Solon, the herald of Salamis

The use of both the word keryx and the term ant’ agores themenos in Solon’s Salaminian elegy led to misunderstandings, and on the basis of the poem’s words, subsequent authors supposed that Solon presented his work as a herald on the agora . If he was indeed a herald, then — just like Aischines — he must have had a pilidion (a hat to guarantee his safety) on. Therefore Solon had not been condemned to statutory death. The pilidion was later on considered a sign of madness as a result of semantic change or radiation. Consequently, in the first century Philodemus and Cicero wrote about Solon as a madman. Yet in the case of a wise statesman this motive demanded further explanation, which is why the incident was marked as Solon’s genial idea: as if he had been aware that standing up for his cause feigning to be mad was a way to avoid punishment