Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/119

SE1SACHTHEIA, OR RELIEF-LAV,'. 103 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, -whoso: 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 enfranchise- ment of the land. 3. The protection, liberation, and restoration of the persons of endangered or enslaved debtors. All these expressions point distinctly to the thetes and small proprietors, whose sufferings and peril Avere 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. 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 preexisting contracts, and by the partial depreciation of the coin, is a fact not to be dis- guised. The seisachtheia of Solon, unjust so far as it rescinded previous agreements, but highly salutary in its consequences, is to be vindicated by showing that in no other way could the bonds Both Wachsmuth (Hell.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 seisachthcia. 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 Kleisthencan 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, with- out any sufficient evidence, they think that he raised ike villein tenants into free proprietors. Of this I sec no proof, and think it improbable. A largo proportion of the small debtors whom Solon exonerated were probably free proprietors before ; the existence of the opoi, or mortgage pillars, npcn tbeif land proves this.