A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

CHAPTER XIII
ATHENS: FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY
I. The Kingship and the Aristocracy
Afterward it came about that for a long time the Social connobles
and commons disturbed the state by their sedition,
fore Solon.
For the government was oHgarchic in all respects; and Aristotle
particularly the poor, with their children and wives, ConsiUution
were in slavery to the rich. They were called pelatae Athenians, 2.
[clients] and hectemori "[sixth-part men"], for they tilled Greece, 46 f.;
the fields of the wealthy for that amount of rent. All the iv"rid!iio.
land was in the hands of the few; and if they [the tenants]
failed to render the rents due, they and their children were
liable to enslavement.
There were loans on the security
of every one's person down to the time of Solon; and he
was in fact the first to stand forth as a patron of the commons.
Now it was a most hard and grievous feature of
the constitution that the masses should be in slavery;
not but that they had other grounds of complaint, for
they were, so to speak, excluded from everything.
The organization of the original government [of the From kingrepublic]
as it existed before Draco, was as follows. Their tocracy.
appointments to oflBce were based on the qualifications ^rist. ih. 3.
of birth and wealth.
Originally the offices were life-long
and afterward decennial. The first and most important
magistrates were the king, polemarch, and archon. The
earUest of these three was the kingship, for it existed from
the beginning. Secondly was instituted in addition the
polemarchy because of the fact that some of the kings
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