Preliminary Material -- INTRODUCTION -- SOLON: HISTORICAL SOURCES AND SCHOLARSHIP: WHAT WE DO AND DO NOT KNOW -- LITERARY CRITICISM OF SOLON'S POLITICAL POEMS AFTER JAEGER -- THE POLIS IDEA IN THE WORK OF THE NEW CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS -- THE LEXICOGRAPHY AND INTERNAL POETICS OF DIKE -- SOLON'S UNDERSTANDING OF DIKE IN LIGHT OF THE POLIS IDEA -- CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS -- THE ATTHIDOGRAPHERS AND THE PRESERVATION OF THE AXONES -- REGIONALIST THEORIES OF CONFLICT IN ARCHAIC GREECE -- HANSEN ON SOLON IN THE ORATORS AND THE MINIMUM ARISTOTELIAN VIEW OF SOLON'S DEMOCRATIC REFORMS -- PARTICULARS IN THE DISCUSSION OF SOLON'S CHRONOLOGY -- Πρα̑σıϛ ἐπí λύσεı -- THE HOPLITE AND THE POLIS: BRIEF MISCELLANEA -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX -- SUPPLEMENTS TO MNEMOSYNE by H. PINKSTER , H.S. VERSNEL , D.M. SCHENKEVELD , P. H. SCHRIJVERS and S.R. SLINGS.

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This book examines the meaning of justice or dike in the political poems of Solon from a new interpretative perspective. The first two chapters argue that neither standard historical nor literary treatments have provided an adequate foundation for understanding Solon’s dike . The main defect lies in an inability to connect Solon’s concrete political work with his poetic perceptions. The book’s central proposal is that the polis idea, from new classical archaeology, provides an objective standard for an interpretation of Solon’s dike , which remedies this defect. The third chapter sets forth the polis idea, which becomes the measure for an examination, in the final two chapters, of Solon’s view of dike . The book thus exhibits an interdisciplinary approach to Archaic poetry.