After this event there was contention for a long time between the upper
classes and the populace. Not only was the constitution at this time
oligarchical in every respect, but the poorer classes, men, women, and
children, were the serfs of the rich. They were known as Pelatae and
also as Hectemori, because they cultivated the lands of the rich at the
rent thus indicated. The whole country was in the hands of a few
persons, and if the tenants failed to pay their rent they were liable
to be haled into slavery, and their children with them. All loans
secured upon the debtor's person, a custom which prevailed until the
time of Solon, who was the first to appear as the champion of the
people. But the hardest and bitterest part of the constitution in the
eyes of the masses was their state of serfdom. Not but what they were
also discontented with every other feature of their lot; for, to speak
generally, they had no part nor share in anything.