Solon

Use in the book

When Critias describes Charmides as philosophical and poetic, Socrates replies that the family's fine gift reaches back to its kinship with Solon. The compliment connects a youth's reported aptitude to a prestigious poetic kinsman. It is not an assessment of surviving poems by Charmides. Later Solon appears with Anacreon among the poets who praised the paternal house for its beauty, excellence, and reputed happiness.

The two mentions are strategically placed before the examination of temperance. They make inherited reputation a powerful expectation, then leave the question of the individual's virtue to inquiry. Even the phrase “everything else called happiness” prevents an effortless equation of noble family prosperity with the more exact account of happiness demanded later.

Solon's authority should be distinguished from that of Homer and Hesiod in the subsequent refutations. No Solonian verse is quoted here to prove a proposition about temperance. His name supplies cultural and genealogical prestige. The eventual “lawgiver” who gave the name temperance at 175b is anonymous; nothing in that passage identifies him as Solon.

Places to read

1. 155aFamily kinship with Solon answers Critias’ praise of Charmides as a poet
2. 157e–158a2Solon is among the poets said to have celebrated the ancestral house

Translation in this edition

“Kinship” renders συγγένεια. The Greek does not say that Solon personally taught the present Charmides or Critias, nor identify him with the final hypothetical name-giver.

Σόλων

Attested: Σόλωνος (solōnos). Solon, named first as a family connection associated with poetry, then as a poet who celebrated Charmides’ paternal house. References: 155a, 157e. Lexical identification: lemma: Σόλων. See Solon.

Use in the book

Asked what philosophizing is, the cultured lover appeals to Solon and quotes “I grow old always learning many things.” He then prescribes that the prospective philosopher always learn at least one thing, when younger and when older, so as to learn as much as possible during life. Socrates initially finds something in the answer before asking whether it identifies philosophy with much learning. The speaker accepts that restatement.

It is important to distinguish the verse from the interpretation built upon it. Lifelong learning is not refuted merely because maximal accumulation proves an inadequate definition of philosophy. The cultured lover has drawn a program from Solon and treated its quantity as sufficient; Socrates tests that inference through the contrast between much exertion and properly measured exertion. The line can continue to express an admirable openness without settling what, how much, or from whom to learn.

Solon also performs a social function in the scene. A lover identified with music and letters answers a definitional question by deploying poetry. That resource can start reflection, but authority does not exempt the proposed account from examination. The dialogue’s later Homeric comparison likewise uses poetry to illuminate a difficulty rather than to terminate inquiry by citation.

Places to read

1. 133cγηράσκω δ’ αἰεὶ πολλὰ διδασκόμενος — The line of Solon is quoted as the first answer to what philosophizing is.
2. 133cκαὶ νεώτερον ὄντα καὶ πρεσβύτερον — The lover applies continued learning to both younger and older life.

Translation in this edition

The note identifies Solon as the Athenian lawgiver and poet of the early sixth century BC and assigns the verse to fragment 18 West. It notes allusions, rather than direct quotations, in Laches 188b and 189a and Republic 536d. The apparatus records Burnet’s δ’ αἰεὶ with the siglum Solo, the form supplied by Solon’s own verse, beside differing forms in B and T. The edition sets the verse separately and translates didaskomenos as “learning”; its glossary explicitly flags that Greek distinction. This article reports the edition’s source identification, not an independent reconstruction of Solon’s text.