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The Beginning of a Tyranny in Athens

In the 590s BC, a legislation was made by a man named Solon. The legislation was made to strengthen the fragile agricultural base of the Athenian economy by associating it to a thriving commerce. Being the soil of Attica was poor, Athenians could not raise enough grain to feed to big population, therefore resulting to the need of importing wheat from abroad and bartering crops suited for their soil such as olives, grapes ect. By around 600, Athens had great potential for economic development, although many sharecroppers were losing the struggle to survive independently. In 594, to avoid civil war, an aristocrat with the reputation for wisdom by the name of Solon was empowered to alleviate the sufferings of the poor without entirely destroying privileges of the rich minority. Solon abolished the debt slavery, and allowed to create a free peasantry that formed the basis of a tyrannical democracy. Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, David Tandy, Ancient Greece: a political, social, and cultural history(United States of America: 2012) Oxford University Press, New York, p191-2025