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Solon therefore seems to have laid down these enactments of a popular nature in his laws; while before his legislation his democratic reform was his cancellation of debts, and afterwards his raising the standard of the measures and weights and of the coinage. [2] For it was in his time that the measures were made larger than those of Pheidon,1 and that the mina, which previously had a weight of seventy drachmae,2 was increased to the full hundred. The ancient coin-type was the two-drachma piece. Solon also instituted weights corresponding to the currency, the talent weighing sixty-three minae, and a fraction proportionate to the additional three minae was added to the stater3 and the other weights.
1 King of Argos, probably early 7th century B.C., see Aristot. Pol. 1310b 26. His standard of coinage and weights and measures came to prevail through most of Greece.
2 i.e. seventy of the new drachmae; the drachma coin was also enlarged, so that seventy of the new equalled one hundred of the old; and see note on 4.1.
3 The weight of a fiftieth part of a mina.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 20, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1952.
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