102 HISTORY OF GREECE. told that after a short interval it became eminently acceptable ui the general public mind, and procured for Solon a great increase of popularity, all ranks concurring in a common sacrifice of thanksgiving and harmony. 1 One incident there was Avhich oc- casioned an outcry of indignation. Three rich friends of Solon, all men of great family in the state, and bearing names which will hereafter reappear in this history as borne by their descend- ants, Konon, Kleinias, and Hipponikus, having obtained from Solon some previous hint of his designs, profited by it, first, to borroAV money, and next, to make purchases of lands ; and this selfish breach of confidence would have disgraced Solon himself, had it not been found that he was personally a great loser, having lent money to the extent of five talents. We should have been glad to learn what authority Plutarch had for this anecdote, which could hardly have been recorded in Solon's own poems. 2 In regard to the whole measure of the seisachtheia, indeed, though the poems of Solon were open to every one, ancient authors gave different statements, both of its purport and of its extent. Most of them construed it as having cancelled indis- criminately all money contracts ; while Androtion, and others, thought that it did nothing more than lower the rate of interest and depreciate the currency to the extent of twenty-seven pei cent., leaving the letter of the contracts unchanged. How An- drotion came to maintain such an opinion we cannot easily understand, for the fragments now remaining from Solon seem distinctly to refute it, though, on the other hand, they do not go so far as to substantiate the full extent of the opposite view entertained by many writers, that all money contracts indis- criminately were rescinded: 3 against which there is also a 1 Plutarch, I. c. e&vauv re /coiby, Zeiauxdeiav TIJV -Qvaiav uvofi.<i&vTFf, etc 2 The anecdote is again noticed, but without specification of the names of the friends, in Plutarch, Reipub. Gercnd. Praeccp. p. 807. 3 Plutarch, Solon, c. 15. The statement of Dionysius of Hal., in regard to the bearing of the seisachtheia, is in the main accurate, XP <J V uijitaiv ifit)^iaafiev7]v rolt; uiropoi (v, 65), to the debtors who were liable on the security of their bodies and their lands, and who were chiefly poor, not to all debtors. Heraklcides Pontic. (IToAtr. c. 1) and Dio Chrysostom (Or. xxxi, p. 331' express themselves loosely.
