Igor Surikov

Little attention is paid in classical scholarship to the pieces of evidence on Solon which date from the 5th century B.C. (Herodotus’ ‘Solonian’ excurses are an exception); as much more popular is studying the ‘Solonian’ tradition in the 4th century B.C.). The obvious reason is scarcity of those pieces of evidence, especially when we seek for direct mentions of the Athenian poet and law-maker; as a result, enlistment also of indirect (so in some sense even non-existing) source material becomes inevitable. Why is there not a single word on Solon in Thucydides and his teacher Antiphon, who, of course, could not be ignorant of activities of the person who had played such a prominent role in the history of their polis? What might the Sophists write on Solon, since they were acutely interested in problems of traditional practical wisdom? How can the mentions of Solon in 5th century B.C. comedies be interpreted? Is it possible to obtain any data on the man in question from the poets of the same century who wrote tragedies or continued the lyric tradition? These are the questions the present article deals with.