Respecting these hektêmori, “tenants paying one-sixth portion,” we find little or no information: they are just noticed in Hesychius (v. Ἑκτήμοροι, Ἐπίμορτος) and in Pollux, vii, 151; from whom we learn that ἐπίμορτος γῆ was an expression which occurred in one of the Solonian laws. Whether they paid to the landlord one-sixth, or retained for themselves only one-sixth, has been doubted (see Photius, Πελάται). Dionysius Hal. (A. R. ii, 9) compares the thêtes in Attica to the Roman clients: that both agreed in being relations of personal and proprietary dependence is certain; but we can hardly carry the comparison farther, nor is there any evidence in Attica of that sanctity of obligation which is said to have bound the Roman patron to his client. All the calamitous effects were here seen of the old harsh law of debtor and creditor,—once prevalent in Greece, Italy, Asia, and a large portion of the world,—combined with the recognition of slavery as a legitimate status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that of another man to buy him. Every debtor unable to fulfil his contract was liable to be adjudged as the slave of his creditor, until he could find means either of paying it or working it out; and not only he himself, but his minor sons and unmarried daughters and sisters also, whom the law gave him the power of selling.[167] The poor man thus borrowed upon the security of his body, to translate literally the Greek phrase, and upon that of the persons of his family; and so severely had these oppressive contracts been enforced, that many debtors had been reduced from freedom to slavery in Attica itself,—many others had been sold for exportation,—and some had only hitherto preserved their own freedom by selling their children. Moreover, a great number of the smaller properties in Attica were under mortgage, signified,—according to the formality usual in the Attic law, and continued down throughout the historical times,—by a stone pillar erected on the land, inscribed with the name of the lender and the amount of the loan. The proprietors of these mortgaged lands, in case of an unfavorable turn of events, had no other prospect except that of irremediable slavery for themselves and their families, either in their own native country, robbed of all its delights, or in some barbarian region where the Attic accent would never meet their ears. Some had fled the country to escape legal adjudication of their persons, and earned a miserable subsistence in foreign parts by degrading occupations: upon several, too, this deplorable lot had fallen by unjust condemnation and corrupt judges; the conduct of the rich, in regard to money sacred and profane, in regard to matters public as well as private, being thoroughly unprincipled and rapacious.