126 EDwARD M. HARRIS
was most important for the growth of credit was that Athenian law recognized
that creditors who seized land that had been pledged as security were given
secure title.^61 A passage of Isaeus (10.24) lists three legitimate ways of proving
ownership: first, one has received it as real security; second, one has bought it;
or third, the property has been awarded as the result of a legal decision. Thus
the lender who received a pledge of real security could take over the property
in place of repayment of the loan. A passage of Demosthenes (41.7-10) reveals
that there was another law that protected the ownership of property that
had been obtained through real security against claims by the former own-
ers.^62 One should bear in mind that the transaction costs for enforcing these
rights were relatively low. Court fees were not high: to bring a private suit for
an amount over 1,000 dr. required a payment of only 30 dr.; for an amount
between 100 dr. and 1,000 dr. only 3 dr.; for suits involving amounts less than
100 dr. there was no fee.^63 The law was also relatively simple so that the average
citizen did not need to hire a professional to make a charge and present his
case.^64 The courts met around 200 times a year. If one needed to distrain on a
property, the demarch was there to help.^65 In cases where the debtor did not
have any real assets that could be pledged as security or seized in the event of
default, the laws of Athens allowed creditors to seize the debtor and to hold
him in debt-bondage until he paid off the debt.^66 The laws of Gortyn on Crete
also contain several provisions about debt-bondage, and there is evidence for
it in other Greek communities.^67 This appears to have been rare but it did give
creditors some security that their loan would be paid off even if the debtor
had no assets. Even though this may appear harsh to modern eyes, it was an
improvement over enslavement for debt, which was practiced in Attica before
Solon abolished it in the early sixth century BCE.
Athens was not the only city that kept written records of sales and contracts
in public archives. At Tenos the astynomoi kept a record of sales and dowries
dated by an eponymous archon and the month.^68 One inscription contains
an apparently complete record of forty-seven transactions for one year.^69 The
records include not only regular sales but also a few transactions involving real
security, which are described as sales.^70 This was clearly for the benefit of the
owners, who could prove that the lien on the property had been removed. The
information for each transaction is quite detailed. There is: (1) the name of the
buyer identified by patronymic and deme (in the case of a woman, followed by
the name of her tutor); (2) the name of the seller identified by patronymic and
deme; (3) the verb ‘bought’; (4) a description of the property; (5) the location
of the property (reference to one of the quarters of the city or to the deme in
the countryside, to neighbors or other geographical markers); and (6) names of
guarantors (prateres or bebaiotai, usually one or two, but in some cases as any as
ten). In some cases there is additional information such as the name of the pre-
vious owner, which would show that the seller had good title when he sold.^71