From Fate to Freedom

Abstract Many commentators approach Solon’s words to Croesus as evocations or explicit statements of Herodotus’ own thought. This chapter raises questions about Solon’s wisdom. Solon’s account of fate does not work by itself as an explanation of the Croesus narrative because it abstracts from the errors of Croesus and the shrewdness of Cyrus, which Herodotus reveals and emphasizes through the narrative action. Solon’s words become especially ambiguous when viewed in a broader perspective. Solonian perspectives on fate, luck, mortality, and divine jealousy, as Solon explains them to Croesus, do not exactly align with either Herodotus’ skeptical remarks about the Greek gods and heroes or his eventual celebration of the clever and impious Themistocles as the Athenian leader most responsible for the Greek victory over the Persians. Herodotus shows that, for the democratic Athenians led by Themistocles, it was resistance to rather than acquiescence in ostensible fate and divine jealousy that made possible the battle of Salamis, the defeat of the Persians, and the flowering of the Athenian democracy. By beginning with Solon and Croesus and then situating this beginning within the whole, the chapter tracks the dialectical movement of Herodotus’ thinking and writing.