Tacitus, loans on interest are unknown. Habitually careless of the
future, the Germans were gratified both in giving and receiving
presents, but without any idea that they thereby either imposed or
contracted an obligation. To a people in this state of feeling, a loan
on interest presents the repulsive idea of making profit out of the
distress of the borrower. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that the
first borrowers must have been for the most part men driven to this
necessity by the pressure of want, and contracting debt as a desperate
resource, without any fair prospect of ability to repay: debt and famine
run together in the mind of the poet Hesiod. The borrower is, in this
unhappy state, rather a distressed man soliciting aid than a solvent man
capable of making and fulfilling a contract. If he cannot find a friend
to make him a free gift in the former character, he will not, under the
latter character, obtain a loan from a stranger, except by the promise
of exorbitant interest, and by the fullest eventual power over his
person which he is in a condition to grant. In process of time a new
class of borrowers arise who demand money for temporary convenience or
profit, but with full prospect of repayment--a relation of lender and
borrower quite different from that of the earlier period, when it
presented itself in the repulsive form of misery on the one side, set
against the prospect of very large profit on the other. If the Germans
of the time of Tacitus looked to the condition of the poor debtors in
Gaul, reduced to servitude under a rich creditor, and swelling by
hundreds the crowd of his attendants, they would not be disposed to
regret their own ignorance of the practice of money-lending. How much
the interest of money was then regarded as an undue profit extorted from
distress is powerfully illustrated by the old Jewish law; the Jew being
permitted to take interest from foreigners--whom the lawgiver did not
think himself obliged to protect--but not from his own countrymen. The
_Koran_ follows out this point of view consistently, and prohibits the
taking of interest altogether. In most other nations laws have been made
to limit the rate of interest, and at Rome especially the legal rate was
successively lowered--though it seems, as might have been expected, that
the restrictive ordinances were constantly eluded. All such restrictions
have been intended for the protection of debtors; an effect which large
experience proves them never to produce, unless it be called protection
to render the obtaining of money on loan impracticable for the most
distressed borrowers. But there was another effect which they _did_
tend to produce--they softened down the primitive antipathy against the
practice generally, and confined the odious name of usury to loans lent
above the fixed legal rate.
In this way alone could they operate beneficially, and their tendency to
counterwork the previous feeling was at that time not unimportant,
coinciding as it did with other tendencies arising out of the industrial
progress of society, which gradually exhibited the relation of lender
and borrower in a light more reciprocal, beneficial, and less repugnant
to the sympathies of the bystander.
At Athens the more favorable point of view prevailed throughout all the
historical times. The march of industry and commerce, under the
mitigated law which prevailed subsequently to Solon, had been sufficient
to bring it about at a very early period and to suppress all public
antipathy against lenders at interest. We may remark, too, that this
more equitable tone of opinion grew up spontaneously, without any legal
restriction on the rate of interest--no such restriction having ever
been imposed and the rate being expressly declared free by a law
ascribed to Solon himself. The same may probably be said of the
communities of Greece generally--at least there is no information to
make us suppose the contrary. But the feeling against lending money at
interest remained in the bosoms of the philosophical men long after it
had ceased to form a part of the practical morality of the citizens, and
long after it had ceased to be justified by the appearances of the case
as at first it really had been. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Plutarch,
treat the practice as a branch of the commercial and money-getting
spirit which they are anxious to discourage; and one consequence of this
was that they were, less disposed to contend strenuously for the
inviolability of existing money-contracts. The conservative feeling on
this point was stronger among the mass than among the philosophers.
Plato even complains of it as inconveniently preponderant, and as
arresting the legislator in all comprehensive projects of reform. For
the most part, indeed, schemes of cancelling debts and redividing lands
were never thought of except by men of desperate and selfish ambition,
who made them stepping-stones to despotic power. Such men were
denounced alike by the practical sense of the community and by the
speculative thinkers: but when we turn to the case of the Spartan king,
Agis III, who proposed a complete extinction of debts and an equal
redivision of the landed property of the state, not with any selfish or
personal views, but upon pure ideas of patriotism, well or ill
understood, and for the purpose of renovating the lost ascendancy of
Sparta--we find Plutarch expressing the most unqualified admiration of
this young king and his projects, and treating the opposition made to
him as originating in no better feelings than meanness and cupidity. The
philosophical thinkers on politics conceived--and to a great degree
justly, as I shall show hereafter--that the conditions of security, in
the ancient world, imposed upon the citizens generally the absolute
necessity of keeping up a military spirit and willingness to brave at
all times personal hardship and discomfort: so that increase of wealth,
on account of the habits of self-indulgence which it commonly
introduces, was regarded by them with more or less of disfavor. If in
their estimation any Grecian community had become corrupt, they were
willing to sanction great interference with preëxisting rights for the
purpose of bringing it back nearer to their ideal standard. And the real
security for the maintenance of these rights lay in the conservative
feelings of the citizens generally, much more than in the opinions which
superior minds imbibed from the philosophers.
Such conservative feelings were in the subsequent Athenian democracy
peculiarly deep-rooted. The mass of the Athenian people identified
inseparably the maintenance of property in all its various shapes with
that of their laws and constitution. And it is a remarkable fact, that
though the admiration entertained at Athens for Solon was universal, the
principle of his Seisachtheia and of his money-depreciation was not only
never imitated, but found the strongest tacit reprobation; whereas at
Rome, as well as in most of the kingdoms of modern Europe, we know that
one debasement of the coin succeeded another. The temptation of thus
partially eluding the pressure of financial embarrassments proved, after
one successful trial, too strong to be resisted, and brought down the
coin by successive depreciations from the full pound of twelve ounces to
the standard of one half ounce. It is of some importance to take notice
of this fact, when we reflect how much "Grecian faith" has been degraded
by the Roman writers into a byword for duplicity in pecuniary dealings.
The democracy of Athens--and indeed the cities of Greece generally, both
oligarchies and democracies--stands far above the senate of Rome, and
far above the modern kingdoms of France and England until comparatively
recent times, in respect of honest dealing with the coinage. Moreover,
while there occurred at Rome several political changes which brought
about new tables, or at least a partial depreciation of contracts, no
phenomenon of the same kind ever happened at Athens, during the three
centuries between Solon and the end of the free working of the
democracy, Doubtless there were fraudulent debtors at Athens; while the
administration of private law, though not in any way conniving at their
proceedings, was far too imperfect to repress them as effectually as
might have been wished. But the public sentiment on the point was just
and decided. It may be asserted with confidence that a loan of money at
Athens was quite as secure as it ever was at any time or place of the
ancient world--in spite of the great and important superiority of Rome
with respect to the accumulation of a body of authoritative legal
precedent, the source of what was ultimately shaped into the Roman
jurisprudence. Among the various causes of sedition or mischief in the
Grecian communities, we hear little of the pressure of private debt.
By the measures of relief above described, Solon had accomplished
results surpassing his own best hopes. He had healed the prevailing
discontents; and such was the confidence and gratitude which he had
inspired, that he was now called upon to draw up a constitution and laws
for the better working of the government in future. His constitutional
changes were great and valuable: respecting his laws, what we hear is
rather curious than important.
It has been already stated that, down to the time of Solon, the
classification received in Attica was that of the four Ionic tribes,
comprising in one scale the Phratries and Gentes, and in another scale
the three Trittyes and forty-eight Naucraries--while the Eupatridæ,
seemingly a few specially respected gentes, and perhaps a few
distinguished families in all the gentes, had in their hands all the
powers of government. Solon introduced a new principle of
classification--called in Greek the "timocratic principle." He
distributed all the citizens of the tribes, without any reference to
their gentes or phratries, into four classes, according to the amount of
their property, which he caused to be assessed and entered in a public
schedule. Those whose annual income was equal to five hundred medimni of
corn (about seven hundred imperial bushels) and upward--one medimnus
being considered equivalent to one drachma in money--he placed in the
highest class; those who received between three hundred and five hundred
medimni or drachmas formed the second class; and those between two
hundred and three hundred, the third. The fourth and most numerous class
comprised all those who did not possess land yielding a produce equal to
two hundred medimni. The first class, called Pentacosiomedimni, were
alone eligible to the archonship and to all commands: the second were
called the knights or horsemen of the state, as possessing enough to
enable them to keep a horse and perform military service in that
capacity: the third class, called the [Greek: Zeugitæ], formed the
heavy-armed infantry, and were bound to serve, each with his full
panoply. Each of these three classes was entered in the public schedule
as possessed of a taxable capital calculated with a certain reference to
his annual income, but in a proportion diminishing according to the
scale of that income--and a man paid taxes to the state according to the
sum for which he stood rated in the schedule; so that this direct
taxation acted really like a graduated income-tax. The ratable property
of the citizen belonging to the richest class (the Pentacosiomedimnus)
was calculated and entered on the state schedule at a sum of capital
equal to twelve times his annual income; that of the Hippeus, horseman
or knight, at a sum equal to ten times his annual income: that of the
Zeugite, at a sum equal to five times his annual income. Thus a
Pentacosiomedimnus, whose income was exactly 500 drachmas (the minimum
qualification of his class), stood rated in the schedule for a taxable
property of 6,000 drachmas or one talent, being twelve times his
income--if his annual income were 1,000 drachmas, he would stand rated
for 12,000 drachmas or two talents, being the same proportion of income
to ratable capital. But when we pass to the second class, horsemen or
knights, the proportion of the two is changed. The horseman possessing
an income of just 300 drachmas (or 300 medimni) would stand rated for
3,000 drachmas, or ten times his real income, and so in the same
proportion for any income above 300 and below 500. Again, in the third
class, or below 300, the proportion is a second time altered--the
Zeugite possessing exactly 200 drachmas of income was rated upon a still
lower calculation, at 1,000 drachmas, or a sum equal to five times his
income; and all incomes of this class (between 200 and 300 drachmas)
would in like manner be multiplied by five in order to obtain the amount
of ratable capital. Upon these respective sums of schedule capital all
direct taxation was levied. If the state required 1 percent of direct
tax, the poorest Pentacosiomedimnus would pay (upon 6,000 drachmas) 60
drachmas; the poorest Hippeus would pay (upon 3,000 drachmas) 30; the
poorest Zeugite would pay (upon 1,000 drachmas) 10 drachmas. And thus
this mode of assessment would operate like a _graduated_ income-tax,
looking at it in reference to the three different classes--but as an
_equal_ income-tax, looking at it in reference to the different
individuals comprised in one and the same class.
All persons in the state whose annual income amounted to less than two
hundred medimni or drachmas were placed in the fourth class, and they
must have constituted the large majority of the community. They were not
liable to any direct taxation, and perhaps were not at first even
entered upon the taxable schedule, more especially as we do not know
that any taxes were actually levied upon this schedule during the
Solonian times. It is said that they were all called Thetes, but this
appellation is not well sustained, and cannot be admitted: the fourth
compartment in the descending scale was indeed termed the Thetic census,
because it contained all the Thetes, and because most of its members
were of that humble description; but it is not conceivable that a
proprietor whose land yielded to him a clear annual return of 100, 120,
140, or 180 drachmas, could ever have been designated by that name.
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. 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, choregy, 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.
They 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 Pentacosiomedimni; 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.
Had the public assembly been called upon to act alone without aid or
guidance, this accountability would have proved only nominal. But Solon
converted it into a reality by another new institution, which will
hereafter be found of great moment in the working out of the Athenian
democracy. He created the pro-bouleutic, or pre-considering senate, with
intimate and especial reference to the public assembly--to prepare
matters for its discussion, to convoke and superintend its meetings, and
to insure the execution of its decrees. The senate, as first constituted
by Solon, comprised four hundred members, taken in equal proportions
from the four tribes; not chosen by lot, as they will be found to be in
the more advanced stage of the democracy, but elected by the people, in
the same way as the archons then were--persons of the fourth, or poorest
class of the census, though contributing to elect, not being themselves
eligible.
But while Solon thus created the new pre-considering senate, identified
with and subsidiary to the popular assembly, he manifested no jealousy
of the preëxisting Areopagitic senate. On the contrary, he enlarged its
powers, gave to it an ample supervision over the execution of the laws
generally, and imposed upon it the censorial duty of inspecting the
lives and occupation of the citizens, as well as of punishing men of
idle and dissolute habits. He was himself, as past archon, a member of
this ancient senate, and he is said to have contemplated that by means
of the two senates the state would be held fast, as it were with a
double anchor, against all shocks and storms.
Such are the only new political institutions (apart from the laws to be
noticed presently) which there are grounds for ascribing to Solon, when
we take proper care to discriminate what really belongs to Solon and his
age from the Athenian constitution as afterward remodelled. It has been
a practice common with many able expositors of Grecian affairs, and
followed partly even by Dr. Thirlwall, to connect the name of Solon with
the whole political and judicial state of Athens as it stood between the
age of Pericles and that of Demosthenes--the regulations of the senate
of five hundred, the numerous public dicasts or jurors taken by lot from
the people--as well as the body annually selected for law-revision, and
called _nomothets_--and the open prosecution (called the _graphe
paranomon_) to be instituted against the proposer of any measure
illegal, unconstitutional, or dangerous. There is indeed some
countenance for this confusion between Solonian and post-Solonian
Athens, in the usage of the orators themselves. For Demosthenes and
Æschines employ the name of Solon in a very loose manner, and treat him
as the author of institutions belonging evidently to a later age--for
example: the striking and characteristic oath of the Heliastic jurors,
which Demosthenes ascribes to Solon, proclaims itself in many ways as
belonging to the age after Clisthenes, especially by the mention of the
senate of five hundred, and not of four hundred. Among the citizens who
served as jurors or dicasts, Solon was venerated generally as the author
of the Athenian laws. An orator, therefore, might well employ his name
for the purpose of emphasis, without provoking any critical inquiry
whether the particular institution, which he happened to be then
impressing upon his audience, belonged really to Solon himself or to the
subsequent periods. Many of those institutions, which Dr. Thirlwall
mentions in conjunction with the name of Solon, are among the last
refinements and elaborations of the democratical mind of
Athens--gradually prepared, doubtless, during the interval between
Clisthenes and Pericles, but not brought into full operation until the
period of the latter (B.C. 460-429). For it is hardly possible to
conceive these numerous dicasteries and assemblies in regular, frequent,
and long-standing operation, without an assured payment to the dicasts
who composed them. Now such payment first began to be made about the
time of Pericles, if not by his actual proposition; and Demosthenes had
good reason for contending that if it were suspended, the judicial as
well as the administrative system of Athens would at once fall to
pieces. It would be a marvel, such as nothing short of strong direct
evidence would justify us in believing, that in an age when even partial
democracy was yet untried, Solon should conceive the idea of such
institutions; it would be a marvel still greater, that the
half-emancipated Thetes and small proprietors, for whom he
legislated--yet trembling under the rod of the Eupatrid archons, and
utterly inexperienced in collective business--should have been found
suddenly competent to fulfil these ascendant functions, such as the
citizens of conquering Athens in the days of Pericles, full of the
sentiment of force and actively identifying themselves with the dignity
of their community, became gradually competent, and not more than
competent, to exercise with effect. To suppose that Solon contemplated
and provided for the periodical revision of his laws by establishing a
nomothetic jury or dicastery, such as that which we find in operation
during the time of Demosthenes, would be at variance (in my judgment)
with any reasonable estimate either of the man or of the age. Herodotus
says that Solon, having exacted from the Athenians solemn oaths that
_they_ would not rescind any of his laws for ten years, quitted Athens
for that period, in order that he might not be compelled to rescind them
himself. Plutarch informs us that he gave to his laws force for a
century. Solon himself, and Draco before him, had been lawgivers evoked
and empowered by the special emergency of the times: the idea of a
frequent revision of laws, by a body of lot-selected dicasts, belongs to
a far more advanced age, and could not well have been present to the
minds of either. The wooden rollers of Solon, like the tables of the
Roman decemvìrs, were doubtless intended as a permanent "_fons omnis
publici privatique juris_".