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Demos: The Men Who Made and Perfected Ancient Athenian Democracy

Khalid Elhassan January 13, 2025 16 min

Democracy - Ancient Athens — Ancient Athens. Imgur

20. Outrage Over Debt Slavery

Democracy - Solon crafts his laws — Solon crafts his laws. Anthology

Debt slavery outraged many Athenians. Not that they objected to slavery per se, but to the enslavement of Athenians. That outrage, combined with the resentment of the middling farmers, craftsmen, and rising merchants at their exclusion from government, brought Athens to the brink of revolution. So the citizen body met in the Ecclesia, the Athenian Assembly. They entrusted Solon, a respected aristocrat, to reform Athens, and bound themselves with solemn oaths to accept his decisions. Solon’s reforms solved the immediate problem, even as they upset all sides.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.