Читаем The Historians' History of the World 03 полностью

Now, notwithstanding he had refused the kingdom, yet he waxed nothing the more remiss or soft therefor in governing, neither would he bow for fear of the great, nor yet would frame his laws to their liking, that had chosen him their reformer. For where the mischief was tolerable, he did not straight pluck it up by the roots: neither did he so change the state, as he might have done, lest if he should have attempted to turn upside down the whole government, he might afterwards have been never able to settle and establish the same again. Therefore he only altered that which he thought by reason he could persuade his citizens unto, or else by force he ought to compel them to accept, mingling as he said, sour with sweet, and force with justice. And herewith agreeth his answer that he made afterwards unto one that asked him, if he had made the best laws he could for the Athenians? “Yea, sure,” saith he, “such as they were able to receive.” And this that followeth also, they have ever since observed in the Athenian tongue: to make certain things pleasant, that be hateful, finely conveying them under colour of pleasing names. As calling taxes, contributions: garrisons, guards: prisons, houses. And all this came up first by Solon’s invention, who called clearing of debts seisachtheia: in English, discharge.


The Law Concerning Debts

For the first change and reformation he made in government was this: he ordained that all manner of debts past should be clear, and nobody should ask his debtor anything for the time passed. That no man should thenceforth lend money out to usury upon covenants for the body to be bound, if it were not repaid. Howbeit some write (as Androtion among other) that the poor were contented that the interest only for usury should be moderated, without taking away the whole debt: and that Solon called this easy and gentle discharge, seisachtheia, with crying up the value of money. For he raised the pound of silver, being before but threescore and thirteen drachmas, full up to an hundred: so they which were to pay great sums of money, paid by tale as much as they ought, but with less number of pieces than the debt could have been paid when it was borrowed. And so the debtors gained much, and the creditors lost nothing. Nevertheless the greater part of them which have written the same, say, that this crying up of money, was a general discharge of all debts, conditions, and covenants upon the same: whereto the very poems themselves, which Solon wrote, do seem to agree. For he glorieth, and breaketh forth in his verses, that he had taken away all marks that separated men’s lands through the country of Attica, and that now he had set at liberty, that which before was in bondage. And that of the citizens of Athens, which for lack of payment of their debts had been condemned for slaves to their creditors, he had brought many home again out of strange countries, where they had been so long, that they had forgotten to speak their natural tongue, and others which remained at home in captivity, he had now set them all at good liberty.

But while he was in doing this, men say a thing thwarted him, that troubled him marvellously. For having framed an edict for clearing of all debts, and lacking only a little to grace it with words, and to give it some pretty preface, that otherwise was ready to be proclaimed: he opened himself somewhat to certain of his familiars whom he trusted (as Conon, Clinias, and Hipponicus) and told them how he would not meddle with lands and possessions, but would only clear and cut off all manner of debts. These men, before the proclamation came out, went presently to the money-men, and borrowed great sums of money of them, and laid it out straight upon land. So when the proclamation came out, they kept the lands they had purchased, but restored not the money they had borrowed. This foul part of theirs made Solon very ill spoken of, and wrongfully blamed: as if he had not only suffered it, but had been partaker of this wrong and injustice. Notwithstanding he cleared himself of this slanderous report, losing five talents by his own law. For it was well known that so much was due unto him, and he was the first that, following his own proclamation, did clearly release his debtors of the same. Notwithstanding, they ever after called Solon’s friends Chreocopides, cutters of debts. This law neither liked the one nor the other sort. For it greatly offended the rich, for cancelling their bonds: and it much more misliked the poor, because all lands and possessions they gaped for, were not made again common, and everybody alike rich and wealthy, as Lycurgus had made the Lacedæmonians.

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