Solon

Solon reformed the Athenian constitution and then left the city for ten years so it could not be undone. Born around 630 BC into an aristocratic family of moderate means, he was a merchant and a poet, and his verses — some of which survive — are the only contemporary evidence for what he did. Athens around 594 BC was close to civil war. Debt bondage had reduced many farmers to working their own land for a sixth of its produce or being sold abroad as slaves, land was concentrating in aristocratic hands, and the poor were demanding redistribution. He was appointed archon with extraordinary powers to legislate. His first act was the seisachtheia, the shaking off of burdens: existing debts were cancelled, debt bondage was abolished outright, and Athenians sold abroad were bought back at public expense. Boundary stones marking encumbered land were pulled up. He then rewrote the constitution. Political rights were tied to measured agricultural income rather than birth, opening office to the wealthy who were not aristocrats; the poorest class received membership of the assembly and of a new popular court of appeal, which is what mattered most in the long run. He repealed Draco's code except for homicide. He refused the tyranny that was available to him, and refused to redistribute land, which satisfied neither side; his poems record both groups' anger. He made the Athenians swear to keep the laws for ten years and travelled to Egypt, Cyprus and, in the later tradition, to Croesus of Lydia. Tyranny arrived anyway under Peisistratus. He died around 560 BC.

• Lived: 630 BCE – 560 BCE
• Nationality: Greek
• Roles: ruler, writer