Solon the Lawgiver

     Solon is the central figure in early Athenian history, remembered as the individual that created the Athenian law code (retaining only Draco's law on homicide) and made the first changes toward a democratized government.
    Solon came to power as the state was facing an economic crisis, symptoms of which included the loss of many workers into the ranks of hektemoroi (debt-slaves), the displacement of many lower-class citizens, and the greater concentration of landed wealth. In his poetry he claimed to have ransomed/bought back many citizens who had been sold into slavery abroad, and to have restored exiles who fled because of financial need. He also forbade the practice of offering a person as credit for debt and forgave both private and public debt in the seisachtheia (although its precise nature is not exactly known). Solon explains these actions as taking up a middle ground between the conflicting interests of the rapacious rich and oppressed poor.
   What was the nature of the crisis? It is currently debated: Sealey believes that the model of pure class conflict is likely inaccurate, and that it was mostly conflict between powerful clans, with the added danger that some clans might exploit the grievances of the poor. The poor themselves would have been unable to compete with the wealthy in terms of arms, training, and resources.

   Solon reduced the laws to writing, and the penalties within were mostly negative; that is, they removed rights from the convicted, the greatest punishment being making him an outlaw or exile. He also is said to have divided the Athenians into four property classes, via which are the pentakosiomedimnoi, hippeis, zeugitai, and thetes. The divisions were based on measures of agricultural produce (500/300/200/lower); it made property the qualification for political privilege. Treasurers could come from the first class, archons from the first two, etc. Ideas about classifications before this one occur in fragments of Aristotle, but may be fanciful speculation; there was a nobility known as the eupatridae, but specifics about it are unclear - it may have been the ruling class during the unification of Attica in the seventh century.
   According to Ps. Aristotle, Solon carried out a reorganization of weights, measures, and coinage, although this may result from a later practice of attributing all customary institutions to him.

   Solon is commonly credited with creating the Council of Four Hundred, with 100 members taken from each tribe. Its job, according to Plutarch, was to set the business for the assembly. Solon himself does not mention it, and its term limits et al. are unknown.

Solon was archon in 594/3
Solon is thought to have carried out his reforms in around 580-570; they might have been a reaction to periodic anarchies and unstable government, evidence of which is seen in Aristotle's archon list for the 580s.