of powerful
factions, by forbidding men to appear armed in the streets, unless in
cases of imminent exigence.

XI. The most memorable of Solon's sayings illustrates the theory of
the social fabric he erected. When asked how injustice should be
banished from a commonwealth, he answered, "by making all men
interested in the injustice done to each;" an answer imbodying the
whole soul of liberty. His innovations in the mere forms of the
ancient constitution do not appear to have been considerable; he
rather added than destroyed. Thus he maintained or revived the senate
of the aristocracy; but to check its authority he created a people.
The four ancient tribes [204], long subdivided into minor sections,
were retained. Foreigners, who had transported for a permanence their
property and families to Athens, and abandoned all connexion with
their own countries, were admitted to swell the numbers of the free
population. This made the constituent body. At the age of eighteen,
each citizen was liable to military duties within the limits of
Attica; at the age of twenty he attained his majority, and became
entitled to a vote in the popular assembly, and to all the other
rights of citizenship. Every free Athenian of the age of twenty was
thus admitted to a vote in the legislature. But the possession of a
very considerable estate was necessary to the attainment of the higher
offices. Thus, while the people exercised universal suffrage in
voting, the choice of candidates was still confined to an oligarchy.
Four distinct ranks were acknowledged; not according, as hitherto, to
hereditary descent, but the possession of property. They whose income
yielded five hundred measures in any commodity, dry or liquid, were
placed in the first rank, under the title of Pentacosiomedimnians.
The second class, termed Hippeis, knights or horsemen, was composed of
those whose estates yielded three hundred measures. Each man
belonging to it was obliged to keep a horse for the public service,
and to enlist himself, if called upon, in the cavalry of the military
forces (the members of either of these higher classes were exempt,
however, from serving on board ship, or in the infantry, unless
intrusted with some command.) The third class was composed of those
possessing two hundred [205] measures, and called Zeugitae; and the
fourth and most numerous class comprehended, under the name of Thetes,
the bulk of the non-enslaved working population, w