paid. Interest taking had concentrated the wealth and power of the state in a few hands. The farmer lost all hope and was only a laborer on the farm he once owned. The debtor who had no farm to work for his creditor was yet in a worse condition; he was the mere slave of his creditor and could be sold by him. The free farmers were fast disappearing. The most of them were struggling with miserable poverty. Solon at once came to the relief of this suffering class. He released those who were enslaved and brought back those who had been sold abroad. The great work of Solon for this oppressed class has caused his name to be revered by all who have studied the history of his times.
Plato opposed usury, but he does not give extended reasons. Also the philosopher, Aristotle. His name is yet illustrious in the departments of natural and moral science and economics. With regard to usury he said: "Of all modes of accumulation, the worst and most unnatural is interest. This is the utmost corruption of artificial degeneracy; standing in the same relation to commerce that commerce does to economy. By commerce money is perverted from the purpose of exchange to that of gain; still this gain is occasioned by the mutual transfer of different objects; but interest, by transferring merely the same object from one hand to another generates money from money, and the product thus generated is called offspring (toxos) as being precisely the same nature as that from which it proceeds."
Rome: In the early ages of Rome there were no laws regulating the loans of money. The practice was common and was one of the most frequent subjects of popular complaint. In the celebrated secession of the lower classes of the people to Mons Sacer, when civil strife and fraternal bloodshed was threatened, the loudest outcry was against the oppression of exhorbitant interest exacted by wealthy citizens of those who were obliged to borrow. The common rate was twelve per cent. per annum. This is inferred from the fact that six per cent. was called half interest and three per cent. one-fourth interest.