ABSTRACT
Early in the sixth century a crisis point was reached in Athenian society. Solon, a man who had been arkhon perhaps fifteen to twenty years previously and who commanded respect, was appointed as mediator with power to change the constitution. Our sources generally represent the major problem as a class struggle, with emphasis on the suffering of families under obligation to the rich and of others sold as slaves in Attike or abroad, or even as a dispute over the form of constitution which Athens should have. But these views of the problem do not explain the extraordinary action of the nobles, those with power in Attike, in placing Solon in a position where he could change the rules of the game. What brought the nobles to the point where they were prepared to risk a reduction in their own power? It seems to have been the fear that their lower-class retainers would be swept away from their aristocratic patrons by someone who could use them to establish a tyranny in Athens; and a tyranny would disrupt the structure of politics and destroy the power of the nobles. There are, indeed, references to the dependence of poorer people on the nobles (or at least ‘the rich’) in our sources.
