Seisachtheia (Greek: seiein, to shake, and achthos, burden, i.e. the relief of burdens) was a set of laws instituted by the Athenian lawmaker Solon in order to rectify the wide-spread serfdom and slavery that had run rampant in Athens by the 6th Century BC. Under the pre-existing legal status, debtors unable to repay their creditors would surrender their land to them, then becoming hektemorioi, i.e. serfs who cultivated what used to be their own land and kept only one sixth of the produce for themselves and their families. Should the debt exceed the perceived value of debtor's total assets, then the debtor and his family would become the creditor's slaves as well. The same would result if a man defaulted on a debt whose collateral was the debtor's personal freedom. Solon (Greek: Σόλων, c. ... Costumes of Slaves or Serfs, from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries, collected by H. de Vielcastel, from original Documents in the great Libraries of Europe. ... A monument celebrating the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, erected in Victoria Tower Gardens, Millbank, Westminster, London Look up Slavery in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Slavery can mean one or more related conditions which involve control of a person against his or her will, enforced by... ... (7th century BC - 6th century BC - 5th century BC - other centuries) (600s BC - 590s BC - 580s BC - 570s BC - 560s BC - 550s BC - 540s BC - 530s BC - 520s BC - 510s BC - 500s BC - other decades) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) Events Cyrus the Great conquered many... Costumes of Slaves or Serfs, from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries, collected by H. de Vielcastel, from original Documents in the great Libraries of Europe. ... The word slaves has several meanings and usages: People who are owned by others, and live to serve them without pay. ... Default is the name of a number of quite different concepts. ... Debt is that which is owed. ... Collateral could mean: Collateral in finance means a security or guarantee (usually an asset) pledged for the repayment of a loan if one cannot procure enough funds to repay. ...

The seisachtheia laws immediately cancelled all outstanding debts, retroactively emancipated all previously enslaved debtors, reinstated all confiscated serf property to the hektemorioi, and forbade the use of personal freedom as collateral in all future debts. A ceiling to maximum property size was also instituted regardless of the legality of its acquisition (i.e. by marriage), meant to prevent excessive accumulation of land by powerful families. Marriage is a relationship and bond, most commonly between a man and a woman, that plays a key role in the definition of many families. ...