L’apodemia di Solone e l’inalterabilità delle sue leggi. La versione di Erodoto

The aim of the article is to identify the tradition to which the Herodotean version of Solonian’s apodemia (latency) can be traced. While scholars recognised the dependence of the later sources (Aristotle and Plutarch) on Herodotus and also identified the alternative traditions to Herodotus to which Aristotle and Plutarch would have referred, the origin of the Herodotean version of the story remains debated, generally explained by the dependence on traditions outside the polis such as the tradition of the Seven Wise Men or the "legend" of Greek legislators. This article discusses the hypotheses already put forward in order to identify the possible cultural matrix of the Herodotean version and considers the possibility of identifying its most plausible context of elaboration in the oral traditions of the polis. Herodotus offers the version of a story that he knows through Athenian traditions that had fixed its main contents: (a) the pact established between citizens and legislator in the phase of the origins of Athenian democratic legislation; (b) the role in that pact of the sworn commitment not to repeal any law for ten years. Thus we have a story that is already structured, rather than being an uncritical collection of data, and whose context of elaboration is more plausible in the Athenian cultural environment.