Book of the Magistrates of the Athenians

tolerable without another, because the cutting of said debts would have been as unpleasant to the creditors as it was pleasant and desired by the poor, and therefore that would not have been the way to extinguish the fire and the factions but rather the cause of increasing them. The increase of the minae added would not have been enough for the poor to be able to pay, and therefore it is to be believed that he commanded both things at the same time, namely that he increased for the rich what they could not have recovered by law from the poor. And so that every legislator might take the example beginning from himself, he gave from his own six talents large units of weight/currency of gold, which are to them, as to us, forty-five thousand ducats gold coins. At the time when things were on the verge of changing (because every change, however useful, is usually admitted coldly), the law made was not liked (because the rich said that it was poorly done, and the poor of the Attic field waited according to the custom of the Laconians); nevertheless, in the process of time, and having considered the peace born from such a law, it was so universally approved that they instituted the name of such a law, namely Seisachtheia shaking off of burdens, among the sacred things.

Having composed things little by little, he decided to act like an excellent physician so that one would not fall into such a calamity again, having composed all the members according to their dignity. Therefore, he wanted the census of the people to be estimated, so that each one, according to his capacity (being a good man and of good life), could have honors and dignities in the Republic, making no difference between commoners and noblemen, yet having regard that those nobles who then