The constitution was at this time thoroughly oligarchical. With a view, however, to providing a remedy for the conflict between the several orders of the state, the first code of Athenian law was drawn up and published by Draco (strictly Dracon), who is definitely described as a _thesmothetes_ (621). His laws were known as _thesmoi_. The distinctive part of his legislation was the law of homicide, which was held in such high esteem that it was left unaltered in the legislation of Solon and in the democratic restoration of 411 B.C. It is partly preserved in an inscription of 409, which has been restored with the aid of quotations from the orators (_C.I.A._ i. 61; _Inscr. jurid. grecques_, ii. 1. 1-24; and Hicks, _Gk. Hist. Inscr._ No. 59). It drew a careful distinction between different kinds of homicide. Of the rest of Draco's legislation we only know that Aristotle (_Politics_, ii. 12, 13) was struck by the severity of the penalties, and that the creditor was permitted to seize the person of the debtor as security for his debt. Solon. The conflict of the orders was not allayed until both parties agreed in choosing Solon as mediator and as archon (594 B.C.). Solon cancelled all mortgages and debts secured on the person of the debtor, set free all who had become slaves for debt, and forbade such slavery for the future (see SOLON). Thenceforth every citizen had also "the right of appeal to the law-courts," and the privilege of claiming legal satisfaction on behalf of any one who was wronged. Cases of constitutional law (_inter alia_) came before large law-courts numbering hundreds of jurors, and the power of voting in these law-courts made the people masters of the constitution (Aristotle's _Constitution of Athens_, c. 9). Solon's legislation also had an important effect on the law of property. In primitive times, on a man's death, his money or lands remained in the family, and, even in the absence of direct descendants, the owner could not dispose of his property by will. Permission to execute a will was first given to Athenian citizens by the laws of Solon. But "the Athenian Will was only an inchoate Testament" (Maine's _Ancient Law_, c. vi.); for this permission was expressly limited to those citizens who had no direct male descendants (Dem. _Lept._ 102; Plutarch, _Solon_, 21; cf. Wyse on Isaeus, p. 325). The law of intestate succession is imperfectly preserved in [Dem.] 43, S 51 (cf. Wyse, _ib._ p. 562 f.). In the absence of direct male descendants, a daughter who survived her father was known as an [Greek: epikleros], not an "heiress," but a "person who went with the estate"; and, in the absence of a will, the right or duty of marrying the daughter followed (with certain obvious exceptions) the same rules as the right of succession to the estate (cf. Wyse, _ib._ p. 348 f.). Cleisthenes, Ephialtes. Pericles, Cleon.