Procedimientos

Solon departing from Cyprus bids farewell to the king and the citizens o f Soloi in Cyprus. The chronology o f Solon's journeys has been variously debated (cf. Alessandri 1977/80, and Id. 1989; Reeker 1971; Markianos 1974; Podlecki 1976), but it falls completely outside the concern o f the interpretation o f Solon’s poems. However, there is a general agreement about the date o f Solon's stay in Cyprus after his nomothesia,

sometime between 569 and 560, and not in the period o f his travelling as a young man (cf. Plut. Sol. 2.1-2, after Hermippus) — the latter chronology appears to be solely favoured by Alessandri.

Post-Hellenistic sources in fo rm us that Solon was connected w ith the foundation, or the re-foundation o f Soloi by a king named Cypranor or Philocyprus (the latter name being confirmed by Hdt. 5.113). According to Ach.Tat. Vita Arat. in schol. A ra l. p. 7.14ff. M artin, the town was called Soloi after Solon because o f his advice to the king Cypranor during the foundation; in another source. Plut. Sol. 26.3-4, Soloi was the new name that king Philocyprus gave to the pre-existing town o f A ipeia, again to honour the Athenian statesman who had advised him to re-locate the previous, ugly settlement in a fertile plain, and Solon him self planned what Plutarch calls the ouvoLKiopog o f the tow n. For a suggestion about the location o f Soloi, see Karageorghis 1973, and fo r Philocyprus' dates, Hammond 1955, 396 n. 2.

Linguistic history disproves beyond any doubt that the name Soloi was really connected w ith Solon, as the place-name is an Aramaic word already attested in Assyrian texts one century before Solon, cf. RE 3A , 938f. Besides, the antiquity o f the tradition — as w ell as o f the other (false) tradition regarding the foundation by Solon o f an homonymous Soloi in C ilicia, w hich in fact was a Rhodian colony (both stories can be found flanked in POxy. 680 o f the second h a lf o f the 3rd cent. A .D ., cf. G allo 1975) — has to be assessed taking into consideration that Hdt. 5.113, w hile mentioning the stay o f Solon in Soloi, did not hint at any eponymic connection o f the statesman w ith the tow n. As a fact, the traditions about the eponyms o f both towns are not attested before the Hellenistic age, a period when many legends concerning the foundation o f poleis arose as the result o f the Hellenistic taste fo r aetiology.

Taking into consideration this doubtful evidence, Sykutris 1928, thought that the story o f Solon being eponymous o f Cyprian Soloi was a late fic tio n derived fro m the tradition o f Solon being eponymous o f the C ilician Soloi, and that the third distich o f our fragment (w hich by the way is omitted by Ach.Tat. Vit. Arat. cit.) was a spurious addition introduced to record this story — indeed he took fo r granted that oiKLopog 1. 5 alluded to Solon's role as a synoikistes.

The authenticity o f the whole fragment has been reaffirmed by W ilam o w itz 1929, 459f. on the grounds o f a reappraisal o f the possible historicity o f some kind o f re­ foundation (oLKLopoç )/resettlement o f Soloi by Philocyprus (cp. Gelon's auvoLKiapoç o f the inhabitants o f Camarina and o f Megara into Syracuse: see Hdt. 7.156); cf. also Reeker 1971, 103 and n. 27. Above all, it has also been observed that Solon's word OLKiapos need not necessarily be intended as im plying any reference to the story o f Solon's participation in the foundation o f the town (cf. Masaracchia 1958, 83-7, 288); quite on the contrary, the ambiguity o f this and other expressions o f fr. 11 may have started, as part o f a 'po litical m ythology', some fanciful reconstruction by a later scholar, fo r instance either an Attidographer(as we learn from Plut. 5'oZ. 26.10-1 and Str. 14.683, Athenian propaganda singled out the Athenian Demophon son o f Theseus, or Phaleros and Akamas, brother o f Demophon, as ktistai o f Aipeia or o f Soloi, respectively), or one o f the Peripatetic biographers dealing w ith Solon's life , like Phainias or Hermippus, who appears to have been the firs t to treat Solon's journeys extensively (cf. G allo 1975, cit. 189 n. 20, and Id. 1976). Furthermore, the absence o f the last distich in V ita A ra ti proved to be a very weak argumentum ex silentio against its authenticity; as remarked by Alessandri 1977/80, cit., 172f., the interest o f Achilles Tatius was on the name o f the citizens o f Soloi, being both 26Xlol and ZoXeîç; therefore he may have cut out lines o f the poem w hich were not relevant to him.

This fragment is one o f the most 'litera ry' o f Solon, in the sense that the re-use o f the Hom eric models is most frequent and emphatic, consequently to the 'au lic' function it had as a farewell to a king. The poem would have been recognised in late antiquity as a (self­ generated) propemptikon o f equal to equal, according to Menander Rhetor's distinction between the sorts o f the genre (Men. Rhet. 395.4-32). The equal standing o f both is stressed by the way Solon employs the personal pronouns (11. 1, 3 ), prom inently in the starting positions o f consecutive distichs and how he pairs the wishes fo r the kin g and him self in the clausula: the firs t couplet offered to his host is succeeded by the second containing a prayer and invocation o f Aphrodite fo r his own protection and a good voyage; then the last couplet is equally divided between the good wishes fo r his addressee and the reiteration o f the asking fo r divine help fo r the journey.

Some compliments and praise (being typical o f the propemptikon fro m in fe rio r to superior according to Men. Rhet.) appear to be im plied in the firs t three lines, w ith Solon's wish about the king's long reign in Soloi and the mention o f the island as KXeivf] yqaoç. A t any rate, even this very deferential reference to the island is also revealed in the fo llo w in g line as functional to the introduction o f the idea o f Solon's sea-voyage to Athens (and the dangers it im plies).

Besides, the mention o f Aphrodite is two-folded in this elegy, as was already remarked by Masaracchia 1958, 289. T o say that it is explained by the regular association