Chapter XI: Solonian Laws and Constitution (1)

We now approach a new era in Grecian history,—the first known example of a genuine and disinterested constitutional reform, and the first foundation-stone of that great fabric, which afterwards became the type of democracy in Greece. The archonship of the eupatrid Solon dates in 594 B. C., thirty years after that of Drako, and about eighteen years after the conspiracy of Kylôn, assuming the latter event to be correctly placed B. C. 612.

The life of Solon by Plutarch and by Diogenês, especially the former, are our principal sources of information respecting this remarkable man; and while we thank them for what they have told us, it is impossible to avoid expressing disappointment that they have not told us more. For Plutarch certainly had before him both the original poems, and the original laws, of Solon, and the few transcripts which he gives from one or the other form the principal charm of his biography: but such valuable materials ought to have been made available to a more instructive result than that which he has brought out. There is hardly anything more to be deplored, amidst the lost treasures of the Grecian mind, than the poems of Solon; for we see by the remaining fragments, that they contained notices of the public and social phenomena before him, which he was compelled attentively to study,—blended with the touching expression of his own personal feelings, in the post, alike honorable and difficult, to which the confidence of his countrymen had exalted him.

Solon, son of Exekestidês, was a eupatrid of middling fortune,[156] but of the purest heroic blood, belonging to the gens or family of the Kodrids and Neleids, and tracing his origin to the god Poseidôn. His father is said to have diminished his substance by prodigality, which compelled Solon in his earlier years to have recourse to trade, and in this pursuit he visited many parts of Greece and Asia. He was thus enabled to enlarge the sphere of his observation, and to provide material for thought as well as for composition: and his poetical talents displayed themselves at a very early age, first on light, afterwards on serious subjects. It will be recollected that there was at that time no Greek prose writing, and that the acquisitions as well as the effusions of an intellectual man, even in their simplest form, adjusted themselves not to the limitations of the period and the semicolon, but to those of the hexameter and pentameter: nor in point of fact do the verses of Solon aspire to any higher effect than we are accustomed to associate with an earnest, touching, and admonitory prose composition. The advice and appeals which he frequently addressed to his countrymen[157] were delivered in this easy metre, doubtless far less difficult than the elaborate prose of subsequent writers or speakers, such as Thucydidês, Isokratês, or Demosthenês. His poetry and his reputation became known throughout many parts of Greece, and he was classed along with Thalês of Milêtus, Bias of Priênê, Pittakus of Mytilênê, Periander of Corinth, Kleobulus of Lindus, Cheilôn of Lacedæmon,—altogether forming the constellation afterwards renowned as the Seven wise men.

[156] Plutarch, Solon, i; Diogen. Laërt. iii, 1; Aristot. Polit.
iv, 9, 10.

[157] Plutarch, Solon, v.

The first particular event in respect to which Solon appears as an active politician, is the possession of the island of Salamis, then disputed between Megara and Athens. Megara was at that time able to contest with Athens, and for sometime to contest with success, the occupation of this important island,—a remarkable fact, which perhaps may be explained by supposing that the inhabitants of Athens and its neighborhood carried on the struggle with only partial aid from the rest of Attica. However this may be, it appears that the Megarians had actually established themselves in Salamis, at the time when Solon began his political career, and that the Athenians had experienced so much loss in the struggle, as to have formally prohibited any citizen from ever submitting a proposition for its reconquest. Stung with this dishonorable abnegation, Solon counterfeited a state of ecstatic excitement, rushed into the agora, and there, on the stone usually occupied by the official herald, pronounced to the crowd around a short elegiac poem,[158] which he had previously composed on the subject of Salamis. He enforced upon them the disgrace of abandoning the island, and wrought so powerfully upon their feelings, that they rescinded the prohibitory law: “Rather (he exclaimed) would I forfeit my native city, and become a citizen of Pholegandrus, than be still named an Athenian, branded with the shame of surrendered Salamis!” The Athenians again entered into the war, and conferred upon him the command of it,—partly, as we are told, at the instigation of Peisistratus, though the latter must have been at this time (600-594 B. C.) a very young man, or rather a boy.[159]

[158] Plutarch, Solon, viii. It was a poem of one hundred lines,
χαριέντως πάνυ πεποιημένων.

Diogenês tells us, that “Solon read the verses to the people
through the medium of the herald,”—a statement not less deficient
in taste than in accuracy, and which spoils the whole effect of
the vigorous exordium, Ἀυτὸς κήρυξ ἦλθον ἀφ᾽ ἱμερτῆς Σαλαμῖνος,
etc.

[159] Plutarch, _l. c._; Diogen. Laërt. i, 47. Both Herodotus (i,
59) and some authors read by Plutarch ascribed to Peisistratus
an active part in the war against the Megarians, and even the
capture of Nisæa, the port of Megara. Now the first usurpation of
Peisistratus was in 560 B. C., and we can hardly believe that he
can have been prominent and renowned in a war no less than forty
years before.

It will be seen hereafter—see the note on the interview
between Solon and Krœsus, towards the end of this chapter—that
Herodotus, and perhaps other authors also, conceived the Solonian
legislation to date at a period later than it really does;
instead of 594 B. C., they placed it nearer to the usurpation of
Peisistratus.

The stories in Plutarch, as to the way in which Salamis was recovered, are contradictory as well as apocryphal, ascribing to Solon various stratagems to deceive the Megarian occupiers; unfortunately, no authority is given for any of them. According to that which seems the most plausible, he was directed by the Delphian god, first to propitiate the local heroes of the island; and he accordingly crossed over to it by night, for the purpose of sacrificing to the heroes Periphêmus and Kychreus, on the Salaminian shore. Five hundred Athenian volunteers were then levied for the attack of the island, under the stipulation that if they were victorious they should hold it in property and citizenship.[160] They were safely landed on an outlying promontory, while Solon, having been fortunate enough to seize a ship which the Megarians had sent to watch the proceedings, manned it with Athenians, and sailed straight towards the city of Salamis, to which the five hundred Athenians who had landed also directed their march. The Megarians marched out from the city to repel the latter, and during the heat of the engagement, Solon, with his Megarian ship, and Athenian crew, sailed directly to the city: the Megarians, interpreting this as the return of their own crew, permitted the ship to approach without resistance, and the city was thus taken by surprise. Permission having been given to the Megarians to quit the island, Solon took possession of it for the Athenians, erecting a temple to Enyalius, the god of war, on Cape Skiradium, near the city of Salamis.[161]

[160] Plutarch, Solon, κυρίους εἶναι τοῦ πολιτεύματος. The strict
meaning of these words refers only to the _government_ of the
island; but it seems almost certainly implied that they would
be established in it as klêruchs, or proprietors of land, not
meaning necessarily that _all_ the preëxisting proprietors would
be expelled.

[161] Plutarch, Solon, 8, 9, 10. Daïmachus of Platæa, however,
denied to Solon any personal share in the Salaminian war
(Plutarch, comp. Solon and Public. c. 4).

Polyænus (i, 20) ascribes a different stratagem to Solon:
compare Ælian, V. H. vii, 19. It is hardly necessary to say that
the account which the Megarians gave of the way in which they
lost the island was totally different: they imputed it to the
treachery of some exiles (Pausan. i, 40, 4): compare Justin, ii,
7.

The citizens of Megara, however, made various efforts for the recovery of so valuable a possession, so that a war ensued long as well as disastrous to both parties. At last, it was agreed between them to refer the dispute to the arbitration of Sparta, and five Spartans were appointed to decide it,—Kritolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsêchidas, Anaxilas, and Kleomenês. The verdict in favor of Athens was founded on evidence which it is somewhat curious to trace. Both parties attempted to show that the dead bodies buried in the island conformed to their own peculiar mode of interment, and both parties are said to have cited verses from the catalogue of the Iliad,[162]—each accusing the other of error or interpolation. But the Athenians had the advantage on two points; first, there were oracles from Delphi, wherein Salamis was mentioned with the epithet Ionian; next, Philæus and Eurysakês, sons of the Telamonian Ajax, the great hero of the island, had accepted the citizenship of Athens, made over Salamis to the Athenians, and transferred their own residences to Braurôn and Melitê in Attica, where the deme or gens Philaidæ still worshipped Philæus as its eponymous ancestor. Such a title was held sufficient, and Salamis was adjudged by the five Spartans to Attica,[163] with which it ever afterwards remained incorporated until the days of Macedonian supremacy. Two centuries and a half later, when the orator Æschinês argued the Athenian right to Amphipolis against Philip of Macedon, the legendary elements of the title were indeed put forward, but more in the way of preface or introduction to the substantial political grounds.[164] But in the year 600 B. C., the authority of the legend was more deep-seated and operative, and adequate by itself to determine a favorable verdict.

[162] Aristot. Rhet. i, 16, 3.

[163] Plutarch, Solon, 10: compare Aristot. Rhet. i, 16.
Alkibiadês traced up his γένος to Eurysakês (Plutarch, Alkibiad.
c. 1); Miltiadês traced up his to Philæus (Herodot. vi, 35).

According to the statement of Hêreas the Megarian, both his
countrymen and the Athenians had the same way of interment:
both interred the dead with their faces towards the west. This
statement, therefore, affords no proof of any peculiarity of
Athenian custom in burial.

The Eurysakeium, or precinct sacred to the hero Eurysakês, stood
in the deme of Melitê (Harpokrat. ad v), which formed a portion
of the city of Athens.

[164] Æschin. Fals. Legat. p. 250, c. 14.

In addition to the conquest of Salamis, Solon increased his reputation by espousing the cause of the Delphian temple against the extortionate proceedings of the inhabitants of Kirrha, of which more will be said in a coming chapter; and the favor of the oracle was probably not without its effect in procuring for him that encouraging prophecy with which his legislative career opened.

It is on the occasion of Solon’s legislation, that we obtain our first glimpse—unfortunately, but a glimpse—of the actual state of Attica and its inhabitants. It is a sad and repulsive picture, presenting to us political discord and private suffering combined.

Violent dissensions prevailed among the inhabitants of Attica, who were separated into three factions,—the pedieis, or men of the plain, comprising Athens, Eleusis, and the neighboring territory, among whom the greatest number of rich families were included; the mountaineers in the east and north of Attica, called diakrii, who were on the whole the poorest party; and the paralii in the southern portion of Attica, from sea to sea, whose means and social position were intermediate between the two.[165] Upon what particular points these intestine disputes turned we are not distinctly informed; they were not, however, peculiar to the period immediately preceding the archontate of Solon; they had prevailed before, and they reappear afterwards prior to the despotism of Peisistratus, the latter standing forward as the leader of the diakrii, and as champion, real or pretended, of the poorer population.

[165] Plutarch, Solon, c. 13. The language of Plutarch, in
which he talks of the pedieis as representing the oligarchical
tendency, and the diakrii as representing the democratical,
is not quite accurate when applied to the days of Solon.
Democratical pretensions, as such, can hardly be said to have
then existed.

But in the time of Solon these intestine quarrels were aggravated by something much more difficult to deal with,—a general mutiny of the poorer population against the rich, resulting from misery combined with oppression. The thêtes, whose condition we have already contemplated in the poems of Homer and Hesiod, are now presented to us as forming the bulk of the population of Attica,—the cultivating tenants, metayers, and small proprietors of the country. They are exhibited as weighed down by debts and dependence, and driven in large numbers out of a state of freedom into slavery,—the whole mass of them, we are told, being in debt to the rich, who are proprietors of the greater part of the soil.[166] They had either borrowed money for their own necessities, or they tilled the lands of the rich as dependent tenants, paying a stipulated portion of the produce, and in this capacity they were largely in arrear.

[166] Plutarch, Solon, 13. Ἅπας μὲν γὰρ ὁ δῆμος ἦν ὑπόχρεως τῶν
πλουσίων· ἢ γὰρ ἐγεώργουν ἐκείνοις ἕκτα τῶν γινομένων τελοῦντες,
ἑκτημόριοι προσαγορευόμενοι καὶ θῆτες· ἢ χρέα λαμβάνοντες ἐπὶ
τοῖς σώμασιν, ἀγώγιμοι τοῖς δανείζουσιν ἦσαν· οἱ μὲν αὐτοῦ
δουλεύοντες, οἱ δὲ ἐπὶ τῇ ξένῃ πιπρασκόμενοι. Πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ
παῖδας ἰδίους ἠναγκάζοντο πωλεῖν, καὶ τὴν πόλιν φεύγειν διὰ
τὴν χαλεπότητα τῶν δανειστῶν. Οἱ δὲ πλεῖστοι καὶ ῥωμαλεώτατοι
συνίσταντο καὶ παρεκάλουν ἀλλήλους μὴ περιορᾷν, etc.

Respecting these hektêmori, “tenants paying one-sixth portion,”
we find little or no information: they are just noticed in
Hesychius (v. Ἑκτήμοροι, Ἐπίμορτος) and in Pollux, vii, 151; from
whom we learn that ἐπίμορτος γῆ was an expression which occurred
in one of the Solonian laws. Whether they paid to the landlord
one-sixth, or retained for themselves only one-sixth, has been
doubted (see Photius, Πελάται).

Dionysius Hal. (A. R. ii, 9) compares the thêtes in Attica to the
Roman clients: that both agreed in being relations of personal
and proprietary dependence is certain; but we can hardly carry
the comparison farther, nor is there any evidence in Attica of
that sanctity of obligation which is said to have bound the Roman
patron to his client.

All the calamitous effects were here seen of the old harsh law of debtor and creditor,—once prevalent in Greece, Italy, Asia, and a large portion of the world,—combined with the recognition of slavery as a legitimate status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that of another man to buy him. Every debtor unable to fulfil his contract was liable to be adjudged as the slave of his creditor, until he could find means either of paying it or working it out; and not only he himself, but his minor sons and unmarried daughters and sisters also, whom the law gave him the power of selling.[167] The poor man thus borrowed upon the security of his body, to translate literally the Greek phrase, and upon that of the persons of his family; and so severely had these oppressive contracts been enforced, that many debtors had been reduced from freedom to slavery in Attica itself,—many others had been sold for exportation,—and some had only hitherto preserved their own freedom by selling their children. Moreover, a great number of the smaller properties in Attica were under mortgage, signified,—according to the formality usual in the Attic law, and continued down throughout the historical times,—by a stone pillar erected on the land, inscribed with the name of the lender and the amount of the loan. The proprietors of these mortgaged lands, in case of an unfavorable turn of events, had no other prospect except that of irremediable slavery for themselves and their families, either in their own native country, robbed of all its delights, or in some barbarian region where the Attic accent would never meet their ears. Some had fled the country to escape legal adjudication of their persons, and earned a miserable subsistence in foreign parts by degrading occupations: upon several, too, this deplorable lot had fallen by unjust condemnation and corrupt judges; the conduct of the rich, in regard to money sacred and profane, in regard to matters public as well as private, being thoroughly unprincipled and rapacious.

[167] So the Frisii, when unable to pay the tribute imposed by
the Roman empire, “primo boves ipsos, mox agros, postremo corpora
conjugum et liberorum, servitio tradebant.” (Tacit. Annal. iv,
72.) About the selling of children by parents, to pay the taxes,
in the later times of the Roman empire see Zosimus, ii, 38;
Libanius, t. ii, p. 427, ed. Paris, 1627.

The manifold and long-continued suffering of the poor under this system, plunged into a state of debasement not more tolerable than that of the Gallic plebs,—and the injustices of the rich, in whom all political power was then vested, are facts well attested by the poems of Solon himself, even in the short fragments preserved to us:[168] and it appears that immediately preceding the time of his archonship, the evils had ripened to such a point,—and the determination of the mass of sufferers, to extort for themselves some mode of relief, had become so pronounced,—that the existing laws could no longer be enforced. According to the profound remark of Aristotle,—that seditions are generated by great causes but out of small incidents,[169]—we may conceive that some recent events had occurred as immediate stimulants to the outbreak of the debtors,—like those which lend so striking an interest to the early Roman annals, as the inflaming sparks of violent popular movements for which the train had long before been laid. Condemnations by the archons, of insolvent debtors, may have been unusually numerous, or the maltreatment of some particular debtor, once a respected freeman, in his condition of slavery, may have been brought to act vividly upon the public sympathies,—like the case of the old plebeian centurion at Rome,[170]—first impoverished by the plunder of the enemy, then reduced to borrow, and lastly adjudged to his creditor as an insolvent,—who claimed the protection of the people in the forum, rousing their feelings to the highest pitch by the marks of the slave-whip visible on his person. Some such incidents had probably happened, though we have no historians to recount them; moreover, it is not unreasonable to imagine, that that public mental affliction which the purifier Epimenidês had been invoked to appease, as it sprung in part from pestilence, so it had its cause partly in years of sterility, which must of course have aggravated the distress of the small cultivators. However this may be, such was the condition of things in 594 B. C., through mutiny of the poor freemen and thêtes, and uneasiness of the middling citizens, that the governing oligarchy, unable either to enforce their private debts or to maintain their political power, were obliged to invoke the well-known wisdom and integrity of Solon. Though his vigorous protest—which doubtless rendered him acceptable to the mass of the people—against the iniquity of the existing system had already been proclaimed in his poems, they still hoped that he would serve as an auxiliary, to help them over their difficulties, and they therefore chose him, nominally, as archon along with Philombrotus, but with power in substance dictatorial.

[168] See the Fragment περὶ τῆς Ἀθηναίων πολιτείας, No. 2,
Schneidewin.

Δήμου θ᾽ ἡγεμόνων ἄδικος νόος, οἶσιν ἕτοιμος
Ὕβριος ἐκ μεγάλης ἄλγεα πολλὰ παθεῖν.
... Οὔθ᾽ ἱερῶν κτεάνων οὔτε τι δημοσίων
Φειδόμενοι, κλέπτουσιν ἐφ᾽ ἁρπαγῇ ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος,
Οὐδὲ φυλάσσονται σεμνὰ δίκης θέμεθλα.
... Ταῦτα μὲν ἐν δήμῳ στρέφεται κακά· τῶν δὲ πενιχρῶν
Ἱκνεῦνται πολλοὶ γαῖαν ἐς ἀλλοδαπὴν
Πραθέντες, δεσμοῖσι τ᾽ ἀεικελίοισι δεθέντες.

[169] Aristot. Polit. γίγνονται δὲ αἱ στάσεις οὐ περὶ μικρῶν,
ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ μικρῶν.

[170] Livy, ii, 23; Dionys. Hal. A. R. vi, 26: compare Livy, vi,
34-36.

“An placeret, fœnore circumventam plebem, potius quam sorte
creditum solvat, corpus in nervum ac supplicia dare? et gregatim
quotidie de foro addictos duci, et repleri vinctis nobiles domos?
et ubicumque patricius habitet, ibi carcerem privatum esse?”

The exposition of Niebuhr, respecting the old Roman law of debtor
and creditor (Röm. Gesch. i, p. 602, _seq._; Arnold’s Roman
Hist., ch. viii, vol. i, p. 135), and the explanation which he
there gives of the nexi, as distinguished from the addicti, have
been shown to be incorrect by M. von Savigny, in an excellent
Dissertation Über das Altrömische Schuldrecht (Abhandlungen
Berlin Academ. 1833, pp. 70-73), an abstract of which will be
found in an Appendix, at the close of this chapter.

It had happened in several Grecian states, that the governing oligarchies, either by quarrels among their own members or by the general bad condition of the people under their government, were deprived of that hold upon the public mind which was essential to their power; and sometimes, as in the case of Pittakus of Mitylênê, anterior to the archonship of Solon, and often in the factions of the Italian republics in the Middle Ages, the collision of opposing forces had rendered society intolerable, and driven all parties to acquiesce in the choice of some reforming dictator. Usually, however, in the early Greek oligarchies, this ultimate crisis was anticipated by some ambitious individual, who availed himself of the public discontent, to overthrow the oligarchy, and usurp the powers of a despot; and so, probably, it might have happened in Athens, had not the recent failure of Kylôn, with all its miserable consequences, operated as a deterring motive. It is curious to read, in the words of Solon himself, the temper in which his appointment was construed by a large portion of the community, but most especially by his own friends: and we are to bear in mind that at this early day, so far as our knowledge goes, democratical government was a thing unknown in Greece,—all Grecian governments were either oligarchical or despotic, the mass of the freemen having not yet tasted of constitutional privilege. His own friends and supporters were the first to urge him, while redressing the prevalent discontents, to multiply partisans for himself personally, and seize the supreme power: they even “chid him as a madman, for declining to haul up the net when the fish were already enmeshed.”[171] The mass of the people, in despair with their lot, would gladly have seconded him in such an attempt, and many even among the oligarchy might have acquiesced in his personal government, from the mere apprehension of something worse, if they resisted it. That Solon might easily have made himself despot, admits of little doubt; and though the position of a Greek despot was always perilous, he would have had greater facility for maintaining himself in it than Peisistratus possessed after him; so that nothing but the combination of prudence and virtue which marks his lofty character, restricted him within the trust specially confided to him. To the surprise of every one,—to the dissatisfaction of his own friends,—under the complaints alike, as he says, of various extreme and dissentient parties, who required him to adopt measures fatal to the peace of society,[172]—he set himself honestly to solve the very difficult and critical problem submitted to him.

[171] See Plutarch, Solon, 14; and above all the Trochaic
tetrameters of Solon himself, addressed to Phôkus, Fr. 24-26,
Schneidewin:—

Οὐκ ἔφυ Σόλων βαθύφρων, οὐδὲ βουλήεις ἀνήρ,
Ἐσθλὰ γὰρ θεοῦ δίδοντος, αὐτὸς οὐκ ἐδέξατο.
Περιβαλὼν δ᾽ ἄγραν, ἀγασθεὶς οὐκ ἀνέσπασεν μέγα
Δίκτυον, θυμοῦ θ’ ἁμαρτῆ καὶ φρενῶν ἀποσφαλείς.

[172] Aristides, Περὶ τοῦ Παραφθέγματος, ii, p. 397; and Fragm.
29, Schn. of the Iambics of Solon:—

... εἰ γὰρ ἤθελον
Ἃ τοῖς ἐναντίοισιν ἥνδανεν τότε,
Αὖθις δ᾽ ἃ τοῖσιν ἁτέροις δρᾶσαι ...
Πολλῶν ἂν ἀνδρῶν ἥδ᾽ ἐχηρώθη πόλις.

Of all grievances, the most urgent was the condition of the poorer class of debtors; and to their relief Solon’s first measure, the memorable seisachtheia, or shaking off of burdens, was directed. The relief which it afforded was complete and immediate. It cancelled at once all those contracts in which the debtor had borrowed on the security of either his person or of his land: it forbade all future loans or contracts in which the person of the debtor was pledged as security: it deprived the creditor in future of all power to imprison, or enslave, or extort work from his debtor, and confined him to an effective judgment at law, authorizing the seizure of the property of the latter. It swept off all the numerous mortgage pillars from the landed properties in Attica, and left the land free from all past claims. It liberated, and restored to their full rights, all those debtors who were actually in slavery under previous legal adjudication; and it even provided the means—we do not know how—of repurchasing in foreign lands, and bringing back to a renewed life of liberty in Attica, many insolvents who had been sold for exportation.[173] And while Solon forbade every Athenian to pledge or sell his own person into slavery, he took a step farther in the same direction, by forbidding him to pledge or sell his son, his daughter, or an unmarried sister under his tutelage,—excepting only the case in which either of the latter might be detected in unchastity.[174] Whether this last ordinance was contemporaneous with the seisachtheia, or followed as one of his subsequent reforms, seems doubtful.

[173] See the valuable fragment of his Iambics, preserved by
Plutarch and Aristidês, the expression of which is rendered more
emphatic by the appeal to the _personal Earth_, as having passed
by his measures from slavery into freedom (compare Plato, Legg.
v, pp. 740-741):—

Συμμαρτυροίη ταῦτ᾽ ἂν ἐν δίκῃ Χρόνου
Μήτηρ, μεγίστη δαιμόνων Ὀλυμπίων,
Ἄριστα, Γῆ μέλαινα, τῆς ἐγώ ποτε
Ὅρους ἀνεῖλον πολλαχῇ πεπηγότας,
Πρόσθεν δὲ δουλεύουσα, νῦν ἐλευθέρα.
Πολλοὺς δ᾽ Ἀθήνας, πατρίδ᾽ εἰς θεόκτιτον
Ἀνήγαγον πραθέντας, ἄλλον ἐκδίκως,
Ἄλλον δικαίως· τοὺς δ᾽ ἀναγκαίης ὕπο
Χρειοῦς φυγόντας, γλῶσσαν οὔκετ᾽ Ἀττικὴν
Ἱέντας, ὡς ἂν πολλαχῇ πλανωμένους·
Τοὺς δ’ ἐνθάδ᾽ αὐτοῦ δουλίην ἀεικέα
Ἔχοντας, ἤδη δεσπότας τρομευμένους,
Ἐλευθέρους ἔθηκα.

also Plutarch, Solon, c. 15.

[174] Plutarch, Solon, c. 23: compare c. 13. The statement
in Sextus Empiricus (Pyrrhon. Hypot. iii, 24, 211), that
Solon enacted a law permitting fathers to kill (φονεύειν)
their children, cannot be true, and must be copied from some
untrustworthy authority: compare Dionys. Hal. A. R. ii, 26, where
he contrasts the prodigious extent of the _patria potestas_ among
the early Romans, with the restrictions which all the Greek
legislators alike,—Solon, Pittakus, Charondas,—either found
or introduced: he says, however, that the Athenian father was
permitted to disinherit legitimate male children, which does not
seem to be correct.

Meier (Der Attische Prozess, iii, 2, p. 427) rejects the
above-mentioned statement of Sextus Empiricus, and farther
contends that the exposure of new-born infants was not only
rare, but discountenanced as well by law as by opinion; the
evidence in the Latin comedies to the contrary, he considers
as manifestations of Roman, and not of Athenian, manners. In
this latter opinion I do not think that he is borne out, and I
agree in the statement of Schömann (Ant. J. P. Græc. sect. 82),
that the practice and feeling of Athens as well as of Greece
generally, left it to the discretion of the father whether he
would consent, or refuse, to bring up a new-born child.

By this extensive measure the poor debtors,—the thêtes, small tenants, and proprietors,—together with their families, were rescued from suffering and peril. But these were not the only debtors in the state: the creditors and landlords of the exonerated thêtes were doubtless in their turn debtors to others, and were less able to discharge their obligations in consequence of the loss inflicted upon them by the seisachtheia. It was to assist these wealthier debtors, whose bodies were in no danger,—yet without exonerating them entirely,—that Solon resorted to the additional expedient of debasing the money standard; he lowered the standard of the drachma in a proportion something more than twenty-five per cent., so that one hundred drachmas of the new standard contained no more silver than seventy-three of the old, or one hundred of the old were equivalent to one hundred and thirty-eight of the new. By this change, the creditors of these more substantial debtors were obliged to submit to a loss, while the debtors acquired an exemption, to the extent of about twenty-seven per cent.[175]

[175] Plutarch, Solon, c. 15. See the full exposition given of
this debasement of the coinage, in Boeckh’s Metrologie, ch. ix,
p. 115.

M. Boeckh thinks (ch. xv, s. 2) that Solon not only debased the
coin, but also altered the weights and measures. I dissent from
his opinion on this latter point, and have given my reasons for
so doing, in a review of his valuable treatise in the Classical
Museum, No. 1.

Lastly, Solon decreed that all those who had been condemned by the archons to atīmy (civil disfranchisement) should be restored to their full privileges of citizens,—excepting, however, from this indulgence those who had been condemned by the ephetæ, or by the areopagus, or by the phylo-basileis (the four kings of the tribes), after trial in the prytaneium, on charges either of murder or treason.[176] So wholesale a measure of amnesty affords strong grounds for believing that the previous judgments of the archons had been intolerably harsh; and it is to be recollected that the Drakonian ordinances were then in force.

[176] Plutarch, Solon, c. 19. In the general restoration of
exiles throughout the Greek cities, proclaimed first by order of
Alexander the Great, afterwards by Polysperchon, exception is
made of men exiled for sacrilege or homicide (Diodor. xvii, 109;
xviii, 8-46).

Such were the measures of relief with which Solon met the dangerous discontent then prevalent. That the wealthy men and leaders of the people, whose insolence and iniquity he has himself so sharply denounced in his poems, and whose views in nominating him he had greatly disappointed,[177] should have detested propositions which robbed them without compensation of so many of their legal rites, it is easy to imagine. But the statement of Plutarch, that the poor emancipated debtors were also dissatisfied, from having expected that Solon would not only remit their debts, but also redivide the soil of Attica, seems utterly incredible; nor is it confirmed by any passage now remaining of the Solonian poems.[178] Plutarch conceives the poor debtors as having in their minds the comparison with Lykurgus, and the equality of property at Sparta, which, as I have already endeavored to show,[179] is a fiction; and even had it been true, as matter of history long past and antiquated, would not have been likely to work upon the minds of the multitude of Attica in the forcible way that the biographer supposes. The seisachtheia must have exasperated the feelings and diminished the fortunes of many persons; but it gave to the large body of thêtes and small proprietors all that they could possibly have hoped. And we are told that after a short interval it became eminently acceptable in the general public mind, and procured for Solon a great increase of popularity,—all ranks concurring in a common sacrifice of thanksgiving and harmony.[180] One incident there was which occasioned an outcry of indignation. Three rich friends of Solon, all men of great family in the state, and bearing names which will hereafter reappear in this history as borne by their descendants,—Konôn, Kleinias, and Hipponikus,—having obtained from Solon some previous hint of his designs, profited by it, first, to borrow money, and next, to make purchases of lands; and this selfish breach of confidence would have disgraced Solon himself, had it not been found that he was personally a great loser, having lent money to the extent of five talents. We should have been glad to learn what authority Plutarch had for this anecdote, which could hardly have been recorded in Solon’s own poems.[181]

[177] Plutarch, Solon, c. 15. οὐδὲ μαλακῶς, οὐδ᾽ ὑπείκων τοῖς
δυναμένοις, οὐδὲ πρὸς ἡδονὴν τῶν ἑλομένων, ἔθετο τοὺς νόμους, etc.

[178] Plutarch, Solon, c. 16.

[179] See above, vol. ii, part ii, ch. vi.

[180] Plutarch, _l. c._ ἔθυσάν τε κοινῇ, Σεισάχθειαν τὴν θυσίαν
ὀνομάζοντες, etc.

[181] The anecdote is again noticed, but without specification of
the names of the friends, in Plutarch, Reipub. Gerend. Præcep. p.
807.

In regard to the whole measure of the seisachtheia, indeed, though the poems of Solon were open to every one, ancient authors gave different statements, both of its purport and of its extent. Most of them construed it as having cancelled indiscriminately all money contracts; while Androtion, and others, thought that it did nothing more than lower the rate of interest and depreciate the currency to the extent of twenty-seven per cent., leaving the letter of the contracts unchanged. How Androtion came to maintain such an opinion we cannot easily understand, for the fragments now remaining from Solon seem distinctly to refute it, though, on the other hand, they do not go so far as to substantiate the full extent of the opposite view entertained by many writers,—that all money contracts indiscriminately were rescinded:[182] against which there is also a farther reason, that, if the fact had been so, Solon could have had no motive to debase the money standard. Such debasement supposes that there must have been _some_ debtors, at least, whose contracts remained valid, and whom, nevertheless, he desired partially to assist. His poems distinctly mention three things: 1. The removal of the mortgage pillars. 2. The enfranchisement of the land. 3. The protection, liberation, and restoration of the persons of endangered or enslaved debtors. All these expressions point distinctly to the thêtes and small proprietors, whose sufferings and peril were the most urgent, and whose case required a remedy immediate as well as complete: we find that his repudiation of debts was carried far enough to exonerate them, but no farther.

[182] Plutarch, Solon, c. 15. The statement of Dionysius of Hal.,
in regard to the bearing of the seisachtheia, is in the main
accurate,—χρεῶν ἄφεσιν ψηφισαμένην τοῖς ~ἀπόροις~ (v, 65),—to the
debtors who were liable on the security of their bodies and their
lands, and who were chiefly poor,—not to _all_ debtors.

Herakleidês Pontic. (Πολιτ. c. 1) and Dio Chrysostom (Or. xxxi,
p. 331) express themselves loosely.

Both Wachsmuth (Hell. Alterth. v. i, p. 249) and K. F. Hermann
(Gr. Staats Alter. c. s. 106) quote the heliastic oath, and its
energetic protest against repudiation, as evidence of the bearing
of the Solonian seisachtheia. But that oath is referable only
to a later period; it cannot be produced in proof of any matter
applicable to the time of Solon; the mere mention of the senate
of Five Hundred in it, shows that it belongs to times subsequent
to the Kleisthenean revolution. Nor does the passage from Plato
(Legg. iii, p. 684) apply to the case.

Both Wachsmuth and Hermann appear to me to narrow too much
the extent of Solon’s measure in reference to the clearing of
debtors. But on the other hand, they enlarge the effect of his
measures in another way, without any sufficient evidence,—they
think that he raised _the villein tenants_ into _free
proprietors_. Of this I see no proof, and think it improbable. A
large proportion of the small debtors whom Solon exonerated were
probably free proprietors before; the existence of the ὅροι, or
mortgage pillars, upon their land proves this.

It seems to have been the respect entertained for the character of Solon which partly occasioned these various misconceptions of his ordinances for the relief of debtors: Androtion in ancient, and some eminent critics in modern times, are anxious to make out that he gave relief without loss or injustice to any one. But this opinion is altogether inadmissible: the loss to creditors, by the wholesale abrogation of numerous prëexisting contracts, and by the partial depreciation of the coin, is a fact not to be disguised. The seisachtheia of Solon, unjust so far as it rescinded previous agreements, but highly salutary in its consequences, is to be vindicated by showing that in no other way could the bonds of government have been held together, or the misery of the multitude alleviated. We are to consider, first, the great personal cruelty of these preëxisting contracts, which condemned the body of the free debtor and his family to slavery; next, the profound detestation created by such a system in the large mass of the poor, against both the judges and the creditors by whom it had been enforced, which rendered their feelings unmanageable, so soon as they came together under the sentiment of a common danger, and with the determination to insure to each other mutual protection. Moreover, the law which vests a creditor with power over the person of his debtor, so as to convert him into a slave, is likely to give rise to a class of loans, which inspire nothing but abhorrence,—money lent with the foreknowledge that the borrower will be unable to repay it, but also in the conviction that the value of his person as a slave will make good the loss; thus reducing him to a condition of extreme misery, for the purpose sometimes of aggrandizing, sometimes of enriching, the lender. Now the foundation on which the respect for contracts rests, under a good law of debtor and creditor, is the very reverse of this; it rests on the firm conviction that such contracts are advantageous to both parties as a class, and that to break up the confidence essential to their existence would produce extensive mischief throughout all society. The man whose reverence for the obligation of a contract is now the most profound, would have entertained a very different sentiment if he had witnessed the dealings of lender and borrower at Athens, under the old ante-Solonian law. The oligarchy had tried their best to enforce this law of debtor and creditor, with its disastrous series of contracts, and the only reason why they consented to invoke the aid of Solon, was because they had lost the power of enforcing it any longer, in consequence of the newly awakened courage and combination of the people. That which they could not do for themselves, Solon could not have done for them, even had he been willing; nor had he in his possession the means either of exempting or compensating those creditors, who, separately taken, were open to no reproach; indeed, in following his proceedings, we see plainly that he thought compensation due, not to the creditors, but to the past sufferings of the enslaved debtors, since he redeemed several of them from foreign captivity, and brought them back to their home. It is certain that no measure, simply and exclusively prospective, would have sufficed for the emergency: there was an absolute necessity for overruling all that class of preëxisting rights which had produced so violent a social fever. While therefore, to this extent, the seisachtheia cannot be acquitted of injustice, we may confidently affirm that the injustice inflicted was an indispensable price, paid for the maintenance of the peace of society, and for the final abrogation of a disastrous system as regarded insolvents.[183] And the feeling as well as the legislation universal in the modern European world, by interdicting beforehand all contracts for selling a man’s person or that of his children into slavery, goes far to sanction practically the Solonian repudiation.

[183] That which Solon did for the Athenian people in regard to
debts, is less than what was _promised_ to the Roman plebs (at
the time of its secession to the Mons Sacer in 491 B. C.) by
Menenius Agrippa, the envoy of the senate, to appease them, but
which does not seem to have been ever _realized_ (Dionys. Hal.
vi, 83). He promised an abrogation of all the debts of debtors
unable to pay, without exception,—if the language of Dionysius is
to be trusted, which probably it cannot be.

Dr. Thirlwall justly observes respecting Solon, “He must be
considered as an arbitrator, to whom all the parties interested
submitted their claims, with the avowed intent that they should
be decided by him, not upon the footing of legal right, but
according to his own view of the public interest. It was in this
light that he himself regarded his office, and he appears to have
discharged it faithfully and discreetly.” (History of Greece, ch.
xi. vol. ii, p. 42.)

One thing is never to be forgotten in regard to this measure, combined with the concurrent amendments introduced by Solon in the law,—it settled finally the question to which it referred. Never again do we hear of the law of debtor and creditor as disturbing Athenian tranquillity. The general sentiment which grew up at Athens, under the Solonian money-law, and under the democratical government, was one of high respect for the sanctity of contracts. Not only was there never any demand in the Athenian democracy for new tables or a depreciation of the money standard, but a formal abnegation of any such projects was inserted in the solemn oath taken annually by the numerous diakasts, who formed the popular judicial body, called hêliæa, or the hêliastic jurors,—the same oath which pledged them to uphold the democratical constitution, also bound them to repudiate all proposals either for an abrogation of debts or for a redivision of the lands.[184] There can be little doubt that under the Solonian law, which enabled the creditor to seize the property of his debtor, but gave him no power over the person, the system of money-lending assumed a more beneficial character: the old noxious contracts, mere snares for the liberty of a poor freeman and his children, disappeared, and loans of money took their place, founded on the property and prospective earnings of the debtor, which were in the main useful to both parties, and therefore maintained their place in the moral sentiment of the public. And though Solon had found himself compelled to rescind all the mortgages on land subsisting in his time, we see money freely lent upon this same security, throughout the historical times of Athens, and the evidentiary mortgage pillars remaining ever after undisturbed.

[184] Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. p. 746. οὐδὲ τῶν χρεῶν τῶν
ἰδίων ἀποκοπὰς, οὐδὲ γῆς ἀναδασμὸν τῆς Ἀθηναίων, οὐδ᾽ οἰκιῶν
(ψηφιοῦμαι): compare Dio Chrysostom, Orat. xxxi, p. 332, who
also dwells upon the anxiety of various Grecian cities to fix a
curse upon all propositions for χρεῶν ἀποκοπὴ and γῆς ἀναδασμός.
What is not less remarkable is, that Dio seems not to be aware
of any one well-authenticated case in Grecian history, in which
a redivision of lands had ever actually taken place—ὃ μηδ᾽ ὅλως
ἴσμεν εἴ ποτε συνέβη. (_l. c._)

For the law of debtor and creditor, as it stood during the times
of the Orators at Athens, see Heraldus, Animadv. ad Salmasium,
pp. 174-286; Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, b. iii,
c. 2, p. 497, _seqq._ (though I doubt the distinction which they
there draw between χρέος and δανεῖον); Platner, Prozess und
Klagen, b. ii, absch. 11, pp. 349, 361.

There was one exceptional case, in which the Attic law always
continued to the creditor that power over the person of the
insolvent debtor which all creditors had possessed originally,—it
was when the creditor had lent money for the express purpose of
ransoming the debtor from captivity (Dêmosthen. cont. Nikostr. p.
1249),—analogous to the actio depensi in the old Roman law.

Any citizen who owed money to the public treasury, and whose debt
became overdue, was deprived for the time of all civil rights
until he had cleared it off.

Diodorus (i, 79) gives us an alleged law of the Egyptian king
Bocchoris, releasing the persons of debtors and rendering their
properties only liable, which is affirmed to have served as
an example for Solon to copy. If we can trust this historian,
lawgivers in other parts of Greece still retained the old severe
law enslaving the debtor’s person: compare a passage in Isokratês
(Orat. xiv, Plataicus, p. 305; p. 414, Bek.)

In the sentiment of an early society, as in the old Roman law, a distinction is commonly made between the principal and the interest of a loan, though the creditors have sought to blend them indissolubly together. If the borrower cannot fulfil his promise to repay the principal, the public will regard him as having committed a wrong which he must make good by his person; but there is not the same unanimity as to his promise to pay interest: on the contrary, the very exaction of interest will be regarded by many in the same light in which the English law considers usurious interest, as tainting the whole transaction. But in the modern mind, principal, and interest within a limited rate, have so grown together, that we hardly understand how it can ever have been pronounced unworthy of an honorable citizen to lend money on interest; yet such is the declared opinion of Aristotle, and other superior men of antiquity; while the Roman Cato, the censor, went so far as to denounce the practice as a heinous crime.[185] It was comprehended by them among the worst of the tricks of trade,—and they held that all trade, or profit derived from interchange, was unnatural, as being made by one man at the expense of another: such pursuits, therefore, could not be commended, though they might be tolerated to a certain extent as matter of necessity, but they belonged essentially to an inferior order of citizens.[186] What is remarkable in Greece is, that the antipathy of a very early state of society against traders and money-lenders lasted longer among the philosophers than among the mass of the people,—it harmonized more with the social _idéal_ of the former, than with the practical instincts of the latter.

[185] Aristot. Polit. i, 4, 23; Cato ap. Cicero. de Offic. ii,
25. Plato, in his Treatise de Legg. (v, p. 742) forbids all
lending on interest: indeed, he forbids any private citizen to
possess either gold or silver.

To illustrate the marked difference made in the early Roman
law, between the claim for the principal and that for the
interest, I insert in an Appendix, at the end of this chapter,
the explanation given by M. von Savigny, of the treatment of the
nexi and addicti,—connected as it is by analogy with the Solonian
seisachtheia.

[186] Aristot. Polit. i, 4, 23. Τὴς δὲ μεταβλητικῆς ~ψεγομένης
διακίως~ (οὐ γὰρ κατὰ φύσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἔστιν), εὐλογώτατα
μισεῖται ἡ ὀβολοστατική, etc. Compare Ethic. Nikom. iv, 1.

Plutarch borrows from Aristotle the quibble derived from the
word ~τόκος~ (the Greek expression for interest), which has
given birth to the well-known dictum of Aristotle,—that money
being naturally _barren_, to extract _offspring_ from it must
necessarily be _contrary to nature_ (see Plutarch, De Vit. Ær.
Al. p. 829).

In a rude condition, such as that of the ancient Germans described by Tacitus, loans on interest are unknown: habitually careless of the future, the Germans were gratified both in giving and receiving presents, but without any idea that they thereby either imposed or contracted an obligation.[187] To a people in this state of feeling, a loan on interest presents the repulsive idea of making profit out of the distress of the borrower; moreover, it is worthy of remark, that the first borrowers must have been for the most part men driven to this necessity by the pressure of want, and contracting debt as a desperate resource, without any fair prospect of ability to repay: debt and famine run together, in the mind of the poet Hesiod.[188] The borrower is, in this unhappy state, rather a distressed man soliciting aid, than a solvent man capable of making and fulfilling a contract; and if he cannot find a friend to make him a free gift in the former character, he will not, under the latter character, obtain a loan from a stranger, except by the promise of exorbitant interest,[189] and by the fullest eventual power over his person which he is in a condition to grant. In process of time a new class of borrowers rise up, who demand money for temporary convenience or profit, but with full prospect of repayment,—a relation of lender and borrower quite different from that of the earlier period, when it presented itself in the repulsive form of misery on the one side, set against the prospect of very large profit on the other. If the Germans of the time of Tacitus had looked to the condition of the poor debtors in Gaul, reduced to servitude under a rich creditor, and swelling by hundreds the crowd of his attendants, they would not have been disposed to regret their own ignorance of the practice of money-lending.[190] How much the interest of money was then regarded as an undue profit extorted from distress, is powerfully illustrated by the old Jewish law; the Jew being permitted to take interest from foreigners (whom the lawgiver did not think himself obliged to protect), but not from his own countrymen.[191] The Koran follows out this point of view consistently, and prohibits the taking of interest altogether. In most other nations, laws have been made to limit the rate of interest, and at Rome, especially, the legal rate was successively lowered,—though it seems, as might have been expected, that the restrictive ordinances were constantly eluded. All such restrictions have been intended for the protection of debtors; an effect which large experience proves them never to produce, unless it be called protection to render the obtaining of money on loan impracticable for the most distressed borrowers. But there was another effect which they _did_ tend to produce,—they softened down the primitive antipathy against the practice generally, and confined the odious name of usury to loans lent above the fixed legal rate.

[187] Tacit. Germ. 26. “Fœnus agitare et in usuras extendere,
ignotum: ideoque magis servatur quam si vetitum esset,” (c.
21.) “Gaudent muneribus: sed nec data imputant, nec acceptis
obligantur.”

[188] Hesiod, Opp. Di. 647, 404. Βούληαι χρέα τε προφυγεῖν, καὶ
λιμὸν ἀτερπῆ. Some good observations on this subject are to be
found in the excellent treatise of M. Turgot, written in 1763,
“Mémoire sur les Prêts d’Argent:”—

“Les causes qui avoient autrefois rendu odieux le prêt à
intérêt, ont cessé d’agir avec tant de force.... De toutes ces
circonstances réunies, il est résulté que les emprunts faits
par le pauvre pour subsister ne sont plus qu’un objet à peine
sensible dans la somme totale d’emprunts: que la plus grande
partie des prêts se font à l’homme riche, ou du moins à l’homme
industrieux, qui espère se procurer de grands profits par
l’emploi de l’argent qu’il emprunte.... Les prêteurs sur gage
à gros intérêt, les seuls qui prêtent véritablement au pauvre
pour ses besoins journaliers et non pour le mettre en état de
gagner, ne font point le même mal que les anciens usuriers qui
conduisoient par degrés à la misère et à l’esclavage les pauvres
citoyens auxquels ils avoient procuré des secours funestes....
Le créancier qui pouvait réduire son débiteur en esclavage y
trouvait un profit: c’étoit un esclave qu’il acquérait: mais
aujourd’hui le créancier sait qu’en privant son débiteur de la
liberté, il n’y gagnera autre chose que d’être obligé de le
nourrir en prison: aussi ne s’avise-t-on pas de faire contracter
à un homme qui n’a rien, et qui est réduit à emprunter pour
vivre, des engagemens qui emportent la contrainte par corps. La
seule sûreté vraiment solide contre l’homme pauvre est le gage:
et l’homme pauvre s’estime heureux de trouver un secours pour le
moment sans autre danger que de perdre ce gage. Aussi le peuple
a-t-il plutôt de la reconnoissance pour ces petits usuriers qui
le secourent dans son besoin, quoiqu’ils lui vendent assez cher
ce secours.” (Mémoire sur les Prêts d’Argent, in the collection
of Œuvres de Turgot, by Dupont de Nemours, vol. v, sects. xxx,
xxxi, pp. 326, 327, 329, written in 1763.)

[189] “In Bengal (observes Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, b. i,
ch. 9, p. 143, ed. 1812) money is frequently lent to the farmers
at 40, 50, and 60 per cent., and the succeeding crop is mortgaged
for the payment.”

Respecting this commerce at Florence in the Middle Ages, M.
Depping observes: “Il semblait que l’esprit commercial fût inné
chez les Florentins: déjà aux 12me et 13me siècles, on les
voit tenir des banques et prêter de l’argent aux princes. Ils
ouvrirent partout des maisons de prêt, marchèrent de pair avec
les Lombards, et, il faut le dire, ils furent souvent maudits,
comme ceux-ci, par leurs débiteurs, à cause de leur rapacité.
Vingt pour cent par an était le taux ordinaire des prêteurs
Florentins: et il n’était pas rare qu’ils en prissent trente
et quarante.” Depping, Histoire du Commerce entre le Levant et
l’Europe, vol. i, p. 235.

Boeckh (Public Economy of Athens, book i, ch. 22) gives from
12 to 18 per cent. per annum as the common rate of interest at
Athens in the time of the orators.