Overall, Solon devised the reforms of 594 BC to avert the political, economic, and moral decline in archaic Athens and gave Athens its first comprehensive code of law. The constitutional reforms eliminated enslavement of Athenians by Athenians, established rules for legal redress against over-reaching aristocratic archons, and assigned political privileges on the basis of productive wealth rather than of noble birth. Some of Solon's reforms failed in the short term, yet he is often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy.