cept such rewards. The only boon he request- | country, which, from time immemorial, had deed was, for himself, a branch from the sacred termined the pursuits and the character of its olive-tree which grew on the citadel, the gift, inhabitants; and this now separated them into it was believed, of Athené, when she claimed three distinct parties,* animated each by its pethe land as her own, and for his country a de- culiar interests, views, and feelings. The poscree of perpetual friendship and alliance be- sessions of the nobles lay chiefly in the plains. tween Athens and Cnossus. This pleasing As a body, they desired the continuance of the monument of his visit seems to have subsisted existing state of things, on which their power in the time of Plato,* and a statue of the Cre- and exclusive privileges depended; but, as we tan sage long adorned one of the Athenian have seen, there were among them some modsanctuaries. But though the visit of Epimeni-erate men, who were willing to make concesdes was attended with the most salutary consequences, so far as it applied a suitable remedy to evils which were entirely seated in the imagination, and though it may have wrought still happier effects by calming, softening, and opening hearts which had before only beaten with wild and malignant passions, still it had not produced any real change in the state of things, but had, at the utmost, only prepared the way for one. This work remained to be achieved by Solon.

sions to prudence, if not to justice, and to resign a part for the sake of securing their possession of the rest. The inhabitants of the highlands, in the eastern and northern parts of Attica, do not seem to have suffered any of those evils which the rapacity and hard-heartedness of the powerful had inflicted on the lowland peasantry; but, though independent, they were probably, for the most part, poor, and had, perhaps, been less considered than their neighbours in the distribution of political rights. They generally wished for a revolution which should place them on a level with the rich; and, uniting their cause with that of the oppressed, they called for a thorough redress of grievances, which they contended could only be afforded by reducing that enormous inequality of possessions, which was the source of degradation and misery to them and their fellows.† The men of the coast, who probably composed a main part of that class which subsisted by trade, by the exercise of the mechanimines, and now included a considerable share of affluence and intelligence, were averse to v10lent measures, but were desirous of a reform in the Constitution which should promote the prosperity of the country by removing all grounds of reasonable complaint, and should admit a larger number to the enjoyment of those rights which were now engrossed and abused by a few.

The government had long been in the hands of men who appear to have wielded it only as an instrument for aggrandizing and enriching themselves. They had reduced a great part of the class whose industry was employed in the labours of agriculture to a state of abject dependance, in which they were not only debarred from all but, perhaps, a merely nominal share of political rights, but held even their personal freedom by a precarious tenure, and were frequently reduced to actual slavery. The small-cal arts, and, perhaps, by the working of the er proprietors, impoverished by bad times or casual disasters, were compelled to borrow money at high interest, and to mortgage their lands to the rich, or to receive them again as tenants upon the same hard terms as were imposed upon those who cultivated the estates of the great landowners. The laws made by the nobles enabled the creditor to seize the person of his insolvent debtor, and to sell him as a slave; and this right had been frequently exer- It is probable that the wiser nobles now recised numbers had been torn from their homes, gretted the blind eagerness with which their and condemned to end their days in the service ancestors abolished the regal dignity, under of a foreign master; others were driven to the which they might, perhaps, still have retained still harder necessity of selling their own chil- their power, even if they had been compelled to dren. One who travelled at this time through exercise it with greater moderation. The peoAttica saw the dismal monuments of aristocrati-ple in general felt the need of a leader, and cal oppression scattered over its fields, in the stone posts, which marked that what was once a property had become a pledge, and that its former owner had lost his independence, and was in danger of sinking into a still more degraded and miserable condition. Such spectacles had frequently struck the eye of Solon, and they undoubtedly moved him no less than that which roused the holy indignation of the elder Gracchus against the Roman grandees.‡

Those who groaned under this tyranny were only eager for a change, and cared little about the means by which it might be effected. But the population of Attica was not simply composed of these two classes. We have already noticed an ancient geographical division of the

* De Leg., ., II. Though Plato's chronology is enormously wrong-he places the visit of Epimenides only ten years before the Persien war, about B.C. 500-we may receive his testimony in the fact stated in the text, which is also mentioned by Diogenes Laert., i., 111.

"Op. They were inscribed with the amount of the debt and the name of the creditor.

Plut., Tib. Gracchus, c. 8.

would have preferred even the despotic rule of one man to the tyranny of their many lords. As Solon's established reputation pointed him out as the person most capable of remedying the disorders of the state, so he united all the qualities which could fit him for coming forward as the protector of the commonalty without exciting the fears of the nobles. He belonged to the latter by birth and station, and he recommended himself to the former by the proofs he had shown of activity, prudence, justice, and humanity. He was therefore chosen, with the unanimous consent of all parties, to mediate between them, and arbitrate their quarrels; and, under the legal title of archon, was invested with full authority to frame a new Constitution and a new code of laws. (Ol. 46, 3-B.C. 594.) Such an office, under such circumstances, conferred almost unlimited power, and an ambitious man might easily have abused it to make him

*The lowlanders were called Пeditis or Пediator: the highlanders Διακριοι: the men of the coast, Πάραλοι. Plut., Sol., 13, 29.

self absolute master of the state. The contend- Solon himself, in a poem which he afterward ing parties would probably have acquiesced composed on the subject of his legislation, spoke without much reluctance in such a usupration, with a becoming pride of the happy change as an evil less than those which some suffered which this measure had wrought in the face of and others feared. Solon's friends exhorted Attica, of the numerous citizens whose lands him to seize the opportunity of becoming tyrant he had discharged, and whose persons he bad of Athens; and they were not at a loss for fair emancipated, and brought back from hopeless arguments to colour their foul advice. They slavery in strange lands. He was only unfortubade him consider that the name of a tyranny nate in bestowing his confidence on persons was harmless, and the thing salutary, so long who were incapable of imitating his virtue, and as it was wisely and justly administered; and who abused his intimacy. At the time when they reminded him of recent instances of Tyn- all men were uncertain as to his intentions, nondas in Euboea, and Pittacus at Mitylene, and no kind of property could be thought secure, who had exercised a sovereignty over their fel-he privately informed three of his friends of his low-citizens without forfeiting their love. Solon determination not to touch the estates of the saw through their sophistry, and was not tempted by it to betray the sacred trust reposed in him; and he consoled himself for the taunts with which they reproached his want of spirit and prudence by the approbation of his conscience, the esteem of his countrymen, and the honour with which his name has come down to posterity. Instead of harbouring any schemes of selfish aggrandizement, he bent all his thoughts and energies to the execution of the great task which he had undertaken.

landowners, but only to reduce the amount of debt. He had afterward the vexation of discovering that the men to whom he had intrusted this secret had been base enough to take advantage of it, by making large purchases of land, which at such a juncture bore, no doubt, a very low price, with borrowed money. Fortunately for his fame, the state of his private affairs was such as to exempt him from all suspicion of having had any share in this sordid transaction. He had himself a considerable sum out at interest, and was a loser in proportion by his own enactment.

We have here followed that account of Solon's measures of relief, which seems the most probable in itself, and is confirmed by the best evidence. There was, however, another, adopted by some ancient writers, which represented him as having entirely cancelled all debts, and as having only disguised the violence of this proceeding under a soft and attractive name. It does not appear that the ancients saw anything to censure in his conduct according to either view. On the other hand, in our times there will, perhaps, be some who will consider such a change in property and contracts, even upon the mildest interpretation, as unjust in principle, and as a precedent pregnant with consequences the most dangerous to society. But the example of Solon cannot be fairly pleaded by those who contend that either public or private faith may be rightly sacrificed to expe

This task consisted of two main parts: the first and most pressing business was to relieve the present distress of the commonalty; the next, to provide against the recurrence of like evils, by regulating the rights of all the citizens according to equitable principles, and fixing them on a permanent basis. In proceeding to the first part of his undertaking, Solon held a middle course between the two extremesthose who wished to keep all, and those who were for taking everything away. The most violent or needy would have been satisfied with nothing short of a total confusion of property, followed by a fresh distribution of it. They desired that all debts should be cancelled, and that the lands of the rich should be confiscated and parcelled out among the poor. Solon, while he resisted these reckless and extravagant demands, met the reasonable expectations of the public by his disburdening ordinance, and rehieved the debtor, partly by a reduction of the rate of interest, which was probably made ret-diency. He must be considered as an arbitrarospective, and thus in many cases would wipe off a great part of the debt, and partly by lowering the standard of the silver coinage, so that the debtor saved more than one fourth in every payment. He likewise released the pledged lands from their encumbrances, and restored them in full property to their owners; though it does not seem certain whether this was one of the express objects of the measure, or only one of the consequences which it involved. Finally, he abolished the inhuman law which enabled the creditor to enslave his debtor, and restored those who were pining at home in such bondage to immediate liberty; and it would seem that he compelled those who had sold their debtors into foreign countries to procure their freedom at their own expense. The debt itself in such cases was, of course, held to be extinguished.

tor 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. The strongest proof of the wisdom and equity of his measures is that they subjected him to obloquy from the violent spirits of both the extreme parties. But their murmurs were soon drowned in the general approbation with which the disburdening ordinance was received: it was celebrated with a solemn festival, and Solon was encouraged, by the strongest assurances of the increased confidence of his fellow-citizens, to proceed with his work; and he now entered on the second and more difficult part of his task.

He began by repealing all the laws of Draco, except those which concerned the repression of bloodshed, which were, in fact, customs hallowed by time and by religion, and had been retained, not introduced, by his predecessor.

of their incomes, but at a much lower rate, the nominal value of their property being, for this purpose, reduced below the truth-that of the knights by one sixth, that of the third class by one third.* The fourth class was excluded from all share in the magistracy, and from the honours and duties of the full-armed warrior, the expense of which would in general exceed their means: by land they served only as light troops; in later times they manned the fleets. In return, they were exempted from all direct contributions, and they were permitted to take a part in the popular assembly, as well as in the exercise of those judicial powers which were now placed in the hands of the people. We shall shortly have occasion to observe how amply this boon compensated for the loss of all the privileges that were withheld from them. Solon's classification, as we see, takes no notice of any other than landed property; yet, as the example of Solon himself seems to prove that Attica must already have carried on some foreign trade, it is not unlikely that there were fortunes of this kind equal to those which gave admission to the higher classes. But it can hardly be supposed that they placed their possessors on a level with the owners of the soil; it is more probable that these, together with the newly-adopted citizens, without regard to their various degrees of affluence, were all included in the lowest class.

As a natural consequence, perhaps, of this meas- | their privileges, or to ascertain whether in their ure, he published an amnesty, or act of grace, political rights one had any advantage over the which restored those citizens who had been other. They were at least distinguished from deprived of their franchise for lighter offences, each other by the mode of their military serand recalled those who had been forced into vice; the one furnishing the cavalry, the other exile; and it seems probable that this indul- the heavy-armed infantry. But, for their exclugence was extended to the house of Megacles, sion from the dignities occupied by the wealthy the Alemæonids, as they were called from a few, they received a compensation in the comremote ancestor, the third in descent from Nes-parative lightness of their burdens. They were tor, and to the partners of his guilt and punish-assessed, not in exact proportion to the amount ment: the city, now purified and tranquillized, might be supposed to be no longer polluted or endangered by their presence; and it was always liable to be disturbed by their machinations, so long as they remained in banishment. The four ancient tribes were retained, with all their subdivisions; but it seems probable that Solon admitted a number of new citizens; for it is said that he invited foreigners to Athens by this boon, though he confined it to such as settled there with their whole family and substance, and had dissolved their connexion with their native land. The distinguishing feature of the new Constitution was the substitution of property for birth, as a title to the honours and offices of the state. This change, though its consequences were of infinite importance, would not appear so violent or momentous to the generation which witnessed it, since at this time these two claims generally concurred in the same person. Solon divided the citizens into four classes, according to the gradations of their fortunes, and regulated the extent of their franchise, and their contributions to the public necessities, by the amount of their incomes. The first class, as its name expressed, consisted of persons whose estates yielded a nett yearly income or rent of 500 measures of dry or liquid produce. The qualification of the second class was three fifths of this amount; that of the third, two thirds, or more probably half, of the latter. The members of the second class were called knights,◊ being accounted able to keep a war-horse: the name of the third class, whom we might call yeomen, was derived from the yoke of cattle for the plough, which a farm of the extent described was supposed to require. The fourth class comprehended all whose incomes fell below that of the third, and, according to its name, consisted of hired labourers in husbandry.¶ The first class was exclusively eligible to the highest offices, those of the nine archons, and, probably, to all others which had hitherto been reserved to the nobles: they were also destined to fill the highest commands in the army, as in later times, when Athens became a maritime power, they did in the fleet. Some lower offices were undoubted-ercise of it, not to their own body, but to the ly left open to the second and third classes, though we are unable to define the extent of

*This appears to be the foundation of Plutarch's statement, Sol, 24, which is, literally, that no foreigners could be adopted as citizens but those who had either settled in Attica as above mentioned, or were banished from their

own countries for life. He seems to suppose that such aliens had a legal right to the freedom of the city.

Niebuhr takes a very different and peculiar view of this subject (History of Rome, v. ii., ed. 2, p 305, of the English translation: "By his constitution of the classes, Solon removed all the indigent eupatrids from the government without letting in the rich members of the demus." Vol. i., n. 1017.) See Appendix I.

1 Πεντακοσιομέδιμνοι. The medimnus exceeds the bushel by six pints and a fraction.

Ο Ιππής.

Solon's system then made room for all freemen, but assigned to them different places, varying with their visible means of serving the state. His general aim in the distribution of power, as he himself explains it in a fragment which Plutarch has preserved from one of his poems, was to give such a share to the commonalty as would enable it to protect itself, and to the wealthy as much as was necessary for retaining their dignity-in other words, for ruling the people without the means of oppressing it. He threw his strong shield, he says, over both, and permitted neither to gain an unjust advantage. The magistrates, though elected upon a different qualification, retained their ancient authority; but they were now responsible for the ex

* As the price of the medimnus was estimated by Solon at a drachm, the lowest income of the first class was equivalent to 500 drachms, the twelfth part of a talent; and the property which yielded this income was rated at a talent, and taxed accordingly. But the property of persons in the second class, instead of being rated at twelve times the amount of their income, or 3600 drachms, was rated at only 3000; that of the yeomen at 1200 mstead of 1800. For the full proof and illustration of these statements, see Roeckh's Public Economy of Athens (book iv., ch. v.), which first threw light on this subject.

† Δήμῳ μὲν γὰρ ἔδωκα τόσον κράτος ὅσσον ἐπαρκειν. Νέα buhr (1., p 365, transl of 3d edit.) gives a different interpretation: Solon had conceded (to the demus, only so much authority in the state as could not be withheld from it.

1 Οἳ δ' εἶχον δύναμιν καὶ χρημασιν ἦσαν ἀγητοὶ καὶ τοῖς ἐφρασάμην μηδὲν ἀτικὲς ἔχειν

governed. The judicial functions of the ar- were all contained in three of the tribes — it chons were perhaps preserved nearly in their seems to raise a strong objection against the full extent; but appeals were allowed from their supposition that the real number exceeded this jurisdiction to courts numerously composed, by sixty or a hundred; since in that case, on and filled indiscriminately from all classes.* both the occasions just mentioned, we should Solon could not foresee the change of circum-probably have heard, not of the Three Hundred, stances by which this right of appeal became but either of 360 or 400 members of those aristhe instrument of overthrowing the equilibrium tocratical assemblies. We are therefore led which he hoped to have established on a solid to suspect that the old Athenian council came basis, when that which he had designed to ex- nearer in numbers to the Spartan gerusia. But ercise an extraordinary jurisdiction became an it is possible that, besides this, the eupatrids ordinary tribunal, which drew almost all causes held general assemblies of their order, either peto itself, and overruled every other power in the riodically, or as occasions arose for them. The state. He seems to have thought that, while council of Four Hundred was perhaps intendhe provided sufficiently for the security of the ed to replace both these institutions. It succommonalty, by permitting the lowest of its ceeded to the ancient council in the regular members to vote in the popular assembly, and management of public affairs, and its number to sit in judgment on cases in which the parties was probably fixed with a view to admit as were dissatisfied with the ordinary modes of many of the citizens to a share in the governproceeding, he had also ensured the stability of ment as it appeared safe to intrust with it. It his new order of things by two institutions, was a popular body as compared with an aswhich appeared to be sufficient guard against sembly of the eupatrids; for its members were the sallies of democratical extravagance-an- taken from the first three classes, each tribe chors, as Plutarch expresses it, on which the furnishing one hundred; but, on the other hand, vessel of the state might ride safely in every it was aristocratical, inasmuch as it excluded storm. These were the two councils of the one large division of the people. And there is Four Hundred and the Areopagus. even room to suspect that it may have been The institution of the Four Hundred was uni-composed in a manner which rendered it more formly attributed to Solon. But as the foundation of the Areopagus was likewise attributed to him by most of the ancients, though it is certain that he only made some changes in its constitution, there is ground for inquiring whether a similar mistake may not have prevailed in the other case. It is, indeed, highly probable that an aristocratical council existed before Solon; but we have neither evidence nor any sure analogy to guide us in determining its numbers; nor can we decide whether it represented the four tribes, or any of their subdivisions. If we knew how the eupatrids were distributed among the tribes, it might be possible to arrive at some probable conclusion on this point; but so long as there is room for the present diversity of opinions with regard to the composition of the tribes, there can be little hope of ascertaining the nature of the council, as it stood before the time of Solon. There are, however, two wellattested facts which appear to have a bearing on this question, and which, we believe, have been hitherto overlooked. We have seen that the cause of the Alemæonids was referred to an aristocratical tribunal of Three Hundred persons; and we shall see that when the chief of the Alemæonids had substituted a new council in the room of Solon's, his political antagonist having suppressed it, established one of Three Hundred in its stead. This can hardly be a merely casual coincidence. Even if it does not warrant the conclusion that three hundred was the number of the ancient council-which, indeed, cannot be imagined, unless the eupatrids

Plut., Sol., 18. Plutarch's statement on this subject seems to be generally rejected as erroneous: Wachsmuth does not even notice it; and Platner, Beitr., p. 59, thinks it clear that Plutarch confounded the dvárpiois with an peces -the magistrate's preliminary investigation with an appeal from his sentence, This would be a singular mistake. Whereas the appeal, of which Draco had left a precedent in the institution of the Ephetes, seems in itself by no means improbable, as a transition from the original plenitude of the magistrate's judicial power to its subsequent comparative nullity. Still it must be owned that on such a point Plutarch's authority is not weighty.

subject to the influence of the eupatrids than has been generally believed; for it does not seem that entire reliance can be placed on the opinion that the success of the candidates was determined, as in the latter practice, by lot.* If they were elected, it would be easy to conceive that the noble families might generally be able to bring in men of their choice. But the competitors, however appointed, were obliged to give proof of their legal capacity in a previous examination. To the security for their fitness afforded by the prescribed qualification of fortune, was added that of a mature age, none being eligible under thirty. They were changed every year, and at the end of this term were liable to render a general account of their conduct, and to meet all charges that might be brought against them, and even during its continuance they might be expelled for misconduct by their colleagues. As the council was principally designed to restrain and conduct the enlarged powers of the popular assembly, committed as they now were to a multitude of inexperienced hands, the main part of its business was to prepare the measures which were to be submitted to the votes of the assembly, and to preside over its deliberations. It was divided into sections, which, under the venerable name of prytanes, succeeded each other throughout the year as the representatives of the whole body. Each section during its term assembled daily in their session-house, the prytaneum, to consult on the state of affairs, to receive intelligence, information, and suggestions, and instantly to take such measures as the public in

* Wachsmuth, 1. 1, p. 257, refers to a collection of authorities in Tittmann relating to the council of Five Hundred, and contents himself with adding, there is no trace that Solon originally appointed an election of the coune L. But it seems doubtful whether this is the right way of sa ting the question, and whether, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it ought not to be presumed that this was Solon's regulation. Where the thing itself is so probable, we might perhaps be justified in laying some stress on Plutarch's expression (Sol. 19): áno Quλns Ékαorns įkurdy ἄνδρες ἐπιλεξαμενος.

toxina ia.