ABSTRACT

This chapter considers how Solon recasts traditional imagery of warfare and violence in order to bolster his persona as a 'reconciler' and peacemaker. Perhaps the first thing to stress is that Solon is pleading for internal peace and the avoidance of civil war. Solon's poem engages with Athens' war against Megara for control of Salamis. As in the martial elegies of Callinus and Tyrtaeus, the speaker of Salamis stages a dramatic call to arms. Only three fragments survive, but they are enough to show Solon's skilled use of persona and emotion, building on the elegiac tradition of martial exhortation. The language of time and geras in the opening couplet likens Solon to the ideal Homeric leader, who knows how to apportion honour and privilege so as to create social harmony. Solon's poetry builds on this basic truth, and recasts traditional epic imagery so that his audience, in the shadow of civil war, will grasp the benefits of peace and reconciliation.