There have been wars between our Athenians and the Megarians for years, and I have been a leader, going to great lengths to pursue war, even after a law was passed that we should not even mention contending for Salamis. I have pursued the conquest by arms and by subterfuge. I have been responsible for many deaths. But at a recent point, the losses on both sides were so terrible that we came up with a very different solution. We made the Lacedaemonians the arbiters and judges of the conflict.

And then I went to work in a different way. Who can argue with the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad? Is it not a kind of charter for Greek cities? At the trial, I read these two verses from Homer’s epic (Iliad II 257f.):

“Ajax from Salamis brought twelves ships,

And bringing, stationed them near the Athenian hosts.”

This showed the very ancient connection between Salamis and Athens. And then I pointed out that Philaeus and Eurysaces, the sons of Ajax, became citizens of Athens and settled in Attica, one at Brauron, and the other at Melité; and they have a township named after Philaeus, namely Philaïdae.

My next argument was to move from history and geography to evidence of a different kind. I pointed out that the dead on the island of Salamis were not buried after the Megarian custom, but the Athenian fashion in burial. The Megarians bury their dead facing the east, but the Athenians facing the west. The problem was that Hereas the Megarian denied this and said that the Megarians also turn the faces of their dead to the west. He was quite effective and countered me further by saying that we Athenians use one tomb for each body, whereas the Megarians, like the early inhabitants of Salamis, place three or four bodies in one tomb.

It was quite a debate. I was further supported by some Pythian oracles, in which the god spoke of Salamis as Ionian. This case was decided by five Spartans in our favor.

The past, the epic poem, the stories of settlement, even the dead in cemeteries, testify to relationships that stretch further and further into the past. Since we all seem to separate the world between our people and other peoples, I successfully showed that Salamis has stronger connections to Athens than to Megara. I proved our sameness with Salamis as better than Megara’s sameness with Salamis.

In the privacy of my own thoughts, it dawned on me that logically, if both Athens and Megara can claim historical sameness with or connection to Salamis, are not our two peoples connected as well?

Still, here is what makes me proud: Not of the decision, which made me more famous and powerful. No, I am proud of the nature of the contest itself. No one died by quoting a verse from Homer. No one was wounded when I referred to the connection between the sons of Ajax and Athenian towns. No one was buried in a cemetery because of the way people are buried in cemeteries. And now I think about Ajax in the Iliad, always running to protect his soldiers. Isn’t this what a leader should do before anything else?

I am responsible for too many deaths. At least I stopped war for a while. We should use history the way we did in our debate, not as a record of wars and death, but as a description of the relationships between the peoples that make new history every day.

Perhaps one must be of this world, its everyday business and trade, to understand what actually will bring change. In a certain way, since I am of noble birth, but I have been a merchant who traveled and learned how the world works, I know two parts of society.

I have known the Eupatrids* who owned all the fertile land and controlled the government, and I saw their factions and rivalries.

I have seen how the merchants and craftsmen and farmers of some means did not have a place in the government.

I have seen how the rich control the farmers by driving them into poverty and force them to give up their land and become serfs, and these are still considered fortunate enough if they do not become slaves.

I felt that revolution was coming, and after that I feared there would be a tyrant who would put down the revolution and seize power in the name of peace and security.

I knew that there had to be another way, one in which each class would be valued for what it does.

I felt the immediate pressure from the bottom, like water that was welling up beneath us. I focused on the very specific cause of the rising pressure. It was not the philosophical words or even the beautiful notion of ‘freedom’.

It was ‘debt’.

Debt does not seem like a huge political or historical issue. But debt crushes a person, terrifies him in the present, deprives him of hope for the future.

I looked at the system of our economy. Here was a thought I kept having:

We always speak about the debts of the poor. What is the debt we owe them?

So my first concern was to relieve the immediate distress caused by debt. I redeemed all the land that the poor had to forfeit and freed all the enslaved citizens. I just did it. If I had gone through the usual processes of government, nothing would have ever happened – but this is why I had been empowered to take action as seemed fit to me.

They called it seisachtheia, which some might render “the shaking off of burdens,” but literally it is an “earthquake.”**

In a poem, I talked about how the Earth would be witness to what I did, because the Earth felt how I removed the stones that marked the fields that were forfeit. I freed slaves. We needed more workers, so I brought back many who had been sold into slavery. These unfortunates had borrowed money secured by their own persons.

What I did was too much for many, but not enough for many others. I did not redistribute the land. But I encouraged those who could not make a living by farming to go into other work.

We were exporting so much grain that there was not enough left to feed the people of Attica. We were so busy increasing our wealth that we did not pay our first debt, we did not fulfill our first obligation, to feed our own people. People live together in cities in mutual association so that they can survive. This is the thing we owe our people.

I am not a fool. I know that I did not end poverty. But it is no longer the common evil that it had been before I changed everything. And perhaps this will be an example.

Those who have, can have a little less. Those who have not, will make the most of having a little more.

We should think about the debts we have to each other. None of the classes can be a society by itself. We need each other, some to till the Earth, some to trade, some to govern, all to live.

*Eupatrids or Eupatridai: the ‘Nobles of Good Fathers’, as the aristocrats of Archaic Athens liked to call themselves.

** As in modern “seismic activities.”

It may be, for me, the worst experience of my life.

When I was thinking about the radical, major step of abolishing debts, trying to decide what arguments to use and when to take the step, I had moments of doubt and concern. I told some of my friends who I trusted with my whole heart. I told them that I would cancel debts, but I would not redistribute the land.

And for whatever they said or did not say to me, it is what they did that I will never forgive. They went and borrowed huge sums from the rich, knowing that they would never have to pay them back, and they used the money to buy large land holdings, knowing that they would be able to keep them. So when I published the decree, they owned properties and now could refuse to pay their creditors.

Who got blamed? Me, of course. And in a way, I could not blame all those who condemned me, because it looked terrible. It did look like I had given my friends advance knowledge so that they, and therefore I, got rich in the process. I had to demonstrate my innocence by remitting a huge fortune worth of debt. I hope that this has won me back my integrity.

Leaders who know where they are leading their people have an obvious advantage: they know the economic and financial consequences of their actions. If leaders use this foreknowledge for their own personal gain, they are corrupt, for they have used their sacred roles for crass purposes.

Another kind of friend, Anacharsis, did not use his knowledge for financial gain, but undermined me in a different way. He laughed at me for thinking that I could use laws to fight injustice and greed. He said – rather brilliantly, I must admit – that laws are just spiders' webs; they hold the weak and delicate who might be caught in their meshes but will be torn in pieces by the powerful and rich. I argued that I was trying to create laws through which no one can profit if they break them, laws that would benefit everyone who keeps them. And then my own friends broke my webs.

I thought I had friends. I thought I could tell them, in confidence, what I was going to do. I thought they would encourage me, advise me, help me lead.

Instead, they are chreocopidae, ‘debt-cutters’. And they cut me to the quick.

I now think I understand the real meaning of friendship. A friend understands what you are trying to achieve. He will not humiliate you. He shares your vision. He will never break your web.

There is a thread in everything I do, but perhaps only I understand it. And I will never explain. For a state or a community or a city to have unity, it cannot have factions competing and tearing it apart. And since there will always be factions and clans, one needs to get most of the factions to cooperate and accept change in the service of the whole.

For me, the formative event was the Cylon affair, the clash of clans which resulted in a charge of sacrilege against the Alcmeonids. When Cylon and his conspirators took sanctuary in the temple of Athena, the archon Megacles persuaded them to come down and stand trial. The conspirators tied a braid to the image of the goddess and kept hold of it, but when they reached the shrine of the Erinyes on their way down, the thread broke of its own accord. They were killed and seized by Megacles and the archons in the name of the goddess. But Megacles and the archons were seen as committers of sacrilege.

I saw it as a pollution of a civil nature, and I saw the sacrilege on both sides. When any clan tries to claim the goddess, by which I mean to claim the power of Athens, the rope will break, and by this, I mean the fabric of the city.

The quarrel continued and the people were divided between the two factions. The survivors of the followers of Kylon recovered their strength and conflicted with the descendants of Megacles.

This is when I got involved, and I persuaded the men who were held to be polluted to submit to a trial, and to abide by the decision of three hundred jurors, all selected from the noble clans. The family of Megacles was found guilty. For members of this powerful family to suffer banishment as a penalty was not because of a law that existed but because the other powerful clans got together. Together, they invoked the law as a way of accomplishing what otherwise they would or could have done by brute force.

The reason there was such a gap of time between the Cylon affair and the punishment that forced the Alcmeonids into exile was because there had not been any such coalition.

So, I thought about this and I realized that there are three possible solutions to the problem of the conflict of clans. The first is to destroy the power of the clans. I really could not imagine a society without the clans. The second solution was to leave their power as it was. But nothing would ever change. Or I could find a middle way, to weaken the clans’ power but leave their structure alone.

This would appeal to those who have been misused by them and have suffered. But my reforms would preserve all that was good about clans and nobles, and so they would not fear my reforms, because life would seem to be the same, but lessen their absolute power, all in the name of the very real needs of the poor.

Instead of one faction seeking refuge in the temple of Athena, holding on to the braid of the goddess for dear life, Athens should be the temple where all can find sanctuary, and no one uses religion against anyone else.

I understand that this is ironic, if not a paradox: In order to create unity in the interest of the whole, the different parts have to feel like the law or the change or the innovation serves each of their purposes. I wish that this were not so. I wish that everyone could want what I want: that which is best for all. Perhaps if we can transmit the principle of unity to the next generation, their minds will be formed so that they will not only do the right thing, but actually believe it.

I am supposed to be one of the wisest men. So I ask myself: What is wisdom? Real wisdom, I think, is the wisdom to make the ‘real’ different, the wisdom that reaches into the lives of everyone. Philosophy can be purely abstract thinking. Wisdom is in the here and now.

I think, all the time, about the parts of the whole such as the clans and the classes. All my laws and changes tried to improve the lives of all of the people without infringing too much on any part. I respect the rich and the noble. But besides this, if laws and changes do not respect the rich, the rich will prevent the laws from being made and the changes from actually happening. A society cannot work from the laws down, from the forced imposition of rules and innovations. Society must work from the real lives up.

So I thought for a long time about how to help the poor, because I knew that giving them temporary relief, or freeing them from slavery, would not fill their needs going forward. People do not understand how my laws all emanate from this kind of thinking.

I know that it is taking a long time to build these industries, and it is progressing slower than I hoped. But every step of the way has been difficult. I used my wisdom to create laws that would, in a very real way, try to build industry. I especially emphasized investing in olive trees to produce olive oil, a major commodity that will become a permanent foundation of the economy, I encouraged making and distributing Attic pottery, constructing public buildings, and erecting monumental sculpture.

But then unemployed farm workers came and then there were not enough jobs. I enfranchised foreigners who practiced trades. I made a law that a son was absolved from the duty of supporting his father who had not taught him a trade. I wanted an immigrant father to pass his skills or knowledge down. I do not want that tradesman/father to have sustenance only to have his son starve when he is grown.

The solution to poverty is not to give the poor money, but to give them the tools and the incentive and the encouragement to make money going forward.

What does any of this to do with wisdom? I would put it the other way: what good is wisdom if it is in the clouds? Wisdom can be found in the vats of olive oil, and in decorated pottery, and in laws that try to raise the poor from the dust. Real wisdom is not just found in the courts of the powerful but also in the stalls of the merchants, and in the satisfied sigh of the baby who has enough to eat.

Now that I have created a constitution and put many laws and reforms in place, what thanks do I receive? While part of me is frustrated and resentful, the wise man in me says: ‘What did you expect, Solon?’ When we do what is best for all, no one is completely satisfied. But I am not sure I was prepared, as I should have been, for the complaints to come flying in at me from all sides.

The nobles think I have done too much, that I should have only made minimal, only apparently significant, changes and really just left everything as it had been.

I think that the poor were dreaming and thinking that I would divide all the land into equal shares. They may have thought I would become a tyrant and force the complete redistribution of the land. But they were wrong on at least two levels.

First, I never meant to say that everyone should be equal. Perhaps someday, in some society, there will be equality for all, but I personally cannot envision it. I have my limitations, too. Freedom and justice are not the same things as everyone having the same amount of land and money.

Second, unlike so many other leaders in history, I never aspired to gain complete control and hold it for the rest of my life. I never had a desire to be a tyrant or a king.

They have been posted for all to see on revolving wooden tablets. These revolving tablets, for me, symbolize how leadership should work; it should move around to different people so that no one becomes entrenched in power, which can only lead to corruption and autocracy.

How, I thought, could I make these points most effectively? By leaving. I have done my job. I have accomplished a great deal. But if I stay, it will all be about me. I can feel this in the way all the complaints come directly at me. And so I’m off. I am thinking of a kind of self-imposed exile for ten years.

But I am already wondering what Athens will be like when I return. Will all my work be destroyed? My reforms have been given validity for 100 years. We will see what happens. I will try not to think about this for a while.

I hope that no tyrant will emerge. The problem with leaders is that they start to think that everything is just about them. They think that they are indispensable, that life and the state cannot go on without them.

By leaving, I hope to show that the opposite is true: No individual is the state. The tablets must revolve. Power must revolve.

As soon as a leader who believes that he is the answer to all questions gains power, everyone is in danger. If I could give my parting wish to Athens, it would be:

See that I, who did so much, am leaving. See what I am trying to tell you: No person is the whole. Each one of us only plays a part.

I wish every person could become alien.

I wish every youth could travel for a year as part of his education.

I wish each person, before he settled into his life, had to leave his home, and become a stranger in a land that is strange to him, where no one can understand what he says, and he can barely understand what anyone else means.

I wish every person could learn that his homeland is not the world, that his life is not the only life, that his existence is not the only way to be.

I know that I cannot compare my experience to that of anyone else.

If every person knew what it meant to be alien, they might see their home differently, from the outside in.

If they learned other people’s myths, they would know that there are other stories.

If they learned other languages, they would know there are other ways of perceiving the world.

At the very least, they would see immigrants very differently. They would have great sympathy for those struggling to become part of Athenian life.

If they left and returned, they might he confused by the changes that are happening within, amazed about the changes that have been made. And in the gap between what was and what is now, they might see that things must change, lest they die.

I know why I became alien. My story is different from that of anyone else. I left Athens for well-considered reasons: so that I would no longer have to defend my laws or change them. I have pledged in my own mind not to return for ten years.

Well into this period now, a wiser and better man than I was, I know that as I grow old, I learn many things.

I know enough to fear going home, for I am afraid that my changes have not done enough, or that they have been revoked, or that they have been twisted for the benefit of the powerful.

I shall worry about this later, after I try one more experiment here in Cyprus. Can I, an alien here, help found a new city?

We shall see.

But for now, I dwell on the paradox that by becoming alien, everyone could discover the meaning of their place in this world.

I am writing this in Cyprus. I came here from Egypt. I have a new, close friendship with the local king, Philocyprus. Philocyprus is aptly named, because he loves his land, so much that he is willing to listen to this old and weary traveler.

It is my experience that most people are unhappy. And some of that unhappiness comes from the fact that we do not listen to each other. But this man recognizes that I have the experience of ruling Athens and that I have long and deep experience in governing. I have persuaded him, after quite long discussions, to be sure, to change the site of his city Aepeia down to the plain that lies beneath here, to give the city the potential to grow and to be a more pleasant place to live in.

But even more; I have been breathless with the possibility of a new city. I think about an old, crumbling house that was an eyesore in a neighborhood of Athens. I would walk by it every day. The family was always trying to patch it and fix it here and there. One day, I suggested that they knock it down and build a new hut. They listened to me, and they were so happy with the results, as were their neighbors.

Starting anew allows one to have a clear field, like the plain where we are now building. This allows us to bring new ideas and perspectives to the work.

Since Philocyprus has been so compliant and willing, I have stayed here to take charge of gathering people into the city and helped him to arrange it in the best way for the convenience and safety of its inhabitants.

And it is working. Settlers are flocking to Philocyrprus because they also want to be part of something new. He told me that other kings are jealous of all this.

I am writing this with joy, because he has now given me the grandest of honors, one I would never have imagined. The city will be re-named Soli. This is my new adventure. Am I one with the new city? Perhaps I should just live here for the rest of my life.

No, I won’t do so. And I must not do so. The very fact that he has named the city after me tells me I must leave, just as I left Athens after trying to transform its ways.

We must all move away from the cult of personality to the cult of wisdom and law. This is one of the lessons that I want my life, not just my words and my actions but my life itself, to teach. Nothing should be about an individual, not even a great leader. Everything should be about the principles by which people should live.

Of course, we need heroes, but heroes are just people who have as many faults as virtues, who almost always fly too close to the sun and burn up. More than heroes, who fly and crash, who rise and fall, we need laws that will last longer than one person’s lifetime.

So, as proud as I am of what I have done here, it is time to leave my legacy behind, and let it be the possession of the people who will live in the new city which is the future.

One may have been inclined to believe that Solon’s connection with the city of Sol(o)i is legendary. Our only source, Plutarch’s Life of Solon (26.2–4), does not do much to strengthen our faith in the historicity of the episode, given that the king has the speaking name ‘Cyprus-Lover’ and that his first rule over Aepia is said to be a foundation of a son of king Theseus. However, this most authentic memoir that Ben has found now proves that even unlikely reports may be true.

Like Odysseus, I am home. But Odysseus, after some trials, was king again. I am not being honored for everything I have done. Instead, they are calling me a madman. But is it mad to warn the people that a would-be tyrant is about to take total power?

I tried to unite the factions, but the people are as divided as ever. They call me mad; I feel a little like Cassandra. She was not wrong. I also am sad.

As I near the end of my days, as I feel my strength weakening, I am thinking that there are two kinds of lives. One is living for yourself, taking care of your needs, satisfying your desires, without caring how what you do affects other people. No one believes me that my friend Peisistratus, a great man in many ways, who has been a good general and a good leader, is planning to become a tyrant. I can foresee his actions, and it makes me wonder what his objectives were all along. Did he just speak about principles when those principles suited his purpose? A tyrant thinks that he is the answer to every question. He really believes that he is the state. He thinks that whatever he does is what is best for everyone. Even when he does good things, he is really doing it all for himself.

I have lived my life in a very different way. I have tried not to make anything about me, whether it was laws or changes or plans for a new city. This is why I left Athens and then why I left Cyprus. I believe I have lived a life beyond myself.

A little time will show the citizens my “madness”. I would prefer to be mad than to be correct. Unfortunately, I am quite sane. They will sing a different song when the truth appears. I hope that they will be able to deal with the truth when it comes to pass.

As for my legacy, I hope that it will be my vision of what a city might be. And I hope that someday, instead of calling me a madman, people will take me as a model of a human being who did not think that he was the whole world.