Solon’s reforms of the Athenian constitution, on the other hand, did have a longer-lasting impact. They involved alterations to the census of classes as well as the introduction of a second executive council for the assembly.
Athenian society in the classical period was divided into four classes, defined in terms of wealth, as follows:
Pentacosiomedimni (“500-Bushel-Men”) = Men whose property produced more than 500 bushels of grain or the equivalent
Hippeis (“Horsemen”) = more than 300 bushels of grain Zeugitae (“Yokemen”) = more than 200 bushels of grain Thetes = all others
Although Solon never mentions this class census in his poems, both Plutarch (Sol. 18) and “Aristotle” (Ath. Pol. 7,3-4) attribute it to him and argument shows the attribution to be plausible. The system assesses wealth in terms of agricultural produce and antedates the introduction of coinage. Only in the absence of coinage would anyone measure wealth in such a clumsy way, and when coinage was introduced, the Athenians, as one might expect, almost certainly redefined the classes in terms of coin at the rate of one drachma to the bushel (cf. Plut. Sol. 23,3). Now the earliest Greek coins in the western Aegean date from the mid-sixth century (CAH IV2, Pp. 431-445), so the Athenians’ census of classes was designed before then. With that one comes into Solon’s time.
Next, the system itself provides a bit of evidence as to how it arose. First, the name of the highest class (Pentacosiomedimni) is an invented name, made up to fit the system being designed. Only after the system of classes defined in terms of bushels of grain had been invented, could a class with the name “500-Bushel-Men” be introduced. The other names (“Horsemen,” “Yokemen,” and Thetes) antedated the system. The first two names actually imply an earlier system of wealth-based classes, incidentally, for “Horsemen” are those wealthy enough to keep a horse (always a status symbol in Greece) whereas the “Yokemen” are those who at least own two oxen. (The meaning of “Thetes” remains obscure.) At some point an older three-class system based on wealth was modified by redefining the classes in terms of bushels of grain and by the addition of a fourth, highest class. Solon’s year in power is almost the only time possible for such a reform.
Solon’s other chief constitutional reform requires discussion also. Up until his time, the Council of the Areopagus had functioned alone as an executive council to the Athenian assembly, but now Solon introduced a second council usually called after the number of its members the Council of 400. It consisted of one hundred men selected in an unknown fashion from each of the four tribes into which the Athenians were then subdivided. Its functions, strictly speaking, are unknown but analogy with its replacement under Cleisthenes (see below) suggests that it to some degree supervised the agenda for a meeting of the Assembly. Which political functions the Council of the Areopagus retained exclusively is obscure, but until the mid-fifth century it held the “guardianship of the laws” (Plut. Sol. 19; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 25,2). Scholars have traditionally interpreted that phrase as referring to an effective veto-right over any decree made by the Assembly since in the event of a conflict a law overruled a decree - presumably “guardianship of the laws” included the ability to say what the “law” was (see chap. 15). The Gerousia at Sparta held a similar right (see chap. 6), so parallels for such an arrangement do exist. If the Council of the Areopagus held that right until the mid-fifth century (when it lost all political powers -[Arist.] Ath. Pol. 25,2), it presumably held the same right in Solon’s day also.
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