The Athenians’ oaths to use “whatever laws Solon should make” and to change nothing for ten years: should we believe Herodotus’ account?

Poddighe, E.

2023-01-01

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Abstract

In a volume focused on the problem of legitimizing change and innovation (political, legal, social, cultural) the Athenians’ oaths to observe Solon’s laws represent a case study worth discussing since they demonstrate (at least in some of our sources) an explicit commitment to accept the new laws of Solon (which thus replaced those previously in force), while at the same time including a pledge not to change them in the future. Herodotus’ Histories, Aristotle’s Athenaion Politeia and Plutarch’s Life of Solon record the oaths and set the historical context, though they supply different details as to when and what the Athenians swore to. Herodotus tells us of “solemn oaths” taken by the Athenians before Solon laid down his laws and which contained the pledge to observe the code in its entirety for ten years. The Athenians, in the Herodotean account, accepted that Solon himself could abrogate any law, while they could not, because of their oaths. Aristotle and Plutarch record the oaths taken by the Athenians “to observe” the laws of Solon after his legislation (nomothesia), i.e. after he laid down his laws and when he decided to give them a validity of 100 years. Scholars almost uni- formly overlap the account of the sources, substituting Herodotus’ ten years for the Athenaion Politeia’s (and Plutarch’s) hundred years and so changing the account of the pledge to observe the code in its entirety for ten years (a relatively brief testing period) into the story that Solon’s laws were intended to remain free from innovation for a hundred years. This chapter makes the point that we need to assess the different reconstructions of single sources and to distinguish when and what the Athenians swore to in their oaths. I will argue, on the one hand, that we should credit the Herodotean account of the pledge to observe the code in its entirety for ten years, and contend, on the other hand, that the oaths taken by the Athenians “to observe” the laws of Solon after his decision to give the laws the validity of 100 years did not mean that the laws could not be supplemented but only that they could not be cancelled or modified.