Plutarch

Solon held the office of archon and enacted his reform of the Athenian constitution in 594 BC.

Plutarch’s (and our) only contemporary written sources were Solon’s poems, collected by scholars long after his death, and the preserved text of his laws. Though the poems are known to us only in fragments, some found only in this Life, Plutarch had access to many complete poems—he notes, for example (8), that the Salamis poem ran to one hundred lines, although he only quotes the first two—

Plutarch cites a number of laws known from no other source

by making eligibilty to office dependent on wealth and not birth, Solon broke the political control of the landed

Seven Sages of ancient Greece

For I granted the people an adequate amount of power
And sufficient prestige—not more nor less.
But I found a way also to maintain the status
Of the old wielders of power with their fantastic riches.
I stood protecting rich and poor with my stout shield,
And saw that neither side prevailed unjustly.