Poet and merchant
The Athens of Solon's youth was a city under severe social stress. A small number of aristocratic families controlled most of the land, while ordinary Athenians who fell into debt could lose land, freedom and family security. Some became hektemoroi, dependent cultivators who surrendered a share of their produce; others faced debt bondage or sale abroad. Solon's own background gave him unusual credibility. He was aristocratic enough to be heard by the elite, but not so wealthy that he was simply identified with their interests. His travels as a merchant exposed him to other Greek communities and the wider eastern Mediterranean, while his surviving poetic fragments show a mind preoccupied with justice, civic discipline and the ruin that follows greed.
