Athens in the 7th century BC seems to have been a place of social and political tensions between rich and poor. At the beginning of the 6th century, Solon emerged as an enlightened reformer, who put in place measures to improve the Athenian economy and the lot of the poor, and recorded his efforts in poetry. By 560 BC, however, Athens was moving towards a political regime common in archaic Greece: tyranny. After three attempts, Peisistratos finally gained power as tyrant of Athens. In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd explores this critical period in Greek history and also focuses on one of our main sources, the 5th century BC writer Herodotus, who is often awarded the title of “the father of history”.

Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.