Οὐκ ἔφυ Σόλων βαθύφρων, οὐδὲ βουλήεις ἀνήρ, Ἐσθλὰ γὰρ θεοῦ δίδοντος, αὐτὸς οὐκ ἐδέξατο. Περιβαλὼν δ᾽ ἄγραν, ἀγασθεὶς οὐκ ἀνέσπασεν μέγα Δίκτυον, θυμοῦ θ’ ἁμαρτῆ καὶ φρενῶν ἀποσφαλείς. [172] Aristides, Περὶ τοῦ Παραφθέγματος, ii, p. 397; and Fragm. 29, Schn. of the Iambics of Solon:— ... εἰ γὰρ ἤθελον Ἃ τοῖς ἐναντίοισιν ἥνδανεν τότε, Αὖθις δ᾽ ἃ τοῖσιν ἁτέροις δρᾶσαι ... Πολλῶν ἂν ἀνδρῶν ἥδ᾽ ἐχηρώθη πόλις. Of all grievances, the most urgent was the condition of the poorer class of debtors; and to their relief Solon’s first measure, the memorable seisachtheia, or shaking off of burdens, was directed. The relief which it afforded was complete and immediate. It cancelled at once all those contracts in which the debtor had borrowed on the security of either his person or of his land: it forbade all future loans or contracts in which the person of the debtor was pledged as security: it deprived the creditor in future of all power to imprison, or enslave, or extort work from his debtor, and confined him to an effective judgment at law, authorizing the seizure of the property of the latter. It swept off all the numerous mortgage pillars from the landed properties in Attica, and left the land free from all past claims. It liberated, and restored to their full rights, all those debtors who were actually in slavery under previous legal adjudication; and it even provided the means—we do not know how—of repurchasing in foreign lands, and bringing back to a renewed life of liberty in Attica, many insolvents who had been sold for exportation.[173] And while Solon forbade every Athenian to pledge or sell his own person into slavery, he took a step farther in the same direction, by forbidding him to pledge or sell his son, his daughter, or an unmarried sister under his tutelage,—excepting only the case in which either of the latter might be detected in unchastity.[174] Whether this last ordinance was contemporaneous with the seisachtheia, or followed as one of his subsequent reforms, seems doubtful. [173] See the valuable fragment of his Iambics, preserved by Plutarch and Aristidês, the expression of which is rendered more emphatic by the appeal to the _personal Earth_, as having passed by his measures from slavery into freedom (compare Plato, Legg. v, pp. 740-741):— Συμμαρτυροίη ταῦτ᾽ ἂν ἐν δίκῃ Χρόνου Μήτηρ, μεγίστη δαιμόνων Ὀλυμπίων, Ἄριστα, Γῆ μέλαινα, τῆς ἐγώ ποτε Ὅρους ἀνεῖλον πολλαχῇ πεπηγότας, Πρόσθεν δὲ δουλεύουσα, νῦν ἐλευθέρα. Πολλοὺς δ᾽ Ἀθήνας, πατρίδ᾽ εἰς θεόκτιτον Ἀνήγαγον πραθέντας, ἄλλον ἐκδίκως, Ἄλλον δικαίως· τοὺς δ᾽ ἀναγκαίης ὕπο Χρειοῦς φυγόντας, γλῶσσαν οὔκετ᾽ Ἀττικὴν Ἱέντας, ὡς ἂν πολλαχῇ πλανωμένους· Τοὺς δ’ ἐνθάδ᾽ αὐτοῦ δουλίην ἀεικέα Ἔχοντας, ἤδη δεσπότας τρομευμένους, Ἐλευθέρους ἔθηκα. also Plutarch, Solon, c. 15.