-mortem trial of one of the perpetrators of the coup, one Phrynichus, the other to repatriate his friend Alcibiades, who had been exiled at the start of the Sicilian expedition for mocking

3040-465: A motion allowing the generals to arrange for a force of over 100 ships and 5,000 hoplites. Nicias's ploy had failed badly. His misreading of the assembly had altered the strategic situation; whereas the loss of 60 ships would have been painful but bearable, the loss of the larger force would be catastrophic. "Without Nicias's intervention," wrote Donald Kagan , "there would have been an Athenian expedition against Sicily in 415, but there could not have been

3200-413: A noble or Eupatrid clan. Solon's father was probably Execestides. If so, his lineage could be traced back to Codrus , the last King of Athens . According to Diogenes Laërtius , he had a brother named Dropides, who was an ancestor (six generations removed) of Plato . According to Plutarch, Solon was related to the tyrant Pisistratus , for their mothers were cousins. Solon was eventually drawn into

3360-527: A number of reasons; Attic pleaders did not hesitate to attribute to him (Solon) any law which suited their case, and later writers had no criterion by which to distinguish earlier from later works. Nor can any complete and authentic collection of his statutes have survived for ancient scholars to consult. Besides the alleged legislative aspect of Solon's involvement with pederasty, there were also suggestions of personal involvement. Ancient readers concluded, based on his own erotic poetry, that Solon himself had

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3520-642: A number of warriors, it provided crucial support to the Athenians. Athens and Syracuse also tried to gain assistance from the Greek cities in Italy. In Corinth, representatives from Syracuse met with Alcibiades, who was working with Sparta. Alcibiades informed Sparta that there would be an invasion of the Peloponnese if Sicily was conquered, and that they should send help to Syracuse and also fortify Decelea near Athens. The Athenians, he said, feared nothing more than

3680-426: A poet and essayist, his works survived for several centuries, as the above citations attest, but his repute as a writer eventually faded. Philostratus, writing in the 3rd century CE, said of Critias: He wrote tragedies, elegies, and prose works, of which not enough has survived for any sure estimate to be made of his talent. He was greatly admired by the later sophists, especially by Herodes Atticus. Herodes Atticus ,

3840-409: A preference for boys. According to some ancient authors Solon had taken the future tyrant Pisistratus as his eromenos . Aristotle, writing around 330 BC, attempted to refute that belief, claiming that "those are manifestly talking nonsense who pretend that Solon was the lover of Pisistratus, for their ages do not admit of it", as Solon was about thirty years older than Pisistratus. Nevertheless,

4000-438: A private citizen and public leader. He rebutted Nicias's warnings about the plan for the expedition by reminding the Athenians of their obligation to their Sicilian allies, appealing to the enterprising spirit that had won Athens her empire, and pointing out that many states on Sicily would support Athens in her operations there. The assembly was clearly leaning towards Alcibiades's side, so Nicias, judging them unlikely to cancel

4160-549: A regulator of Athenian society, Solon, according to some authors, also formalized its sexual mores. According to a surviving fragment from a work ("Brothers") by the comic playwright Philemon , Solon established publicly funded brothels at Athens in order to "democratize" the availability of sexual pleasure. While the veracity of this comic account is open to doubt, at least one modern author considers it significant that in Classical Athens, three hundred or so years after

4320-404: A second assembly was held to arrange the logistics of the expedition. There, Nicias attempted to persuade the assembly to overturn its previous decision regarding whether to send an expedition at all. Over the course of several speeches, Nicias raised a series of different arguments against the expedition. He reminded the Athenians that they would be leaving powerful enemies behind them if they sent

4480-491: A series of "Commonwealths" or treatises on the governments of various city-states. Athens, Lacedaemonia (Sparta), and Thessaly are specific mentions made in ancient sources. Other works include Aphorisms , Lectures , On the Nature of Desires or of Virtues , and Proems (Prologues) for Public Speaking . He believed religion could play an important role in achieving obedience to the state. According to pseudo-Plutarch , he

4640-545: A set of contradictory stories or a complex story that might be interpreted in a variety of ways. As further evidence accumulates, and as historians continue to debate the issues, Solon's motivations and the intentions behind his reforms will continue to attract speculation. Two contemporary historians have identified three distinct historical accounts of Solon's Athens, emphasizing quite different rivalries: economic and/or ideological rivalry, regional rivalry, and rivalry between aristocratic clans. These different accounts provide

4800-401: A set of laws that were intended to promote and safeguard the institution of pederasty and to control abuses against freeborn boys. In particular, the orator Aeschines cites laws excluding slaves from wrestling halls and forbidding them to enter pederastic relationships with the sons of citizens. Accounts of Solon's laws by 4th century orators like Aeschines, however, are considered unreliable for

4960-469: A similar story about Socrates and the poet Stesichorus , quoting the philosopher's rapture in almost identical terms: ut aliquid sciens amplius e vita discedam , meaning "in order to leave life knowing a little more". The social and political upheavals that characterized Athens in Solon's time have been variously interpreted by historians from ancient times to the present day. The historical account of Solon's Athens has evolved over many centuries into

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5120-698: A small Syracusan force guarding the river Anapus , but other Syracusan cavalry and light troops continually harassed them. Near the Erineus river, Demosthenes and Nicias became separated, and Demosthenes was attacked by the Syracusans and forced to surrender his 6,000 troops. The rest of the Syracusans followed Nicias to the Assinarus river, where Nicias's troops became disorganized in the rush to find drinking water. Many Athenians were trampled to death and others were killed while fighting with fellow Athenians. On

5280-452: A small city allied to Selinus, and enslaved its populace. The Athenian army then marched through the Sicilian interior, to impress and negotiate with the Sicels , and returned to Catania. There they wintered and made preparations for their upcoming siege of Syracuse. When the campaigning season started, the Syracusans moved against the Athenians while they were still encamped at Catania. While

5440-504: A stable anti-Spartan alliance in the Peloponnese. That attempt, largely orchestrated by the Athenian nobleman Alcibiades, would have destroyed Sparta's control over the Peloponnesian League had it succeeded. Alcibiades rebounded politically from this defeat, and was elected as a general in the spring of 417. Control of Athens' foreign policy remained divided between a "peace party" (or pro-Spartan party) led by Nicias , and

5600-517: A staunch opponent of Pisistratus. In protest, and as an example to others, Solon stood outside his own home in full armour, urging all who passed to resist the machinations of the would-be tyrant. His efforts were in vain. Solon died shortly after Pisistratus usurped by force the autocratic power that Athens had once freely bestowed upon him. Solon died in Cyprus around the age of 70 and, in accordance with his will, his ashes were scattered around Salamis,

5760-675: A sudden attack, he felt, would catch the Syracusans off guard and possibly induce their quick surrender. Eventually, however, Lamachus settled the three-way division of opinion by endorsing Alcibiades's plan. The Athenian fleet first sailed to Corcyra to meet up with their allies, and the ships were divided into three sections, one for each commander. Three of the ships were sent ahead to look for allies in Sicily. The fleet at this point consisted of 134 triremes (100 of which were from Athens), 5,100 hoplites (of which 2,200 were Athenians), 480 archers , 700 slingers , 120 other light troops, and 30 cavalry , as well as 130 other supply ships and all

5920-543: The seisachtheia (shaking off of burdens). He is described by Aristotle in the Athenian Constitution as "the first people's champion". Demosthenes credited Solon's reforms with starting a golden age. Modern knowledge of Solon is limited by the fact that his works only survive in fragments and appear to feature interpolations by later authors. It is further limited by the general paucity of documentary and archaeological evidence covering Athens in

6080-422: The hippeis . The top three classes were eligible for a variety of lesser posts and only the thetes were excluded from all public office. The real motives behind Solon's economic reforms are as questionable as his real motives for constitutional reform. Were the poor being forced to serve the needs of a changing economy, was the economy being reformed to serve the needs of the poor, or were Solon's policies

6240-547: The horoi clearly provided immediate economic relief for the most oppressed group in Attica, and it also brought an immediate end to the enslavement of Athenians by their countrymen. Some Athenians had already been sold into slavery abroad and some had fled abroad to escape enslavement – Solon proudly records in verse the return of this diaspora. It has been cynically observed, however, that few of these unfortunates were likely to have been recovered. It has been observed also that

6400-430: The seisachtheia not only removed slavery and accumulated debt but may also have removed the ordinary farmer's only means of obtaining further credit. The seisachtheia however was merely one set of reforms within a broader agenda of moral reformation. Other reforms included: Demosthenes claimed that the city's subsequent golden age included "personal modesty and frugality" among the Athenian aristocracy. As

6560-533: The gerousia . Critias had returned from Thessaly as part of the recall of the exiles and now became one of the leaders of the " Thirty ". One source said that they also appointed five men to supervise this group, called ephors after the similar body at Sparta. Critias was one of the five. A third body was designated: the Three Thousand – those of the cavalry ( hippeis ) and infantry ( hoplite ) classes, who were allowed to keep their armor and weapons after

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6720-531: The Eleusinian Mysteries , the most sacred religious cult at Athens. The playboy-general was at that time assisting the Athenian fleet at Samos and attempting to ingratiate himself with those who had banished him a few years earlier. These two actions, while not clearly exonerating Critias, show that he was politically adept enough to shed the stigma of participating in the takeover, if he indeed had. Alcibiades' rapprochement with his fellow citizens

6880-612: The Peace of Nicias had brought the Archidamian War to a close. The terms of that peace, however, had never been fulfilled; Sparta had never surrendered Amphipolis to Athens, as required by the treaty, and in return the Athenians had held Pylos . More recently, Athenian and Spartan troops had fought at the Battle of Mantinea in 418, with Athens supporting Argos , Mantinea , and other Peloponnesian cities in an attempt to establish

7040-420: The assembly , where debate over the proposal quickly divided along traditional factional lines. The assembly eventually approved an expedition composed of sixty triremes , without hoplite accompaniment, commanded by Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus . Thucydides reports that Nicias had been appointed against his preference, but offers no further detail regarding that debate. Five days after that first debate,

7200-580: The Aegean between 600 BC and 560 BC, a success story that coincided with a decline in trade in Corinthian pottery. The ban on the export of grain might be understood as a relief measure for the benefit of the poor. However, the encouragement of olive production for export could actually have led to increased hardship for many Athenians to the extent that it led to a reduction in the amount of land dedicated to grain. Moreover, an olive tree produces no fruit for

7360-626: The Areopagus favoured his prosecution. According to the Athenian Constitution , Solon legislated for all citizens to be admitted into the Ekklesia and for a court (the Heliaia ) to be formed from all the citizens. The Heliaia appears to have been the Ekklesia, or some representative portion of it, sitting as a jury. By giving common people the power not only to elect officials but also to call them to account, Solon appears to have established

7520-426: The Athenian center under Menander eventually broke and was routed. Instead of pursuing their fleeing opponents, Pythen turned his Corinthian ships to attack the now-vulnerable Athenian right wing under Euthydemus. Beset from multiple sides, the right wing was defeated and largely destroyed; Euthydemus was killed as he tried to escape on the nearby shore. The destruction of Euthydemus' contingent shattered what remained of

7680-474: The Athenian fleet's order. The Athenian ships were subsequently pushed toward the coast; most Athenian crews abandoned their trapped vessels and fled to the camp behind their wall. Seeing the vulnerable Athenians running from their beached vessels, Gylippus ordered a furious but disorganized attack on land to catch his enemies before they could reach their base. However, the Spartan-led force was confronted by

7840-414: The Athenian ships (25 of which were triremes) in the harbour. Gylippus commanded a simultaneous attack on the Athenian land forces. In the harbour, the Athenians were successful, losing only three ships while the Syracusans lost eleven. However, Gylippus defeated the Athenians on land and captured two Athenian forts. Afterwards, Gylippus succeeded in convincing all the neutral cities on Sicily to join him, but

8000-420: The Athenian wall useless. The Corinthian fleet also arrived, under the command of Erasinides . Nicias, exhausted and suffering from illness, now believed it would be impossible to capture Syracuse. He wrote a letter to Athens, not trusting messengers to give an accurate report, and suggested that they either recall the expedition or send out massive reinforcements. He hoped they would choose to recall him, if not

8160-481: The Athenians could not induce him to repeal any of his laws. Within four years of Solon's departure, the old social rifts re-appeared, but with some new complications. There were irregularities in the new governmental procedures, elected officials sometimes refused to stand down from their posts and occasionally important posts were left vacant. It has even been said that some people blamed Solon for their troubles. Eventually one of Solon's relatives, Pisistratus, ended

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8320-487: The Athenians inside. Outside Syracuse, the Athenians built a smaller walled enclosure for their sick and injured, and put everyone else (including many of the soldiers remaining on land) on their ships for one last battle, on September 9. The fleet was now commanded by Demosthenes, Menander, and Euthydemus , while the Syracusan fleet was led by Sicanus and Agatharchus of Syracuse on the wings and Pythen from Corinth in

8480-416: The Athenians were preparing to sail home, on August 28, there was a lunar eclipse , and Nicias, described by Thucydides as a particularly superstitious man, asked the priests what he should do. They suggested the Athenians wait for another 27 days, and Nicias agreed. The Athenians were now in a desperate situation. On September 3, the Syracusans began to completely blockade the entrance to the port, trapping

8640-528: The Athenians were proud of their role in the conflict. For instance, the Spurinna family of Tarquinia possibly continued to honor their involvement in the Sicilian Expedition for centuries. In Athens, the citizens did not, at first, believe the defeat. Plutarch, in his Life of Nicias , recounts how the news reached the city: It is said that the Athenians would not believe their loss, in

8800-470: The Athenians' choice are not recorded, but the assembly may have been seeking to balance the aggressive young leader with a more conservative older figure, with Lamachus added for his military expertise. In practice, each of the three generals proposed a different strategy. Nicias proposed a narrowly circumscribed expedition; he felt that the fleet should sail to Selinus and force a settlement between Selinus and Segesta. After that, he proposed to briefly show

8960-537: The Circle, which was defended by Nicias. After Nicias defeated the attack, the Athenians finally extended their wall to the sea, completely blockading Syracuse by land, and their fleet entered the harbour to blockade them from sea. The Syracusans responded by removing Hermocrates and Sicanus as generals and replacing them with Heraclides, Eucles, and Tellias . Soon after this, the Spartan general Gylippus , responding to

9120-532: The German historian Herman Diels and first published in his Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker in 1903 – in Greek. This seminal work was later revised several times, most recently by Walter Kranz in 1959. For discussions of Critias and translations of his fragments into English, see the works by Kathleen Freeman and Rosamund Kent Sprague listed in the references. Solon Solon ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Σόλων ; c.  630  – c.  560  BC)

9280-529: The Sophists , had much to say about him. His most damning comments were: In cruelty and in bloodthirstiness he outdid the Thirty. He also collaborated with the Spartans in absurd resolution in order that Attica, emptied of its flock of men, might become a grazing-ground for sheep. Hence it seems to me that he is the worst of all the men who have gained a reputation for wickedness… It appears to some that he became

9440-509: The State by leading it out of an unjust way of life into a just way, and consequently I gave my mind to them very diligently, to see what they would do. And indeed I saw how these men within a short time caused men to look back on the former government as a golden age; and above all how they treated my aged friend Socrates, whom I would hardly scruple to call the most just of men then living, when they tried to send him, along with others, after one of

9600-487: The Syracusan counter-wall on Epipolae in a risky night engagement (against the advice of Nicias). He succeeded in breaching the wall, routing or killing some of the first Syracusan defenders but was defeated by a force of Boeotians in the Spartan contingent. Many Athenians fell off the cliff to their deaths, and some of the rest were killed as they fled down the slope. Plutarch claims the casualties from this action numbered 2,000. Demosthenes' arrival provided little relief to

9760-494: The Syracusans were marching to Catania, they learned the Athenians had boarded their ships and sailed into the Great Harbour at Syracuse. The Syracusans quickly hurried back and prepared for battle. The Athenian army landed to the south of Syracuse and fortified their position. When the Syracusan army finally arrived both sides waited for the other to make the first move. Eventually the Syracusans withdrew and made camp for

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9920-603: The Syracusans, whose greater proximity and potential victory they feared more than that of the Athenians. Athens then sent for help from the Carthaginians and the Etruscans , as both were long-standing opponents of Syracuse. Carthage opted to stay out of the conflict, but several Etruscan cities banded together and organized a small force to aid Athens. Though the Etruscan force only included three large warships and

10080-408: The Thirty brought their forces to Piraeus to root them out, the two armies fought in the streets. During this confrontation Critias was killed, which left the oligarchs without their strongest leader. This spelled doom for their reign, and they were soon deposed and democracy reestablished. Critias was in ancient times castigated for his activities under the Thirty. Philostratus , in his Lives of

10240-399: The Thirty. Yet, the philosopher was loath to join the oligarchy because of its violent means. In his seventh letter, he said: In the days of my youth my experience was the same as that of many others. I thought that as soon as I should become my own master I would immediately enter into public life. But it so happened, I found, that the following changes occurred in the political situation. In

10400-491: The Three Thousand to begin arresting metics so they could be stripped of their property and executed – this so the citizens would become complicit in the slaughter. With blood on their hands, they would be less likely to attempt an overthrow of the oligarchy. When Socrates was ordered to go with three others to arrest one Leon of Salamis, he ignored the order and simply "went home". He was later recorded as offering this not-so-oblique criticism of Critias: It seems enough to me that

10560-458: The accused were summarily executed or left town to escape prosecution, Critias was eventually exonerated when the testimony of his accuser was discredited by Andocides and then withdrawn. As a member of Athens’ elite and in view of his later actions, it is not clear whether he was involved or not, but he was freed nonetheless. The failure of the Sicilian expedition in 413, in which tens of thousands of Athenian soldiers were killed or captured, rocked

10720-496: The allies of Athens killed 800 Corinthians, including all but one of the Corinthian ambassadors. Demosthenes and Eurymedon then arrived with 73 ships and 5,000 hoplites. On their arrival, 80 Syracusan ships attacked 75 of the Athenian ships in their harbour. This battle went on for two days with no result, until the Syracusans pretended to back away and attacked the Athenians while they were eating. However, only seven Athenian ships were sunk. Demosthenes landed his forces and attacked

10880-489: The art of words." It was a calculated insult to Socrates, whom he saw no means of attacking except by imputing to him the practice constantly attributed to philosophers, and so making him unpopular. When Critias and Charicles confronted Socrates with the new law, the latter did what he had done so many times before and began to probe its actual meaning. Who could he talk to, or not talk to, and about what? After several minutes of this, Socrates summarized: "Then must I keep off

11040-482: The call for help, landed at Himera . He marched towards Syracuse with 700 armed sailors, 1,000 hoplites from Himera and Selinus , 100+ cavalry, and 1,000 Sicels . They built another counter-wall on the Epipolae, but were driven back by the Athenians; in a second battle, however, Gylippus defeated the Athenians by making better use of his cavalry and javelin-throwers. The Syracusans completed their counter-wall, making

11200-515: The centre. Each side had about 100 ships participating. The Athenian ships were extremely cramped and had no room to manoeuvre. Collisions were frequent, and the Syracusans could easily ram the Athenian ships head-on, without the Athenians being able to move to ram them broadside, as they preferred. Javelin throwers and archers shot from each ship, but the Syracusans deflected Athenian grappling hooks by covering their decks with animal hides. The battle went on for some time with no clear victor, but

11360-403: The citizens, to fetch him by force that he might be put to death—their object being that Socrates, whether he wished or no, might be made to share in their political actions; he, however, refused to obey and risked the uttermost penalties rather than be a partaker in their unholy deeds. So when I beheld all these actions and others of a similar grave kind, I was indignant, and I withdrew myself from

11520-461: The city much harm. For, in the oligarchy, Critias turned into the most thievish and violent and murderous of all, while Alcibiades, in the democracy, was of all men the most uncontrolled and wanton and violent. If the two of them did the city harm, I shall not offer a defense. Plato, on the other hand, said nothing disparaging about Critias directly – either about his exile in Thessaly or his time in

11680-694: The city's political and social stability. In 411, as Athenian prosecution of the Peloponnesian War limped along, a junta of oligarchic sympathizers contrived to take over the government and end the war. They succeeded in convincing the Athenian Assembly that governmental change was necessary and instituted in place of it the council of the Four Hundred . The coup was put down a few months later and democracy gradually restored. Critias has been suspected by some modern scholars as being

11840-447: The city. Meanwhile, diplomats from both camps went to Camarina in an attempt to form an alliance with that city. Hermocrates wanted Camarina and the other cities to unite with Syracuse against Athens, but Euphemus, the representative for the Athenians, said Syracuse only wanted to rule Camarina, and they should join with Athens if they wanted to remain free. The Camarinans decided not to join either side, although they quietly sent aid to

12000-452: The command of Laches , in response to an appeal for help from Leontini . That expedition, operating from a base at Rhegium , remained in the area for several years, fighting alongside Athens's local allies against the Syracusans and their allies, without achieving any dramatic successes. In 425, the Athenians planned to reinforce their contingent with an additional forty triremes, but that fleet never reached Sicily, as it became caught up in

12160-459: The cost of sending a fleet, offering 60 talents of uncoined silver up front, and tricking Athenian ambassadors into believing that the city was more prosperous than it actually was, by making sure that the ambassadors saw all their golden and other valuable objects in a way as if these were just part of what they had. At Athens, the Segestan ambassadors presented their case for intervention to

12320-531: The crews of the triremes and other non-combatants. They had little luck finding allies along the coast of southern Italy and, when the three other ships returned, they learned that Segesta did not have the money they promised. Nicias had expected this, but the other commanders were dismayed. Nicias suggested they make a show of force and then return home, while Alcibiades said they should encourage revolts against Syracuse, and then attack Syracuse and Selinus. Lamachus said they should attack Syracuse right away, as it

12480-405: The death of Solon, there existed a discourse that associated his reforms with an increased availability of heterosexual contacts. Ancient authors also say that Solon regulated pederastic relationships in Athens; this has been presented as an adaptation of custom to the new structure of the polis . According to various authors, ancient lawgivers (and therefore Solon by implication) drew up

12640-406: The disaster. The specific fate of Nicias and Demosthenes is not clearly recorded, but according to Thucydides' account, both were executed after their surrender, Demosthenes due to his earlier role in the war at Pylos, Nicias due to worries of a possibility of escape through bribery and possibility of causing later harm. Some historians have said that the Sicilian expedition was fatally flawed from

12800-451: The early 6th century BC. Ancient authors such as Philo of Alexandria , Herodotus , and Plutarch are the main sources, but wrote about Solon long after his death. Fourth-century BC orators, such as Aeschines , tended to attribute to Solon all the laws of their own, much later times. Solon was born in Athens around 630 BC. His family was distinguished in Attica as they belonged to

12960-439: The early sixth century the Athenians were using silver in the form of a variety of bullion silver pieces for monetary payments. Drachma and obol as a term of bullion value had already been adopted, although the corresponding standard weights were probably unstable. Solon's economic reforms succeeded in stimulating foreign trade. Athenian black-figure pottery was exported in increasing quantities and good quality throughout

13120-452: The entire expedition was captured or was destroyed in Sicily. The effects of the defeat were immense. Two hundred ships and thousands of soldiers, an appreciable portion of Athens' total manpower, were lost in a single stroke. The city's enemies on the mainland and in Persia were encouraged to take action, and rebellions broke out in the Aegean. Some historians consider the defeat to have been

13280-449: The evil practices then going on. For all the condemnation he received from his contemporaries, Critias was soon forgotten by most people. By the late 4th century, Aristotle could write: The many do not demand a statement of the case if you wish to extol Achilles, for all know his deeds; yet it is necessary to make use of them. Also, if you wish to extol Critias, it is necessary. For not many know his deeds. As for Critias' efforts as

13440-442: The expedition if he argued against it directly, chose a different tactic. He described the wealth and power of the Sicilian cities Athens would be challenging, and stated that a larger expedition than previously approved would be required, expecting that the prospect of approving such a massive expenditure would prove unappealing to the citizenry. Contrary to Nicias's plan, the assembly enthusiastically embraced his proposal, and passed

13600-647: The factionalism by force, thus instituting an unconstitutionally gained tyranny . In Plutarch's account, Solon accused Athenians of stupidity and cowardice for allowing this to happen. Solon's first stop in his travels was Egypt. There, according to Herodotus, he visited the Pharaoh of Egypt, Amasis II . According to Plutarch, he spent some time and discussed philosophy with two Egyptian priests, Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais . A character in two of Plato's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias , claims Solon visited Neith 's temple at Sais and received from

13760-431: The family was Dropides, who lived in the 7th century BCE. He had two sons: Critias I and Dropides II. The latter was a "relative and a dear friend" of Solon , the lawgiver of Athens. Both men were in their prime at the beginning of the 6th century BCE and Dropides served as archon eponymous shortly after Solon held that position in 594/3.  Solon died in the late 560s; presumably Dropides did as well. Dropides II

13920-410: The feelings of a pig: he can no more keep away from Euthydemus than pigs can help rubbing themselves against stones. Socrates' reputation and general popularity protected him from the punishment meted out to Theramenes. Nonetheless: Now Critias bore a grudge against Socrates for this; and when he was … drafting laws with Charicles, he bore it in mind. He inserted a clause which made it illegal "to teach

14080-437: The first counter-wall, but the Syracusans began to build another one, this time with a ditch, blocking the Athenians from extending their wall to the sea. Another 300 Athenians attacked this wall and captured it, but were driven off by a Syracusan counter-attack in which Lamachus was killed, leaving only Nicias from the three original commanders. The Syracusans destroyed 300 m (1,000 feet) of the Athenian wall, but could not destroy

14240-535: The first six years (but farmers' difficulty of lasting until payback may also give rise to a mercantilist argument in favour of supporting them through that, since the British case illustrates that "One domestic policy that had a lasting impact was the conversion of 'waste lands' to agricultural use. Mercantilists felt that to maximize a nation's power all land and resources had to be used to their utmost"). In his poems, Solon portrays Athens as being under threat from

14400-408: The flag around Sicily and then return home, unless the Segestans were willing to pay for the full cost of the expanded expedition. Alcibiades proposed to first attempt to win over allies on the island through diplomacy, and then attack Selinus and Syracuse. Lamachus, meanwhile, proposed taking advantage of the element of surprise by sailing directly to Syracuse and giving battle outside the city. Such

14560-401: The fleet even reached Sicily. Still, the Athenians achieved early successes. Syracuse, the most powerful state in Sicily, responded exceptionally slowly to the Athenian threat and, as a result, was almost completely invested before the arrival of back-up in the form of Spartan general Gylippus , who galvanized its inhabitants into action. From that point forward, however, as the Athenians ceded

14720-477: The foundations of a true republic. There is consensus among scholars that Solon lowered the requirements – those that existed in terms of financial and social qualifications – which applied to election to public office. The Solonian constitution divided citizens into four political classes defined according to assessable property a classification that might previously have served the state for military or taxation purposes only. The standard unit for this assessment

14880-746: The government then existing, reviled as it was by many, a revolution took place; and the revolution was headed by fifty-one leaders, of whom eleven were in the City and ten in the Piraeus (each of these sections dealing with the market and with all municipal matters requiring management) and Thirty were established as irresponsible rulers of all. Now of these some were actually connections and acquaintances of mine; and indeed they invited me at once to join their administration, thinking it would be congenial . The feelings I then experienced, owing to my youth, were in no way surprising: for I imagined that they would administer

15040-422: The government. According to Plutarch, Androcles, a political enemy of Alcibiades, used false witness to claim that Alcibiades and his friends were responsible. Alcibiades volunteered to be put on trial under penalty of death in order to prove his innocence (wanting to avoid his enemies charging him, in his absence, with more false information), but this request was denied. He was otherwise extremely popular and had

15200-464: The hands of the enemy than by those of his countrymen. He hoped the Syracusans would soon run out of money, and he had also been informed that there were pro-Athenian factions in Syracuse who were ready to turn the city over to him. Demosthenes and Eurymedon reluctantly agreed that Nicias might be right, but when reinforcements from the Peloponnese arrived, Nicias agreed that they should leave. Just as

15360-450: The initiative to their newly energized opponents, the tide of the conflict shifted. A massive reinforcing armada from Athens briefly gave the Athenians the upper hand once more, but a disastrous failed assault on a strategic high point and several crippling naval defeats damaged the Athenian soldiers' ability to continue fighting and maintain morale. The Athenians attempted a last-ditch evacuation from Syracuse. The evacuation failed, and nearly

15520-426: The island We desire, and drive away from our bitter shame! One fragment describes assorted breads and cakes: They drink and some nibble honey and sesame cakes ( itria ), others their bread, other gouroi mixed with lentils. In that place, not one cake was unavailable of all those that the black earth bears for human beings, and all were present unstintingly. According to Diogenes Laertius, in 594 BC, Solon

15680-689: The island where he was born. Pausanias listed Solon among the Seven Sages , whose aphorisms adorned Apollo's temple in Delphi . Stobaeus in the Florilegium relates a story about a symposium where Solon's young nephew was singing a poem of Sappho 's: Solon, upon hearing the song, asked the boy to teach him to sing it. When someone asked, "Why should you waste your time on it?", Solon replied, " ἵνα μαθὼν αὐτὸ ἀποθάνω ", "So that I may learn it before I die." Ammianus Marcellinus , however, told

15840-471: The language of his laws was archaic even by the standards of the fifth century and this caused interpretation problems for ancient commentators. Modern scholars doubt the reliability of these sources and our knowledge of Solon's legislation is therefore actually very limited in its details. Generally, Solon's reforms appear to have been constitutional, economic, moral, and sexual in their scope. This distinction, though somewhat artificial, does at least provide

16000-473: The loss of ships. Although Athens had never involved itself deeply in Sicilian affairs, it had ties there before the onset of the Peloponnesian War, dating back to at least the mid-5th century BC. To small Sicilian cities, Athens was a potential counter to the powerful city of Syracuse, which was strong enough to potentially dominate the island. Syracuse, like Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies,

16160-748: The manifestation of a struggle taking place between poorer citizens and the aristocrats? Solon's economic reforms need to be understood in the context of the primitive, subsistence economy that prevailed both before and after his time. Most Athenians were still living in rural settlements right up to the Peloponnesian War . Opportunities for trade even within the Athenian borders were limited. The typical farming family, even in classical times, barely produced enough to satisfy its own needs. Opportunities for international trade were minimal. It has been estimated that, even in Roman times, goods rose 40% in value for every 100 miles they were carried over land, but only 1.3% for

16320-486: The marketplace. On which, there being everywhere, as may be imagined, terror and consternation, the Archons summoned a general assembly, and there brought in the man and questioned him how he came to know. And he, giving no satisfactory account, was taken for a spreader of false intelligence and a disturber of the city, and was, therefore, fastened to the wheel and racked a long time, till other messengers arrived that related

16480-514: The most". After the battle of Aigospotami in 405, in which the Athenian fleet was destroyed, the city was besieged by the Spartans and eventually capitulated. The Spartans demanded that the city take down its walls, recall its exiles (oligarchic sympathizers all), and restore the ancient government – i.e., dismantle its democracy . At their "suggestion", a ruling body of thirty governors was selected, mimicking Sparta's own ruling board of thirty,

16640-475: The night. The next morning the Athenians lined up eight men deep, with the Argives and Mantineans on the right, the rest of the allies on the left, and the Athenians themselves in the centre. The Syracusans were deployed sixteen men deep, in order to offset the advantage of the Athenians in experience. They also had 1,200 cavalry, vastly outnumbering the Athenian cavalry, although the total numbers of men were about

16800-468: The occupation of Decelea. The Spartans took this advice into consideration, and appointed Gylippus to command their fleet. In the spring of 414 BC, reinforcements arrived from Athens, consisting of 250 cavalry, 30 mounted archers, and 300 talents of silver, which was used to pay for 400 more cavalry from their Sicilian allies. In the summer, they landed on the Epipolae , the cliff above Syracuse, which

16960-470: The other Athenians. Their camp was located near a marsh and many of them had fallen ill, including Nicias. Seeing this, Demosthenes thought they should all return to Athens to defend Attica against the Spartan invasion that had taken Decelea. Nicias, who had opposed the expedition at first, now did not want to show any weakness either to the Syracusans and Spartans, or to the Athenians at home who he thought would have him executed, stating he would rather die by

17120-505: The other side of the river a Syracusan force was waiting, and the Athenians were almost completely massacred, by far the worst defeat of the entire expedition in terms of lives lost. Nicias personally surrendered to Gylippus, hoping the Spartan would remember his role in the peace treaty of 421. The few who escaped found refuge in Catana. The prisoners, now numbering only 7,000, were held in the stone quarries near Syracuse which were considered

17280-456: The other two, formed an obstruction and prevented the other groups from gaining control. Regional rivalry is a theme commonly found among modern scholars. "The new picture which emerged was one of strife between regional groups, united by local loyalties and led by wealthy landowners. Their goal was to take control of the central government at Athens and with it dominate over their rivals from other districts of Attica." Regional factionalism

17440-407: The other. The expedition ended in a devastating defeat for the Athenian forces, severely impacting Athens. The expedition was hampered from the outset by uncertainty in its purpose and command structure—political maneuvering in Athens swelled a lightweight force of twenty ships into a massive armada, and the expedition's primary proponent, Alcibiades , was recalled from command to stand trial before

17600-438: The outset, that the Athenian attempt to conquer Sicily was an example of mad arrogance. Others however argue that there was nothing inherently wrong with the plan strategically, and that it would have succeeded if the Athenian leadership had not made a succession of bad tactical decisions. J. B. Bury judged that by far the biggest single reason for the expedition's catastrophic failure was the incompetence of Nicias, aggravated by

17760-544: The pivotal Battle of Pylos on the way there. By the time that fleet reached Sicily in late summer, Athens's Sicilian allies had grown weary of stalemated warfare, and agreed to negotiate with Syracuse and its allies. At the Congress of Gela , the Sicilian cities made peace on the basis of "Sicily for the Sicilians", and the Athenian fleet left for home. In 415, Athens and Sparta had been formally at peace since 421, when

17920-441: The plays tentatively assigned to him are Tennis , Rhadamanthys , Pirithus , and the satyr play Sisyphus . All of these, however, have been contested by both ancient and modern scholars, with Euripides proposed as the most likely alternate author. (The " Sisyphus fragment " presumably comes from the satyr play – again, attributed to either Critias or Euripides.) Critias also wrote prose. Among his most important works were

18080-480: The possibility of renewing the war against Syracuse, but achieved nothing. In 416, however, a second Sicilian conflict provided the invitation Athens had sought in 422. The city of Segesta —an Athenian ally in the 420s—went to war against Selinus and, after losing an initial battle, sent to Athens for help. In order to win the Athenians' support, the Segestaeans claimed that they were capable of funding much of

18240-470: The priests there an account of the history of Atlantis . Next, Solon sailed to Cyprus , where he oversaw the construction of a new capital for a local king, in gratitude for which the king named it Soloi . Solon's travels finally brought him to Sardis , capital of Lydia . According to Herodotus and Plutarch, he met with Croesus and gave the Lydian king advice, which Croesus failed to appreciate until it

18400-429: The protagonist of most of his dialogues, included Critias as an interlocutor in two of them. Though these were written many years after both Socrates and Critias were dead, Plato made no mention in them of the activities that tarnished Critias’ reputation in his later years. In the spring of 415, the Athenians decided to send an armada to Sicily to counter a perceived threat from the city of Syracuse. Just before it

18560-475: The recall of Alcibiades. For Athens, the expedition was a "human disaster as painful as the plague [as well as a] political disaster" which severely harmed the city's war efforts and hegemony over its allies. Sparta exploited this weakness to greatly increase the pressure on its rival over the next years, though it could not achieve a strategic breakthrough. In contrast, the Etruscans who had fought alongside

18720-467: The rest of the citizens had been forcibly disarmed. This body would constitute the "citizenry" of the new Athens. Socrates and Xenophon (our source for much of this history) were among this group. During the next few months, as the Thirty consolidated their hold on the institutions of government, they arrested, confiscated the property of, and summarily executed a wider and wider swath of Athenian citizens and resident aliens ( metics ). At every step, Critias

18880-477: The rest. Attika in Solon's time seemed to be moving towards a similarly ugly solution with many citizens in danger of being reduced to the status of helots . Rivalry between clans is a theme recently developed by some scholars, based on an appreciation of the political significance of kinship groupings. According to this account, bonds of kinship rather than local loyalties were the decisive influence on events in archaic Athens. An Athenian belonged not only to

19040-507: The richest and most powerful city of Sicily, felt that the Athenians were in fact coming to attack them under the pretense of aiding Segesta in a minor war. The Syracusan general Hermocrates suggested that they ask for help from other Sicilian cities, and from Carthage . He also wanted to meet the Athenian fleet in the Ionian Sea before they arrived. Others argued that Athens was no threat to Syracuse, and some people did not believe there

19200-412: The roadblocks that did not yet exist, and the Syracusans burned or towed away the Athenian ships on the beach, so that they had no way off the island. On September 13, the Athenians left camp leaving their wounded behind and their dead unburied. The survivors, including all the non-combatants, numbered 40,000, and some of the wounded crawled after them as far as they could go. As they marched they defeated

19360-477: The safest prison for such a number of men. Demosthenes and Nicias were executed, against the orders of Gylippus. The rest spent ten weeks in horrible conditions in their makeshift prison, until all but the Athenians, Italians, and Sicilians were sold as slaves . The remaining Athenians were left to die slowly of disease and starvation in the quarry. In the end some of the very last survivors managed to escape and eventually trickled to Athens, bringing first-hand news of

19520-428: The same distance were they carried by ship and yet there is no evidence that Athens possessed any merchant ships until around 525 BC. Until then, the narrow warship doubled as a cargo vessel. Athens, like other Greek city states in the 7th century BC, was faced with increasing population pressures and by about 525 BC it was able to feed itself only in good years. Solon's reforms can thus be seen to have taken place at

19680-442: The same. The Athenians attacked first, believing themselves to be the stronger and more experienced army, and after some unexpectedly strong resistance, the Argives pushed back the Syracusan left wing, causing the rest to flee. The Syracusan cavalry prevented the Athenians from chasing them, thereby averting a catastrophe for the Syracusans, who lost about 260 men, and the Athenians about 50. The Athenians then sailed back to Catania for

19840-469: The second assembly. Alcibiades was the expedition's leading proponent, and the leader of the war party, Nicias its leading critic and the leader of the peace party. Lamachus, meanwhile, was a fifty-year-old career soldier, of whom the longest extant portrayal is a series of scenes in Aristophanes ' The Acharnians that satirize him as a braggadocious, perpetually impoverished warrior. The reasons for

20000-458: The ships again and attempt to force their way out, as now both fleets had lost about half their ships and Nicias agreed. The men themselves did not want to board the ship because they were afraid. They then decided to retreat by land. Hermocrates sent some supposed informers to the Athenians to falsely report that there were spies and roadblocks further inland, so the Athenians would be safer if they did not march away. Gylippus used this delay to build

20160-419: The small unit of Etruscans who had been sent to aid Athens; these warriors managed to stop Gylippus's assault. Using this respite, the Athenians rallied and returned to fight alongside the Etruscans, securing several of their ships on the beach and preventing a complete catastrophe. Historian David Abulafia concluded that the Etruscans had "saved the day" for the Athenians. Demosthenes suggested that they man

20320-487: The strong fire" of their love and dear affection. Sicilian Expedition Original expedition: 414 BC reinforcements: 413 BC reinforcements: Initially: Gylippus's relief force: 413 BC relief force from Greece: 413 BC Sicilian relief force: The Sicilian Expedition was an Athenian military expedition to Sicily , which took place from 415–413 BC during the Peloponnesian War between Athens on one side and Sparta , Syracuse and Corinth on

20480-474: The subjects of which these supply illustrations: Justice, Holiness, and so forth?" "Indeed yes," said Charicles, "and cowherds too: else you may find the cattle decrease." Many Athenians had left the city when the attacks of the Thirty began. In the spring of 403, they returned under the leadership of Thrasyboulus and eventually commandeered the fortress called Munichia in Peiraieus , Athens' port city. When

20640-493: The support of the entire army; he had also gained the support of Argos and Mantinea during the preparations. He was not charged, and the fleet sailed the next day. His opponents, however, waited for Alcibiades to set sail before they leveled the charges against him. This was because the army, his main source of support, would be absent, and his supporters would be outnumbered when the votes were cast. Many people in Syracuse ,

20800-432: The tradition persisted. Four centuries later Plutarch ignored Aristotle's skepticism and recorded the following anecdote, supplemented with his own conjectures: And they say Solon loved [Pisistratus]; and that is the reason, I suppose, that when afterwards they differed about the government, their enmity never produced any hot and violent passion, they remembered their old kindnesses, and retained "Still in its embers living

20960-676: The truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. Before Solon's reforms, the Athenian state was administered by nine archons appointed or elected annually by the Areopagus on the basis of noble birth and wealth. There was an assembly of Athenian citizens (the Ekklesia ) but the lowest class (the Thetes ) was not admitted and its deliberative procedures were controlled by the nobles. There therefore seemed to be no means by which an archon could be called to account for breach of oath unless

21120-418: The turning point in the war, though Athens continued to fight for another decade. Thucydides observed that contemporary Greeks were shocked not that Athens eventually fell after the defeat, but rather that it fought on for as long as it did, so devastating were the losses suffered. Athens managed to recover remarkably well from the expedition materially, the principal issue being the loss of manpower rather than

21280-524: The unaristocratic pursuit of commerce. When Athens and its neighbor and rival in the Saronic Gulf , Megara , were contesting the possession of Salamis , Solon was made leader of the Athenian forces. After repeated disasters, Solon was able to improve the morale of his troops through a nationalist poem he wrote about the island. Supported by Pisistratus, he defeated the Megarians either by means of

21440-424: The unrestrained greed and arrogance of its citizens. Even the earth ( Gaia ), the mighty mother of the gods, had been enslaved. The visible symbol of this perversion of the natural and social order was a boundary marker called a horos , a wooden or stone pillar indicating that a farmer was in debt or under contractual obligation to someone else, either a noble patron or a creditor . Up until Solon's time, land

21600-450: The whole expedition, but instead they chose to send reinforcements, under Demosthenes and Eurymedon . Eurymedon left immediately with ten ships, and Demosthenes left sometime later with a much larger force. Meanwhile, in early 413 BC Sparta acted on Alcibiades's advice to fortify Decelea, and the Athenian force sent to relieve it was destroyed. While Eurymedon was sailing, Gylippus's 80 Syracusan ships, including 35 triremes, attacked 60 of

21760-405: The winter. Hermocrates suggested that the Syracusans reorganize their army. He wanted to reduce the number of generals from fifteen to three; Hermocrates, Heraclides , and Sicanus were elected and Hermocrates sent for help from Corinth and Sparta . During the winter the Athenians also sent for more money and cavalry, while the Syracusans built some forts, and a wall extending the territory of

21920-793: The wisdom to sort out their differences for them in a peaceful and equitable manner. Some modern scholars believe these powers were in fact granted some years after Solon had been archon, when he would have been a member of the Areopagus and probably a more respected statesman by his peers. As archon, Solon discussed his intended reforms with some friends. Knowing that he was about to cancel all debts, these friends took out loans and promptly bought some land. Suspected of complicity, Solon complied with his own law and released his own debtors, amounting to five talents (or 15 according to some sources). His friends never repaid their debts. After completing his work of reform, Solon surrendered his extraordinary authority and traveled abroad for ten years, so that

22080-497: Was a Dorian city, while most of Athens's allies on the island were Ionian . Another source of conflict was the close relationship of Syracuse and other Dorian cities of the west to Athens's great commercial rival, Corinth. To the Athenians, Sicily was a threat—an unencumbered Syracuse might send grain or other aid to the Peloponnesians—as well as a venue for possible conquests. In 427 BC, Athens had sent twenty ships, under

22240-418: Was a fleet at all, because Athens would not be so foolish as to attack them while they were still at war with Sparta. Athenagoras accused Hermocrates and others of attempting to instill fear among the population and trying to overthrow the government. At the first assembly that authorized the expedition, the Athenians named Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus as its commanders; that decision remained unchanged at

22400-456: Was among those who criticized the logographer Antiphon , though there is little evidence that he (or Antiphon) participated in Athenian politics during the years that the latter was active (430s and 420s). What little there is was provided by Cicero , who names him as an orator, along with Lysias and Theramenes . Hard upon them (the orators Pericles , Alcibiades , and Thucydides [not the historian]) came Critias, Theramenes, and Lysias. Much

22560-434: Was an archaic Athenian statesman, lawmaker , political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy . Solon's efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline resulted in his constitutional reform overturning most of Draco 's laws . Solon's reforms included debt relief later known and celebrated among Athenians as

22720-416: Was chosen archon , or chief magistrate. Solon repealed all of Draco's laws except those relating to homicide. During Solon's time, many Greek city-states had seen the emergence of tyrants , opportunistic noblemen who had taken power on behalf of sectional interests. Solon was described by Plutarch as having been temporarily awarded autocratic powers by Athenian citizens on the grounds that he had

22880-420: Was conflict between the nobles and the common people for an extended period. For the constitution they were under was oligarchic in every respect and especially in that the poor, along with their wives and children, were in slavery to the rich...All the land was in the hands of a few. And if men did not pay their rents, they themselves and their children were liable to be seized as slaves. The security for all loans

23040-405: Was defended by Diomilus and 600 Syracusans. In the attack, Diomilus and 300 of his men were killed. Both sides then began building a series of walls. The Athenian circumvallation , known as "the Circle" , was meant to blockade Syracuse from the rest of the island, while the Syracusans built a number of counter-walls from the city to their various forts. A force of 300 Athenians destroyed part of

23200-577: Was inevitable in a relatively large territory such as Athens possessed. In most Greek city states, a farmer could conveniently reside in a town and travel to and from his fields every day. According to Thucydides , on the other hand, most Athenians continued to live in rural settlements right up until the Peloponnesian War . The effects of regionalism in a large territory could be seen in Laconia , where Sparta had gained control through intimidation and resettlement of some of its neighbours and enslavement of

23360-500: Was later known and celebrated among Athenians as the seisachtheia (shaking off of burdens). As with all his reforms, there is considerable scholarly debate about its real significance. Many scholars are content to accept the account given by the ancient sources, interpreting it as a cancellation of debts , while others interpret it as the abolition of a type of feudal relationship, and some prefer to explore new possibilities for interpretation. The reforms included: The removal of

23520-462: Was not to last. In 407, while commanding a fleet in the eastern Aegean, he temporarily handed over some of his ships to a subordinate, who proceeded to instigate and then lose an encounter with the Spartan fleet in the area. Alcibiades was held responsible and banished once again. As his advocate, Critias was subsequently banished as well, and he spent the next few years in Thessaly . While there, he

23680-480: Was one medimnos (approximately 12 gallons) of cereals and yet the kind of classification set out below might be considered too simplistic to be historically accurate. According to the Athenian Constitution , only the pentakosiomedimnoi were eligible for election to high office as archons and therefore only they gained admission into the Areopagus. A modern view affords the same privilege to

23840-434: Was reported by Xenophon to be "setting up a democracy in Thessaly and was arming the serfs against their overlords". Also, he "consorted with men subject to lawlessness rather than to a sense of justice". Countering this, Philostratus said, "he rendered their oligarchies the more grievous by conversing with those in power there and by attacking all democracy. He slandered the Athenians, claiming that they, of all mankind, erred

24000-402: Was the debtor's prison up to the time of Solon. He was the first people's champion. Here Solon is presented as a partisan in a democratic cause whereas, judged from the viewpoint of his own poems, he was instead a mediator between rival factions. A still more significant variation in the ancient historical account appears in the writing of Plutarch in the late 1st – early 2nd century AD: Athens

24160-426: Was the father of Critias II, who lived into the late 6th century. The son of Critias II was Leaides, who is known only from an ostracon dating to the 480s, which named "Critias [III] son of Leaides" as the miscreant deserving of exile. It was discovered in a well near a road southwest of the Athenian agora in 1936. Critias III in turn had Callaeschus, the father of Critias IV, the tyrant. The family clearly had

24320-472: Was the inalienable property of a family or clan and it could not be sold or mortgaged. This was no disadvantage to a clan with large landholdings since it could always rent out farms in a sharecropping system. A family struggling on a small farm however could not use the farm as security for a loan even if it owned the farm. Instead the farmer would have to offer himself and his family as security, providing some form of slave labour in lieu of repayment. Equally,

24480-407: Was the leading advocate for more extreme levels of violence, to the point where he was getting resistance even from within the Thirty. The leading "moderate" was Theramenes , and his continued cautioning against the continuing destruction ultimately got him arrested and executed at Critias' direction. Critias' relationship with Socrates withered during these months. At one point, the Thirty compelled

24640-559: Was the predominant city-state in Sicily. The fleet proceeded to Catania , where an Athenian ship arrived to inform Alcibiades that he was under arrest, not only for the destruction of the hermai, but also for supposedly profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries . Alcibiades agreed to return in his ship, but when they stopped in southern Italy at Thurii , he escaped and sailed to the Peloponnese , where he sought refuge in Sparta. Athens passed

24800-509: Was the struggle between powerful aristocrats and the weaker affiliates of their rivals or perhaps even with their own rebellious affiliates. Solon's laws were inscribed on axones , large wooden slabs or cylinders attached to a series of axles that stood upright in the Prytaneion . Originally the axones recorded laws enacted by Draco in the late 7th century (traditionally 621 BC). Nothing of Draco's codification has survived except for

24960-410: Was to sail, one of the social clubs in Athens staged a city-wide raid where they mutilated statues of the god Hermes that stood outside homes and in various locations around Athens. The citizens were outraged and saw this event as a bad omen. Even though the fleet sailed on schedule, the search for the perpetrators went on relentlessly afterwards. Among those arrested was Critias. While many of

25120-503: Was too late. Croesus had considered himself to be the happiest man alive and Solon had advised him, "Count no man happy until he be dead." The reasoning was that at any minute, fortune might turn on even the happiest man and make his life miserable. It was only after he had lost his kingdom to the Persian king Cyrus , while awaiting execution, that Croesus acknowledged the wisdom of Solon's advice. After his return to Athens, Solon became

25280-400: Was torn by recurrent conflict about the constitution. The city was divided into as many parties as there were geographical divisions in its territory. For the party of the people of the hills was most in favour of democracy, that of the people of the plain was most in favour of oligarchy, while the third group, the people of the coast, which preferred a mixed form of constitution somewhat between

25440-447: Was well known for attracting the young men of Athens' elite. He questioned democracy, conventional morality and challenged the certainty with which many intellectuals propounded their thoughts endeared him to the rebellious adolescent minds of the younger generation. Critias was among those who gravitated to him, and the two formed a friendship that was to last many years, though eventually they drifted apart. Plato, who cast Socrates as

25600-482: Was written down by Lysias, some things by Critias; we hear of Theramenes. In terms of style, he was described as "lofty of sentiment, also pride", "stately, much like Antiphon, and sublime, verging on majesty, and says much in the negative, yet is rather pure in style". In general he appears to have stayed in the background, or perhaps on the periphery of Athenian politics – dabbling rather than plunging headlong. All this began to change in 415. The philosopher Socrates

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