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Maria Noussia-Fantuzzi. Solon the Athenian. The Poetic Fragments. Mnemosyne Supplements 326. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010. Pp. xiv, 579. $230.00. ISBN 978-9-004-17478-8.
It seems strange to be in Greece while writing about Solon and reading the newspapers on the ... of the Hellenic debt: an ancient word dramatically echoing in the present reality of an entire nation. The time has come, it would seem, to reread Solon's lines and the traditions about him. To this end, it is both useful and pleasant to turn to the book under review, which features a critical edition of the fragments attributed to Solon; it also deals with his life, political actions, and ideology, without overlooking the issues related to the transmission of his text from the archaic age to the present day.
The volume is divided into three major sections: "Introduction" (3-77), "Text" with detailed critical apparatus (82-124), and "Commentary" (127-566), followed by a bibliography (527-66) and two indexes on "Primary Sources" and "Names and Topics." This impressive book merits a much more detailed treatment than is feasible in this review. I will therefore limit myself to analyzing the introduction and the reading of fr. 1 G-P (= 13 W), which give a good example of Noussia-Fantuzzi's method and working style.
The introduction features five chapters (1. Solon's...