Affairs in Athens were in a deplorable state
of confusion and violence, the revolt of the poor against the power
and privilege of the rich leading to dangerous dissensions and
collisions. Solon, who enjoyed a universal reputation for wisdom
and uprightness, was called upon by the oligarchy, which again held
rule, to assume what was, in fact, almost absolute power. The
character of his legislation and its influence upon the course of
Greek history have been set forth by many authors, and the
following account is perhaps the best that has appeared in modern
literature.

Solon, son of Execestides, was a Eupatrid of middling fortune, but of
the purest heroic blood, belonging to the _gens_ or family of the
Codrids and Neleids, and tracing his origin to the god Poseidon. His
father is said to have diminished his substance by prodigality, which
compelled Solon in his earlier years to have recourse to trade, and in
this pursuit he visited many parts of Greece and Asia. He was thus
enabled to enlarge the sphere of his observation, and to provide
material for thought as well as for composition. His poetical talents
displayed themselves at a very early age, first on light, afterward on
serious subjects. It will be recollected that there was at that time no
Greek prose writing, and that the acquisitions as well as the effusions
of an intellectual man, even in their simplest form, adjusted themselves
not to the limitations of the period and the semicolon, but to those of
the hexameter and pentameter. Nor, in point of fact, do the verses of
Solon aspire to any higher effect than we are accustomed to associate
with an earnest, touching, and admonitory prose composition. The advice
and appeals which he frequently addressed to his countrymen were
delivered in this easy metre, doubtless far less difficult than the
elaborate prose of subsequent writers or speakers, such as Thucydides,
Isocrates, or Demosthenes. His poetry and his reputation became known
throughout many parts of Greece, so that he was classed along with
Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mitylene, Periander of
Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindus, Cheilon of Lacedaemon--altogether forming
the constellation afterward renowned as the seven wise men.

The first particular event in respect to which Solon appears as an
active politician, is the possession of the island of Salamis, then
disputed between Megara and Athens. Mega