XVII.  First of all, then, he repealed all the laws of Drakon, except those relating to murder, because of their harshness and the excessive punishments which they awarded.  For death was the punishment for almost every offence, so that even men convicted of idleness were executed, and those who stole pot-herbs or fruits suffered just like sacrilegious robbers and murderers.  So that Demades afterwards made the joke that Drakon’s laws were not written with ink, but with blood.  It is said that Drakon himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones.

XVIII.  In the next place, Solon, who wished to leave all magistracies as he found them, in the hands of the wealthy classes, but to give the people a share in the rest of the constitution, from which they were then excluded, took a census of the wealth of the citizens, and made a first class of those who had an annual income of not less than five hundred medimni of dry or liquid produce; these he called Pentakosiomedimni.  The next class were the Hippeis, or knights, consisting of those who were able to keep a horse, or who had an income of three hundred medimni.  The third class were the Zeugitae, whose property qualification was two hundred medimni of dry or liquid produce; and the last class were the Thetes, whom Solon did not permit to be magistrates, but whose only political privilege was the right of attending the public assemblies and sitting as jurymen in the law courts.  This privilege was at first insignificant, but afterwards became of infinite importance, because most disputes were settled before a jury.  Even in those cases which he allowed the magistrates to settle, he provided a final appeal to the people.

Solon moreover is said to have purposely worded his laws vaguely and with several interpretations, in order to increase the powers of these juries, because persons who could not settle their disputes by the letter of the law were obliged to have recourse to juries of the people, and to refer all disputes to them, as being to a certain extent above the laws.  He himself notices this in the following verses: 

    “I gave the people all the strength they needed,
      Yet kept the power of the nobles strong;
    Thus each from other’s violence I shielded,
      Not letting either do the other wrong.”

Thinking that the weakness of the populace required still further protection, he permitted any man to prosecute on behalf of any other who might be ill-treated.  Thus if a man were struck or injured, any one else who was able and willing might prosecute on his behalf, and the lawgiver by this means endeavoured to make the whole body of citizens act together and feel as one.  A saying of his is recorded which quite agrees with the spirit of this law.  Being asked, what he thought was the best managed city?  “That,” he answered, “in which those who are not wronged espouse the cause of those who are, and punish their oppressors.”