Plutarch and the dark side of Solon’s political activity

Abstract

The fame that from an early stage started to surround the figure of Solon caused him to be seen to be involved in accounts without historical basis, as happened in the well-known interview with Croesus. When, during the last quarter of the fifth century, Solon began to be used in ideological disputes, in connection with the rise of the theme of patrios politeia, it is natural that some episodes destined to call into question the ethos of the savant would take shape. In attributing dubious political maneuvering to Solon, certain people might have been attempting to stain the statesman’s traditional image of integrity and impartiality, when he had only been responding to the desire to encounter the salvation of his city. It is not unlikely that this tradition would have begun to circulate in political pamphlets, that it began to figure, afterwards, in some Atthis, and that, in this way, would have influenced the Peripatos, and historiography that was to follow, as we see by the fragments of the oeuvre of Phaenias and of Polyzelus, cited, among other sources, by Plutarch.