Sólon e as dívidas de Atenas

Conforme nos conta Plutarco (46 – 120 d.C.) na biografia de Sólon, no longínquo século VII a. C., Atenas estava mergulhada numa crise política, económica e social parecida com a actual. Sólon, tentou resolvê-la, com relativo sucesso: fez aquilo a que hoje poderíamos chamar uma renegociação da dívida e uma desvalorização da moeda (*).

As crises de endividamento e a usura dos ricos sobre o resto da população são velhas como o mundo.

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Excerto da biografia de Sólon, escrita por Plutarco (os sublinhados são nossos):

«The Athenians, now the Cylonian sedition was over and the polluted gone into banishment fell into their old quarrels about the government, there being as many different parties as there were diversities in the country. The Hill quarter favoured democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and those that lived by the Seaside stood for a mixed sort of government, and so hindered either of the other parties from prevailing. And the disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor, at that time, also reached its height; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous condition, and no other means for freeing it from disturbances and settling it to be possible but a despotic power. All the people were indebted to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase, and were, therefore, called Hectemorii and Thetes, or else they engaged their body for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home, or sold to strangers; some (for no law forbade it) were forced to sell their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their creditors; but the most part and the bravest of them began to combine together and encourage one another to stand to it, to choose a leader, to liberate the condemned debtors, divide the land, and change the government.

(…)

For the first thing which he settled was, that what debts remained should be forgiven, and no man, for the future, should engage the body of his debtor for security. Though some, as Androtion, affirm that the debts were not cancelled, but the interest only lessened, which sufficiently pleased the people; so that they named this benefit the Seisacthea, together with the enlarging their measures and raising the value of their money; for he made a pound, which before passed for seventy-three drachmas, go for a hundred; so that, though the number of pieces in the payment was equal, the value was less; which proved a considerable benefit to those that were to discharge great debts, and no loss to the creditors. But most agree that it was the taking off the debts that was called Seisacthea, which is confirmed by some places in his poem, where he takes honour to himself, that- 

"The mortgage-stones that covered her, by me 
Removed,- the land that was a slave is free: that some who had been seized for their debts he had brought back from other countries, where-
"-so far their lot to roam,

They had forgot the language of their home; and some he had set at liberty-

"Who here in shameful servitude were held." »

Fonte: http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/solon.html

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(*) - Fez equivaler a mina, que antes correspondia a setenta e três dracmas, a cem dracmas.