the just arising state sanctioned this assumption. It shows furthermore that the division of labor between farmers and tradesmen had grown strong enough to contest the supremacy of the old gentile and tribal division of society. And finally it proclaims the irreconcilable opposition of gentile society to the state. The first attempt to form a state broke up the gentes by dividing their members against one another and opposing a privileged class to a class of disowned belonging to two different branches of production.
The ensuing political history of Athens up to the time of Solon is only incompletely known. The office of basileus became obsolete. Archons elected from the ranks of the nobility occupied the leading position in the state. The power of the nobility increased continually, until it became unbearable about the year 600 before Christ. The principal means for stifling the liberty of the people were—money and usury. The main seat of the nobility was in and around Athens. There the sea trade and now and then a little convenient piracy enriched them and concentrated the money into their hands. From this point the gradually arising money power penetrated like corrugating acid into the traditional modes of rural existence founded on natural economy. The gentile constitution is absolutely irreconcilable with money rule. The ruin of the Attic farmers coïncided with the loosening of the old gentile bonds that protected them. The debtor's receipt and the pawning of the property—for the mortgage was also invented by the Athenians—cared neither for the gens nor for the phratry. But the old gentile constitution knew nothing of money, advance and debt. Hence the ever more virulently spreading money rule of the nobility developed a new legal custom, securing the creditor against the debtor and sanctioning the exploitation of the small farmer by the wealthy. All the rural districts of Attica were crowded with mortgage columns bearing the legend that the lot on which they stood was mortgaged to such and such for so much. The fields that were not so designated had for the most part been sold on account of overdue mortgages or interest and transferred to the aristocratic usurers. The