The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

committed the whole constitution to his hands. The
immediate occasion of his appointment was his poem, which begins
with the words:
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    I behold, and within my heart deep sadness has claimed its
place,
As I mark the oldest home of the ancient Ionian race
Slain by the sword.
    In this poem he fights and disputes on behalf of each party in
turn against the other, and finally he advises them to come to
terms and put an end to the quarrel existing between them. By birth
and reputation Solon was one of the foremost men of the day, but in
wealth and position he was of the middle class, as is generally
agreed, and is, indeed, established by his own evidence in these
poems, where he exhorts the wealthy not to be grasping.
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    But ye who have store of good, who are sated and overflow,
Restrain your swelling soul, and still it and keep it low:
Let the heart that is great within you he trained a lowlier
way;
Ye shall not have all at your will, and we will not for ever
obey.
    Indeed, he constantly fastens the blame of the conflict on the
rich; and accordingly at the beginning of the poem he says that he
fears’ the love of wealth and an overweening mind’, evidently
meaning that it was through these that the quarrel arose.
6
    As soon as he was at the head of affairs, Solon liberated the
people once and for all, by prohibiting all loans on the security
of the debtor’s person: and in addition he made laws by which he
cancelled all debts, public and private. This measure is commonly
called the Seisachtheia [= removal of burdens], since thereby the
people had their loads removed from them. In connexion with it some
persons try to traduce the character of Solon. It so happened that,
when he was about to enact the Seisachtheia, he communicated his
intention to some members of the upper class, whereupon, as the
partisans of the popular party say, his friends stole a march on
him; while those who wish to attack his character maintain that he
too had a share in the fraud himself. For these persons borrowed
money and bought up a large amount of land, and so when, a short
time afterwards, all debts were cancelled, they became wealthy; and
this, they say, was the origin of the families which were
afterwards looked on as having been wealthy from primeval times.
However, the story of the popular party is by far the most
probable. A man who was so moderate and public-spirited in all his
other actions, that when it was within his power to put his
fellow-citizens beneath his feet and establish himself as tyrant,
he preferred instead to incur the hostility of both parties by
placing his honour and the general welfare above his personal
aggrandisement, is not likely to have consented to defile his hands
by such a petty and palpable fraud. That he had this absolute power
is, in the first place, indicated by the desperate condition the
country; moreover, he mentions it himself repeatedly in his poems,
and it is universally admitted. We are therefore bound to consider
this accusation to be false.
7
    Next Solon drew up a constitution and enacted new laws; and the
ordinances of Draco ceased to be used, with the exception of those
relating to murder. The laws were inscribed on the wooden stands,
and set up in the King’s Porch, and all swore to obey them; and the
nine Archons made oath upon the stone, declaring that they would
dedicate a golden statue if they should transgress any of them.
This is the origin of the oath to that effect which they take to
the present day. Solon ratified his laws for a hundred years; and
the following was the fashion in which he organized the
constitution. He divided the population according to property into
four classes, just as it had been divided before, namely,
Pentacosiomedimni, Knights, Zeugitae, and Thetes. The various
magistracies, namely, the nine Archons, the Treasurers, the
Commissioners for Public Contracts (Poletae), the Eleven, and
Clerks (Colacretae), he assigned to the Pentacosiomedimni, the
Knights, and the Zeugitae, giving offices to each class in
proportion to the value of their rateable property. To who ranked
among the Thetes he gave nothing but a place in the Assembly and in
the juries. A man had to rank as a Pentacosiomedimnus if he made,
from his own land, five hundred measures, whether liquid or solid.
Those ranked as Knights who made three hundred measures, or, as
some say, those who were able to maintain a horse. In support of
the latter definition they