Person
Solon
Athenian statesman and poet who, as archon in 594 BC, ended debt slavery and graded political rights by wealth
Counted among the Seven Sages of Greece, he set out his political ideals in verse. His cancellation of debts was known as the seisachtheia, “shaking off of burdens”. By dividing citizens into four classes by wealth, each with its own offices and rights, his timocracy replaced birth with property as the measure of power, a first step away from aristocratic rule. Tradition says that after his reforms he left Athens to travel for ten years.