Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/161

V the aristocracies to discover, — they were at least qualified, by sad experience, to judge of the use of such power, and to name the persons whom they would wish to see exercising it.

Whatever doubt may exist as to some parts of Solon's constitutional changes, we may treat it as a fact that he gave the ordinary Athenian citizen exactly that share of power for which he was naturally fitted; and here again he stands out as representing a great epoch in the development of the City-State. His object was gained chiefly by two simple and efficacious changes. First, the body of Athenian citizens, comprised in the ancient tribes, phratries, and, was classified afresh on the basis of the yearly return from the land owned by each individual, without any regard to his descent, whether noble or ignoble. The first class must have a minimum return of 500 medimni, or roughly a capital of one talent (£244); in the fourth and lowest (Thetes) were all who had a less return from land than 150 medimni, or derived their income, not from land, but from trade. Secondly, on this economic basis, in place of the old social one of Eupatridæ, Georgi, and Demiurgi, was fitted what was practically a new constitution. The Archonship was reserved for the first class, or Pentakosio-medimni; the other offices were open to the three highest classes, to those, that is, who had the