Solon

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Solon is mentioned by Charlemagne in the speech of Canto VIII of Paradise, delivered in the Heaven of Venus, where the Frankish emperor explains the necessary diversity of human aptitudes for civil life, ordained by divine providence through the influences of the heavens. To illustrate this variety, Charlemagne cites, as extreme and opposite cases, the birth of Solon and that of another figure, Xerxes, thus showing how different celestial influences correspond to very different natures and tasks among men. The commentary note on the passage places Dante's statement within the Aristotelian teaching on man as a being naturally suited to civil life, and recalls how Dante himself elsewhere takes up the idea of the necessary differentiation of tasks within the community. The entry limits itself to what is directly attested by the verse and the note: the name of Solon, the mention of his birth, and his function as an example of the diversity of human aptitudes.