Plutarch, Aet. Graec. 5, p. 292 B: “Τνεσ ο παρ' ‘Αρκσι κα δακεδσιμονοισ χρηοτο;” δακεδαιμνιοι Τεγεταισ διαλλαγντεσ ποισαντο συνθκασ κα στλην π' 'αλΑειι κοινν νστησαν, ν ι μετ τν γγραπται Μεσσηνουσ κβαλεν κ τσ χρασ κα μ ξεναι χρηστοσ ποιεν. ξηγομενοσ ον 'αριστοτελησ τοτο πησι δυνασθαι το μ ποκτιννναι βοηθενασ χριν τοσ λακωνιζονσιν τν Τεγεατν.

Solon's fragments 9–11 are preserved in three late authors: frr. 9 and 11 by Diodoros Sikelos , 9.20.2, Plutarch , Solon 3.6 and 30.3 respectively, and Diogenes Laertios , 1.50 and 1.51 respectively; and fr. 10 by Diogenes Laertios alone, 1.49. They are all quoted in the context of Solon's reaction to Peisistratos. Stories on this theme were circulating by the time of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia , and Rhodes' scepticism about them is well founded. Its author did not garnish (...) his version of events with these poems, nor indeed with any Solonian utterance, and he explicitly states that myth-making on this subject had already resulted in two stories about Solon and Peisistratos which were chronologically impossible. (shrink)

7 πῖαρ Plut.: πυαρ pap.Ath. Pol.ἀνταράξας … ἐξεῖλε pap., coniecerat Gildersleeve: ἂν ταράξας ἐξέλη Plut.Solon is answering his critics. Thedemoshas never had it so good. The ‘bigger and stronger men’, μείζους καὶ βίαν ἀμείνονες, also have cause to thank him. For if anyone else had had this office, ‘he would not have restrained thedemos, nor would he have stopped, before’, etc. Plutarch introduces the lines in almost the same words.V. 7 is difficult. Bergk and others construe: ‘until, having stirred up (...) the milk, he had taken the cream’. There are two objections to this. Firstly, the word order would involve an interlacing of main and participial clauses which Greek normally eschews. Bergk claims that Solon is peculiar in the freedom of his hyperbaton, but the examples he quotes are not of this type and are very much easier. Secondly, the sense: ‘it is not usual to stir up milk when it is wanted to skim off cream’. Linforth recognised the force of this argument, and concluded, in the truth of the ancient evidence, that πῑαρ refers to butter. (shrink)

One of the most striking features of Athenian laws regulating commercial activities is the absence of any concept akin to the modern legal notion of the partnership or corporation. Despite the presence in Athenian society of numerous koinoniai, groups of individuals cooperating for some purpose, be it commercial or otherwise, Athenian law concerned itself solely with individual persons and did not recognize the separate legal existence of collective entities. And just as Athenian law did not recognize the legal existence of (...) partnerships or corporations, it also did not possess the notion of corporate liability. This meant that if someone entered into an agreement with a group of individuals and one of those individuals violated the terms of the agreement, the plaintiff proceeded only against the individual who acted contrary to the agreement, not against the group as a whole. If the plaintiff won his suit, he only had a right to receive compensation from the defendant's private property; he did not have a claim on all the funds held in common by the group. (shrink)

Athenians of the fifth and fourth centuries claimed with pride that their ancestors had always lived in Attica, a claim which they expressed by describing themselves as Related to this Athenian belief that they had always lived in Attica was a second, that, as a people, they were literally ‘sprung from the earth’. It is generally assumed that both beliefs developed at a very early date, but this is merely an assumption, and in the course of this paper we will (...) see evidence suggesting, to the contrary, that both ideas were relatively late developments. This paper focuses on the development of the concept of autochthony, as far as our sources allow, in an effort to understand better what autochthony meant to the Athenians. In particular it considers how the Athenians came to think of themselves as ‘born from the earth’. It then suggests how, through the medium of the word the idea of being ‘born from the earth’ came to symbolize ‘living in a place from time immemorial’. Finally it examines how the concept of autochthony was used in contexts which relate it to the ideology of Athenian democracy. (shrink)