The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

adduce the name of the class, which may
be supposed to be derived from this fact, and also some votive
offerings of early times; for in the Acropolis there is a votive
offering, a statue of Diphilus, bearing this inscription:
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    div class="quote">
    The son of Diphilus, Athenion hight,
Raised from the Thetes and become a knight,
Did to the gods this sculptured charger bring,
For his promotion a thank-offering.
    And a horse stands in evidence beside the man, implying that
this was what was meant by belonging to the rank of Knight. At the
same time it seems reasonable to suppose that this class, like the
Pentacosiomedimni, was defined by the possession of an income of a
certain number of measures. Those ranked as Zeugitae who made two
hundred measures, liquid or solid; and the rest ranked as Thetes,
and were not eligible for any office. Hence it is that even at the
present day, when a candidate for any office is asked to what class
he belongs, no one would think of saying that he belonged to the
Thetes.
8
    The elections to the various offices Solon enacted should be by
lot, out of candidates selected by each of the tribes. Each tribe
selected ten candidates for the nine archonships, and among these
the lot was cast. Hence it is still the custom for each tribe to
choose ten candidates by lot, and then the lot is again cast among
these. A proof that Solon regulated the elections to office
according to the property classes may be found in the law still in
force with regard to the Treasurers, which enacts that they shall
be chosen from the Pentacosiomedimni. Such was Solon’s legislation
with respect to the nine Archons; whereas in early times the
Council of Areopagus summoned suitable persons according to its own
judgement and appointed them for the year to the several offices.
There were four tribes, as before, and four tribe-kings. Each tribe
was divided into three Trittyes [=Thirds], with twelve Naucraries
in each; and the Naucraries had officers of their own, called
Naucrari, whose duty it was to superintend the current receipts and
expenditure. Hence, among the laws of Solon now obsolete, it is
repeatedly written that the Naucrari are to receive and to spend
out of the Naucraric fund. Solon also appointed a Council of four
hundred, a hundred from each tribe; but he assigned to the Council
of the Areopagus the duty of superintending the laws, acting as
before as the guardian of the constitution in general. It kept
watch over the affairs of the state in most of the more important
matters, and corrected offenders, with full powers to inflict
either fines or personal punishment. The money received in fines it
brought up into the Acropolis, without assigning the reason for the
mulct. It also tried those who conspired for the overthrow of the
state, Solon having enacted a process of impeachment to deal with
such offenders. Further, since he saw the state often engaged in
internal disputes, while many of the citizens from sheer
indifference accepted whatever might turn up, he made a law with
express reference to such persons, enacting that any one who, in a
time civil factions, did not take up arms with either party, should
lose his rights as a citizen and cease to have any part in the
state.
9
    Such, then, was his legislation concerning the magistracies.
There are three points in the constitution of Solon which appear to
be its most democratic features: first and most important, the
prohibition of loans on the security of the debtor’s person;
secondly, the right of every person who so willed to claim redress
on behalf of any one to whom wrong was being done; thirdly, the
institution of the appeal to the jurycourts; and it is to this
last, they say, that the masses have owed their strength most of
all, since, when the democracy is master of the voting-power, it is
master of the constitution. Moreover, since the laws were not drawn
up in simple and explicit terms (but like the one concerning
inheritances and wards of state), disputes inevitably occurred, and
the courts had to decide in every matter, whether public or
private. Some persons in fact believe that Solon deliberately made
the laws indefinite, in order that the final decision might be in
the hands of the people. This, however, is not probable, and the
reason no doubt was that it is impossible to attain ideal
perfection when framing a law in general terms; for we must judge
of his intentions, not from the actual results in the present day,
but from the general