SOLON (CA. 639-559 BC)
Solon was an Athenian statesman renowned in the classical age for his wisdom. As archon in 594-3 BC, he instituted broad and enduring reforms in Athenian law. His own writings, including his love poems about boys, are lost except for fragments to be found in the works of others. Presented here is all that is known of his association with pederasty. The most substantial account is given first.
In all three accounts, the translators’ Latinisation of Greek names has been undone in favour of transliterated forms.
Plutarch, Life of Solon I ii-iv
The Greek biographer and essayist Plutarch wrote a biography of Solon at the beginning of the second century AD, as one of his Parallel Lives. Here follows the only passage in it relating to pederasty.
The translation is by Bernadotte Perrin in the Loeb Classical Library volume XLVI (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1914), with two amendments explained in a footnote.
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Solon's mother, according to Herakleides Pontikos, was a cousin of the mother of Peisistratos.[1] And they[2] were at first great friends, much because of their kinship, and much[3] because of the youthful beauty of Peisistratos, with whom, as some say, Solon was passionately in love. And this may be the reason why, in later years, when they were at variance about matters of state, their enmity did not bring with it any harsh or savage feelings, but their former amenities lingered in their spirits, and preserved there, “smouldering with a lingering flame of Zeus-sent fire,”[4] the grateful memory of their love. And that Solon was not proof against beauty in a youth, and made not so bold with Love as ‘to confront him like a boxer, hand to hand,’ may be inferred from his poems. He also wrote a law forbidding a slave to practise gymnastics or have a boy lover, thus putting the matter in the category of honorable and dignified practices, and in a way inciting the worthy to that which he forbade the unworthy. And it is said that Peisistratos also had a boy lover, Charmos,[5] and that he dedicated the statue of Love in the Academy, where the runners in the sacred torch race light their torches. |
[2] τὴν δὲ μητέρα τοῦ Σόλωνος Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικὸς ἱστορεῖ τῆς Πεισιστράτου μητρὸς ἀνεψιὰν γενέσθαι. καὶ φιλία τὸ πρῶτον ἦν αὐτοῖς πολλὴ μὲν διὰ τὴν συγγένειαν, πολλὴ δὲ διὰ τὴν εὐφυΐαν καὶ ὥραν, ὡς ἔνιοί φασιν, ἐρωτικῶς τὸν Πεισίστρατον ἀσπαζομένου τοῦ Σόλωνος. ὅθεν ὕστερον, ὡς ἔοικεν, εἰς διαφορὰν αὐτῶν ἐν τῇ πολιτείᾳ καταστάντων οὐδὲν ἤνεγκεν ἡ ἔχθρα σκληρὸν οὐδ᾿ ἄγριον πάθος, ἀλλὰ παρέμεινεν ἐκεῖνα τὰ δίκαια ταῖς ψυχαῖς, καὶ παρεφύλαξε, “Τυφόμενα Δίου πυρὸς ἔτι ζῶσαν φλόγα,” τὴν ἐρωτικὴν μνήμην καὶ χάριν. [3] ὅτι δὲ πρὸς τοὺς καλοὺς οὐκ ἦν ἐχυρὸς ὁ Σόλων οὐδ᾿ Ἔρωτι θαρραλέος “ἀνταναστῆναι πύκτης ὅπως ἐς χεῖρας,”[6] ἔκ τε τῶν ποιημάτων αὐτοῦ λαβεῖν ἔστι, και νόμον ἔγραψε διαγορεύοντα δοῦλον μὴ ξηραλοιφεῖν μηδὲ παιδεραστεῖν, εἰς τὴν τῶν καλῶν μερίδα καὶ σεμνῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων τιθέμενος τὸ πρᾶγμα, καὶ τρόπον τινὰ τοὺς ἀξίους προκαλούμενος ὧν τοὺς ἀναξίους ἀπήλαυνε. [4] λέγεται δὲ καὶ Πεισίστρατος ἐραστὴς Χάρμου γενέσθαι, καὶ τὸ ἄγαλμα τοῦ Ἔρωτος ἐν Ἀκαδημείᾳ καθιερῶσαι, ὅπου τὸ πῦρ ἀνάπτουσιν οἱ τὴν ἱερὰν λαμπάδα διαθέοντες. |
Plutarch, The Dialogue on Love IV-V (751a-e)
In his dialogue Ερωτικος. a section of his Moralia, written a little earlier the same Plutarch recalls a debate at Thespiai between his friends as to whether the love of boys or of women was better. The following passage, which begins with Protogenes arguing in favour of the former, includes the only surviving fragment of Solon’s poetry on loving boys.
The translation is by Edwin L. Minar, F. H. Sandbach and W. C. Helmbold for the Loeb Classical Library volume 425, published by William Heinemann Ltd. in London in 1961.
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“But that other lax and housebound love, that spends its time in the bosoms and beds of women, ever pursuing a soft life, enervated amid pleasure devoid of manliness and friendship and inspiration—it should be proscribed, as in fact Solon did proscribe it. He forbade slaves to make love to boys or to have a rubdown, but he did not restrict their intercourse with women. For friendship is a beautiful and courteous relationship, but mere pleasure is base and unworthy of a free man. For this reason also it is not gentlemanly or urbane to make love to slave boys: such a love is mere copulation, like the love of women.” Though Protogenes would cheerfully have added other arguments, Daphnaios cut him short. “Good heavens,” said he, “many thanks for citing Solon. Let us take him as the criterion of the lover, Till he loves a lad in the flower of youth, [… Daphnaios goes on to argue for the superiority of the love of women over the love of boys, “an unlovely affront to Aphrodite” …] “Whence I conclude that those verses I quoted were written by Solon when he was still quite young and ‘teeming,’ as Plato says, ‘with abundant seed.’ Here, however, is what he wrote when he had reached an advanced age: Dear to me now are the works of the Cyprus-born[7], as though after the pelting storm of his love for boys he had brought his life into the peaceful sea of marriage and philosophy. |
[IV; 751a] “Τὸν δ᾿ ὑγρὸν τοῦτον καὶ οἰκουρὸν ἐν κόλποις διατρίβοντα καὶ κλινιδίοις γυναικῶν ἀεὶ διώκοντα [b] τὰ μαλθακὰ καὶ θρυπτόμενον ἡδοναῖς ἀνάνδροις καὶ ἀφίλοις καὶ ἀνενθουσιάστοις καταβάλλειν ἄξιον, ὡς καὶ Σόλων κατέβαλε· δούλοις μὲν γὰρ ἐρᾶν ἀρρένων παίδων ἀπεῖπε καὶ ξηραλοιφεῖν, χρῆσθαι δὲ συνουσίαις γυναικῶν οὐκ ἐκώλυσε· καλὸν γὰρ ἡ φιλία καὶ ἀστεῖον, ἡ δ᾿ ἡδονὴ κοινὸν καὶ ἀνελεύθερον. ὅθεν οὐδὲ δούλων ἐρᾶν παίδων ἐλευθέριόν ἐστιν οὐδ᾿ ἀστεῖον· συνουσία γὰρ οὗτος ὁ ἔρως, καθάπερ ὁ τῶν γυναικῶν.” [V] Ἔτι δὲ πλείονα λέγειν προθυμουμένου τοῦ Πρωτογένους, ἀντικρούσας ὁ Δαφναῖος, “εὖ γε νὴ Δί᾿,” ἔφη, “τοῦ Σόλωνος ἐμνήσθης καὶ χρηστέον αὐτῷ γνώμονι τοῦ ἐρωτικοῦ ἀνδρός, [c] ἔσθ᾿ ἥβης ἐρατοῖσιν ἐπ᾿ ἄνθεσι παιδοφιλήσῃ [… e] “Ὅθεν, οἶμαι, καὶ ὁ Σόλων ἐκεῖνα μὲν ἔγραψε νέος ὢν ἔτι καὶ ‘σπέρματος πολλοῦ μεστός,’ ὡς ὁ Πλάτων φησί· ταυτὶ δὲ πρεσβύτης γενόμενος· ἔργα δὲ Κυπρογενοῦς νῦν μοι φίλα καὶ Διονύσου ὥσπερ ἐκ ζάλης καὶ χειμῶνος τῶν παιδικῶν ἐρώτων ἔν τινι γαλήνῃ τῇ περὶ γάμον καὶ φιλοσοφίαν θέμενος τὸν βίον. |
Aristotle, Athenian Constitution XVII 2
The Constitution of the Athenians Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία was written between 328 and 325 BC by the great philosopher Aristotle of Stageira (384-322 BC). The translation is by H. Rackham for the Loeb Classical Library volume 285, published by William Heinemann Ltd. in London in 1935.
| Therefore the story that Peisistratos was an eromenos[8] of Solon and that he commanded in the war against Megara for the recovery of Salamis is clearly nonsense, for it is made impossible by their ages, if one reckons up the life of each and the archonship in which he died.[9] | ἔφευγε γὰρ τὰ λοιπά. διὸ καὶ φανερῶς ληροῦσιν οἱ φάσκοντες ͅͅ ἐρώμενον εἶναι Πεισίστρατον Σόλωνος, καὶ στρατηγεῖν ἐν τῷ πρὸς Μεγαρέας πολέμῳ περὶ Σαλαμῖνος: οὐ γὰρ ἐνδέχεται ταῖς ἡλικίαις, ἐάν τις ἀναλογίζηται τὸν ἑκατέρου βίον καὶ ἐφ᾽ οὗ ἀπέθανεν ἄρχοντος. τελευτήσαντος δὲ Πεισιστράτου κατεῖχον οἱ υἱεῖς τὴν ἀρχήν, προαγαγόντες τὰ πράγματα τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον. |
[1] Peisistratos was an aristocrat who seized power in Athens as tyrant in 561 BC with support from the poor, and held it with two interruptions until his death in 528/7 BC. Despite unsuccessfully opposing his former loved boy’s tyranny, Solon also acted as his counsellor.
[2] Perrin has “two men” instead of “they”, but there are no such two words in the Greek.
[3] Perrin twice in this sentence translates “πολλὴ” as “largely”, but “much” makes better sense.
[4] [Footnote by the translator:] Euripides, Bakchai, 8.
[5] As an interesting indication of how the bonds forged by Greek love were sometimes perpetuated, it is noteworthy that Charmos in turn became the lover of Peisistratos’s son and eventual successor, Hippias, who went on to marry his old lover’s daughter (Athenaios, The Learned Banqueters, 609d). Charmos may well also have married the daughter of his lover Peisistratos, since his son Hipparchos was described as a kinsman of Peisistratos (Aristotle, Athenian Constitution XXII).
[6] [Footnote by the translator:] Ἔρωτι μέν νυν ὅστις ἀντανίσταται πύκτης ὅπως ἐς χεῖρας, οὐ καλῶς φρονεῖ. (Sophokles, Trachiniai, 441 f.)
[7] The Cyprus-born is an expression for Aphrodite, the goddess of love (and sometimes, when in juxtaposition to her son Eros, specifically of the love of women rather than boys), who was born in that island.
[8] The translator’s “lover” has been replaced by the Greek word used, “eromenos”, since “lover” obscures a distinction in roles that was fundamental to Greek thinking.
[9] It is hard to know why Aristotle thus concluded. As he says, Peisistratos died in the archon year 528/7 BC. Plutarch in his Life of Solon says Solon died in that of 559/8 BC. Diogenes Laertios in his biography of Solon in his Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers says (Solon 62) that Solon died aged 80 and was thus born in ca. 639 BC. Peisistratos is known only to have died “old”. If one accepts Solon’s own statement (Diogenes Laertios, Solon 54) that a life was already full at 70, one can best guess that Peisistratos was born by 598 BC. Thus, when Peisistratos was fourteen, Solon would have been at most fifty-five, an age gap that was unusual for Greek pederasty, but far from unheard-of. In fact, Molly Miller, appraising all the evidence in her “The accepted date for Solon: precise but wrong?” in Arethusa, Spring, 1969, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring, 1969), pp. 62-86, concludes that Solon’s dates were early on misdated by a quarter of a century. She estimates (p. 76) the dates of birth of Solon and Peisistratos as 615 and 605 BC, making for a conventional gap of ten years between erastes and eromenos.
Comments
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Daemonic Rise, 24 March 2018
So nothing much changes. Like Solon, the modern State passes a law forbidding its slaves (ie, everyone) the right to love boys, thus putting the matter in the category of horrific practices, and in a way inciting the worthless to worship that which is unworthy.
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