Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/199

 TJie Age of the Nobles ajid tJie Tyrants in Greeee 155 father's lands and secured them himself (see p. 143). After a long struggle the Athenians secured such a written code, arranged by a man named Draco about 624 B.C. It was an exceedingly severe code, so severe, in fact, that the adjective " Draconic " has passed into our language as a synonym for " harsh." It did nothing to relieve the agricultural class, and the mortgage stones in the Attic grain fields were no fewer than before. The situation in Athens was much complicated by hostilities Foreign com with neighboring powers like Megara, y^^gina, and Sparta. The Athens"^ ° merchants of Megara had seized the Island of Salamis (Fig. 86), overlooking the port of Athens, while a little further south was another commercial rival in the little Island of yEgina (see map, p. 1 46). The loss of Salamis and the failure of the eupatrids to recover it aroused intense indignation among the Athenians. Then a man of the old family to which the ancient kings of Athens had belonged, a wealthy noble named Solon, who had Rise of Solon increased his wealth by many a commercial venture on the seas, roused his countrymen by fiery verses, calling upon the . Athenians not to endure the shame of such a loss. Salamis was Recovery of recovered, and Solon gained great popularity with all classes of "^' Athenians. The verses of Solon (which in a later day when the Greeks Solon elected had begun to write prose would have taken the form of political reforms speeches) pictured the distressing condition of the Attic people with startling effect. The result was Solon's election as archon (p. 136) in 594 B.C. He was given full power to remedy the evil conditions. To save the peasants, he declared void all mortgages on land and all claims of creditors which endangered the liberty of a citizen. Furthermore, citizens who had been sold into foreign slavery to satisfy such claims Solon repurchased at the cost of the State, and they returned as free men to Attica. But Solon was a true statesman, and to the demands of the lower classes for a new apportionment of lands held by the eupatrids he would not yield. He did however set a limit to the amount of land which a noble might hold.