their old dispute about
the constitution. The state was divided into as many factions as there
were parts of the country, for the Diakrii, or mountaineers, favoured
democracy; the Pedioei, oligarchy; while those who dwelt along the
seashore, called Parali, preferred a constitution midway between these
two forms, and thus prevented either of the other parties from carrying
their point. Moreover, the state was on the verge of revolution, because
of the excessive poverty of some citizens, and the enormous wealth of
others, and it appeared that the only means of putting an end to these
disorders was by establishing an absolute despotism. The whole people
were in debt to a few wealthy men; they either cultivated their farms,
in which case they were obliged to pay one-sixth of the profit to their
creditors, and were called Hektemori, or servants, or else they had
raised loans upon personal security, and had become the slaves of their
creditors, who either employed them at home, or sold them to foreigners.
Many were even compelled to sell their own children, which was not
illegal, and to leave the country because of the harshness of their
creditors.

The greater part, and those of most spirit, combined together, and
encouraged one another not to suffer such oppression any longer, but to
choose some trustworthy person to protect their interests, to set free
all enslaved debtors, redistribute the land, and, in a word, entirely
remodel the constitution.

XIV. In this position of affairs, the most sensible men in Athens
perceived that Solon was a person who shared the vices of neither
faction, as he took no part in the oppressive conduct of the wealthy,
and yet had sufficient fortune to save him from the straits to which the
poor were reduced. In consequence of this, they begged him to come
forward and end their disputes. But Phanias of Lesbos says that Solon
deceived both parties, in order to save the state, promising the poor a
redistribution of lands, and the rich a confirmation of their
securities. However, Solon himself tells us that it was with reluctance
that he interfered, as he was threatened by the avarice of the one
party, and the desperation of the other. He was chosen archon next after
Philombrotus, to act as an arbitrator and lawgiver at once, because the
rich had confidence in him as a man of easy fortune, and the poor
trusted him as a good man. It is said also that a saying which he had
let fall some time before,