Around 630 bce Draco enacted laws for the Athenians, and in 594/3 bce Solon repealed the laws of Draco except those about homicide and enacted laws on all aspects of life ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 7.1). The evidence for these laws has been preserved in many different sources, whose reliability varies. In some cases we know that laws enacted around 400 bce were wrongly attributed to Solon (e.g. the laws about nomothesia at Dem. 20.93–4). In 1966 E. Ruschenbusch published a collection of the fragments of Solon's laws. D.F. Leão and P.J. Rhodes published a collection of the laws of Draco and Solon in 2015. S. has now produced a two-volume collection with testimonia, 143 fragments with German translation and extensive commentary, bibliography, a concordance with other editions, index of sources, and an index of names and topics. The fragments are discussed in nine chapters, which deal with early law (pp. 65–86), laws about homicide (pp. 87–272), the Areopagus (pp. 273–329), laws about officials (pp. 330–413), legal procedure (pp. 414–68) and procedures before the archon basileus (pp. 469–569), before the polemarch (pp. 570–80), before the thesmothetai (pp. 581–744) and before the archon eponymos (pp. 745–865). The collection of sources is very thorough, but S. never formulates a rigorous methodology for evaluating the reliability of the evidence. As a result, the analysis of the evidence often contains unwarranted speculation, implausible hypotheses and reconstructions contradicted by reliable evidence. In this review I can only discuss a few of the problematic analyses found in the two volumes.
In his account of the revision of the laws of Draco and Solon between 410/9 and 400/399 S. (pp. 3–12) relies on the document found inserted into the text of Andocides (1.83–4), but does not present all the evidence for the procedures, which shows that the document is a forgery. In the account given by Andocides (1.81–2) there are two procedures: first, the enactment of new laws drawn up by nomothetai elected by the Assembly and, second, an approval of the laws of Draco and Solon by which the Assembly votes either to accept or reject the laws and instructs the approved laws to be ‘written up’, that is, inscribed on stelai (Dem. 47.71). In the document there is no procedure to approve the laws of Solon and Draco, which the Athenians are to follow, but only a procedure to add new laws formulated by nomothetai. The new laws are to be inscribed on a wall. S. claims that the differences between the two are less serious (‘weniger gravierend’, p. 9), but this is not true: in Andocides’ summary and in the document the methods for the selection of the nomothetai and their functions are completely different, and the document does not mention a procedure to approve the laws of Draco and Solon and provides no role for the Assembly. More importantly, S. does not take into account the evidence of IG I3 104, lines 1–10, and Lysias, Against Nicomachus, which confirms the main details given by Andocides and contradicts those found in the document. S. further claims that the inscription of the laws on a wall as ordered by the document was only for temporary display (‘provisorisch’, p. 9), which is not in the Greek text. This is implausible: when the Athenians created temporary copies, they had them written on sanides, not on a wall (see J.P. Sickinger, Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens [1999], pp. 69–70, 81–2).
When discussing the laws about tyranny, S. (pp. 65–86) relies on the inserted document at Andocides 1.96–8, which has also been revealed to be a forgery. S. tries to dismiss the objections to authenticity based on the unusual features of the prescript, which he claims can be explained because the decree was passed by the Council of Five Hundred. This explains nothing and does not take into account the unparalleled placement of the proposer in the decree of Demophantos and the fact that four decrees also enacted by the Council of Five Hundred in 410–409 bce preserved on stone have very different prescripts (IG I3 99, 101, 102, 103, none of these cited by S.). And he cannot explain the words and expressions not found in other, genuine decrees. S. claims that Lycurgus (Leocr. 124–7) refers both to the decree of Demophantos in 410/9 and to a revised version of the decree enacted after 404/3, but the orator refers to only one decree, not two.
The section on the laws of Draco and Solon on homicide (pp. 87–272) suffers from three major flaws. First, S. (pp. 134–7) reprints Stroud's text of IG I3 104, which restores several gaps from phrases in a document in [Dem.] 43.57–8, which has now been shown to be a forgery (see E.M. Harris and M. Canevaro, ‘Toward a New Text of Draco's Law on Homicide’, REG 136 [2023], 1–52) and which contains several readings that cannot be confirmed by autopsy (S. has clearly not studied the stone). Second, S. attempts to reconstruct early procedure for homicide from the provisions for homicide found in the Hebrew Scriptures, an approach that collides with the Greek evidence and has been refuted in detail by M. Dreher (‘Hikesie, Asyle und das Tötungsgesetz Drakons’, in: L. Gagliardi and L. Pepe [edd.], Dike. Essays on Greek Law in honor of Alberto Maffi [2019], pp. 87–104) and A. Maffi (‘Rasssegna critica’, Dike 21 [2019], 186–8). Third, S. (pp. 128–32) attempts to downplay the importance of pollution in homicide law despite the evidence of passages such as Aeschines 2.148, Antiphon 5.11, 82–3; 6.6, and Demosthenes 20.158; 37.59 (see E.M. Harris, ‘The Family, the Community and Murder: the Role of Pollution in Athenian Homicide Law’, in: C. Ando and J. Rüpke [edd.], Public and Private in Ancient Mediterranean Law and Religion [2015], pp. 11–35).
S. (pp. 570–80) follows Aeschines (3.175–6) in attributing the public action for cowardice (graphe deilias) to Solon, but this is implausible because the word taxis in the law implies a style of warfare that did not develop until the late sixth century bce (see H. Van Wees, Greek Warfare [2004], pp. 166–83). The analysis of laws about hybris (pp. 581–94) relies heavily on another forged document at Dem. 21.47 (see now M. Canevaro and E. M. Harris, ‘The Authenticity of the Document at Dem. 21.47’, RDE 9 [2019], 91–108) and the discussion of F117a on a questionable passage from the Digest (see I. Arnaoutoglou, ‘The Greek Text of D. 47.22.4 (Gai ad legem duodecim tabularum) Reconsidered’, Legal Roots 5 [2016], 87–117). In F116e (= Plutarch, Solon 21.1) and F97d (= Plutarch, Solon 23.1) S. does not see that the mention of drachms calls the authenticity of several laws into question (see G. Davis, ‘Dating the Drachmas in Solon's Laws’, Historia 61 [2012], 127–58).
What is also lacking in these two volumes is an overview or attempt to situate all the laws into the general framework of the principles expressed by Solon in his poetry. As a result, the picture of Solon's achievement remains fragmentary. And there is no attempt to place Solon's aims and statutes within the larger context of the development of the polis in the Archaic period with the gradual transition from personalised forms of power to formal institutional structures (see e.g. E.M. Harris, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens [2006], pp. 3–28; M. Canevaro, ‘Social Mobility vs. Societal Stability: Once Again on the Aims and Meaning of Solon's Reforms’, in: J.C. Bernhardt and M. Canevaro [edd.], From Homer to Solon: Continuity and Change in Archaic Greece [2022], pp. 363–413).
