9
A NEW SOLUTION TO THE RIDDLE OF THE SEISACHTHEIA

Edward M.Harris

Solon’s reform known as the Seisachtheia occupies a prominent place in most accounts of Archaic Athens. Scholars by and large agree that the reform, which probably occurred in 594, was a crucial step in the long transition from the aristocratic society of the early Archaic period to the democratic society of the Classical period.¹ M.I.Finley, for instance, believed the reform was responsible for the development of a slave society.² Despite the general consensus about its importance for Athenian history, there has been little agreement about the nature of the Seisachtheia. Some are content to follow the interpretation of the reform found in the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians (12.4) and Plutarch’s Solon (15), where the reform is described as a cancellation of debts.³ Others point out various objections to this view and interpret the reform as the abolition of a type of feudal relationship.⁴ Yet all scholars tend to assume that, whatever the precise nature of the reform, the Seisachtheia had a significant effect on the control of land in Attica.

The aim of this chapter is to propose a new solution to the mystery of Solon’s enigmatic Seisachtheia. The first part will argue that it is necessary to abandon the traditional assumption that the reform concerned control over land. This assumption rests on an anachronistic interpretation of lines 5–7 of fragment 36 West of Solon’s poetry. In my opinion, the lines are better interpreted as a metaphor for Solon’s suppression of stasis in Attica. The second part will advance a new interpretation of the reform drawing on evidence from Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, and Thucydides. It will argue that the Seisachtheia abolished a system of payment for protection and maintenance of internal order well attested in the Homeric poems as well as in other areas that did not develop institutions characteristic of the later polis. The new interpretation of the reform puts Peisistratus’ rule in a different light and tentatively suggests a revised model for the development of Athenian political institutions.

I

To the ancient historian searching for clues about Solon’s mysterious Seisachtheia, lines 3–7 of fragment 36 of the lawgiver’s poetry appear initially to offer a valuable hint. In the passage Solon boasts of removing from the land the horoi, which had been planted far and wide As a result, the land, once enslaved, is now free . The author of the Constitution of the Athenians (12.4), followed by Plutarch (Solon 15), used these lines to support the view that the Seisachtheia was in effect a cancellation of debts. These authors obviously thought that the horoi mentioned here were not boundary-markers, but stones set up to indicate that the land to which they were affixed had been pledged as security for a debt or other obligation, a practice widespread in Attica during the fourth century and later.⁵ Since it was customary to remove these horoi upon cancellation of the obligation, both authors interpreted Solon’s assertion ‘I removed the horoi’ to mean that he had carried out a cancellation of debts. Those modern scholars who have not accepted this interpretation have still shared their basic assumption that these lines somehow refer to the Seisachtheia.⁶

There is an insurmountable objection to this interpretation: the word horos in early Greek literature always means boundary marker (Horn. Il. 12.421; 21.405; Solon fr. 37; Solon apud Gaius Dig. 10.1.3). The earliest use of the word horos to refer to a security-marker occurs in 364 (Is. 6.36). Moreover, the word horos is never to my knowledge used in poetry in any period to refer to a security-marker. The epigraphical record speaks with the same voice: all of the horoi found in L.H.Jeffery’s collection of Archaic inscriptions are boundary-markers.⁷ The earliest dated horos of the security-marker type comes from the year 363/2 (IG ii2 2654). Of the undated horoi marking a security obligation, not one is dated earlier than the fourth century.⁸ It is clear that here as elsewhere the author of the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians has introduced anachronistic ideas into his account of Archaic history.⁹ The horoi mentioned in line 6 of Solon fragment 36 must therefore be boundary-markers. Nor should one hypothesize a meaning for the word horos that has no parallel in any Archaic source and then use this invented meaning to interpret these verses.¹⁰ That would be to explain ignotum per ignotius. All the Archaic evidence firmly indicates that Solon must use the word horos in the sense of boundary-marker.

A new approach to reading the passage is clearly required. There are two choices: one can interpret the lines literally and believe that Solon boasted about tearing up boundary-markers, or one can interpret the lines metaphorically. A literal reading of the passage can safely be ruled out. The act of removing boundary-markers was considered a serious crime. Horoi that marked boundaries to private land were expected to remain fixed and enjoyed the protection of Zeus Horios ([Dem.] 7.39–40). Plato in the Lam (8.842e–843b) condemns their removal as an act of sacrilege, the crime of ‘moving what must not be moved’. Other sources reveal that in several poleis magistrates could punish this crime with severe fines.¹¹ Are we to believe that Solon in fr. 36 was boasting about committing a crime?

This leaves us with no choice but to interpret these lines metaphorically. This approach has much to recommend it. After all, the lines in question are poetry, not prose, and Solon, though not one of the most elegant Archaic versifiers, did possess a certain talent for creating bold metaphors and striking similes. For instance, in fragment 37, Solon sings about the man who would not have restrained the people nor stopped them ‘before he had churned up the milk and taken away the butterfat’ trans. L.Foxhall). Here Solon gives us an effective metaphor for seizing the property of the wealthy. In fragment 5 Solon speaks of his concern for both the common people and the wealthy alike and describes how he ‘held a mighty shield over both sides and did not allow either side to enjoy an unjust triumph’ {ƒÖ.). In fragment 4, line 4, Solon says that oppressive slavery ‘rouses war from its slumber’ ¹²

In fragment 37 Solon actually compares himself to a horos. He contrasts his own conduct with the behaviour of an imaginary oppressor of the rich. ‘I stood’, Solon declares, ‘like a horos in the middle ground between them’ The simile evokes Solon’s impartiality in the midst of stasis. Solon compares the two opposing sides to a piece of property separated by a boundary marked by a horos. The lawgiver joins with neither side, remaining in the centre like a horos. What is significant for the interpretation of fragment 36, lines 5–7, is that the horos is closely linked with stasis. The horos is placed in the middle to show that the two areas are not joined together as one property. The horos divides the earth into two different parts and thus signifies the presence of division and the absence of unity.

It was also division, stasis, that afflicted Attica in Solon’s time. In fragment 5, lines 7–16, Solon reports that the leaders in their greed and violence have offended justice, who in time will come to exact retribution. Solon likens the plight of Attica to an inescapable wound, another bold metaphor, that has come upon the community and driven it into base slavery. Note the use of the term doulosyne, slavery, applied to the general situation in Attica. Although literal slavery is referred to below, the word is used figuratively here to describe the oppression into which Attica has fallen as a result of violence. This oppression leads to strife and bloodshed (lines 19–20). Stasis. in turn brings slavery to the poor, who are no longer protected by respect for justice and are seized by the powerful and sold into slavery.

The entire passage is valuable for revealing the close connection in Solon’s poetry between stasis (discord) and doulosyne (slavery). The passage does not describe the economic exploitation of dependent labour in some kind of quasi-feudal system. The enslavement of the poor comes about from a breakdown of law and order described in lines 5–22. It is not the cause of stasis nor is it linked to any failure of the hektemoroi to make payments to their lords or to the foreclosure of mortgages on land held by poor farmers. The breakdown of law and order (line 31: dysnomia) has produced the kind of raids for plunder and slaves found throughout the Odyssey and Iliad.¹³

It is time to return to fragment 36. In this passage Solon looks back on his achievements. He begins by asking, ‘What of those things for which I brought together the people have I left undone?’ (lines 1–2). Solon is obviously proud of his success in unifying the people after the stasis that was the root cause of the troubles he laments elsewhere in his poetry. To lend weight to his boast, Solon calls on the ‘dark Earth’, invoking her with the respectful title ‘greatest and best mother of the Olympian gods’. Why does Solon call on Earth as a witness? Because it was from her that Solon ‘removed the boundary-stones that had been planted far and wide’. Just as the horos in fragment 37 was associated with the presence of division in Attica, the removal of the horoi in fragment 36 ought to symbolize the expulsion of stasis from the land. That fits in well with the phrase ‘I brought the people together’ in lines 1–2 and with the general thrust of Solon’s description of the crisis in Attica. The removal of horoi was also used to symbolize the unification of two previously separate communities (Xen. Hell. 4.4.6; Plut. Arist. 11.8). It is therefore not surprising that Solon should use this image to express the idea of unifying Attica after it had been divided into different factions.

And just as stasis was accompanied by doulosyne, oppression, in fragment 4, the end of stasis had made the land free once more . There can be no question that Solon employs figurative language in these lines: the phrase ‘Earth… formerly a slave, now free’ makes this certain. The end of stasis has also enabled Solon to free men who were seized during the previous turmoil and either sold abroad or enslaved in Attica. There is the same close thematic connnection between slavery in both its manifestations and stasis as there is in fragment 4. In fragment 36, however, the theme is inverted: the ending of stasis has brought an end to doulosyne both for the land as a whole and for individuals.

The new interpretation of fragment 36, lines 5–7, has several merits. Above all, it permits us to to explain Solon from what we know about Solon’s poetry. The proposed reading is consistent with what is known about Solon’s poetic technique, with the themes developed elsewhere in his poems, and with the contemporary meaning of the word horos. Second, it is unlikely that Solon would have dealt with the particulars of his lawgiving in his verses. The poetry found in the preserved fragments always deals with general moral aspects of his reforms, never with the specifics of individual laws. On the other hand, a metaphorical allusion to the effects of his reforms is precisely what one would expect in his poetry.

Third, the new interpretation enables us to toss off the burden of searching for some imaginary system of land tenure or conjuring up an agricultural crisis.¹⁴ An intepretation that explains Solon’s verses in terms of what his poetry says is certainly superior to one that forces us to resort to guesswork about economic conditions in Archaic Attica.

II

So far we have discovered that fragment 37 is a false clue for solving the mystery of the Seisachtheia. Before proceeding to search for an answer, a general observation is necessary: if we are going to search for clues about the status of the hektemoroi, which the Seisachtheia aimed to eliminate, we ought to look to pre-Solonian or contemporary Greece, or to societies that were comparable to Homeric society and did not develop the institutions that characterized the democratic polis. Whatever the status of the hektemoroi, it was abolished by the Seisachtheia and remained extinct during the Classical period. Hence the problems of interpretation about the term that led to the debate between Androtion (FGrH 324 F 34) and the author of the Constitution of the Athenians, who proposed radically different explanations of the reform. Hence also the tendency to put forward anachronistic explanations of the Solonian reforms in terms of the fourth-century slogans ‘cancellation of debts’ and ‘redistribution of land’.

What we are basically left with after clearing away the accretions of later scholarship is the word hektemoroi, those who are subject to a payment of one-sixth part. To begin with, this term makes little sense as a term for debtors. Farmers do not fall into debt at a uniform rate. Those who are unluckier (or lazier) fall into debt more rapidly and in greater amounts; others fall into debt more slowly and in smaller amounts. But would all debtors in Attica have fallen into debt at exactly the same rate, so that the repayment on their debt was in each and every case equivalent to one-sixth of the annual yield of their farms? Such a scenario would be extremely implausible.

On the other hand, one-sixth makes good sense as payment for services or a kind of tax or tribute. In fact, the Constitution of the Athenians (2.2) links the term hektemoroi with the term pelatai, a status that was later compared with that of the Roman clientes.¹⁵ As is well known, clientes were expected to perform favours for their patroni in return for help and protection. Are there parallels for this kind of arrangement in pre-Solonian Greece? Yes, in the Homeric poems, which reflect the social practices of the eighth century, the period a little more than a century before Solon’s reforms.¹⁶ In both Hesiod and Homer we find an arrangement whereby the lords of the community receive gifts from local inhabitants in exchange for protection against outside aggressors and for maintaining order internally.

The practice is attested in several passages. The first comes from Iliad 9.149–56=291–7. Agamemnon is making Achilles a generous offer of rewards in hope of persuading him to return to battle. Among his rewards is control over seven well-populated towns. In these cities, Agamemnon reports, are men who will honour him like a god with gifts and who will carry out his commands . To judge from his language, Agamemnon is not offering Achilles ownership of these towns. Rather, he proposes to yield to Achilles his jurisdiction over the area. As a result of the proposed transfer, Achilles will become entitled to the gifts their inhabitants normally hand over to the lord who protects them and maintains order in their territory. The inhabitants of the towns will not become Achilles’ tenants or his debtors, but rather his subjects or something akin to clients, who are dependent on him for protection and resolving their disputes, but are otherwise independent as long as they obey his commands . Achilles would thus receive gifts by virtue of his military and political position, not because of his control over resources such as land or labour.

The next passage is from 12.310–21. Sarpedon asks Glaukos,

Why are we two honoured greatly in the seating arrangements, with gifts of meat, and with full cups at public feasts?
and all men look upon as gods and we have received as our portion a large enclosure of lands by the banks of the Xanthus river, fine with orchard and wheat-bearing field?

The reason why they receive the honours, Sarpedon explains, is that they fight among the first of the Lycians and join in battle. They do this so that any one of the Lycians may say of them, ‘Our kings who rule over Lycia are not without fame and they eat the rich sheep and drink the choice honey-sweet wine.’ In standard Homeric fashion the style is paratactic—our lords rule and they eat—but the causal nexus is obvious—our lords are honoured with gifts of food at our feasts and with a plot of land because they fight on our behalf in battle and gain glory in war. Once again we find the same arrangement whereby lords receive gifts, this time food and land, in return for fighting on behalf of local inhabitants. In both cases the lords receive the gifts as a reward for political and military responsibilities. Glaukos and Sarpedon are given land, but this is separate from the gifts of food and drink they receive at feasts. Their ownership of land is a reward for service; it does not explain why they receive the gifts of food.

There are two more allusions to the arrangement in Book 17 of the Iliad. In one passage, Hector says how he ‘wears down the people with gifts and eating’ (Il. 17.225–6). In another passage from the same book, Menelaus calls on the leaders of the Argives, who drink the provisions provided by the people and give orders to the people. Once more there is the same connection between the leadership of the lords over their communities and the honour of receiving gifts from the people.

There are two examples of this type of gift-giving I have found in the Odyssey. The first comes from 13.13–15. As Odysseus is about to leave the Phaeacians, Alcinoos invites the other leaders of the community each to give their guest a great tripod and lebes. Since it is irksome for an individual to do a favour without recompense, Alcinoos suggests that they pay themselves back by collecting from the community . As in the previous examples, the leaders of the community, both the anax and the basileis, collect contributions from their subjects. Unlike the previous passages, however, we are not informed here why they have the right to exact these contributions, but that is not relevant in this context. Alcinoos is speaking to his equals, all of whom take for granted their right to these contributions; he is not concerned with justifying their right to collect.

The other example from the Odyssey is found in the Cretan tale Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, tells to Penelope in 19. 194–8.¹⁷ Odysseus claims to be the son of a Cretan king, who once entertained her husband and his followers for twelve days in lavish style. The guests were given grain, wine, and cattle for sacrifice, all of which had been collected from the people by their host . The practice described here is slightly different. Alcinoos ordered his companions to give Odysseus gifts immediately, then to pay themselves back by exactions from their subjects. In the Cretan tale the host collects produce and cattle from the people first, which is then given to the guests. But the basic structure of the arrangement is the same as that found in the previous examples: the lords collect gifts from the people.

The practice is also attested in Hesiod’s Works and Days. Hesiod and his brother are in dispute about a plot of land which they have received . Hesiod is angry because his brother has seized control over most of the land by winning over the lords who wish to judge the case. The Basileis in the Works and Days receive gifts for judging cases in the same way as Achilles would receive gifts for maintaining order in the seven cities over which Agamemnon proposes to grant him jurisdiction. But here the system has gone awry. Hesiod strongly believes that they have not done their job properly. Instead of rendering justice for the gifts they receive, they have done him an injustice. In this case, it appears that the man who has given more gifts has received more justice. But Hesiod lived several generations before the Golden Age of Isonomia, when all enjoyed equality before the law.

In Homer and Hesiod there is evidence for an informal arrangement of gift-giving based on mutual understanding and an exchange of goods for services. Here we have a close parallel for the payment of one-sixth by the hektemoroi. The payment has nothing to do with land tenure; it is a payment for protection against outsiders and for maintaining internal order. One might object by pointing out that in Homer there is a system of gift-exchange whereas the hektemoroi paid a fixed percentage, presumably on a regular basis. For instance, P.Millett sees a vast difference between the two kinds of systems.¹⁸ On the one hand, there is the system of gift-exchange animated by the spirit of reciprocity; on the other, there is the formalized type of exchange that is potentially exploitative. My answer to this objection is that there is no wide gap or clear dividing line between the two systems. The same principles of reciprocity underlie both systems, which may in fact overlap or comfortably co-exist.

Far from being incompatible, gift-giving could also comfortably co-exist with the payment of tribute. For instance, Thucydides (2.97) reports that, in the reign of Seuthes, the barbarian and Greek cities made payments of tribute in gold and silver to the Thracian king worth roughly four hundred silver talents, and at the same time contributed gifts of textiles, plunder and other items worth as much as the precious metals received as tribute. The evidence from Thucydides also provides us with another parallel to the arrangement found in the Homeric poems, this time from a community in a later period that did not develop the political institutions characteristic of the Classical polis.

Gift-giving could also develop into the payment of tribute. According to Herodotus (3.89) in the Persian Empire under the rule of Cyrus and Cambyses there was no fixed arrangement concerning tribute instead, the subjects used to give gifts . Under Darius, however, the various parts of the Persian Empire were given fixed amounts to pay on either the Babylonian standard or the Euboean standard. The same process of formalizing a previously informal process appears to have taken place between the Homeric period, when the leaders received gifts, and the seventh century, when the hegemones received a fixed percentage of the harvest. The transition is probably connected with the development of fixed weights and measures during this period.²⁰

But there is an even closer parallel to the payments of one sixth made by the hektemoroi in the period shortly after Solon’s reforms. Both Thucydides (6.45.5) and the Constitution of the Athenians (16) report that Peisistratus imposed payments on all the citizens of Attica. The two authors differ on the amount of the payment, but both sources concur that it was a fixed percentage, similar therefore to the one-sixth paid by the hektemoroi.²¹

Besides providing a close parallel to the payments made by the hektemoroi, this system of tribute places Peisistratus’ actions in a new light. First of all, it is now apparent that Peisistratus was not an innovator, but rather attempted to extend the old system of payment in return for protection and maintaining internal order to cover all of Attica. Far from advancing the progress of democratic institutions, Peisistratus adhered to a system that had its roots in the Homeric period. In the period before Solon, the arrangement appears to have operated on a regional basis in the Attic countryside. It was probably the way Megacles held power over the Plain, Lycurgus over the Shore, and Peisistratus over the upland area (Her. 1.59.3; Ath. Pol. 13. 4). Once in power, however, Peisistratus undercut his more expensive rivals, who demanded one-sixth or 16. per cent, by charging only 10 per cent or, more likely, 5 per cent for his services. No wonder Peisistratus enjoyed widespread popularity during his reign, which Thucydides reports was a Golden Age (Thuc. 6.54.5–6; cf. Ath. Pol. 14.3; 16.2). After the domination by the local lords, the tyranny of Peisistratus was a bargain.

The conclusions of this chapter can be summarized briefly. First, scholars should not use fragment 36.5–7 to argue that the Seisachtheia was a cancellation of debts aimed at solving an economic crisis or the abolition of a quasi-feudal system of land tenure. Second, it is more likely that the Seisachtheia was the abolition of payment for protection money to local lords. There are several parallels for such a system in the Homeric poems, Hesiod, contemporary Attica, and in fifth-century Thrace. The reform ought to be seen in the political context as an attempt to weaken the regional leaders who dominated the Attic countryside. This corresponded to Solon’s attempt to strengthen the powers of the elected officials and the formal institutions operating in the center of Attica in Athens (Ath. Pol. 7– 8). Solon was attempting to combat the centrifugal tendencies of elite competition, which led to the dissension in the countryside described in his poems, especially in fragment 4. He was not an economic reformer concerned with the problems of land tenure and agricultural conditions.

Despite Solon’s conspicuous pride in his achievements, the Seisachtheia was to a certain extent a failure. Instead of long-term unity, stasis returned to Attica in the 560s as a result of elite competition between regional leaders (Her. 1.59.3; Ath. Pol.

13.4). The formal institutions located at the centre appear to have survived intact (Ath. Pol. 16.8), but they were dominated by a local leader who emerged from the countryside to establish himself as tyrant over Athens. It was left to Cleisthenes to create the council of five hundred and to devise the system of demes, trittyes, and tribes, which finally broke the power of the regional leaders in the countryside and established the stability that lasted until the revolution of 411. But that is the subject of another paper.

NOTES

1 For the date of Solon’s reform see the convincing arguments of R.W.Wallace, AJAH 8 (1983), 81–95.

2 Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, 86–9. For brief, but forceful, criticisms of Finley’s views, see T.E.Rihll, JHS 111 (1991), 102 n. 6. I find Rihll’s interpretation of the reform unconvincing for two reasons: first, her assumption about the existence of large tracts of public land in 594 is questionable, and second, her view that Solon fr. 36.5–7 refers to the Seisachtheia is in my opinion incorrect.

3 For instance, see Hignett, History of the Athenian Constitution, 106: ‘The farmers threatened with expropriation were determined not to submit tamely to their fate, so Solon cancelled their debts.’

4 For instance, see Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City, 253–7 at 253: ‘Possession of lots of land on the single condition of paying a rent which was fixed at one-sixth of the harvest.’ Fustel’s position has been followed in recent years by Murray, Early Greece, 2nd edition, 189–94.

5 For a brief description of these horoi and a discussion of their function see Finley, Studies in Land and Credit, 10–21.

6 For a valuable review of recent theories about the status of the hektemoroi and the nature of the Seisachtheia see Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia, 90–7. See also F.Cassola, PP 19 (1964), 26–34; Foxhall, pp. 113–18, 122–9 below.

7 See Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece: Aegina 3 (p. 110); Corinth 37 (p. 129); Megara 7 (p. 136), 12; Mycenae 4 (p. 173); Aitolia 5 (p. 227); Ithake 17 and 18 (p. 233); Lemnos 58 (pp. 299–300); Chios 48 (p. 338); Cos 39 (pp. 352–3). Epidaurus 13 ‘must be either a small altar or a horos’ (p. 180), but Ithake 16 is probably not a horos (p. 233 n. 3).

8 For the dates of the security horoi see Finley, op. cit. (n. 5), 7.

9 See for example Ath. Pol. 13.4, with Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 185–6.

10 The act of removing the horoi cannot therefore allude to the abolition of some quasi-feudal arrangement whereby hektemoroi held possession of inalienable tracts of land in return for an annual payment. There is no evidence that horoi were ever used for this purpose. This view also rests on the dubious assumption that land in Attica was inalienable during the Archaic period: see M.I. Finley, Eirene 7 (1968) 25–32

11 See Daverio Rocchi, Frontiera e confini nella Grecia antica, 87–9.

12 For other similes and metaphors in Solon’s poetry see fragments 4.26–9; 33.

13 See for example Horn. Il. 6.23–7; 9.328–36, 664–8; 11.623–6; 18.28–31; 20.191–4; 21.40–1; Od. 3.105–6; 7.7–11; 9.40–2; 15.27–9. Enslavement remained a serious threat into the Classical period: see (Dem.) 53; and the serious penalties for andrapodistai (enslavers): Ath. Pol. 52.1; Din. 1.23 with Harris, Symposion 1993, 182 n. 29.

14 This mistake is made by A.French, CQ 6 (1956), 11–25, and T.Gallant, BSA 77 (1982), 111–24.

15 For the meaning of the term pelates see Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 90–1.

16 For the historicity of the social practices found in the Homeric poems see I. Morris, CA 5 (1986), 81–135.

17 I would like to thank Roger Brock for drawing my attention to this passage.

18 Millett, Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens, 219–20.

19 Harris, CR 43 (1993), 106.

20 For weights and measures in Archaic Athens see Ath. Pol. 10.1–2 with Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 164–8.

21 For discussion of the conflict between the two sources, see Rhodes, op. cit. (n. 6), 215.