Solon's Reform of Weights and Measures

Extract

The precise nature of Solon's σεισάχθεια has long been a matter of dispute. There can be no reasonable doubt that Solon abolished arrears of rent, and passed something analogous to an Evicted Tenants' Act. He certainly abolished debts for the nonpayment of which personal freedom had been forfeited, and for the future forbade loans of this type. This does not amount to a wholesale abolition of all debts, both public and private. It is equally certain that mere devaluation, while it would have affected all debts expressed in money, would not have been sufficiently drastic to meet the case of the evicted tenant and the enslaved artisan. Yet there is something to be said for the view that the reduction of the standard coin by some 30 per cent, was an integral part of the σεισάχθεια. The other measures affecting debt would no doubt restore those who had fallen under the load. But in all commercial communities, ancient and modern, in times of economic stress there are business men, industrialists and farmers, who are struggling along under burdens of debt, and who bravely continue the struggle. These are the persons whose activities constitute the mainspring of economic life in any profit-making economy. It is precisely this class whose economic circumstances would have been alleviated by the currency devaluation which Solon certainly enacted.