SOLON

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Great Athenian legislator, philosopher and poet. He belonged to a rich and aristocratic family of the Kodrid family and his father was Hexekestides. When he lost his fortune, he turned to trade and therefore traveled to Egypt and Asia Minor. From a child he was educated and brought up harmoniously. He took advantage of his ten years of travel to study foreign cultures and laws, as well as the political and economic life of other countries. These acquired resources, when the right moment came, he used them effectively for the social and economic upliftment of his homeland, to emerge as the greatest man of his time.

He won the public's trust first as a poet, influencing the Athenian public opinion with his fiery verses, advising, encouraging and exciting the Athenians. After he diagnosed that the evil demons of Athens and the quarrels were nothing more than a class struggle, and he promised in his poems the cure of evil, he was elected in 594 BC ruler with unlimited power, to cure the social wounds from which the city was suffering, he succeeded by a fairer legislation in almost equalizing the classes and relieving the oppressed citizens, by the relief of debts, the emancipation of slaves, the lifting of mortgages on estates , the prohibition of personal servitude of the debtor and his family, the improvement of lending conditions, etc.

Solon is ranked among the Seven Sages of ancient Greece.

Quotes

1. NO EXCESS
2. WORDS ARE THE MIRROR OF DEEDS
3. THE LAWS ARE LIKE A SPIDER'S WEB THAT CAPTURES THE LIGHT AND SMALL BUT IS TORN BY THE HEAVY AND BIG
4. SPEECH IS SEALED BY SILENCE AND SILENCE BY CIRCUMSTANCES
5. SATIATION IS BORN OF WEALTH AND OF SATIATION HUBRIS
6. RELY ON BENEVOLENCE MORE THAN OATH
7. DO NOT LIE
8. GET INVOLVED IN IMPORTANT THINGS
9. DON'T MAKE FRIENDS HASTILY AND DON'T ABANDON THE FRIENDS YOU MAKE
10. ASSUME THE GOVERNMENT AFTER YOU HAVE BEEN GOVERNED FIRST
11. DON'T GIVE PLEASURABLE ADVICE BUT CORRECT
12. LET REASON GUIDE YOU
13. DO NOT ASSOCIATE WITH THE BAD
14. HONOR GODS AND RESPECT PARENTS
15. THE BEST WAY OF LIFE IS WHERE JUSTICE AND EQUALITY PREVAIL