Person · 3131–3201 AM · 630 BCE — 560 BCE
Solon Σόλων
Athenian lawgiver and poet: the cancelling of debts and civic law
The comparison with Jewish law suggests itself here and is usually made wrongly. The seisachtheia was a single measure in answer to a debt crisis; the jubilee year of the Torah (Leviticus 25) is a standing institution recurring every fifty years, and it concerns not only debts but the land, which returns to its first holder. Different machinery, similar effect.
Both his dates are approximate: only the archonship of 594 is firm.
Sources
Scholarship
- Britannica, “Solon” — the archonship of 594, the seisachtheia, the property classes
Basis: documents and evidence.