Both Wachsmuth (Hell. Alterth. v. i, p. 249) and K. F. Hermann (Gr. Staats Alter. c. s. 106) quote the heliastic oath, and its energetic protest against repudiation, as evidence of the bearing of the Solonian seisachtheia. But that oath is referable only to a later period; it cannot be produced in proof of any matter applicable to the time of Solon; the mere mention of the senate of Five Hundred in it, shows that it belongs to times subsequent to the Kleisthenean revolution. Nor does the passage from Plato (Legg. iii, p. 684) apply to the case. Both Wachsmuth and Hermann appear to me to narrow too much the extent of Solon’s measure in reference to the clearing of debtors. But on the other hand, they enlarge the effect of his measures in another way, without any sufficient evidence,—they think that he raised _the villein tenants_ into _free proprietors_. Of this I see no proof, and think it improbable. A large proportion of the small debtors whom Solon exonerated were probably free proprietors before; the existence of the ὅροι, or mortgage pillars, upon their land proves this. It seems to have been the respect entertained for the character of Solon which partly occasioned these various misconceptions of his ordinances for the relief of debtors: Androtion in ancient, and some eminent critics in modern times, are anxious to make out that he gave relief without loss or injustice to any one. But this opinion is altogether inadmissible: the loss to creditors, by the wholesale abrogation of numerous prëexisting contracts, and by the partial depreciation of the coin, is a fact not to be disguised. The seisachtheia of Solon, unjust so far as it rescinded previous agreements, but highly salutary in its consequences, is to be vindicated by showing that in no other way could the bonds of government have been held together, or the misery of the multitude alleviated. We are to consider, first, the great personal cruelty of these preëxisting contracts, which condemned the body of the free debtor and his family to slavery; next, the profound detestation created by such a system in the large mass of the poor, against both the judges and the creditors by whom it had been enforced, which rendered their feelings unmanageable, so soon as they came together under the sentiment of a common danger, and with the determination to insure to each other mutual protection. Moreover, the law which vests a creditor with power over the person of his debtor, so as to convert him into a slave, is likely to give rise to a class of loans, which inspire nothing but abhorrence,—money lent with the foreknowledge that the borrower will be unable to repay it, but also in the conviction that the value of his person as a slave will make good the loss; thus reducing him to a condition of extreme misery, for the purpose sometimes of aggrandizing, sometimes of enriching, the lender. Now the foundation on which the respect for contracts rests,