I'm having a major problem understanding Solon's reforms. Could someone clear the confusion?

by Doveen

I think I'll describe how I interpreted it, hopefully you can pinpoint the error. So:

Situation in Athens befroe the reforms

Insane debt crisis, forcing many people in to debt slavery. Land is unalienable, thus the debts can not be settled by selling them. Athens has too little agricutlrually valuable land to sustain its food needs, thus Solon wants to transition in to selling oil to make Athens rich enough to buy wheat from outside.

The process of solonian reforms

Solon enacted the Seisachtheia (shaking off of burdens), which freed people from debt slavery, forgave all debts, and gave the hektemoroi citizenship and he right to participate in Polis politics, making them in to the landless wage workers, the Thetes. Solon also placed an upper limit of land that can be owned by a person.

Consequences of Solon's reform

The social class of thetes form. They have no land, but earn a living as paid workers, their annual income being below 200 medimnoi.They are free, and have citizenship able to participate in the Ecclesia, but not the Boule. Athenes Focuses its agricultural production on Olive oil for trade, and bans the selling of wheat.

And now, here are the things i don't get.

  • All debts were nullified, right? Then why take the land away from the hektemoroi, if there was no one to give it to, given the upper limit of ownable land? Especially since they no longer had debts, so they could operate normally on their already held lands?

  • If land was unalienable, AND had noone to buy it, (remember, upper limit) How did the hektemoroi became landless? To whom were their lands given if it was confiscated, and why, if they no longer had debts?

Iphikrates

The mistake is that you're assuming the hektemoroi owned the land they worked. In fact they were already tenant farmers, who owed the landowners a share of the harvest. Those who could not pay had nothing else to sell, and were forced to sell themselves. Solon put a stop to this by making it impossible to sell an Athenian citizen into slavery (and buying back those who had already been sold).

Also, I'm not sure where you got the idea that Solon imposed a maximum on the land owned by a single citizen. I've never heard about this. The highest property class in his system, the pentakosiomedimnoi, simply included everyone who owned 500 medimnoi or more.