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Front Page  Titles (by Subject) CHAP. V.: Civil dissensions; Solon. - Constitution of Athens
CHAP. V.: Civil dissensions; Solon. - Aristotle, Constitution of Athens [320 BC]Edition used:Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens, trans. Thomas J. Dymes (London: Seeley and Co., 1891).
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- Introduction.
- Explanation of Terms For the English Reader.
- The Constitution of Athens.
- Chap. I.: Kylon.
- Chap. II.: The Oligarchical Constitution.
- Chap. III.: Before Draco’s Time.
- Chap. IV.: Draco’s Laws.
- Chap. V.: Civil Dissensions; Solon.
- Chap. VI.: Solon; Charge Against Him.
- Chap. VII.: His Constitution.
- Chap. VIII.: Solon’s Constitution.
- Chap. IX.: How Solon Gave Power to the People.
- Chap. X.: Reforms the Currency, Weights and Measures.
- Chap. XI.: Goes Abroad.
- Chap. XII.: The Testimony of His Own Poems.
- Chap. XIII.: Party Divisions Immediately Following.
- Chap. XIV.: Peisistratus Makes Himself Tyrant; His Exile and Return.
- Chap. XV.: How He Disarmed the People.
- Chap. XVI.: His Government Moderate and Popular.
- Chap. XVII.: Succeeded By His Sons.
- Chap. XVIII.: Harmodius and Aristogeiton.
- Chap. XIX.: Expulsion of the Peisistratidæ.
- Chap. XX.: Isagoras and Kleisthenes.
- Chap. XXI.: The Constitution of Kleisthenes.
- Chap. XXII.: The Times Immediately Following; Ostracism; Building of a Hundred Triremes.
- Chap. XXIII.: Recovery of Power By the Areopagus; Themistokles and Aristides.
- Chap. XXIV.: Athens Lays Claims to the Leadership of Greece.
- Chap. XXV.: Overthrow of the Areopagus By Ephialtes and Themistokles.
- Chap. XXVI.: Growth of the Democracy; Kimon.
- Chap. XXVII.: Perikles.
- Chap. XXVIII.: His Successors; Nikias, Kleon, Thucydides, Theramenes.
- Chap. XXIX.: The Four Hundred; the Proposals of Pythodorus.
- Chap. XXX.: The Constitution As Proposed For the Future.
- Chap. XXXI.: The Constitution As Proposed For the Immediate Present.
- Chap. XXXII.: The Government of the Four Hundred.
- Chap. XXXIII.: It Lasted Four Months, and Was Good.
- Chap. XXXIV.: Arginusæ Ægospotami Lysander and Establishment of the Oligarchy.
- Chap. XXXV.: The Thirty and Their Government.
- Chap. XXXVI.: Protests of Theramenes.
- Chap. XXXVII.: Theramenes Put to Death, and the Lacedæmonans Call Ed In.
- Chap. XXXVIII.: End of the Thirty, and Reconciliation of Parties.
- Chap. XXXIX.: Terms of the Reconciliation.
- Chap. Xl.: Its Conclusion; Action of Archinus.
- Chap. Xli.: Recapitulation of the Preceding Changes; the Sovereign Power of the People.
- Chap. Xlii.: Admission to Citizenship; Training of the Ephebi.
- Chap. Xliii.: Election to Offices, By Lot Or Vote.
- Chap. Xliv.: the Council Continued.
- Chap. Xlv.: Deprived of the Power of Putting to Death.
- Chap. Xlvi.: the Council Continued.
- Chap. Xlvii.: the Treasurers of Athena; the Government-sellers.
- Chap. Xlviii.: the Receivers; Auditors.
- Chap. Xlix.: the Council Holds a Muster of the Knights, Etc.
- Chap. L: Surveyors of Temples; City Magistrates.
- Chap. Li.: Clerks of the Market; Inspectors of Weights and Measures, Etc.
- Chap. Lii.: the Eleven; Suits Decided Within a Month.
- Chap. Liii.: Judicial Officers; Arbitrators.
- Chap. Liv.: Surveyors of Roads; Auditors; Secretaries.
- Chap. Lv.: the Archons; How They Are Appointed.
- Chap. Lvi.: the Archon (eponymus); His Duties.
- Chap. Lvii.: the King Archon; His Duties.
- Chap. Lviii: the Commander-in-chief, Polemarch
- Chap. Lix.: the Thesmothetæ; Their Functions.
- Chap. Lx.: the Directors of Games; the Sacred Oil.
- Chap. Lxi.: Election By Vote to All Offices of War Department.
- Chap. Lxii.: Pay Attached to Offices
- Chap. Lxiii.: Appointment of Jurors.
CHAP. V.
Civil dissensions; Solon.
Such being the constitution in the body politic, and the bulk of the people being in bondage to the few, the people was in a state of opposition to the upper classes. As strife ran high, and the two parties had saced each other for a considerable time, they agreed to choose Solon as mediator and archon, and entrusted the constitution to him after he had composed a poem in elegiac metre, of which the beginning is as follows:
- ‘I ponder, and within my soul lie woes,
- As I look on the most honourable land in Ionia;’
for he ever took the lead, fighting and disputing vigorously for each side against the other, and afterwards recommended them both to put an end to the existing strife. Now, in power of speech and reputation Solon ranked among the first, but in property and position among the moderately rich, as is admitted by all, and as he himself bears witness in these verses, where he recommends the rich not to be grasping:
- ‘Do ye, quieting in your bosoms your strong hearts,
- Who of many good things have had your fill even to surfeit,
- With what is moderate nourish your mighty desire; for neither will
- We yield, nor shall you have all else as you wish.’
And in his poems generally he fastens on the rich the blame of these divisions; and it is for this reason, at the beginning of his elegy, he says that he fears the love of money and over-weening pride, attributing to them the enmity that existed.
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