After the kingship was abolished at Athens at the end of the Geometric period, disputes for possession of power started between the aristocratic families. At the end of the 7th century B.C. the internal crisis provoked by the question of agricultural debts and the landless peasantry contributed to the starting of the ferment that led to the drawing up of the laws of Dracon and Solon. The rights of the eupatrids were gradually curtailed and the criterion for participation in public office now became size of property and not family origin. The seizure of power by Pisistratus was favourable to the farmers and small craftsmen, creating the necessary conditions for the demos, after the breakdown of tyranny, to pursue, and with the reforms of Cleisthenes to achieve, real participation in decision-making and the establishing of the democratic constitution.