In or around 594 BC Solon was given extraordinary powers as διαλλακτὴς καὶ νομοθέτης, mediator and lawgiver, to try to solve a crisis in archaic Athenian society. His solution was termed the σεισάχθεια, disburdenment; it was a liberation of the land and the people.
The primary literary evidence on this most important episode in Athenian history is Solon's own testimony. For more information recourse must be had to authors who were writing not less than one hundred and fifty years—or five (30-year) generations—after Solon's reforms were enacted. The most important of these later sources is the author of the Athenaion Politeia, henceforth AP, who was writing about two hundred years after the event.