Note 190 — Chapter XI · SOLONIAN LAWS AND CONSTITUTION.

Cæsar, B. G. i, 4, respecting the Gallic chiefs and plebs: “Die constitutâ causæ dictionis, Orgetorix ad judicium omnem suam familiam, ad hominum millia decem, undique coëgit: et omnes clientes, obœratosque suos, quorum magnum numerum habebat, eodem conduxit: per eos, ne caussam diceret, se eripuit.” Ibid. vi, 13: “Plerique, cum aut ære alieno, aut magnitudine tributorum, aut injuriâ potentiorum, premuntur, sese in servitutem dicant nobilibus. In hos eadem omnia sunt jura, quæ dominis in servos.” The wealthy Romans cultivated their large possessions partly by the hands of adjudged debtors, in the time of Columella (i, 3, 14): “More præpotentium, qui possident fines gentium, quos ... aut occupatos nexu civium, aut ergastulis, tenent.”

According to the Teutonic codes also, drawn up several centuries subsequently to Tacitus, it seems that the insolvent debtor falls under the power of his creditor and is subject to personal fetters and chastisement (Grimm, Deutsche Rechts Alterthümer, pp. 612-615): both he and Von Savigny assimilate it to the terrible process of personal execution and addiction in the old law of Rome, against the insolvent debtor on loan. King Alfred exhorts the creditor to lenity (Laws of King Alfred, Thorpe, Ancient Laws of England, vol. i, p. 53, law 35).

A striking evidence of the alteration of the character and circumstances of debtors, between the age of Solon and that of Plutarch, is afforded by the treatise of the latter, “De Vitando Ære Alieno,” wherein he sets forth in the most vehement manner the miserable consequences of getting into debt. “The poor” he says, “do not get into debt, for no one will lend them money (τοῖς γὰρ ἀπόροις οὐ δανείζουσιν, ἀλλὰ βουλομένοις εὐπορίαν τινα ἑαυτοῖς κτᾶσθαι καὶ μάρτυρα δίδωσι καὶ βεβαιώτην ἄξιον, ὅτι ἔχει πιστεύεσθαι): the borrowers are men who have still some property and some security to offer, but who wish to keep up a rate of expenditure beyond what they can afford, and become utterly ruined by contracting debts.” (Plut. pp. 827, 830.) This shows how intimately the multiplication of poor debtors was connected with the liability of their persons to enslavement. Compare Plutarch, De Cupidine Divitiarum, c. 2, p. 523.