Grote (ii, 471), while eulogising Solon's plan as a whole, accepts the view that he debased the money-standard; while Boeckh (_Metrologie_, ch. 15) holds him to have further altered the weights and measures. For the former view there is clear support in Plutarch (_Solon_, c. 15), and for the latter in the lately recovered Aristotelian _Polity of Athens_ (c. 10). But when Messrs. Mitchell and Caspari, in their abridgment of Grote (p. 45), declare that the latter document makes clear that the coinage measure was solely for the promotion of trade, and entirely independent of the Seisachtheia (so also Bury, p. 183), they unduly stress the evidence. The document, which is hardly Aristotelian in structure, proceeds doubtfully on tradition and not upon record; and there may be some truth in the old view of Androtion (Plut. c. 15), that Solon only reduced the rate of interest while altering the money-standard. The point is really obscure. Cp. Abbott, _Hist. of Greece_, i, 407-8; Grote, ii, 472-76; Meyer, ii, 651-52; Cox, _Gen. Hist. of Greece_, 2nd ed. pp. 76-79. So far are we from exact knowledge that it is still a moot point whether the tenant _Hektemorioi_ or "Sixth-men" _paid_ or _received_ a sixth part of their total product. Cp. Mitchell and Caspari, abr. of Grote, p. 14, _note_; Cox, _Gen. Hist. of Greece_, 2nd ed. p. 77; Bury, _Hist. of Greece_, ed. 1906, p. 181; Meyer, ii, 642; Abbott, _Hist. of Greece_, i, 289. While the burdened peasants and labourers were thus ostensibly given a new economic outlook on life, they were further humanised by being given a share in the common polity. To the Ecclesia or "Congregation" of the people Solon gave the power of electing the public magistrates; and by way of controlling somewhat the power of the Areopagus or Senate, he established a "pre-considering" Council or "Lower House" of Four Hundred, chosen from all save the poor class, thus giving the State "two anchors." And though the executive was in the hands of the aristocracy, subject only to popular election, the burdens of the community were soundly adjusted by a new or improved classification of citizens according to their incomes ("timocracy"), which worked out somewhat as a graduated income-tax, whether by way of a money-rate or in respect of their share in military duties and public "liturgies," which had to be maintained by the richer citizens.