Talk:Solon

message: Unfortunately somebody for some reason somewhere where such decisions are made has decided to move Dryden's Plutarch to a different address. It is now here: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives_(Dryden_translation)/Solon . So all those Plutarch links in the article will now need to be redone - and care must be taken that the sectional headings aren't lost. One of the article's merits is (was) its ability to link quickly and directly to paragraphs within primary sources. But somebody for some reason somewhere...should be shot hung drawn and quartered and left to hang on a flagpole as an example to other meddling....but I suppose it had to be done for some reason. Lucretius (talk) 23:55, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's interesting - I thought the list format was useful there as highlighting the different theories and the repetition was useful as a summary. I like lists and summaries in an encyclopaedia as it facilitates skim reading - most people who access the article are likely to skim read - while there is still enough there for more empowered readers (those with the time, inclination and educational background to go deeper). Feel free to edit as you like, though I reserve the right to undo, same as I hope you'll undo any unhelpful changes I might make at Gladiator. Lucretius (talk) 23:46, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I happily admit my bias in this respect - and it is a bias. Personally I find lists and bullet-points difficult to read, and narrative easier to read and to write. I'll try an offline narrative version over the next few days, then paste it in. As you say, reversion is an option. Btw, all your edits to date at Gladiator have been improvements... imo. Regards! Haploidavey (talk) 09:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Plutarch link 

message: Aristotle is well known for being a hard-case prude in relation the sexual morals of the times he lived, and he was very persistent in white-washing the character of people he liked on other grounds, even ones whose erotic frolics are very well attested, and besmirching the repute of men he disliked. So I would not consider him a reliable witness at all, but a very biased one. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 00:11, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: In writing the history of classical antiquity, we present the view of antiquity.  Presenting Aristotle's opinion is not an endorsement of it, but an exercise in epistemology which the informed reader should be prepared to deal with critically.  The Cardiff Chestnut (talk) 00:26, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Do please read the preceding discussion on this talk page. People are clearly using (unfairly) the weight of Aristotle "Ipse Dixit!" to evaluate what weight the different sides of the argument should be given in their presentation in the article. Really, read the discussion. 
In fact what is pretty laughable is that both sides appear to precisely have a vested interest in *not* representing the whole historical context, but only the parts that support their agenda. To me both sides are equally guilty of that. 
But Aristotle is really precisely the wrong brickbat to use to cow the other side to admit that the whole issue of pederasty should be elided from the historical context. I am not saying that he is precisely lying. Aristotle might well be telling the truth (in that instance) but I wouldn't take his say so on the issue, because he is *such* an unreliable witness on the peccadilloes of philosophers he knew. 
As for the issue of the age difference making the whole thing implausible... I would ask you, if such liaisons *never* took place, why would all the greek contemporaries be so excercised over the issue? There are bits and pieces all over Platos works for instance where the old codgers rather animatedly dispute precisely the issue of what age should the boy be for, you know what. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 05:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

text: Yeah ... I didn't realize that you were referring to an ongoing issue (I wasn't around for the above debates and sped right by them.) So you're talking specifically about the "Solon and Athenian sexuality" section? The Cardiff Chestnut (talk) 05:38, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

text: Having looked through the discussions above and this particular section and its sources, I'm not going to get too involved with this since it appears to be a POV bloodbath that is bloated with competing statements that don't necessarily cohere beyond making sure that everybody got to get their volleys in.  I do still think that my initial reply applies and don't really see the mention of Aristotle as cowing anyone.  A few statements in the section get a bit creative with their syntheses, though, and might border on OR.  If you think that the language around the Aristotle discussion is too POVish, then why not edit and see what sort of dust you kick up?  Best, The Cardiff Chestnut (talk) 06:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah the good old days! I was in that bloodbath, under my previous user name Amphitryoniades. The 'debate' concerned a quote from Plutarch, which had been installed by a banned editor. Plutarch conjectures ("and that I suppose") about a loving relationship between Solon and Pisistratos, and I tried to remove it because it was tendentious (the banned editor was that kind of editor). For this, I got mugged by key figures in the Completely Gross and Revolting Project, who descended in numbers and accused me of being a vandal etc. Actually, I have a history of removing ancient sources from this article (it was ALL ancient sources when I made my first edit here, when I was operating under yet another one of my user names, Lucretiuswhat a mystery man I am!) So my removal of the Plutarch quote was nothing out of character for me, except that time it concerned the theme of pederasty, where the banned editor could always look to the CGR project for support, even after he was banned. What can one man do against a mob like that? Which is why the Plutarch quote is still here. However, I subsequently managed to sterilize the propagandist germ the best I could. There are various sterilizing agents in there and Aristotle is one of them. Therefore I have no objection to the section on pederasty staying the way it is. But if Aristotle goes, so does Plutarch. McOoee (talk) 12:01, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aristotles reliability as a witness. 

message: Herodotus lived just a bit more than a century later than Solon. Born 74 years after his death.--Lucinos (talk) 09:49, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Valid point. Herodotus got lumped with Plutarch. Changed the wording to "long after". Thanks. McOoee (talk) 10:06, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: and while you are at it can you provide citations for this : "at a time when history was by no means an academic discipline." you might say that for Herodotus (although it is debatable) but Plutarch lived after the Historian (Thucydides) and therefore history was an academic discipline at his time.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.102.216.254 (talk) 18:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Herodotus did not wrote "hundreds" of years after the death of Solon 

message: :a) . Pronunciations belong at the guy's Wiktionary entry.
:b) . If we were going to list pronunciations, we'd need sourcing, particularly for specious pronunciations like .
:c) . The pronunciations given were solely American.
Once you fix that, though, it means we have a laundry list of every possible pronunciation of the letters Solon which means there's no actual value being provided. Anyone who can read the rest of the page in English can piece together an "acceptable" pronunciation for the guy's name. There are places for pronunciation guides where there are established but non-obvious pronunciations like BAY-uhl for Ba'al. This guy's name ain't one of them and the article's better off without IPA clutter in the lede. — LlywelynII 05:06, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation

message: The article states "Solon was born in Athens ..." and later: "... his ashes were scattered around Salamis, the island where he was born." So which one is right? I understand that Athens claimed the island of Salamis as its possession but this claim was disputed by Megara. If he was born in the city of Athens proper, then the passage about his ashes are wrong. If he was born on the island of Salamis, then it is misleading to state that he was born "in Athens" as the wording suggests that the city of Athens proper is meant. --Proofreader (talk) 10:17, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthplace 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Solon. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071013223755/http://uwo.ca/english/florilegium/vol2/walters.html to http://www.uwo.ca/english/florilegium/vol2/walters.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071013223755/http://uwo.ca/english/florilegium/vol2/walters.html to http://www.uwo.ca/english/florilegium/vol2/walters.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071013223755/http://uwo.ca/english/florilegium/vol2/walters.html to http://www.uwo.ca/english/florilegium/vol2/walters.html
*Added  tag to http://www.4literature.net/Demosthenes/Oration_on_the_Regulation_of_the_State/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 22:42, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I am a professional ancient historian. This piece is quite poor, as if most of the dominant editors have no more than a mediocre undergraduate level understanding of the topic - at best. It treats any number of thinly sourced ideas as if they had credibility and consensus, when the opposite is true. It has little of sense to say about the most basic questions scholars address: which ancient sources are most credible, and what are their biases and underlying assumptions, their anachronisms, and their guesses and inventions? It also does a terrible job of analyzing the ancient polemics among various historical and political authors, which are reflected in the few surviving sources. Instead, we get a bizarre and bizarrely large section on Solon's supposed regulations of sex. Who in the ever loving world are these editors who thought that "sex" deserves closer attention than the debate over the "ancestral constitution"?139.147.60.232 (talk)  — Preceding undated comment added 15:40, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia created by volunteers.  Many of its articles could be better.  Especially on relatively niche topics like this one, the articles are usually the products of only a few interested editors; in the case of this article, there haven't been significant content changes in years.  If you want to improve the article, the best thing to do would be start editing it yourself, to better represent modern scholarly views on Solon.  The second best thing to do would be to suggest, on this talk page, some recent high-quality sources on Solon that other editors could consult, or to point out some specific claims which are currently in the article but are inaccurate or where there are other scholarly positions which are not represented. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:00, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extraordinarily misleading, naive, and strange article