Note 182 — Chapter XI · SOLONIAN LAWS AND CONSTITUTION.

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.