Seisachtheia
Sign in to saveSeisachtheia (, from σείειν seiein, to shake, and ἄχθος achthos, burden, i.e. the relief of burdens) was a set of laws instituted by the Athenian lawmaker Solon (c. 638 BC–558 BC) in order to rectify the widespread serfdom and slavery that had run rampant in Athens by the 6th century BCE, by debt relief.
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
5 sectionsContents
- Debt in Athenian society
- Seisachtheia reforms
- How the seisachtheia worked and its controversies
- See also
- References
Seisachtheia (, from σείειν seiein, to shake, and ἄχθος achthos, burden, i.e. the relief of burdens) was a set of laws instituted by the Athenian lawmaker Solon (c. 638 BC–558 BC) in order to rectify the widespread serfdom and slavery that had run rampant in Athens by the 6th century BCE, by debt relief.
== Debt in Athenian society == Under the pre-existing legal status, according to the account of the Constitution of the Athenians attributed to Aristotle, debtors unable to repay their creditors would surrender their land to them, then becoming hektemoroi, i.e. serfs who cultivated what used to be their own land and gave one sixth of produce to their creditors.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Seisachtheia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.