Most of the aristocrats of Solon's contemporaries grew rich by engaging in usury and enslaving their debtors. Solon considered this method unfair and turned to maritime trade. He became a merchant and traveler. Distant countries attracted the young aristocrat, obviously, not only by the opportunity to make a fortune. His lively and inquisitive mind yearned for knowledge and vivid impressions. Even at an advanced age, he did not lose interest in new knowledge: “I am getting old, but I always learn a lot everywhere.”
Solon lived in difficult times. The former order, based on the domination of the tribal nobility, was dying away, the demos (the people) rose to fight against the aristocracy. Ignorant, but wealthy citizens considered unfair the undivided dominance of the aristocracy in the courts and administration. Breaking the traditional foundations of life painfully responded in the minds of people. It was hard to live for a peasant who fell into debt bondage and lost faith in the justice of the strong. With hopeless longing, the aristocrats looked at life - cursing, invoking heavenly punishments on the heads of the "self-thinking mob", not seeing anything good in the future. The Megarian poet-aristocrat Theognid, expelled from his native city, assured: “The best lot for mortals is to never be born into the world. And never see the bright sun rays.
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Solon was a cheerful and even frivolous person, according to the definition of his biographer Plutarch. He loved life and, having endured many failures and disappointments, he wrote: “Now Dionysus, Cyprida and the Muses have become dear to me - those whose amusements instill joy in people.” The enmity and hatred that flared up in society made him suffer too: “Yes, I understand, and grief sunk deep into my heart: I see how the former first country of the Inter-Ionian lands is bowing down.” He was close to the new people who had risen from the people, understood their needs, realized their strength. Therefore, unlike the aristocrats, who persisted in adherence to the old order, he was ready to contribute to the establishment of a new socio-political system and knew how to do it.
