Acting and Knowing before Plato : on Solon’s Theodicy

The paper argues for a compatibilist reading of the two most important of Solon’s poems, the Elegy on the Polis and the Elegy to the Muses. In the two poems Solon claims that the gods intervene in the human world and sanction good and evil actions. The problem is, however, that human beings are not always able to understand the divine perspective. This leads to recognize that they need divine help and therefore the exhortation to moderation.