Book of the Magistrates of the Athenians

without being a tyrant, as Plutarch relates. But since he was mocked by many because he had refused those dignities—which many wanted him to accept, promising him favors and gifts and adding prayers—he replied: "Solon is a man neither of great counsel nor prudence, for he has not accepted the good that God has sent him, and, seeing the prey, he has not drawn the net full of prey; he is poor in spirit and mind." Although he refused to be Monarch, he nonetheless did not want to fail to offer aid to the already desperate Republic, and therefore he helped it with that art in which he excelled and was able, namely with prudence and counsel.

Therefore, he first thought to relieve all those who were oppressed by the power of the great, and so he made a law, and through it he dissolved every debt that any poor man had incurred with the rich, up to the point of having subjected his own body to servitude, and he commanded that it should not be lawful for anyone to have a claim on another's liberty because of usury. Many believe that such a measure brought to the ground every debt, and those to whom he communicated such a law before he published it were called Creocopidae cutters of others' debts, which they did to gratify those who had heard that such a law was desired. Some others wish that the men of low condition and fortune could be freed from debts and, for this, have increased the price of money, because that which was worth 70 drachmae ancient Greek silver coins before was afterwards esteemed at 100 minae a unit of currency equal to 100 drachmae, and they were paid according to the old rate. But one or the other reason is not