Such were the divisions in the political scale established by Solon, called by Aristotle a timocracy, in which the rights, honors, functions, and liabilities of the citizens were measured out according to the assessed property of each. Though the scale is stated as if nothing but landed property were measured by it, yet we may rather presume that property of other kinds was intended to be included, since it served as the basis of every man’s liability to taxation. The highest honors of the state,—that is, the places of the nine archons annually chosen, as well as those in the senate of areopagus, into which the past archons always entered,—perhaps also the posts of prytanes of the naukrari,—were reserved for the first class: the poor eupatrids became ineligible; while rich men, not eupatrids, were admitted. Other posts of inferior distinction were filled by the second and third classes, who were, moreover, bound to military service, the one on horseback, the other as heavy-armed soldiers on foot. Moreover, the liturgies of the state, as they were called,—unpaid functions, such as the trierarchy, chorêgy, gymnasiarchy, etc., which entailed expense and trouble on the holder of them,—were distributed in some way or other between the members of the three classes, though we do not know how the distribution was made in these early times. On the other hand, the members of the fourth or lowest class were disqualified from holding any individual office of dignity,—performed no liturgies, served in case of war only as light-armed, or with a panoply provided by the state, and paid nothing to the direct property-tax, or eisphora. It would be incorrect to say that they paid _no_ taxes; for indirect taxes, such as duties on imports, fell upon them in common with the rest; and we must recollect that these latter were, throughout a long period of Athenian history, in steady operation, while the direct taxes were only levied on rare occasions. But though this fourth class, constituting the great numerical majority of the free people, were shut out from individual office, their collective importance was in another way greatly increased. They were invested with the right of choosing the annual archons, out of the class of pentakosiomedimni; and what was of more importance still, the archons and the magistrates generally, after their year of office, instead of being accountable to the senate of areopagus, were made formally accountable to the public assembly sitting in judgment upon their past conduct. They might be impeached and called upon to defend themselves, punished in case of misbehavior, and debarred from the usual honor of a seat in the senate of areopagus.