Γαῖαν παμμήτειραν ἀείσομαι, ἠυθέμεθλον,
πρεσβίστην, ἣ φέρβει ἐπὶ χθονὶ πάνθ᾽, ὁπός᾽ ἐστὶν, ...
ἐκ σέο δ᾽ εὔπαιδές τε καὶ εὔκαρποι τελέθουσι,
πότνια, σεῦ δ᾽ ἔχεται δοῦναι βίον ἠδ᾽ ἀφελέσθαι
θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποισιν.
Homeric Hymn.
§ 1. The Κλῆρος And Its Form.
In trying to realise the methods of land tenure amongst the Greeks, we are
baffled by the indirectness of the evidence available.
(M96) We know that the estate which descended from father to son, and was
in theory inalienable from the family of its original possessors, was
called a κλῆρος or “lot,” but the familiarity with which the poets,
historians, and orators use the word does not afford information as to
what the κλῆρος really was and how it was made use of in practice. The law
concerning these family holdings, says Aristotle,(187) and concerning
their possible transmission through daughters was not written. It was a
typical example of customary law. This statement gives a hint as to the
usual treatment of questions arising under this head. Methods of land
tenure were not of rapid growth, nor were they easily changed; they had
their source with the slow devotion to agriculture of pastoral tribes, and
were dependent on a class unaffected by the growth of education and the
arts.
(M97) The intricate connection of the system of land tenure with the
composition of the family removed the consideration of questions of
ownership from the sphere of written law, and delegated them to the most
conservative department of customary procedure, ranking them on a par with
questions of family religious observances.(188) The deposit of some
ancestor’s bones in a certain field was occasionally a valuable link in
the title to possession of that piece of land as private property;(189)
and the possession of land at all was in part a guarantee of the pure
native blood in the veins of the possessor.(190) It is a striking
illustration of the truth of this that, throughout all the extant speeches
of Isaeus dealing with the disposal of κλῆροι of dead citizens, not a
single case turns upon evidence for or against a sale or transfer of
property. The speeches all deal exclusively with family matters; the line
of argument always leads to the proof of near kinship by blood or adoption
to the previous owner; and the right of possession of the inheritance
seems taken for granted as following incontrovertibly the establishment of
the required relationship.(191)
“It seems to me that all those who contend for the right of
succession to estates, when like us they have shown themselves to
be both nearest in blood to the person deceased, and most
connected with him in friendship (φιλίᾳ), are dispensed from
adding a superfluity of other arguments.”(192)
(M98) In the early settlements, as Thucydides tells us, necessity was the
ruling motive. Each man devoted his attention to providing the necessaries
of life. There was superfluity neither of chattels nor of tilth. Men
hesitate to sow when the harvest is to be reaped by their enemies.(193)
The flocks and herds of the pastoral tribes could be driven for safety
into the mountain strongholds; yet even they were liable to frequent
losses. On one occasion Odysseus had to go to Messene “to recover a debt;
which, to wit, the whole people owed him (πᾶς δῆμος): for the Messenians
had lifted 300 sheep with their shepherds from Ithaka.”(194) As the
newcomers increased in numbers and gained a reputation for ability to
defend their own, sufficient to discourage the attacks of their
neighbours, they would have leisure to devote some of their energies to
the cultivation of the plains around them. Troy was founded first up in
the hills,(195) and afterwards was moved down to a good position on the
lower ground for the sake no doubt of the better pasture in the river
meadows, and of the agriculture which had long been carried on over the
“wheat-bearing plain” around the city,(196) before the ravages of the ten
years’ war.
It is not proposed to enter in detail into the _methods_ of cultivation of
the soil in vogue at various times in Greece; but inasmuch as whilst
studying the kernel, assistance may often be obtained from knowledge of
the shell, mention may be made in passing of such few points of interest
in the physical features of agriculture as may be available.
(M99) In the Consular Reports on Land Tenure in Europe made in 1869,
descriptions are given of the existing methods of tenure and cultivation
in Greece and the Islands.
In Greece the usual holding of a small proprietor is said to be of fifteen
to twenty-five acres (or sometimes double that area), and is called a
_zeugarion_.(197) Many have only a couple of acres.
“The greatest inconvenience and frequent lawsuits arise from the
manner in which these properties intersect each other. Moreover
none of the usual precautions are adopted to mark the limits of
the different properties, which, in the absence of any reliable
land survey, are often very vaguely described in the title
deeds.”(198)
In cases of intestacy real property is divided equally among the children
or nearest relatives. When there is a will the testator can only reserve
for his disposal a share of the estate equivalent to that which, after an
equal division, descends by right to each of the direct heirs.
(M100) Professor Ansted, in his book on the Ionian Islands in the year
1863, thus describes the management of an estate on the Island of Santa
Maura:—(199)
“According to Ionian law, all the members of a family share
equally in the family property after the death of the father; but
it does not follow as a matter of course that the property is
divided. It is much more usual that the brothers and sisters, if
young, continue to live together till they either marry or
undertake some employment or business at a distance. If a sister
marries, she is dowered with a sum equivalent to her share. If a
brother however earns a separate income, from whatever source,
whether he be married or remain single, and whether he live in the
same or a different house, or even remove to another town or
island, he pays in all his income to a joint fund, _the foundation
of which is the income obtained from the paternal estate_. Those
who do nothing else manage the estate. One brother, perhaps,
remains in the village as cultivator, another lives in the town
acting as factor, or merchant to the estate, receiving and selling
the produce and managing the proceeds, whatever the case may be;
and in addition selling, exporting, and otherwise conducting a
general business in the same department. A third may perhaps
receive and sell the goods in a foreign country. A fourth may be a
member of the legislature, and a fifth a judge. Some marry and
have families, others remain single: but the incomes of all are
united, each draws out a reasonable share, according to his needs,
and a very close account is kept of all transactions. If one
brother dies, his children come into the partnership; and as time
goes on, these again will grow up and marry, the daughters
receiving a proportional and often large dower out of the joint
fund, entirely without reference to the special property of their
parents. This may go on indefinitely: but as family quarrels will
arise, _there are always means of terminating the arrangement_,
and closing accounts, either entirely as regards all, or partially
as with reference to a _mauvais sujet_, or troublesome member of
the partnership.... This curious patriarchal system, though
obtaining more perfectly and frequently in Santa Maura than in the
other islands, exists in Cephalonia and is said to be not quite
unknown in Zante, where the state of society approximates far more
to that common in the western countries of Europe. Santa Maura,
being the most isolated of all the islands and that which retains
all ancient customs most tenaciously, is naturally that in which
this sort of communism can exist with smallest risk of
interference.”
According to the Consular Reports, the relations between landlord and
tenant are governed more by local usage than by law, and the landlord
generally takes on an average about 15 per cent. of the produce in kind on
the threshing-floor, as rent, in cases where he does not supply more than
the bare use of the land.(200)
(M101) There is little manuring; the light plough barely turns the surface
of the land. Land is usually allowed to lie fallow every other year,
sometimes two years out of three. Sheep and goats are the chief stock;
they of course graze in summer on the mountains; villages sometimes own
forests and waste lands in common.
(M102) In the islands of the Archipelago,(201) the holdings are frequently
divided into separate plots consisting of a quarter or half acre apiece or
even less, intersected by those belonging to other parties. Cattle are
pastured on the fallow, roadsides, &c., near the village.
In Cephalonia,(202) holdings consist of from five to twenty-five acres,
seldom in a continuous piece, but “cut up into patches and intersected by
other properties.”
In Corfu,(203) the holdings are similar—infinitesimally small and
intermixed pieces of land, especially in the olive groves, where however
there are no divisions on the land and the “oldest inhabitant” has to be
asked for evidence of ownership in disputed cases.
Throughout the Greek nation, the peasants live in their houses in villages
and not on separate estates. They help one another to avoid the expense of
hired labour, and themselves work for hire on the estates of the large
proprietors.
(M103) Professor Ridgeway has drawn attention to the knowledge of this
open field system in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_;(204) and indeed the
division of the land tilled by occupants of villages into small pieces or
strips, in such a way that the holding of each consists of a number of
isolated pieces lying promiscuously amongst the strips of others, over the
whole area under plough, is a world-wide custom and is the habit alike of
the east as of the west.
Though the assertion cannot yet be made that the κλῆρος was thus arranged
on the soil, it can do no harm at any rate to bear in mind this ancient
and still used method of dividing land, whilst considering the question of
the relation of the ownership of the soil to the rank and status of the
tribesman.
§ 2. The Relation Of The Κλῆρος To The Οἶκος.
(M104) The connection of the possession of land with the headship of the
family finds its counterpart in the right of maintenance of those who had
the true blood of that family. And in those countries where the sons
remained until their father’s death under his _patria potestas_ they had
to look to him for maintenance derived from the κλῆρος which descended to
him as the means of sustenance for himself and his family. Where the head
of the family alone was responsible for the rites to the dead at the
family altars, the position of a son would always be incomplete if he
tried to establish during his father’s lifetime a hearth and household of
his own. And it has been already mentioned that it was necessary to
emancipate a son from the family of his own father, before he could take
property, passing on the death of his mother’s relations to her issue, and
assume his rightful position as their representative and the living head
of their household.(205)
According to Harpocration, the initiation into the mysteries of the hearth
only took place on the actual assumption of the inheritance.(206)
(M105) Occasionally a father feeling the weight of years would be glad to
pass on to his son during his lifetime some of his burden of
responsibility by making him master of his estate (κύριος τῆς
οὐσίας).(207) In this case, the son would be responsible for the
maintenance of his parent, a duty much insisted on by Plato and Isaeus. In
fact the conclusion is justified that the family, until final subdivision
into separate οἶκοι, drew its supplies from the common inheritance, and
that the subdivision of the means of subsistence was contemporaneous and
co-extensive with the differentiation of the various branches of the
original οἶκος along the lines of the rising generations.
The same may be inferred from the words of Demosthenes describing the
division of the property of Bouselos amongst his sons and the foundation
of their several οἶκοι.
“And all these sons of Bouselos became men, and their father
divided his substance amongst them all, with perfect justice. And
they having shared the substance, each of them married a wife
according to your laws, and there were born children to them all,
and children’s children, and there grew up five οἶκοι from the one
οἶκος of Bouselos, and each dwelt apart, having his own house and
his own offspring.”(208)
In the meanwhile, before division, all sons had equal right to participate
in the family goods after the father’s death, and dowries had to be paid
therefrom to the daughters. The eldest brother was guardian (κύριος) of
his sisters and those of his brothers who were minors, inasmuch as he
succeeded to his father’s position of head of his kindred at the altars of
their ancestors. But in Greece at any rate his authority over his brothers
when once a division had taken place seems to have been slight if it
existed at all.
(M106) Amongst the Gods, the three brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades,
sons of Rhea, shared their inheritance from their father Kronos. They
divided everything in three, shaking lots thereover (παλλομένων). Each
took equal share of honour (ἔμμορε τιμῆς), but earth and Olympos were
common (ξυνή) to all.(209) But Zeus was the first-born and “knew more
things”—Ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς πρότερος γεγόνει καὶ πμείονα ᾒδη(210)—and Poseidon
therefore avoided open strife with him, however unwillingly. Though Zeus
be the stronger, grumbles the Sea-god, let him keep to his third share and
not interfere with his brothers’ pleasure on their common ground, the
earth. Let him threaten his sons and daughters who needs _must_ listen to
him (ἀκούσονται καὶ ἀνάγκῃ). Yet because the Erinnyes ever take the side
of the eldest born—ὡς πρεσβυτέροισιν Ἐριννύες αἰὲν ἕπονται—it were good
counsel to knock under, even though the division was made in perfect
equality (ἰσόμορον καὶ ὁμῇ πεπρωμένον αἴσῃ).(211)
(M107) This passage contrasts the recognised autocracy of the head of the
family over his own household with the courteous deference of the younger
brothers towards the eldest; and it is evidence, so far as it goes, that
the eldest brother did not succeed to his father’s power over his grown-up
brothers, but owed what influence he did not obtain from the superior
advantages of his age and experience, to a superstitious feeling that
something was due to him in his position of head of the eldest branch of
the family.
In the _Odyssey_,(212) Zeus gives Poseidon the title of “eldest and
best”—πρεσβύτατον καὶ ἄριστον—and elsewhere Hera lays claim to the same
birthright.(213)
The power of the head of a household must have been something much more
real. Telemachos declares that he is willing that some other _basileus_ in
Ithaka should take the kingship, but he will be master over his own
house—ἄναξ οὄκοιο ἡμετέροιο—“and over the slaves that the divine Odysseus
won for me.”(214)
In the Homeric Hymn to _Hestia_, that deity receives the title of honour
of firstborn: the poet, by a fanciful blending of ideas, implying that the
honour paid to the sacred hearth by the eldest of the family, fell to her
share as the eldest born of the children of Kronos.(215)
Aristotle says that every household is ruled (βασιλεύεται) by its oldest
member,(216) and gives this prerogative of the household-_basileus_ as the
type and origin of the kingship in the village and the State. Reference
has already been made, in the section on the limitations of the ἀγχιστεία,
to the passage in the Gortyn law, viz.—
“The father shall have power over the children and the property to
divide it amongst them.... As long as they (the parents) are alive
there is no necessity for division.”(217)
(M108) But it must be borne in mind that though the κλῆρος was set apart
in theory for the use and sustenance of a head of a family with all his
descendants, and was supposed to be inalienable therefrom, there is no
reason to suppose that there existed among the Greeks a system of joint
holding between father and son. The ownership and management of the
property vested in the head of the family. It is true that brothers did
not always divide their inheritance on the death of their father, but
their undivided right to their respective equal shares remained to each
one and his descendants as an individual property, and they always seem to
have had the expectation of an ultimate subdivision amongst the separate
οἶκοι that had sprung into being.(218)
(M109) The Gortyn Laws throw some light on the subject.
As long as the father is alive, no man shall buy or receive in pledge from
the son any of the father’s property. But what the son himself has earned,
or inherited, he may sell if he like.
So too the father may not dispose of the goods of the children which they
have earned or inherited.
Yet may a son’s prospective share in his paternal inheritance be sold to
pay any legal fine he has incurred.(219)
(M110) There is no joint holding here between father and son. The father
is in undisputed possession, and nothing the son can do by private
contract can affect his father’s occupation. But if the son had a right of
maintenance from his father during the lifetime of both, his expectation
of succession to an equal share with his brothers would give him, so to
speak, a value in the public eye. In the event of his incurring a
blood-fine, his father would presumably be obliged to pay it out of the
patrimony; and when exaction of such penalties passed into the hands of a
court, exception would hardly be made for long on behalf of the fine for
murder over penalties for other crimes coming before the court. Although
therefore for all ordinary purposes a son had no claim on the paternal
estate beyond his maintenance, his right of succession might easily grow
up in the eye of the law as an available asset capable of forfeiture with
the theoretical assumption that the scapegrace was unfit to hold his
position in the family.(220) His future portion, thus becoming deprived of
a representative, might be wholly or in part confiscated to the State.
There are many inscriptions confiscating to the State the goods of
criminals who transgressed the laws therein; but Plato evidently
contemplated the possibility of wiping out the individual without
depriving his descendants of their inheritance.(221) In such a case as
wife-murder, he says, the husband’s right of maintenance is extinguished
from amongst his family, he should be banished and his name wiped out for
ever, whilst his sons or relations enter upon the inheritance of his
property _immediately_. No distinction is made by Plato, or in the Gortyn
Laws in such a case between chattels and land. But inasmuch as all fines
would be levied in the first instance upon the property of the guilty
individual, it may be assumed that his own earnings went first, and that
only in extreme cases would the ancestral land of the family be sold. Even
then, in Israelite law, it was expected that the land would be _redeemed_
by the nearest relative,(222) so that the result would be that the land
would go out of the family only when no relative could be found rich
enough to pay the fine out of his chattels.
(M111) It is interesting to find analogous provisions in the customs of
Gavelkind of ancient Kent. Under the system of Gavelkind equal division of
property amongst sons obstinately held its own against the incursions of
the right of primogeniture; and the connection of the family with their
land seems to have been regarded as especially privileged in spite of the
growth of Feudalism.
“If any tenant in Gauelkinde be attainted of felonie, for which he
suffereth execution of death, the king shall have all his _goods_,
and his heire forthwith after his death shall be inheritable to
all his _landes_ and tenements which he held in Gauelkinde in fee,
and in inheritance: and he shall hold them by the same services
and customes as his auncestors held them: whereupon, it is said in
Kentish:
“The father to the boughe,
“And the sonne to the ploughe.”(223)
(M112) It had become customary to allot to a bastard son who was prevented
by his birth from ranking with his brothers, and who had no place in the
kindred, some smaller substance as a means of subsistence.
(M113) Odysseus pretends he was in this position, and relates how his
proud brothers allotted him but a small _gift_ (παῦρα δόσαν) and a house
as his portion.(224)
Isaeus mentions that, only on the acquiescence of the true son, was
admission granted to a bastard into the phratria. Even then he was not
apparently taken into his father’s family, but allotted a farm (χωρίον ἕν)
by his brother and, as it were, launched into the world to start a family
of his own, without any further claim upon the property of his
father.(225)
His introduction and admission to a phratria and deme, as a descendant of
an old family, so far removed the stigma of his birth as to give him the
title of citizen, and thus afforded him the qualification for holding
land. Yet the knowledge of his real parentage bereft him of the right of
sharing equally with the rest of his father’s sons, and compelled him to
be satisfied with the bare means of subsistence wherewith to found and
continue a house of his own.(226)
(M114) When citizenship was conferred upon a beneficent stranger, it was
the custom at the same time to assign him and his descendants a house and
some land. We hear of grants on such occasions consisting of a κλῆρος in
the plain, a house, and a garden free of taxes; a _half_-κλῆρος in the
plain, a house and a garden of half the area of the preceding grant, &c.
In the fourth century B.C. a similar grant takes the form of so many
plethra as a patrimony or ever. Sometimes, as at Sparta in the second
century B.C., the estate was allotted to the newly-made citizen only on
condition of residence within the borders of the State.(227)
§ 3. The Householder In India: The Guest.
(M115) Sir Henry S. Maine in his _Early Law and Custom_(228) quotes Narada
in illustration of the composition of the early Indian family. A son “is
of age and independent in case his parents be dead: during their lifetime
he is dependent, even though he be grown old.”
Further information on this subject is afforded by the Ordinances of Manu,
where the position of the first-born with regard to his younger brothers
is given at some length.(229)
(M116) “After both the father and the mother (are dead), the
brothers, having come together, should divide the paternal
inheritance: for while the two (parents) are alive the (sons) have
no power (over the property).
“Now the eldest (or best) alone may take the paternal property
without leaving anything, and the remaining (brothers) may live
_supported by him_ just as (if he were their) father.”(230)
(M117) “By means of the eldest (son) as soon as he is born a man
becomes possessed of a son, and is thus cleared of his debts
towards the manes; therefore this (eldest son) deserves the whole
(inheritance).”
Likewise: “If among brothers born of one father, one should have a son,
Manu said _all those brothers_ would be possessed of sons by means of that
son.”(231) But this seems to apply only to the son born to the eldest, for
if a younger brother married before the eldest and performed the daily
sacrifices, he sent himself, his brother, and his wife “to Hell.”(232)
The eldest, if he performs his duty, “causes the family to flourish” and
“is most honoured among men.” He alone is “duty-born,” through him his
father “pays his debt”; other sons are only “born of desire.” As long as
his conduct is befitting, he must be honoured “like a father, like a
mother,” but if not, he only receives the respect of an ordinary
relative.(233)
The brothers may live together in this way,(234) but if they divide and
live apart, the separate ceremonies necessitated by their separate
households will multiply the performance of religious duties, to the
advantage of all.
(M118) The title of _Householder_, moreover, was more than a name.
“As all beings depend on air, so all orders depend on the
householder.”
“Because men of the three (other) orders are daily supported by
the householder alone with knowledge and with food, therefore the
householder (is) the chief order. That order must be upheld
strenuously by one desiring an imperishable heaven, and who here
desires perpetual happiness....”
“The seers, manes, gods, beings, and guests also make entreaty to
those heads of families for support. (This duty must, therefore,)
be done by a man of discernment.”(235)
“As all rivers, ... go to (their) resting-place in the ocean, so
men of all orders depend on the householder.”(236)
Let a householder perform the household rites according to rule
with the marriage fire and the accomplishment of the five
sacrifices and the daily cooking. The sacrifices are:—
Teaching the Veda is the Veda sacrifice:
Offering cakes and water is the sacrifice to the manes:
An offering to fire (is the sacrifice) to the gods:
Offering of food (is the sacrifice) to all beings:
Honour to guests is the sacrifice to men.
“Whoever presents not food to those five, the gods, guests,
dependents, the manes, and himself, though he breathe, lives
not.”(237)
(M119) The guest takes a very high place, and his presence is a revered
addition to the family sacrifices; so much so that it was thought
necessary to state definitely that “if the guest appears after the
offering to all the gods is finished, one should give him food as best one
can, but should not make (another) offering.”(238)
The same virtue seems to have been considered by the Greeks also to lie in
the presence of the guest. In Euripides’ Elektra, Aigisthos, hearing from
Orestes that he and his friend are strangers, promptly invites them to
share as his ξυνέστιοι in his impending sacrifice of a bull to the nymphs,
promising to send them on their way in the morning.(239)
Earlier in the play during the plotting of Aigisthos’ death, it is taken
for granted that directly he sees them he will call them thus to join him
at the sacrifice and the feast.(240)
Alkinoos expresses the feeling of the Homeric age when he says:
“In a brother’s place stand the stranger and the suppliant, to him
whose wits have even a little range.”(241)
Nestor at Pylos, making sacrifice to Poseidon with his sons and company,
welcomes the unknown Telemachos and Mentor to the sacrificial feast.(242)
When the duty of feeding the guests has been satisfactorily accomplished,
he then asks them whether they are merchants or _pirates_, that “wander
over the brine at hazard of their own lives bringing bale to alien men!”
It would appear that the virtue lay in the hospitality of the host and not
in the worthiness of the guest, and that therefore it was worth while to
run the risk of having invited the presence of a polluted man whose
impiety in not refusing to partake would doubtless fall on his own head.
(M120) To return to the organisation of the Indian inheritance:—The duty
of maintenance(243) of the younger members of the family devolves upon the
eldest son at the death of his father. If the brothers are all “perfect in
their own occupations,” and they come to an equal division, “some trifle
should be given to the elder (brother) to indicate an increased respect
for him.”(244) Also if in division there remains over an odd goat or
sheep, or animal, it goes to the eldest brother.
If any brother has disgraced himself, he does not deserve a share in the
property.(245)
Sisters’ portions are allotted out of all the brothers’ shares
equally.(246)
Property is divided once only.(247) But if “on living together after being
separated, they divide (the inheritance) a second time, in that case the
division should be equal, (as) in that case no right of primogeniture
occurs.”(248)
The father’s wealth acquired during his lifetime is at his own disposal,
and need not be divided amongst his sons.(249) Likewise with any property
acquired by the sons.(250) If “any one of the brothers, being able (to
support himself) by his own occupation, does not desire (his share of the)
property,” he may be excluded from the division, but “something for his
support” should be given him to discharge his claim of maintenance from
the family at any future time.(251)
§ 4. Tenure Of Land In Homer: The Κλῆρος And The Τέμενος.
(M121) In the Homeric poems, written, as they are, from an aristocratic or
heroic point of view, a great gulf always exists between the royal or
princely class and the ordinary tribesmen.
The βασιλεύς—the lion of his people(252)—has his select estate, his
τέμενος, with orchards and gardens of considerable extent; while the
swarms of tribesmen are allotted their κλῆροι in the open field, their
share in the common pasture, and depend on each other for help in the
vintage and harvest.
(M122) The possession of large estates and of multitudinous flocks and
herds was one of the privileges of the chieftain or tribesman of princely
rank.
“For surely his livelihood (_i.e._ Odysseus’) was great past
telling, no lord in the dark mainland had so much, nor any in
Ithaka itself; nay, not twenty men together have wealth so great,
and I will tell thee the sum thereof. Twelve herds of kine upon
the mainland, as many flocks of sheep, as many droves of swine, as
many ranging herds of goats, that his own shepherds and strangers
pasture. And ranging herds of goats, eleven in all, graze here by
the extremity of the island with trusty men to watch them.”(253)
Bellerophon migrated from his own country and settled under the patronage
of the king of Lykia.(254) He married the king’s daughter, and to complete
his qualification and to confirm his princely status as a βασιλεύς of
Lykia, he was allotted by the Lykians an estate where the plain was
fattest on the banks of the river, consisting half of arable, half of
vineyard, the latter presumably on the slopes of the sides of the
valley.(255) Besides these no doubt he had flocks and herds on the
mountains, with steadings and slaves for their protection. It is
improbable that the fattest of the plain was unoccupied before, and it
must therefore be supposed that the system of agriculture was such as to
admit of such a partition and the consequent readjustment, or that the
dispossessed tribesmen had to compensate themselves with land out of the
common waste.
In somewhat similar wise Tydeus at Argos wedded one of the daughters of
Adrastos, and dwelt in a house full of livelihood; and “wheatbearing
ἄρουραι enough were his, and many were his orchards of trees apart, and
many sheep were his.”(256)
In the description of the Shield of Achilles in the _Iliad_ a vivid
contrast is drawn between the rich harvest of the βασιλεύς and the busy
toil of the tribesmen.
“Furthermore he set therein a τέμενος deep in corn(257) where
hinds (ἔριθοι) were reaping with sharp sickles in their hands ...
and among them the βασιλεύς in silence was standing at the swathe
with his staff, rejoicing in his heart.”
Meanwhile henchmen are preparing apart a great feast for himself and his
friends, and the women are strewing much white barley to be a supper for
the hinds.(258)
(M123) But in the great common field all was toil and action; many
ploughers therein drave their yokes to and fro as they wheeled about.(259)
The holding of the common tribesman was not an estate (τέμενος) cut out of
the plain, but an allotment (κλῆρος), probably of strips as in Palestine
to-day, in the open fields that lay around the town. On the wheatbearing
plain round Troy(260) lay the stones that former men, before the ten
years’ war, had used to mark the balk or boundary of their strips (οὖρον
ἀρούρης).(261) One of these Athena uses to hurl against Ares, who, falling
where he stood, covers seven of the _pelethra_ that the stones were used
to divide. A pinnacle of stones is the only boundary to be seen to this
day between the strips of cornland in Palestine. Easily dislodged as these
landmarks were, they were specially protected by a curse against their
removal, and were with the Greeks under the awful shadow of a special
deity of boundaries.(262) They seem however to have been liable to
considerable violation. The ass, according to Homer, being driven along
the field-way, if his skin was thick enough, easily disregarded the
expostulations of his attendants, and made free with the growing
crop.(263) Homer also describes a fight between two men with measuring
rods in the common field,(264) and Isaeus(265) relates how an Athenian
citizen flogged his brother in a quarrel over their boundary so that he
afterwards died, whilst the neighbours, working on their land around, were
witnesses of what took place.
Land was brought into cultivation, no doubt, as it was wanted. Achilles
contemplates that some of the rich fields of his friends may be
exceedingly remote, so that it would be a great thing to spare the
ploughman a journey to the nearest blacksmith. And no doubt the powerful
men of the community would, by means of their slaves or retainers, acquire
additional wealth by reclaiming lands out of the way and therefore
requiring a strong hand to protect them, which were profitable by reason
of their very fatness.(266) Such acquisitions would not be included in the
τέμενος of the prince, the very word τέμενος implying an area of land cut
out of the cultivated land of the community, generally described as being
in the plain (πέδιον).
(M124) Such allotments of land seem only to have been made to princes and
gods, but when once allotted, remained as far as can be seen the property
of their descendants. It was a common fancy of the Homeric prince that he
was worshipped as a god, and they often mistook each other for some deity.
The godlike Sarpedon asks his cousin Glaukos, wherefore are they two
honoured in Lykia as gods, with flesh and full cups and a great
τέμενος.(267)
As the possession of full tribal blood was necessary for the ownership of
a κλῆρος, so princely blood was the qualification for the enjoyment of a
τέμενος. The honoured individual need not be a king or overlord, but
besides his valour he must have in his veins the all-potent blood royal,
without which his privilege was no greater than that of other rich
tribesmen.
It was not till the king of Lykia had satisfied himself that Bellerophon
was “the brave offspring of a god,” that he gave him honour, and the
Lykians meted him out a τέμενος.(268) This great τέμενος on the banks of
the Xanthos, half arable and half vineyard, remained in the possession of
his grandchildren, Sarpedon and Glaukos, apparently still undivided,
though they were not brothers but first cousins.(269)
The king of the Phæakians had his τέμενος and fruitful orchard near but
apart from the fields and tilled lands of his townsfolk.(270) Odysseus it
seems had more than one τέμενος.(271)
(M125) Once in the _Iliad_ the epithet πατρώιος is applied to a chief’s
τέμενος.(272) According to Hesychius, πατρώιος means “handed down to one’s
father from his ancestors,”(273) and Homer evidently uses the word in this
sense.(274)
The kingship itself in Ithaka was considered as part of Telemachos’
patrimony: “Never may Kronion make thee king in sea-girt Ithaka, which is
πατρώιον to thee by birth (γενεῇ).”(275)
But though the τέμενος and the kingship were both equally πατρώια, they
did not together constitute an indivisible inheritance. Any one of the
blood could enjoy possession of the land, whilst the over-lordship must
necessarily descend in the eldest or the most able line.
In his answer to the malignant wish quoted above, Telemachos does not
speak as if he contemplated giving up any tangible property. The bestowal
of the kingship, though due to him by inheritance (πατρώιον) is in the
hands of the gods; he means to be master (ἄναξ) of whatsoever Odysseus his
father won for him.
(M126) It is interesting to compare this choice of Telemachos with the
exactly opposite choice made by Iason, as told by Pindar, when he came
back to claim his inheritance which had been seized in the meantime by his
second cousin, Pelias.
He has come home, he tells Pelias, to seek his father’s ancient honour
which Zeus had of old bestowed on his great-grandfather Aiolos and his
sons. It is not for them now, being of the same stock (ὁμόγονοι), to
divide the great honour of their forefathers with sword and javelin. He
will give up all the sheep and herds of kine, and all the fields of late
robbed from his sires, though they make fat beyond measure the house of
Pelias (τεὸν οἶκον πορσύνοντ᾽ ἄγαν). But the kingly sceptre and throne of
his father must be his without wrath between them. And Zeus, the ancestral
god of them both (Ζεὺς ὁ γενέθλιος ἀμφοτέροις), is witness to their
oath.(276)
(M127) Property in land could also be accumulated in the hands of
individuals not necessarily of princely station. Odysseus tells a tale of
how he took a wife of “men with many κλῆροι” (πολυκλήρων ἀνθρώπων) by
reason of his valour.(277) The κλῆρος must therefore at that time have
been at any rate roughly of some recognised area. Perhaps the tendency, so
fatal to Sparta, for the possession of the original shares or allotments
of many families to accumulate in the hands of the powerful or rich, had
already set in. In later colonisations and assignments of new land the
κλῆροι were often equally divided,(278) and the gift of citizenship, as
has been already mentioned, was sometimes accompanied by a grant of a
_half-kleros_ (ἡμικλήριον). Did the κλῆρος then represent in theory an
area of cultivated ground capable of sustaining a single household?
§ 5. Early Evidence _continued_: The Κλῆρος And The Maintenance Of The
οἶκος.
(M128) There are signs in Homer of the existence, already insisted upon
for later times, of the connection of the ownership of property with the
headship of a household. It follows that if the head of a family was the
only owner of land, the desire of establishing a family and thereby
preserving at the same time the acquired property and the name of the
possessor, made the acquisition of a wife a real necessity for the owner
of land.
Eumaios, the swineherd, says that Odysseus would have given him a property
(κτῆσις), both an οἶκος and a κλῆρος and a shapely wife.(279) And Odysseus
in one of his many autobiographies speaks of taking a wife as if it were
the necessary sequel to coming into his inheritance.(280)
Even Hesiod, the son of a poor settler, without much property to keep
together, if we can take Aristotle’s reading of the line, gives the
necessary outfit for a peasant farmer in occupation of a small κλῆρος, as
a house, a wife, and a plough-ox.(281)
Aristotle quotes this line of Hesiod, in his argument that the οἶκος was
the association formed to supply the wants of each day,(282) its members
being called by Charondas, he says, ὁμοσίπυοι (sharers in the mealbin),
and by Epimenides the Cretan ὁμόκαποι (sharers of the same plot of
ground).(283) And he might have added that Pindar uses the word ὁμόκλαροι
to mean “twins.”(284)
(M129) A household, according to Aristotle, consisted thus partly of human
beings, partly of property.(285)
So closely is the idea of livelihood bound up that of the house or οἶκος,
that Telemachos can say without incongruity that his house is being
_eaten_ by the wooers:—
ἐσθίεταί μοι οἶκος, ὄλωλε δὲ πίονα ἔργα.(286)
The sanctity shared by the hearth and its sustenance may be illustrated by
Odysseus’ oath, which occurs three times in the _Odyssey_: “Now be Zeus my
witness before any god, and the hospitable board and the hearth of
blameless Odysseus whereunto I am come.”(287)
(M130) When once the hospitable board had laid its mysterious spell on the
relations of host and guest, the bond was not easily dissolved. Glaukos
and Diomedes meet “in the mid-space of the foes eager to do battle,”
fighting on opposite sides. Nevertheless because the grandfather of one
had entertained the grandfather of the other for twenty days and they had
parted with gifts of friendship, their grandsons refrain from battle with
each other, pledge their faith, and exchange armour as a witness to others
that they are guest-friends by inheritance (ὄφρα καὶ οἵδε γνῶσιν, ὅτι
ξεῖνοι πατρώιοι εὐχόμεθ᾽ εἶναι).(288)
If such force lay in the entertainment of a guest for a few days, some
idea can be formed of the virtue underlying the meaning of such words as
ὁμοσίπυοι and ὁμόκαποι, and binding together those habitually nourished at
the same board.
(M131) If sons married during their father’s lifetime without any
particular means of livelihood, they could live under his roof and
authority, forming a great patriarchal household like that of Priam and
his married sons and daughters at Troy. But when a household dispersed
before the marriage of the sons and the inheritance was divided amongst
them, it was deemed indispensable for them to take wives, and each provide
for the establishment of his house and succession. This necessity is the
underlying motive of the compulsion over the only daughter left as
ἐπίκληρος to marry before a certain age, exercised by the Archon at
Athens. There the idea of the need of a continuous family (as well as for
other purposes), to keep together the property, had grown up apparently as
a reflection, so to speak, of the obvious importance of the property to
the family for the maintenance of itself and its ancestral rites.
Though evidence is wanting for the _raison d’être_ of this sentiment in
Homer, the existence of the feeling can hardly be denied.
The κλῆρος, at any rate, continued to pass from father to son in the
family of the tribesman or citizen. Hector encourages his soldiers by
reminding them that though they themselves fall in the fight, their
children, their house (οἶκος), and their κλῆρος will be unharmed, provided
only that the enemy are driven back.(289)
The sentiment that a man was not really “established,” according to the
estimation of the Homeric Greeks, until the continuity of his house was
provided for, seems to explain the two references to Telemachos in the
_Iliad_. Odysseus is twice mentioned, as Mr. Leaf points out in his
_Companion to the Iliad_,(290) as the father of Telemachos, simply because
it was considered a title of honour to be named as sire of an established
house. No other mention of Telemachos occurs in the _Iliad_.
Failure of heirs was, as in later times, the great disintegrating factor
and danger to the continuity of the family holdings. As long as a direct
descendant was to be found, the property was safe.
Eurykleia comforts Penelope in her fear for the absent Telemachos,
saying:—
“For the seed of the son of Arkeisios is not, methinks, utterly
hated by the blessed gods, but someone will haply yet remain to
possess these lofty halls and the _fat fields_ far away.”(291)
Is it by accident that she here chooses the name of Arkeisios to describe
the head of the family of Laertes and Odysseus? He was Laertes’ father,
and in Telemachos, if he was preserved alive, he would thus have a
_great-grandson_ to represent his line in the succession to his property.
(M132) The diversion of inheritance to any property from the direct line
is spoken of in Homer as a lamentable circumstance greatly intensifying
the natural grief at the death of the direct heir.
“Then went he after Nanthos and Thoon, sons of Phainops,
striplings both; but their father was outworn of grievous age, and
begat no other son for his possessions after him. Then Diomedes
slew them and bereft the twain of their dear life, and for their
father left only lamentation and sore distress, seeing he welcomed
them not alive returned from battle: _and kinsmen divided his
substance_ (κτῆσις).”(292)
In the tumultuous times of the _Odyssey_ the right of succession must
often have been interrupted by war and violence. Possessions, not only of
land, had to be defended by the sword even during the lifetime of the
acquirer. This prompts one of the wishes of Odysseus in his prayer at the
knees of Arete:—
“And may each one leave to his children after him his possessions
in his halls and whatever dues of honour the people have rendered
unto him.”(293)
The same anxiety prompts his question to his mother in Hades, to which he
obtains answer:—
“The fair honour (γέρας) that is thine no man hath yet taken, but
Telemachos holdeth in safety (thy) demesnes (τεμένεα
νέμεται).”(294)
(M133) The belief in the inseparability of the ancestral holding and the
family was strong in Samaria at the time of Ahab. The King offered Naboth
another vineyard better than his own in exchange for the one at Jezreel
near the palace, or, should he prefer it, its worth in money. But Naboth
said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid it me, that I should give _the inheritance
of my fathers_ unto thee.”(295)
Both the Hebrew narrators and the Greek translators describe Ahab finally
as taking the vineyard at Naboth’s death _by inheritance_ (LXX.
κληρονομεῖν), in spite of the violence of the means of acquiring it
adopted by Jezebel.
The limited right of the prince to alienate from his family any part of
his possessions is thus alluded to by Ezekiel:—
“Thus saith the Lord God; If the prince give a gift unto any of
his sons, the inheritance thereof shall be his sons’; it shall be
their possession by inheritance. But if he give a gift of his
inheritance to one of his servants, then it shall be his to the
year of liberty: after it shall return to the prince: but his
inheritance shall be his sons’ for them.”(296)
§ 6. Early Evidence _continued_: The Τέμενος And The Maintenance Of The
Chieftain.
(M134) It must be borne in mind that the tribal idea of the chieftainship
sanctioned the custom that the maintenance of the chieftain and his
companions or retainers should be levied at will upon the property of the
people. This privilege is very wide spread, and had its origin in the
earliest times.
The levies were claimed under the name of _gifts_, and earned for the
princes the title of δωροφάγοι. As Telemachos declares, “it is no bad
thing to be a βασιλεύς, and quickly does his house become rich and he
himself most honoured.”(297)
The royal family and nobles(298) levied contributions on their own or
conquered peoples apparently at will in Homer. Agamemnon calls together
the Greek chiefs:—
“Ye leaders and counsellors of the Argives ... who drink at the
public cost (δήμια πίνουσιν) and each command an host (σημαίνουσιν
ἕκαστος λαοῖς).”(299)
Priam chides his sons:—
“Ye plunderers of your own people’s sheep and kids (ἀρνῶν ἠδ᾽
ἐρίφων ἐπιδήμιοι ἁρπακτῆρες).”(300)
Telemachos declares that if the wooers eat up all his sheep and substance,
he will go through the city (κατὰ ἅστυ) claiming chattels until all be
restored.(301)
Alkinoos proposes to give gifts to Odysseus, and they themselves going
amongst the people (ἀγειρόμενοι κατὰ δῆμον) will recompense themselves:
“for hard it were for one man to give without return.”(302)
“Then I led him to the house,” says Odysseus, “and gave him good
entertainment ... out of the plenty in my house, and for the rest
of his company ... I gathered and gave barley meal and dark wine
from the people (δημόθεν) and oxen to sacrifice to his heart’s
desire.”(303)
(M135) These passages throw light on Agamemnon’s offer to Achilles of
seven well-peopled towns, whose inhabitants would enrich him with
plenteous gifts.(304) The proposal of Menelaos to empty a city _of Argos,_
to accommodate Odysseus and his people, seems to be of quite a different
order, and betrays to us that the tyranny of the tribal chieftain, so
conspicuous in other nations, was no less a reality also amongst the
Greeks under Achaian rule.(305)
(M136) In the Indian society that was regulated in accordance with the
_Ordinances of Manu_, the king appointed a chief of a town whose duty it
was to report to the higher officials on any “evil arising in the town.”
He likewise represented the king, and had the king’s right to receive
supplies from those under his oversight.
“What food, drink, (and) fuel are to be _daily_ given by the
inhabitants of a town to the king let the head of a town
take,”(306)
the line always being drawn between legitimate demands and tyrannical
extortion.
“For those servants appointed by the king for protection (are)
mostly takers of the property of others (and) cheats; from them he
(_i.e._ the king) should protect these people.”(307)
(M137) Under the rule of the Persians, all Asia was parcelled out in such
a way as to supply maintenance (τροφή) for the Great King and his host
throughout the whole year.(308) The satrap of Assyria kept at one time so
great a number of Indian hounds, that four large villages of the plain
were exempted from all other charges on condition of finding them
food.(309)
(M138) Solomon’s table was provided after the same method.
“And Solomon had twelve officers over all Israel which provided
victuals for the king and his household; each man his month in a
year made provision.... And Solomon’s provision for one day was
thirty measures of fine flour and threescore measures of meal, ten
fat oxen and twenty oxen out of the pastures and an hundred sheep,
beside harts, and roebucks, and fallowdeer, and fatted fowl....
And Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river unto the land
of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt; they brought
presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life.... And
those officers provided victual for king Solomon, and for all that
came unto king Solomon’s table, every man according to his
charge.”(310)
(M139) Sesostris is said to have obtained his revenue from the holders of
κλῆροι in Egypt in proportion to the amount of land in each man’s
occupation;(311) and Pharaoh, having bought all the land at the time of
the famine in Egypt except that which supported the priests, took
one-fifth of all the produce, leaving the remainder “for seed of the
field,” and for the food of the cultivators, and their households and
little ones. “And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this
day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part, except the land of the
priests only, which became not Pharaoh’s.”(312)
In this case Pharaoh became proprietor by purchase of the land in Egypt.
But it must not be supposed that by exacting a payment from the occupier,
the overlord as a rule had any power over the ownership of the soil. He no
doubt had proprietary rights over his own estate, and may or may not have
had power to regulate any further distribution of the waste. But the right
of receiving dues, or of appointing another to receive them, gave him no
power over the actual tillage of the soil.
(M140) The maintenance of the prince was a first charge apparently upon
the property of his subjects; and it is easy to see how the lion’s share
would always be allotted to him, alike of booty as of acquired territory.
As long as the community was pastoral, it is also easy to imagine how the
chief both increased his own wealth and admitted favoured companions or
resident strangers to a share in the elastic area of the common pasturage.
After agriculture had assumed equal importance in the economy of the tribe
as the tending of flocks and herds, one is apt to forget that for
centuries—perhaps for thousands of years—the system of agriculture that
grew up, still possessed much of the elasticity of the old pastoral
methods. Under the open field system, such a custom as that described by
Tacitus and in the Welsh Laws, viz. of ploughing up out of the pasture or
waste sufficient to admit of each tribesman having his due allotment, and
letting it lie waste again the next year, admitted of considerable
readjustment to meet the exigencies of declining population, as well as
providing an easy means whereby any stranger prince, like Bellerophon, who
might be admitted to the tribe, could be allotted either a τέμενος apart,
or a κλῆρος in the open plain.
Pindar describes this method of cultivation when he says:—
“Fruitful fields in turn now yield to man his yearly bread upon
the plains, and now again they pause and gather back their
strength.”(313)
(M141) It is noticeable that the Aetolians offered Meleagros a τέμενος in
the fattest part of the plain, wherever he might choose, as a _gift_
(δῶρον); and as the τέμενος would certainly be cultivated by slave or
hired labour, what they really gave him was the right of receiving the
produce from the 50 _guai_ composing the τέμενος. But this gift was meant
as a special honour or bribe, and took a special form in being in land as
a means of permanent enrichment.
In similar wise Ezekiel suggested the capitalisation, as it were, by a
gift of land of the contributions to the princes, which no doubt were felt
to be very irksome. In the division of the land, a portion was to be set
aside first for the use of the temple and priests, then a portion for the
prince.
“In the land shall be his possession in Israel, and my princes
shall no more oppress my people; and the rest of the land shall
they give to the house of Israel according to their tribes. Thus
saith the Lord God, Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel;
remove violence and spoil and execute judgment and justice, and
take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord God.”(314)
And again:—
“Moreover the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by
oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall
give his sons inheritance out of his own possession; that my
people be not scattered every man from his possession.”(315)
But there can be no doubt, that although the prince may have had no power
to dislodge any of the free tribesmen of his own people from their
holdings, yet no one could gainsay him if he chose to enrich himself by
planting or reclaiming any part of his domains, as Laertes is represented
as having done.(316)
(M142) The modern usage in Boeotia and in the island of Euboea may very
well represent the procedure of ancient times, and if it can be imagined
that some method of the same sort was in vogue in Boeotia in the time of
Hesiod, it will be understood how possible it was for Hesiod’s father to
settle at Askra and gradually to acquire possession of a house and κλῆρος.
“There is some cultivation from Plataea to Thebes, but strangely
alternating with wilderness. We were told that the people have
plenty of spare land, and not caring to labour for its artificial
improvement, till a piece of ground once, and then let it lie
fallow for a season or two. The natural richness of the Boeotian
soil thus supplies them with ample crops. But it is strange to
think how impossible it is, even in these rich and favoured
plains, to induce a fuller population.”(317)
At Achmetaga, in Euboea,
“The folk pay for their houses a nominal rental of a bushel of
wheat per annum, in order to secure the owner’s proprietary claim,
which would otherwise pass to the occupier by squatter’s right
after thirty years of unmolested occupation. They are at liberty
to cultivate pretty well as much land as they care to, paying to
the landlord one-third in kind.... The produce here is almost
exclusively wheat or maize, but every family maintains a plot of
vineyard for home consumption.”(318)
(M143) Whether the free tribesman ever looked upon the contribution he
made to the maintenance of the princes, under whose protection he had the
privilege of living, as a condition of tenure of his land, is open to
doubt; but from the right to demand indiscriminate gifts, to confiscate or
eject in case of refusal, it is only one step to the exaction of a regular
food-rent as a return for the occupation of land.
§ 7. Summary Of The Early Evidence.
It may be useful here briefly to summarise the results of the inquiry of
the last three sections into the relation of the ownership of land to the
structure of society in Homer and in early times.
(M144) the princes had their compact estates divided off from the other
land of the community, so that a passer-by could point and say, “There is
the king’s τέμενος.”(319) The ordinary tribesman on the other hand had a
share in the common fields under cultivation, probably consisting of a
number of scattered pieces of land lying mixed up with those of others,
and therefore only referred to on the face of the land, under the
comprehensive terms ἀγροὶ καὶ ἔργα ἀνθρώπων.(320)
This share of the tribesman was, as in later times, called a κλῆρος, it
being possible for a man to enjoy several such holdings and deserve the
epithet πολύκληρος, whilst the lowest class of freemen consisted of those
who possessed no land, under the ignominious title of ἄκληρος.
(M145) The κλῆρος, descending from father to son, was apparently connected
with the οἶκος or household, and supplied its maintenance. The οἶκος grew
fat or was consumed in accordance with the capacity of its head, and its
continuity was regarded as a matter of the utmost importance. Its members
were bound together at their ancestral hearth by mutual ties of common
maintenance. The sanctity of thus sharing the same loaf extended also to
guests, whose relations to their hosts might last for several generations.
It is the necessity of supplying the οἶκος and its dependents with the
means of sustenance and hospitality among a pastoral people gradually
adapting themselves to agriculture, that regulates the tenure of land and
the duties of the householder.
(M146) The power of the chieftain to draw upon the resources of his people
for the entertainment of his household and his guests by exactions payable
in kind, supplemented by the power he also seems to have possessed to
transfer at will the right of receiving these “gifts” to any one he chose,
seems to contain the germs of the more complicated system of food-rents as
a condition of land tenure, which is so important a feature of the Celtic
tribal arrangements.
(M147) Inasmuch as the prince was a member of the tribe, he was entitled
to an allotment in the land under cultivation, the very word κλῆρος
implying the equal right of all members of the tribe to a share in the
soil. But inasmuch as the prince possessed blood royal and claimed his
descent from the very gods that the tribesmen worshipped, his dignity was
above partaking with his tribesmen of a κλῆρος in the common fields. He
was therefore allotted a τέμενος apart, and worthy of his divine
parentage. Besides the bare single allotment of the τέμενος, land was set
apart for him as a gift of honour by the people, from whom honour and
gifts to their prince were due. Gifts in land formed a special mark of
honour, and may at the same time have served another purpose from the
giver’s point of view by way of a permanent source of income or endowment,
as it were, whereby the continuous exactions towards the maintenance of
the prince from the lands of the people might tend to be alleviated. Thus
much of power over the property of his inferiors he undoubtedly retained,
and he probably cultivated what he liked of the outlying lands under his
sway.
(M148) But the evidence does not show that he ever had the right of coming
between the οἶκος of his tribesmen and their κλῆρος: the only means at his
disposal of severing the link between the family and the land, were those
employed by Ahab and Jezebel to acquire the “inheritance” of the ancestral
vineyard of Naboth at Jezreel.
§ 8. Hesiod And His Κλήρος.
In the time of Hesiod, the κλῆρος(321) could be sold in case of need and
added to the possession of another.
(M149) But the case of Hesiod is in itself somewhat exceptional. His
father had fled from his own country by stress of poverty, and settled on
the barren land of Askra in Boeotia, where he was allowed to acquire some
land.(322) He was therefore somewhat of a sojourner (the μετανάστης of
Homer),(323) and, true to the Homeric doctrine, was unencumbered by the
claims of kindred. Hesiod contrasts the ready help of the neighbour with
the perfunctory slowness of the kinsman, duty-bound. The neighbour, he
says, is prompted by the need of mutual protection of material property,
the kinsman stays to bind on his sandals and gird his loins for the labour
he is forbidden to shirk.(324)
Hesiod and his brother Perses had divided the κλῆρος of their father into
two, and lived apart. Perses had squandered his half, and spent his time
and his livelihood in the gay life of the town, but none the less seems to
have expected to be allowed to draw still further on the resources of the
paternal property, to the distress of his industrious brother.
Hesiod does not contemplate any possible means of making a living other
than by tilling the soil; and his quaint ideas may be taken as typical of
the small Boeotian peasant-farmer, allowance being made for the short time
that his family had held land at Askra.
§ 9. Survivals Of Family Land In Later Times.
(M150) In later Greek writers it is several times stated that the κλῆροι
or ἀρχαῖαι μοῖραι were inalienable. Yet all remark to what a deplorable
extent the alienation and accumulation of land into few hands had been
carried. Aristotle comments on the excellence of the ancient law, at one
time prevalent in many cities, against the sale of the original κλῆροι,
and the good purpose therein of making every one cultivate his own
moderate-sized holding.(325)
Innumerable passages could be quoted from the speeches of Isaeus,
referring to the law that forbade any one to alienate by will his landed
estate from his lawful sons. Plato warns his friends that buying and
selling is desecration to the god-given κλῆρος.(326)
“Now I, as the legislator, regard you and your possessions, not as
belonging to yourselves, but as belonging to your whole family,
both past and present.”(327)
Plutarch and Heraclides say that the same law against the sale of the
κλῆρος existed anciently at Sparta.
(M151) Plutarch’s evidence, late as it is, of the ancient customs among
the Spartans is worthy of further consideration.
In his _Life of Agis_ he states that the κλῆρος passed in succession from
father to son—ἐν διαδοχαῖς πατρὸς παιδὶ τὸν κλῆρον ἀπολείποντος—until the
Peloponnesian war.
In his _Life of Lycurgus_ he says that—
“When a child was born, the father was not entitled to maintain it
(τρέφειν), but he took and carried it to a place called ‘lesche,’
where the _elders of his tribesmen_ were sitting, who, if they
found the child pretty well grown and healthy, ordered its
maintenance (τρέφειν), allotting to it one of the 9,000 kleroi
(κλήρων αὐτῷ τῶν ἐνακισχιλίων προσνείμαντες).”(328)
Elsewhere in Greece at the introduction of the new-born child to the
relations and friends a few days after its birth, symbolical gifts of food
were made as the child was carried round the hearth.(329)
(M152) The important part of this ceremony at Sparta, described by
Plutarch, seems to be the introduction of the infant to the elders of the
tribe, and the recognition by them of its right to maintenance, if it
appeared to them physically worthy of admission to the tribe. It cannot be
supposed that Plutarch believed that vacant κλῆροι escheated, so to speak,
to the community, because he elsewhere describes the lamentable tendency
of estates to get into few hands, which the community would in that case
surely have been able somewhat to prevent. Nor is it likely that a κλῆρος
was actually set apart for the maintenance of each infant, who was
apparently still nourished in its father’s house until seven years old,
when its education and occupations were regulated by the State.
Reading this passage with the other in the _Life of Agis_, a natural
inference is, that the child’s right to succeed to the property of his
father only was thereby assured to him by the elders, _i.e._ the right on
his attaining manhood to enjoy the possession of land. This is the view
taken by M. de Coulanges;(330) but surely there is more underlying the
account of the ceremony. What actually took place with regard to the
allotment of a κλῆρος to the infant member of the tribe, cannot be decided
here. The State at Sparta undertook to educate all her sons after a
certain age, and gave the parent no further rights over the child. Is
there in this ceremony a transfer of the claim for maintenance from
against the head of the household to the larger unit represented by the
elders of the tribe, irrespective of the inheritance of the son from his
father?
It would be necessary for the adult Spartan citizen, of the class of
ὁμοιοι at any rate, to have a right to the produce of some land, as
otherwise it is difficult to see how he could contribute the necessary
provisions that formed his share of maintenance at the joint table of his
_syssition_; unless indeed he drew his allowance from his father’s estate.
(M153) In any case the idea of the dependence of a member of the tribe for
sustenance upon his right to a κλῆρος is striking; and at the same time
the evidence goes to show that his maintenance was a claim upon a group of
kinsmen at Sparta, comprising more than the nearest relations, and was
recognised as such by them.
(M154) The link that bound the cultivators to their land was so strong in
early times at Athens, that mortgages could apparently not be paid off by
mere transfer of the land itself; but the whole family of the debtor went
with their mortgaged property and became enslaved to the creditor, having
in future to work the land for him at a fixed charge.
This was the state of affairs that Solon set himself to mend, and it is
instructive that the method, he seems to have chosen, was to loosen the
tie between the owner and his land, and, by facilitating the transfer of
land from one to another, to obviate the necessity of taking the debtor’s
person with his family into slavery on account of the debt.(331)
Nevertheless, in spite of the radical legislation of Solon, the sentiment
that bound the family to the soil remained long after his time.
(M155) Besides the prohibition to sell the family land which Aristotle
speaks of as prevailing in Lokris, the Hypoknemidian Lokrians insisted on
actual residence on that land in the case of their colony at Naupaktos.
Though unable apparently wholly to forbid the participation of the
colonists in the ancestral rites of their kin in Lokris, they took
advantage of the prevailing sentiment with regard to the permanence of the
family, and insisted that the continuance of the hearth of the colonist at
Naupaktos should at any rate be considered of equal importance.
According to an inscription of the fifth century B.C.:—
“The colonist has the right to return to Lokris and sacrifice with
his γένος both in the rites of his δᾶμος and his φοίνανοι for
ever. He can only return permanently without paying the
re-establishment tax if he has left ἐν τᾷ ἱστίᾳ at Naupaktos a
grown-up son or a brother. If a γένος of the colonists is left
without a representative (ἐχέπαμον) ἐν τᾷ ἱστίᾳ, the nearest of
kin (ἐπάγχιστος) in Lokris shall take the property, provided he go
himself, be he man or boy, within three months to Naupaktos. A
colonist can inherit his share of his Lokrian father’s or
brother’s property....”
“If a magistrate deals unfairly and refuses justice, he shall be
ἄτιμος and shall lose his μέρος μετὰ οἰκιατᾶν.”(332)
(M156) Though the sale of estates could be effected at Athens in the
fourth century B.C., yet, when the owner died without having sold, the
succession was regulated by the ancient custom. If there were legitimate
children, the inheritance to the land could not be diverted from them,
even by will;(333) provided only that the children had gone through the
ceremony of being accepted and enrolled by the phratria. If the descendant
had neglected this formality, and had failed to be recognised as a legal
member of the kindred or clan, he or she lost all rights to the property,
which went to the devisee or next of kin.(334) The right to possess land
was thus at Athens, as at Sparta, intimately connected with the tribal
organisation; and the claim for maintenance from the paternal estate could
only lie, after full acknowledgment of the necessary qualification had
been granted by the larger unit of relationship.
§ 10. The Idea Of Family Land Applied Also To Leasehold And Semi-Servile
Tenure.
(M157) Attention has been drawn to the reciprocal relations that existed
between the family and its land, and their inseparability in the minds and
phraseology of the Greeks at different times. There is a further
development however arising from this point of view, without some notice
of which the subject of the tenure of the κλῆρος would be incomplete, and
which serves to confirm the method with which this subject has been
treated.
Though alike in their estimation of the possession of land as a means of
livelihood and for the accumulation of wealth, the Greeks had very
different views with respect to the place of agriculture as a worthy
occupation for a citizen. Sparta regarded it as entirely beneath the
dignity of her sons and forbade their personal application to the
cultivation of their κλῆροι. There was at Athens, on the other hand, a
large class of citizens whose energies were entirely devoted to the
production of fruits of the earth, whilst the life of a country gentleman,
combined with that of the farmer, was by no means despicable in their
eyes.
(M158) There were mainly two methods of enjoying the possession of a
landed estate. Either the land was cultivated by the owner himself with
the help of bought slaves or hired servants, few or many, as described in
Hesiod and the _Oeconomics_ of Xenophon;(335) or the owner resided in the
city or a neighbouring town, and the land was tilled by aliens or serfs
(called sometimes κλαρῶται), like the Helots of Sparta, who paid an annual
contribution from the produce to their landlord. The serf was often
attached hereditarily to the soil in the sense of being unable to give up
his holding, but also had certain rights as against his master, both in
the matter of his own possessions and in that he could not be sold out of
the country.(336)
(M159) There is a passage in the Gortyn Laws that states:—that if there
are no rightful successors to inherit the property of a deceased
Gortynian, his household’s κλῆρος, _i.e._ the persons composing it, shall
inherit his property. That is to say, if a Gortynian family died out and
no legal representative could be found, their proprietary rights were
extinguished and the κλαρῶται who lived upon the land took all their
property. This provision favours the idea that at Gortyn also the
citizen-population came of a race of conquerors, who were not exactly
looked upon as ground landlords upon whose land a subject family was
settled or had been allowed to remain, but that, whilst the relation of
the κλαρῶται to their land was of the closest if not an absolute bondage
to the soil, the proprietary rights of their superiors and masters
consisted of the conqueror’s overlordship and the power to derive their
maintenance from the joint produce of their serfs’ labour and the
land.(337)
This comprehensive use of the word κλῆρος, as meaning both the allotment
of land and the family who were bound to occupy it, whose labour also
created its value to its lord and master, is quite consistent with the use
of the word in reference to the holdings of the Spartan citizens. The
allotment of a κλῆρος at Sparta evidently meant also a transference of
rights over the Helots that worked it; and even if this further
implication was not actually included in the meaning of the word, it was
so inseparable in thought that no explanation was necessary of the
composite significance of the allotment.
(M160) The Athenians in their κληρουχίαι seem instinctively to have
combined these two methods of agriculture. The κληροῦχοι were not
colonists, who became citizens of a new city, but they remained citizens
of Athens, holding however their κλῆροι in a remote district. But the
chief feature of this method of landholding was that the owner, though
remaining a citizen of Athens and liable to the same claims from the
mother city in respect of military service, &c, as before, was yet
supposed to reside in the neighbourhood of his new κλῆρος. This was the
case, even when the land itself was left in the hands of the conquered
population at a fixed annual charge.
(M161) An inscription found on the Acropolis of Athens, and relating to
some date about 560 or 570 B.C., defines the legal status of the first
κληροῦχοι sent to Salamis. They were assimilated to Athenian citizens as
to taxes and military service; but they must reside on their land under
pain of an absentee’s tax to the State.(338)
(M162) In the year 427 B.C. the Athenians conquered the island of Lesbos.
They imposed no tribute on the subjugated islanders, but, making the land
into three thousand κλῆροι “except the Methymnian land,” they first set
apart three hundred κλῆροι as sacred to the gods, and on to the others
they sent off κληροῦχοι chosen by lot from themselves; to these the
Lesbians paid annually for each κλῆροι two minae, and _themselves worked
the land_.(339)
According to the account of Aelian, the same method of procedure was
adopted after the conquest of Euboea in about 510 B.C. The Athenians,
having conquered the Chalkidians, apportioned their land to κληροῦχοι(340)
in two thousand κλῆροι, _i.e._ the country called Hippobotos; and, setting
aside τεμένη to Athena in the place called Lelantos, they let out(341) the
rest according to the pillars that stand in the King’s Stoa, which thus
bear record of the leases.(342)
(M163) The holding of each κληροῦχος may have varied in size according to
the character of the soil and features of the country; but it may safely
be asserted that it must have been of sufficient dimensions, not only to
provide subsistence for the native population left on the soil, but also
to pay a considerable portion towards the keep of the κληροῦχος himself,
during his enforced residence in the conquered country.
The class of citizen from amongst whom the κληροῦχοι were chosen by lot,
did not consist of families with much property in Athens.(343) Younger
sons without occupation, whom their fathers had not been quite callous
enough to “expose” in infancy,(344) and restless individuals without
property in the mother country, would be most likely to offer themselves.
And to such the two minae per annum, paid by the Lesbians from the produce
of each κλῆρος, would appear a reasonable if not a sumptuous provision of
livelihood. There were a hundred drachmae in the mina, and if it is true,
as asserted by Plutarch,(345) that in the time of Solon one drachma was
the price of a sheep, a yearly income of two hundred sheep, or their
equivalent, would be forthcoming to each κληροῦχος—surely a considerable
contribution to the maintenance of his family.(346)
Under these circumstances each κλῆρος served to provide maintenance for
two households—both of whom had hereditary rights therein, though
themselves in different strata of society. Both households also were in a
sort attached to the soil, the one in practical bondage, the other bound
by law to reside in the country wherein lay its substance, and (if we may
use the common expression of the Welsh Laws) its privilege.
(M164) This double and continuous ownership was not confined to the
semi-servile tenure of lands annexed by Athenian conquests.
Leases to be handed down from father to son _for ever_—τὸν πάντα
χρόνον—subject of course to the regular payment of the rent, seem to have
been quite usual.
What is said to be the oldest Greek contract we have, is of this
nature.(347) It was found in Elis at Olympia, and runs as follows:—
“Contract with Theron and Aichmanor with regard to the land in
Salamona of eighteen plethra. Rent, twenty-two manasioi of barley
in the month Alphioios; if he omits, let them pay double. _They
shall hold for ever._”(348)
There is an instance of a proprietor of land at Mylasa, in Karia,
deliberately selling his estates to a sacred community for the benefit of
the god, and receiving them again (like the Roman _precaria_) from the
trustees on perpetual lease—εἰς πατρικά—as the patrimonial substance of
his family, for himself and his issue or whosoever should take inheritance
from him. He thus obtained a money value down in return for his property,
but bound himself and his descendants to an annual rent of so many
drachmae, to form part of the revenues of the god. Moreover his
“family-land” in this case was apparently more inalienable now than
before; for he might neither divide the land henceforth, nor share the
responsibility for the rent with another.(349)
(M165) Do not these instances show that even leases were included in the
same category with actual ownership of land, being embraced within the
characteristic idea that the land that contributed to the maintenance of
the family and had come to be regarded almost as giving that family its
social if not its political status, should descend unintermittently from
generation to generation in that family, though its occupation was subject
to providing support likewise to a superior owner and his family, whose
descendants in their turn also would demand their share in the produce?
Is the conclusion justified that the basis of this indomitable feeling was
that the peculiar view of the family, as consisting of a long line of past
and future representatives, precluded the individual, who happened to be
the living representative at any given time, from taking an irresponsible
position as absolute master of the property, upon which his family had
been, was, and would be dependent?