The ensuing political history of Athens up to the time of Solon is only incompletely known. The office of basileus became obsolete. Archons elected from the ranks of the nobility occupied the leading position in the state. The power of the nobility increased continually, until it became unbearable about the year 600 before Christ. The principal means for stifling the liberty of the people were--money and usury. The main seat of the nobility was in and around Athens. There the sea trade and now and then a little convenient piracy enriched them and concentrated the money into their hands. From this point the gradually arising money power penetrated like corrugating acid into the traditional modes of rural existence founded on natural economy. The gentile constitution is absolutely irreconcilable with money rule. The ruin of the Attic farmers coincided with the loosening of the old gentile bonds that protected them. The debtor's receipt and the pawning of the property--for the mortgage was also invented by the Athenians--cared neither for the gens nor for the phratry. But the old gentile constitution knew nothing of money, advance and debt. Hence the ever more virulently spreading money rule of the nobility developed a new legal custom, securing the creditor against the debtor and sanctioning the exploitation of the small farmer by the wealthy. All the rural districts of Attica were crowded with mortgage columns bearing the legend that the lot on which they stood was mortgaged to such and such for so much. The fields that were not so designated had for the most part been sold on account of overdue mortgages or interest and transferred to the aristocratic usurers. The farmer could thank his stars, if he was granted permission to live as a tenant on one-sixth of the product of his labor and to pay five-sixths to his new master in the form of rent. Worse still, if the sale of the lot did not bring sufficient returns to cover the debt, or if such a debt had been contracted without a lien, then the debtor had to sell his children into slavery abroad in order to satisfy the claim of the creditor. The sale of the children by the father--that was the first fruit of paternal law and monogamy! And if that did not satisfy the bloodsuckers, they could sell the debtor himself into slavery. Such was the pleasant dawn of civilization among the people of Attica.