Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches

This volume offers a range of innovative approaches to Solon of Athens, legendary law-giver, statesman, and poet of the early sixth century B.C. In the first part, Solon’s poetry is reconsidered against the background of oral poetics and other early Greek poetry. The connection between Solon’s alleged roles as poet and as politician is fundamentally questioned. Part two offers a reassessment of Solon’s laws based on a revision of the textual tradition and recent views on early Greek lawgiving. In part three, fresh scrutiny of the archeological and written evidence of archaic Greece results in new perspectives on the agricultural crisis and Solon’s role in the social and political developments of sixth-century Athens.

Originally published in hardcover

Josine H. Blok, Ph.D. (1991) in Ancient History at Leiden University, is Professor of Ancient History and Classical Culture at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She publishes on the cultural and social history of archaic and classical Greece, including The Early Amazons. Modern and Ancient Perspectives on a Persistent Myth (Leiden/ New York 1995).
André P.M.H. Lardinois, Ph.D. (1995) in Classics at Princeton University, is Professor of Greek Language and Culture at the Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He has published on archaic and classical Greek poetry, including Making Silence Speak: Women’s Voices in Greek Literature and Society, co-edited with Laura McClure (Princeton, 2001).