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Hello, in the first years of the 6th century BC, the Greek city state of Athens was in

crisis.

The lower orders of society were ravaged by debt to the point where some of them were

being forced into slavery.

When the press hit law code mandated the death penalty for everything from murder to

petty theft, there was a real danger that the city could fall into either tyranny or

civil war.

In 594 BC, a man named Solon was elected Archon or Chief Magistrate.

He instituted a program of reforms of transformed Athens, political and legal systems, its society

and economy, so that later generations referred to him as Solon the Logger.

Some seem as the father of Athenian democracy.

We need to discuss Solon the Logger, our Hans van Wees, Groot professor of ancient

history at University College London, William Allen, professor of Greek and the colonel

of the Lent tutorial fellow in Greek and Latin languages and literature at University

College Oxford and Melissa Lane, the class of 1943 professor of politics at Princeton University.

Melissa Lane, we think Solon was born around 630 BC in Athens.

What was Greece like at the time?

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