Episode 49. Solon's Revolution: Transforming Athens' Debt Crisis into a Democratic Blueprint

A city on the brink, a ledger of promises, and a small stamped disc that rewired power: this is the story of how Athens turned a debt disaster into durable institutions. We follow the thread from Sumerian clay tablets and royal clean slates to Lydian electrum nuggets and the silver coins that made prices visible to anyone with a hand and a purse. Along the way, we unpack why farmers pledged their own fields, how default created debt bondage that drained hoplite ranks, and why rulers from Mesopotamia to Attica treated debt policy as national security.

We walk through Draco’s stark step toward public law, the rise of money changers at the trapezai, and the quiet genius of standardized weights and measures. Then comes Solon, elected with extraordinary powers to “shake off the burdens.” He canceled noncommercial debts, ended debt slavery, reorganized citizenship by wealth, expanded access to assembly and courts, and promoted olive oil exports that pushed Athenian trade across the Mediterranean. He didn’t wage war on money; he disciplined it, preserving a customary ten percent interest while curbing the practices that turned citizens into collateral.

The result is a blueprint for how law, finance, and geography shape each other. Coinage lowered transaction costs and broadcast civic identity; predictable courts and public statutes converted private leverage into public legitimacy; and measured relief restored free labor and military strength. We also confront the limits: women, enslaved people, and resident foreigners remained outside the political body even as the economy diversified. Still, the pattern holds a modern echo—prosperity requires both hard money and trusted rules, especially when shocks magnify inequality and risk.

If stories of ancient credit, coinage, and constitutional creativity spark your curiosity, press play, then share the episode with a friend who loves history and economics. Subscribe for more deep dives, and leave a review with the one lesson you think today’s economies should relearn from Solon’s Athens.

Transcript

Athens At A Crossroads

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The Athenians went through a major transformation around 600 BCE. Athens went from a society thoroughly dominated by the elite families to a system that paved the way for democracy. Athens was at a crossroads, but the one thing that was clear was Athens and the rest of the Greek city-states knew that going forward, trade would be the lifeblood of the region. Consequently, the politics of each city-state, except for maybe Sparta, would ultimately need to facilitate long distance trade. The Greeks were basically the new kids on the block in comparison to the much older Mesopotamian and Anatolian societies that had long possessed networks for long distance trade along with sophisticated credit institutions and even limited liability investment companies. In the case of the Sumerians, they had established trade networks well before 3200 BCE. As such, they were the ancients of our ancient Greeks. Thus, they were already familiar with credit crunches and the societal upheaval caused by mass defaults resulting in debt bondage. To prevent widespread revolution and the loss of their armies to debt slavery, it was not uncommon for Mesopotamian kings to issue clean slate edicts, to cancel debts, to restore stability. This was a measure that prioritized social order over the interests of the creditors. Furthermore, having developed written language nearly 2,000 years before the rise of Athens, they had also codified extensive laws governing trade and debt, starting with the legal code of Ur Namu, dating from approximately 2050 BCE in Sumer. The Code of Ur Namu was notable for its relatively advanced use of monetary fines for injuries, a departure from the stricter eye for an eye principle found in later codes. The Code of Hammurabi was written in Babylon around 1750 BCE, so it came about 300 years after the Code of Ur Namu. However, the Code of Hammurabi was a more comprehensive law code as it covered family law, property rights, trade, and criminal justice. While the Greeks didn't formalize any written law code until nearly 600 BCE, Greeks also hadn't had any of these mass upheavals caused by debt bondage that we know of. As individuals were able to save excessive coins and other assets, such as grains or seeds, others were often in great need for short to medium-term loans to smooth out consumption or to get the necessary seeds for the next planting season. This was the pure definition of how financial markets were able to develop as they were able to link savers and borrowers. However, there was extensive credit prior to coinage, especially in places like Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Egypt, to name a few. The aristocratic creditors, like most creditors and entrepreneurs, looked to increase profit margins. It became clear to the debtors that the creditors were increasingly using tactics to squeeze them to raise revenues. Eventually, the debtor class was fed up and disputed many of their maneuvers and fees. Naturally, these clashes between the debtors and the creditors led to macro-level credit risks and market instability. Problems were made worse by the fact that the Greeks really didn't have any established contract or property law to adjudicate these concerns, because contracts were done to adhere to normal customs and not break any taboos. As such, a debt crisis was growing. The aristocrat Salon accused them of being greedy to the point that they would never reform their business practices. However, it appears that he didn't necessarily have the ability or want to contain their greed at the time. This would be nothing new in the ancient world. Around 2350 BCE, the king of the city-state Lagash came to the throne at the end of a period of significant internal crisis brought on because the priesthood and the ruling elites, including the previous king, became corrupt. They were accused of seizing property, imposing excessive taxes and fees on everything from burials to divorce, and using forced labor. They charged excessive fees and interests on debt. So much so that it effectively enslaved much of the civilian population through debt and exploitation. The new king to Lagash canceled debts through clean slate programs and restored seized land to the people. He abolished many of these excessive fees and taxes. He issued proclamations to protect the vulnerable, like widows and orphans, from exploitation by the powerful. The Greeks were a lot like the early Sumerians in their political and cultural organization, but there were significant distinctions. While both were organized into independent city-states and developed complex social structures, their key differences were in political systems, geography, and cultural details set them apart. The various Greek city-states shared religion that revered a pantheon of gods, and they participated in panhelic events like the Olympic Games. Despite these shared cultural ideas and customs, Greece was not a single unified country until modern times. In large part, this was due to the geography of Greece, particularly the mountainous regions and isolated valleys, which contributed to the development of independent self-governing city-states, each with its own land and governmental structures. A good way to view ancient Greece was each city and its surrounding area was its own mini country. Nevertheless, each city-state saw a noticeable rise in trade, wealth, and regional spheres of influence as more silver was extracted from its local mines. In addition, as wealth was flowing through the region, they also moved down the learning curve and were able to increase their economies of scale in trade and local production of goods. As such, they were able to produce surplus. This naturally led to increased trade. This was further enhanced as certain city-states needed cereals along with raw materials and finished goods that just couldn't be produced and manufactured locally. Trade flourished for thousands of years, well before the advent of coinage around 600 BCE, when the Lydians developed their electrum coins that were a natural mix of gold and silver. Even though coinage wasn't available for all those years, the idea of widespread trade through barter just isn't supported by evidence. Consequently, a significant amount of trade was done through credit that could be settled by using just about any type of commodity, whether it was wheats, silver ingots, or even silk in the case of the Chinese. In these ancient economies, the core mechanism of financial markets, which is linking savers, those with excessive grain or metal, and borrowers, those needing seeds or goods to smooth out consumption, was in place long before the first minted coins appeared around 600 BCE in ancient Lydia. In ancient Sumerian and Babylonian cities, as far back as 3200 BCE, scribes used canaeform writing on clay tablets to record economic transactions. These tablets served as ledgers, documenting grain, livestock, and other goods owed to the temples and palaces, and they functioned as early forms of IOUs or promissory notes. The ability to track and record obligations was the key innovation that allowed these credit systems to flourish. Accordingly, as trade and commercial activities increased, whether it was in Mesopotamia, Greece, or the Levant, so did debt. With debt comes credit risk. For this reason, one of the biggest concerns with debt is people may default on the amount that they borrowed. This was as true in ancient Athens as it is today. After the Greek Dark Ages, the area of Attica, which contains Athens, consisted mainly of peasants and small farmers, of which credit transactions were typically between the members of the local communities. These credit arrangements were simple at first, as the exchanges between neighbors were typically for farming tools, small amounts of silver, and household goods. But when lending expands beyond neighbors that know each other personally, and as the market expanded to farmers and artisans alike, the web of loans got much bigger and more complex. Accordingly, suddenly these debts got riskier. In addition, land inheritance became a serious problem as populations increased because land wasn't inherited by the oldest son. Instead, all the boys had to split the land evenly. After a few generations, this division of land got smaller and smaller. In fact, the lots got so small that it could not sustain a family, in addition to the fact that Greece didn't have very good land for farming to begin with. Additionally, as populations expanded and trade flourished, governments needed to be augmented to play a bigger role in facilitating this expansion of trade, whether through building ports and agoras or a navy to protect their assets. In ancient Greece, decisive leadership was required to get political and economic stability. In the 7th century BCE before Athenian democracy, Athens was governed by an oligarchy dominated by aristocratic families known as Eupateriti. Originally, there were three Archins who were chosen from the aristocracy. The three consisted of the chief magistrate and thereby gave his name to the year. There was also the military commander and king ruler whose role was a bit misleading as he held primarily religious functions. In the earliest period, Archans served for life, but this was later revised to a 10-year term. And by 683 BCE, it became an annual office. Over time, six more judicial archins were added. The Archon's power was significantly reduced during the democratic reform centuries later. The Archans ruled alongside a council of the Irapagus. The council was the main ruling body and consisted of all the old Archans who had passed a test of worthiness. It functioned as a guardian of the laws and had the power to punish magistrates who misbehaved. Council membership was for life, meaning that the councilman couldn't be voted out of office. At the time, the government ruling over Athens was that of a largely agrarian society. Therefore, most of the economy was based on agricultural production and the sale and trade of agricultural goods. Therefore, the most common way to build their wealth was through increasing their ability to grow their farming capacity. Unlike a modern market economy, where one has many ways to gain wealth, in the archaic period of Greece, which was generally from about 800 BCE to 480 BCE, their society was largely agrarian, and political power was concentrated in the hands of the hereditary aristocracy that owned most of the fertile lands. Therefore, wealth was often measured by the person's agricultural production capacity, along with their ability to control the surplus produced by laborers and the slaves that worked the land. This system of extreme wealth concentration led to social tensions between the landowners and the peasantry, which eventually prompted reforms in cities like Athens. While most of the economy was agrarian, other factors like trade, craftsmanship, and resource extraction also contributed to accumulating wealth. But the old aristocratic way was to build wealth through land accumulation. There were similarities to the Roman Republic in that both the Archaic Greece and Roman Republic were fundamentally based on agriculture, which was the primary source of wealth. In both societies, political power was concentrated in the hands of the landed aristocracy, the patricians in Rome and the Ristoi in Greece, who owned the majority of the fertile land. Both economies relied heavily on various forms of unfree or dependent labor, including slaves and semi-free workers. In both cultures, owning a certain amount of land was often a legal and societal prerequisite for full citizenship and political participation. However, there were noticeable differences. The Roman economy became more centralized as the Republic expanded into an empire, building an extensive network of roads and ports that facilitated more integrated empire-wide trade networks than the more decentralized trade between autonomous Greek city-states. While trade existed in both, some sources suggested that the Greeks, particularly the Athenians, engaged more actively in maritime trade and considered it a viable, though sometimes less prestigious, path to wealth. Whereas in Rome, trade was sometimes considered a less honorable pursuit for the elite compared to land ownership. Roman nobility often made money through tax farming and other ventures, but land remained the ultimate source of status. Land linked to status was difficult to attain in Athens. As populations grew, land increasingly became in shore supply in Athens and Attica. Attica was the greater region around the city of Athens. This lack of land was the result of Greece slowly recovering after the late Bronze Age collapse. Then as the region stabilized, the Greek city-states were experiencing a population boom. The city of Athens itself more than doubled to 20,000 people between 700 and 500 BCE. It wasn't Athens, but instead it was Corinth that solved the problem with increasing populations, but limited land by establishing colonies. As such, Corinth took a step further by mandating that a portion of the population had to go to the new lands. The Athenians, on the other hand, had no such stipulation. Athens at one point was governed by the laws of Draco. The code was enacted around 621 BCE. This code was significant because for the first time, laws were publicly displayed on wooden tablets and accessible to all literate citizens, which reduced the arbitrary application of customary laws. Before this, the laws were unwritten and administered by the aristocratic archins, often to the disadvantage of the poorer classes. I know it's shocking that the poor were disproportionately hurt by legal codes, but by making the laws public, Draco ensured that the people knew their legal rights and obligations, which was a step towards legal transparency. A major purpose of the written law code was to replace the family-driven system of blood feuds with state-administered justice. Draco's homicide law, which survived after the rest of the code was repealed, explicitly established the state's role in prosecuting murder cases and introduced the distinction between intentional and unintentional homicide. While later sources, such as Putark's portrayal of Draco's laws as having the death penalty for nearly all crimes, is likely an exaggeration. The severity of these laws is likely the source of the modern word draconian, but the characterization that death was the punishment for nearly every crime is an oversimplification. Despite their harshness, the laws were a landmark development. In addition to distinguishing between types of homicide, the code restricted the right of the family members to take personal revenge. This provided a crucial foundation for the later Athenian legal system. These upgraded legal codes came into effect just as coinage was being developed. The very first coins appeared in the Kingdom of Lydia, located in Western Anatolia around 600 BCE. Initially, these coins were most likely micro ingots that were originally electrometals, which were a naturally occurring mix of silver and gold. A good way to understand what these looked like, they may have had the appearance of nuggets that were traded. So don't think of them as the standard traditional round-looking coin that you would think of. These electron micro ingots became known as the world's first coins. They were initially produced by pouring a molten metal onto a plate. Over the years, this evolved into pouring the metal into a mold and creating blank discs that were called flans. Once these blank discs were cooled, they would be struck with their symbol by a hammer, which allowed the user to know the origin of the coin. They weren't very sophisticated at first, as they were just basic brown shapes of metal with basic stamps. However, by making these coins a standardized size and weight, and by stamping them with an insignia that confirmed their worth even to the illiterate. The kings of Lydia exponentially expanded the possibilities of trade into and out of their kingdom. So therefore, one did not need to be able to work a scale or even own or possess a scale to buy anything in the market. And as a result, commerce was allowed to proceed much more efficiently and honestly. But more importantly, Lydian coins served as the model for virtually all subsequent coinage everywhere. The first iteration of coins was made from electrum, an outlay of approximately 55% gold and 45% silver, and a tiny amount of copper. The copper additives were designed to give the coins more durability. What other states realized was that their coins were portable, hard to counterfeit, and had some kind of value, whether inherently or by decree established by the government for trade. With standardized weights, coins eliminated the time-consuming and annoying problem of weighing and verifying their content. This quickly allowed them to become a universally accepted means of trade. Like all the ancient coins that came after it, these coins represented units of weight rather than a specific monetary value. As such, the word stator meant that which balances the scales in ancient Greece. Other modern English words for money came from the Latin word manire, which means informing to announce the value of the metal weight of a coin. One of the biggest reasons why the Greeks picked up the idea of minting coins was because they had a great relationship with their Lydian neighbors. They shared many cultural ideas, including religious ideas, and then as the Lydians developed coinage, the Greeks quickly adopted it. The first Greek coins appeared in Angina in 600 BCE. The rise of the local Ionian Greek coinage meant competition for the Lydians, especially due to the fact that they were using pure silver, meaning that the people that accepted the coins knew precisely the metal makeup, unlike the Electrum coins. So in foreign trade, Lydian kings couldn't benefit from the full value of the Electrum coins. In other words, they would have taken a negative spread once the electrum coins reached another kingdom. Thus, foreign merchants underestimated the unknowable gold content of the electrum. Coins with the inconsistent pale yellow color of electrum were downgraded as silver by neglecting the gold portion in the alloy. Merchants instead weighed Lydian electrum coins and compared their value to Greek silver coins or fine silver ounces. Coinage spread to Agyna, famous for its turtle coins, and then from there to the colonies and other cities in Asia Minor. From there these coins spread across the mainland, into cities such as Corinth and Athens. By the 5th century BCE, coins were standard across the Greek world, becoming essential in trade, warfare payments, and civic identity. The accumulation of coinage led to the development of banks. Banking operations had been around for millennia by this point, as Sumer had developed their version of banking a few thousand years prior. In Sumer, these banks were operated out of the temple complexes because this was where the people stored their valuables. Additionally, temples had better security than burying the silver in the ground or in the walls of a house. These operations were so successful that temples began to diversify into other areas such as workshops that took raw materials and made finished goods that would later be traded with other regions and cultures. Across the ancient world, the root word for interest derived from the offspring of livestock. The Sumerian word for interest was mas, which signified a kid goat or baby lamb. The ancient Egyptian equivalent was mis, which means to give birth. In ancient Greek, interest is tokos, which means calf or baby cow. In addition, in the newly settled parts of the United States in the 19th century, the practice of selling livestock on trust with the return of double the number of animals in four or five years was a form of credit common in the American frontier. This system was the adaptation to the frontier's economies' unique challenges where cash was scarce, capital was underdeveloped, and livestock served as key assets for generating wealth. Whereas in Greece, banking was done by people who were sitting on benches in the commercial spaces called the trapezi. These bankers sat at tables where they engaged in money changing and other services that took place. In fact, the word bank is derived from the Italian word banco, which means bench, which referred to the benches or tables that were used by the medieval money changers and bankers in the marketplaces. They sat behind the benches to conduct financial transactions. The English word bank was adopted from the Italian and German words for this practice. The medieval Italian bankers were essentially doing the same thing the ancient Greeks were doing, but nearly 2,000 years after the fact. Money changing in ancient Greece, just as in medieval Italy, was vital for trade with the other city-states because nearly every city had its own legal currency. For example, these foreign exchange dealers made it possible to trade goods between Athens and Corinth. In the Archaic period, prior to 600 BCE, Athenians would have probably been described as being very conservative and as such weren't big believers in debts in this early period. In fact, the early Athenians believed that any trade should take place simultaneously. This effectively meant that they did not support a system where someone would buy now and pay later as a viable commercial transaction. Theoretically, then, there was no such thing as a seller agreeing to delay payments or providing credit secured by goods. This was a nominal belief that the sale was not legally recognized without immediate payment. Therefore, this rule that concurrent exchange led to severe difficulties in day-to-day commerce. Just like the Europeans got around usury laws in medieval Europe, the Athenians devised several ways to get around this particular rule. In fact, in Athens, surviving sources confirm that credit was widely available for consumers and others to purchase from both vendors and banks. From a vendor, a buyer could obtain an interest in property or goods by making a deposit called an advanced payment or produces. Also, banking operations were already established where a business person could receive funding from banks. This is not unlike modern businesses that obtain operating loans today. A poor person generally needed to secure a loan from moneylenders or a neighbor before making a large purchase, rather than a seller extending credit for goods or investment. A poor person generally needed to secure a loan either from a moneylender or a neighbor before making large purchases, rather than the seller extending credit for the goods themselves. This is because the poor person was probably a poor credit risk and wanted an insurance from another third party. Lending money is a simple concept. The lender is essentially a saver who lends their present value for future value, of which this is the core principle of finance, specifically as it relates to the time value of money. A lender therefore expects to be compensated for the sacrifice. And that compensation comes in the form of interest. The saver who is lending their money today to the borrower will therefore set up the credit arrangement that should ensure that the future value exceeds present value. The reason being is the lender is faced with opportunity costs, meaning that lending money from certain savings means that the lender loses the opportunity to use that money today for other purposes, such as investing it somewhere else or buying something that brings a sense of pleasure or utility. The interest charge is a form of compensation for this lost opportunity to spend it now, especially when you factor in inflation. The reason inflation is a key aspect is the lender's purchasing power of money decreases over time due to inflation because it will cost more for the same goods or services at a later date, assuming that there isn't a rare case of deflation. So, in other words, if inflation is running at about 3%, you'd expect the rate of interest to be at least 3%. But the most important aspect that is generally compensated is risk. There is always a risk that the borrower will not be able to repay back the loan, which is commonly referred to as default risk. A portion of interest compensates the lender for taking on this risk. In ancient societies, as well as modern societies, these aspects for borrowing and saving hold up quite well. In modern banking, these risks must be expanded into other more complex areas, such as duration risk, which is the sensitivity of a bond's price to the change in interest rates, where a higher duration means a greater potential for price wings. For example, a bond of a five-year duration will see its price drop by approximately 5% if the interest rates increase by 1%. To be clear, duration risk wouldn't apply to ancient Greece because there wasn't a formal standardized and secondary debt market that would allow for third parties to buy and sell debt, unlike Mesopotamian markets, and even then, there really wasn't long-term contracts over five years, and interest rates were much more stable as they generally came from the king, not market forces. But there were instances of loans that were bought and sold in Mesopotamia that were quite low and comparable to modern interest rates that were not directed by the local king. In other words, I just wanted to lay out how interest rates are affected by various factors. Most of the factors that would affect interest rates in modern times wouldn't necessarily be applicable to those in ancient Greece, obviously. However, even though debt is more complex in the modern world, the basic ideas of reducing risks are similar today as it was in ancient Greece. For one, the lender then, as well as today, would often want to have the borrower pledge his money or property as a guarantee in case of nonpayment or default. In other words, even in ancient Greece, they recognized to reduce risk, the lender could require both personal security by the person pledging himself and real security, which was the object offered as security, which could be something like real estate or jewelry or even silver. Simply put, it would have been customary for Greek lenders to have the right of recovery in case of default. Just like in today, if you default on your car loan, the bank comes and repossesses it. Furthermore, a third party could also be part of the transaction as a guarantor by promising to pay if the debtor defaulted. This triangular relationship or triparty agreement was common in private and public finance, and it provided a form of personal security for the creditors. Also, guarantors were sometimes used to secure the payment of a dowry or to ensure the husband returned the dowry in the event of a divorce. Additionally, third parties sometimes served as guarantors to ensure the payment of a judgment debt or to secure a settlement reached in an arbitration agreement. Usually, the use of the third party wasn't used in complex business deals, it was commonly used for family andor friends. Additionally, if the debtor retained the property of the pledged item, that also generates revenue. The debtor could be entitled to that revenue stream as a means to pay the debt. The debtor was entitled to the return of the ownership of the item after the debt was satisfied. But if the debtor failed to pay, the creditor retained ownership and got to take possession, regardless of the size of the debt compared to the value of the property. An example of how this worked was that a farmer could pledge their land as collateral for a loan. The debtor was able to stay on and cultivate the land to produce revenue to pay off the debt. The farmer was required to pay one-sixth of the land's produce or revenue to the creditor. After the debt was fully paid, ownership of the land was returned to the debtor. But this arrangement could get even worse for the debtor in the case of default because if the debt grew to exceed the value of the farmer's assets, what today would be called being underwater, the farmer and the family would be sold into slavery to repay the debt. In ancient Greece, the landowning class was the primary source of hoplite soldiers who were the heavily armed infantry that formed the backbone of the military. Consequently, this could turn into a national security issue because the landowners were expected to be soldiers when called upon. What happens if too many former landowners fall into debt bondage and can't serve when needed to protect their lands if they were invaded by another Greek city-state? In ancient Sumer, in the city of Lagash, there was the major economic and social instability caused by debt bondage sometime around 2400 or 2300 BCE. This instability resulted in major reforms, including debt cancellations, because the rulers needed free peasants loyal to the palace or temple, not indentured to the wealthy private landowners who might otherwise appropriate their land and labor. The cancellation of debts prevented elite creditors from amassing too much power and ensured the state had a ready supply of soldiers and workers to resist foreign attacks and maintain the economy's agrarian base. In other words, too many debt slaves could pose a serious security risk to the king. Whether it's ancient Sumer or ancient Greece, many of these independent city-states were in very close proximity to each other in that they were often just a full day's march or even less. Rival city-states could strategically leverage internal divisions, potentially promising freedom or land to defectors and thus weakening the target states' military and social cohesion. In environments where states were in close proximity, any form of internal instability could be quickly and effectively exploited by their neighbors, whether it was in Sumer or Greece. All this is to say that the use of debt could quickly spiral out of control in ancient Greece, just as it did in 2007 and 2008 in the financial crisis. By the fifth century, Athens was using both credit and hard money to conduct transactions, as it had been one of the early adopters of the use of coinage as money. Nonetheless, many of the conservative elites and philosophers were skeptical and therefore were concerned that coins could be dangerous. Their fear was that it would upend traditional roles of its society that had been built up since the late Bronze Age collapse some 600 years earlier. Its philosophers, poets, and playwrights longed for the good old days, where one could be born in a certain way of life. And this way of life could be passed down for generations. Prior to coinage, Athens was still an old-fashioned ancient society with large landowners releasing their fields for sharecropping in return to receive a portion of the harvest, even though Athens didn't have the most fertile lands. However, payment in coin meant that the accumulation of coinage meant peasants were able to gain some wealth, and for that reason, the power dynamic began to change. This ultimately meant that there were new opportunities for social and economic mobility, of which this signified that they could also appreciate their standing and how they were getting the short end of the stick. Consequently, this social shift meant that the tenants grew to detest the rents that they were forced to pay. The Athenian farmers, with small and often poor quality land, ended up being trapped in a vicious cycle. As land became scarcer, their harvest grew more meager, leaving them without the funds to plant for the next year's harvest. To survive, they had to borrow money from the wealthy landowners, the very class that prospered despite the general hardship. The cruel twist in ancient Athens was the collateral for these loans, which was the farmer's land itself. The system that emerged risked the one asset that could secure these poor farmers' future. The real danger came in when the farmer had consecutive years with poor harvests. This implied that the wealthy landowners were able to foreclose the debtors' land. This caused the original owners to enter the unescapable lifestyle of serfdom, of which they had become the serfs on their own land. They could take what food they needed to feed themselves, but couldn't sell any surplus and make their own money. Consequently, these former landowners became trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty. Furthermore, as time went on, Athenian farmland slowly concentrated in the hands of the wealthy. As part of this economic system, if a poor tenant farmer were able to generate surplus, they could technically sell their excess crops, but before they had the opportunity, they had to pay rent to the landowners. If they had an inadequate harvest, they would not have been able to pay their rent to the landlord. Thus, they were made into debt slaves. These indentured servants multiplied over the years. Aristotle wrote that all the lands was in the hands of a few, and if the poor failed to pay their rents, both they and their children were liable to seizure. Consequently, as time went on, this system meant a more noticeable concentration of wealth into the elites. As more debtors fell deeper and deeper into the hole, obligations to the rich elites widened. Furthermore, it appears that these lenders weren't the most sympathetic people and possibly welcomed the idea of ruin for their tenants as they ultimately became slavers. Accordingly, the disparity between the borrowers and the lenders developed to grow. Just like in modern times, especially the United States, a major issue developed in ancient Athens, whereas there was a major divergence of wealth accumulation as a small group of elites owned most of the arable land, while a large group of dependent smallholder tenants had access to land only through these elites. This loss of farmland and freedom to wealthy aristocrats in turn led to a crisis of economic and social instability. All this meant that by the 6th century BCE, Athens faced a philosophical crisis of debt and its debt slavery that threatened its social fabric. The scale of the problem alarmed even the wealthy beneficiaries of the status quo, who acknowledged that the current economic and political systems were unattainable. To initiate radical change, they elected the legendary poet Salon as Archon in 594 BCE. Ceylon was an aristocrat, but he was known as a moderate and a champion of the people. As such, Ceylon recognized the severe economic crisis that was brewing and even the possibility of civil war in Athens. Solan wasn't just some highborn person who got into politics at an early age. Instead, he gained prominence through a successful military command in the war in Salamis. He had a reputation as a genuine, moderate man of noble birth, but moderate wealth that led to his selection. He appeared to be a man of great integrity who disavowed tyrants and believed in the rule of law. This is to say he didn't take his position as a chance to become an autocrat or a wannabe dictator, even though he was elected to have special powers to force through dramatic reform that Athens needed. And a radical departure from tradition, Ceylon organized the Athenian society into wealth-based classes. This replaced the old system of hereditary rank with one that apportioned political influence based on the citizens' concrete economic contribution to the city-state. As such, Ceylon established four classes based on wealth. The first class was that of the highest income. The second class would be the hippies that were the ancient version of their knights. So it would be like the equestrian class in Rome. The Zaguti, which were the hoplites, which would be the third class. And the last class being the lowest class would be the Thetis, which was the fourth class. The highest class had the exclusive right to hold highest office, such as Archon. While the hippies, or the second class, or the equestrian class, if you want to compare it to Rome, were the knights that could serve in the Calvary and hold lesser political office. The Zagutae were put in the third bucket as they were wealthy enough to have the yoke of oxen. This was a critical economic advantage as extra labor power allowed them to cultivate larger surpluses and profit from them. This extra profit allowed them to equip themselves as hoplites, which were the Greek heavy infantry, while the lowest class, the Thetis, were the landless laborers, remained politically limited as they could participate in the assembly and courts, but not hold office. Despite their limited social mobility and political influence, they were probably the most affected class of people as they were now protected from debt slavery. In summary, Ceylon's system made wealth rather than noble birth the primary deterrent of a citizen's rights and responsibilities. His election was due in large part because of the radical changes that were occurring in Athens after years of wealth concentration. So, as previously mentioned, Ceylon, who lived from 630 to 560 BCE, was elected as the chief magistrate in 594, of which he enacted social reforms known as shaking off the burdens, where he canceled debts. Therefore, evidence suggests that Ceylon may have been aware of the West Asian tradition of debt reforms and clean slate programs, which included the spirit of the Lagash uprising. However, he would not have known about the specific case of the king of Lagash as we understand it today. Nevertheless, Ceylon enacted his own reforms in Athens around 594 BCE. That's a gap of over 1700 years, meaning the people of Lagash were his ancients. And also, let's not forget that we know about Lagash now because of centuries of doing archaeological digs and really having a better understanding of how to look for evidence of ancient societies. However, during Salon's time, that just wouldn't have been the case. So to be clear, he may not have known about Lagash directly, but clean slates were a well-established world policy in Mesopotamia for at least 1700 years by this point. Kings in Babylon and Assyria periodically issued such decrees, often at the beginning of their reigns, to restore economic order and gain popular support because even though there were kings, they still needed to keep the people happy. They were still politicians in the end, if you think about it. The concept of a ruler canceling debts to prevent social collapse is a powerful and practical idea. This concept would have been easily traveled along trade routes through stories, merchant reports, and discussions among intellectuals. A savvy statesman like Salon, who, according to tradition, traveled extensively, would have been very keenly interested in how other societies managed crises of debts and inequality. However, these clean slate programs were not a blanket debt forgiveness program, as commercial debt was exempt. These edicts canceled non-commercial debts, which were typically subsistent loans owed by farmers and commoners to the palace, temples, and wealthy lenders. This was done to prevent widespread debt bondage and maintain the peasant class who served as soldiers and laborers. Debts among merchants, however, were left untouched to protect the integrity of commerce. Additionally, the clean slate programs were temporary resets, not permanent fixes. While debt was cleared, the underlying economic system that allowed for accumulation of debt remained. Interest rates were still legal, so the process of indebtedness would begin again until the next royal edict was proclaimed. This led creditors to develop workarounds to protect their assets from future cancellations. Also, these policies were most likely politically motivated, not purely for social justice. Rulers proclaimed that these decrees were primarily to preserve royal power and the stability of the state. Canceling the debt of the commoners ensured that they continued to pay taxes and serve in the army, preventing a powerful financial oligarchy from challenging the king. While debt slaves were released, other forms of slavery, such as those involving war captives, were not affected. Lastly, it appears that after approximately 1400 BCE, debt cancellation edicts in Mesopotamia ceased. This led to a period where inequality grew, debt enslavement became institutionalized, and land was monopolized by large private owners, contributing to a dark age with widespread social conflict. And it was just a few hundred years after the fact, sometime around 1200 BCE, that much of the Near East and Greece experienced the late Bronze Age collapse that was brought on by the invasion of the Sea Peoples, of which to this day no one really knows where they came from, but they were very destructive and even caused the mighty Assyrian Empire to whittle down. Ceylon himself clearly referenced this Eastern tradition in his poetry. He described his own reform of canceling debts or shaking off the burdens. He wrote that he had removed the debt markers stuck in the land and brought back to Athens many who had been sold into slavery abroad. He presented himself as a mediator who stood between the powerful creditors and the indebted masses to restore balance and prevent a revolution. This was precisely the same rationale used by the Mesopotamian kings for their clean slates. It was to prevent societal breakdown. Of course, this was also in their best interest because this extreme debt burden often meant that they would lose valuable soldiers to dead slavery. Additionally, one of Ceylon's first reforms was the abolition of sharecropping. He also introduced taxation based on economic categories rather than inherited class. He also established the right of a trial by jury and codified a comprehensive set of laws. Ceylon believed democracy was the best means of determining what is fair. Yet, much like the early days of the American democracy, it was far from inclusive because in ancient Athens, only free adult men who were born to Athenian parents were considered citizens. This group excluded women, enslaved people, the medics who were the resident foreigners, who had no political rights and could not participate in governments. The medics were an important class because in Athens, the male citizens looked down upon banking, and therefore the medics filled that void and oftentimes became very wealthy in the process, yet they still weren't citizens. Historical accounts describe several radical debt reforms in the ancient world. In the 6th century BCE, the democratic government of Megara reportedly outlawed interest-bearing debts and compelled creditors to refund collected interests. While Greek sources treated this as an extreme populist measure, modern historians debate its historicity, suggesting it may have been a later anti-democratic propaganda. Similar measures included the debt cancellations instituted by Spartan kings in the third century BCE as part of a broader state reform and the Roman policy of new accounts. Furthermore, Rome abolished its system of debt bondage known as Nexum in 326 BCE. Solon of Athens showed a real suspicion towards money and wealth concentration, though he wasn't opposed to trade or commerce itself. Solon's surviving poems often warned against the dangers of excessive wealth and unchecked greed, suggesting that riches easily led to injustice, hubris, and civic friction. He believed that the balance and control mattered more than hoarding wealth. He supported trade, but with limits. Ceylon encouraged olive oil exports and sought to strengthen Athenian commerce, so he wasn't necessarily anti-money in a practical sense. Instead, he was skeptical of wealth when it was gained or used injustly, particularly when it deepened inequality. Although the Greeks quickly adopted coinage after its invention by the Lydians, some of their more influential thinkers viewed money with caution. Solon, in particular, stressed that money was useful as a common measure of value, not just in trade or administration, but across the whole economy. Yet he warned that financial obligations had to remain fair, and only through democratic processes could such fairness be secured. For Ceylon, true equality required laws that were openly debated and formally codified. Solan's reforms helped alleviate social tensions and instability. He also reformed the government by creating a new political class system based on wealth, which allowed more citizens to participate in government and laid the foundations for future Athenian democracy. Solan included measures to divide the citizen body into wealth-based classes and limit landownership, further contributing to a more equitable society as he replaced the old system, which was based on birth, with four new classes based on wealth, allowing more citizens to participate in government. As such, he opened membership into the assembly to all citizens, not just the aristocracy. Additionally, Ceylon gave its citizens the right to appeal court decisions by jury, enhancing the legal rights for common people. Despite these reforms to help out the commoners, Ceylon wasn't anti-business as he encouraged commerce and industry by standardizing weights and measures and encouraged the cultivation of olives for export. Interest rates in ancient Athens also remained stable for hundreds of years. From the 5th to the 2nd centuries BCE, the rate of interest demanded on loans made by the Temple of Apollo and Delos was at 10%. Unlike modern rates that fluctuate with daily market forces, ancient interest rates were largely guided by custom and, in some cases, by law. A typical or normal interest rate in ancient Greece was around 10%, a figure that was likely tied to the common Greek fractional units, the Dekate, which was one-tenth. Therefore, Ceylon did not outlaw the practice of charging interest itself. Ceylon's reforms in ancient Athens allowed commerce to thrive by making key changes to stimulate trade, such as minting new Athenian coinage, standardizing weights and measures, and the export of olive oil. Ceylon's reforms in ancient Athens did not change the fundamental concept of birthright as the basis for who was a citizen. Membership in the Athenian political community remained tied to birth within the city-state to Athenian parents. However, to enhance the economy, Ceylon granted citizenship to certain immigrant craftsmen and merchants, bringing beneficial expertise into Athens. Solan sought to increase prosperity and provide alternative livelihoods by encouraging trade and professions and by abolishing debt slavery. These reforms not only pulled the poorest out of despair, but it may have been the catalyst for the rapid spread of Athenian trade throughout the commercial world. This is evidenced by the archaeological findings that reveal the success of these measures. But most importantly, Salaam's reforms paved the way for direct democracy and pulled Athens out of its debt crisis nearly 2,600 years ago.comslash history of money banking trade, or you can visit our website at moneybankingtrade.com. Thank you very much. Talk to you soon.