_M. Viollet’s theory as to community of land amongst the Greeks._
M. Viollet is a disciple of Maurer who copies and exaggerates his
master. The system that Maurer was able with some show of probability
to build up in relation to the Germanic peoples, M. Viollet supposes he
can extend to all nations ancient or modern. What is quite fresh in his
writings and exclusively his own, is, that he attributes to the ancient
Greeks a system of community in land which the most profound students
of Greek history had, up to this time, failed to discover. We must not
suppose that in laying down such a proposition, he is speaking of some
primitive age when the Greeks may be supposed to have been ignorant
of agriculture, and consequently of landed property. He is speaking
of the times when the Greeks were agriculturists, when they lived in
organised societies; he is speaking of Greek cities; and he declares
that the soil was for a long time cultivated by the city in common,
without its occurring to the family or the individual to appropriate
it. All the land, according to him, for a long time belonged not to
the individual, not to the family, but to the city.[198]
He states that “his theory is supported by authorities of considerable
weight” (p. 463); and he refers to eleven passages taken from Plato,
Virgil, Justin, Tibullus, Diodorus on the Lipari Isles, Diogenes
Laertius on Pythagoras, Aristotle on the town of Tarentum, Athenæus on
Spartan meals, Diodorus on the “klêrouchia,” and lastly, Theophrastus
on the sale of real property. Let us look at the originals. Let us see
at any rate whether M. Viollet’s references are altogether exact.
1. The first author quoted is Plato, “who still saw here and there
the vestiges of primitive community,” and M. Viollet tells us that he
finds this in the Laws of Plato (Book III.). I turn to the passage
mentioned, and this is what I find: “In very early times men lived
in a pastoral state, supporting themselves by their herds of cattle
and by hunting. At that time they had no laws. As to government, they
knew no other than the δυναστεία, the authority, that is, of the
master over his family and slaves. Like the Cyclops of Homer, they had
neither public assemblies nor justice; they lived in caverns; and each
ruled over his wife and children without troubling himself about his
neighbours.” This is what Plato says, describing from imagination a
primitive savage state. It must be some strange illusion which makes
M. Viollet suppose that this passage describes men as cultivating the
land in common. Plato says that they did not cultivate it at all. Where
does he see that the land belonged to the people? Plato says that at
this time there did not even exist a people. Where does he see that
men were associated for purposes of cultivation? Plato says that each
family lived apart, “without troubling itself about its neighbours.”
M. Viollet then has taken this passage in precisely the opposite sense
to the right one. Go through all the writings of the philosopher and
you will find that he has nowhere said “that in his time he still saw
the ruins of a primitive community.” Plato has, it is true, endowed his
ideal city with a particular system of community in land; but he never
says that it was practised in any actually existing city. Our first
authority, then, is proved to have been misrepresented.
2. M. Viollet next refers to Virgil, who, in the Georgics (i. 125),
describes a time “when the soil was neither divided nor marked out by
boundaries, and when everything was common.” This at first sight seems
convincing. The poet’s verse is correctly quoted.[199] But observe
the context. The whole passage is an imaginary description of a time
when men did not cultivate the soil: _Ante Jovem nulli subigebant arva
coloni.... Ipsa tellus omnia liberius, nullo poscente, ferebat_. So
long as men did not cultivate the ground, there could be no question of
dividing it among them as private property. Virgil goes on to say that
afterwards man learnt to till the ground, _ut sulcis frumenti quæreret
herbam_; but he no longer says that everything was in common. It
appears, then, that if M. Viollet had given it a little more attention,
he would have dispensed with the use of this passage; for it describes
savage life and has no connection at all with community of land in the
agricultural state. What can the golden age, whether it existed or not,
prove concerning the social life of Greek cities?
3. Next comes a quotation from Justin out of Trogus Pompeius. This
Gaul, trying to describe the remotest ages of Italy, says that there
was a time “when slavery and private property were unknown, and
everything was undivided.” The quotation is correct; but what is the
time referred to? The age before Jupiter, _ante Jovem_. This is as much
as to say, the golden age, or, if you prefer it, the savage state.
4. It is the same with the quotation from Tibullus; it applies “to
the time of King Saturn,” that is, to the præ-agricultural age, the
golden age of the imagination. If M. Viollet wished to prove that
in the golden age private property did not exist, he has succeeded
pretty well. But what has this to do with the Greek cities? M. Viollet
supposes that legends of this kind represent traditions of an earlier
state. This is exceedingly doubtful; and in any case they would be
traditions of a time when agriculture was unknown, and when there were
neither organised nations nor cities. If there were long ages when
mankind did not know how to till the ground, what does that prove in
relation to the time when they did cultivate it? We must not lose sight
of the proposition our author wishes to establish; it is that men, even
after they had entered into city life, cultivated the soil in common
instead of appropriating it individually. There is a certain want of
caution in thinking that you can prove a system of common cultivation
from legends which show the absence of all cultivation.
5. M. Viollet at last comes down to historical times and quotes a
passage from Diodorus Siculus. Let us first give his translation as if
it were scrupulously exact: “Certain Cnidians and Rhodians colonised
the Lipari Isles. As they had much to endure at the hands of Tyrrhenian
pirates, they armed some barks wherewith to defend themselves, and
divided themselves into two separate _classes_; one was intrusted with
the cultivation of the islands, which they _declared common property_;
to the other was committed the care of the defence. _Having thus
thrown together all their possessions_, and eating together at public
meals, they lived in common during several years; but after a time they
divided amongst themselves the land of Lipara on which was their town;
as to the other islands they continued for some time to be cultivated
in common. At last they divided all the islands for a period of twenty
years; and at the expiration of this term, they drew lots for them
anew.”
Much might be said about this translation, but we wish to be
brief.[200] M. Viollet ought, in the first place, to have mentioned
the date of this event, since Diodorus gives it: it happened in the
fiftieth Olympiad, that is about the year 575. Now, long before this,
Cnidus and Rhodes had had a system of private property, and had no
trace of common ownership. So these Cnidians and Rhodians may, very
likely, have made an experiment of this kind; but it is impossible that
their action should illustrate a survival of primitive community as M.
Viollet maintains.[201]
The account of the Greek historian also plainly shows the motive which
determined these men to leave the land for some time undivided: it was
because the Tyrrhenian pirates ravaged the islands to such an extent
that the Greeks were obliged to separate into two divisions, the one
fighting, the other tilling the ground.[202] But Diodorus goes on
to say that this manner of life only lasted a few years. So soon as
they had freed themselves from the pirates, the Greeks made a regular
settlement in the island of Lipara, that is in the largest and most
important island of the little group. They built a town there; and at
the same time “they made a partition of the soil.” Now, this partition
was never made over again; it was a distribution of shares to be
held in perpetuity, that is, as private property. M. Viollet passes
over this too hastily; it is of the utmost importance, for it shows
us that private property was established directly the Greeks were in
anything like a settled condition. The fact that the other islets, more
difficult to cultivate and less securely held, remained for some time
longer undivided, does not imply that these people lived in a state
of agrarian communism. Each of them was a landed proprietor in the
main island, and enjoyed certain rights over one of the islets.[203]
But even this arrangement did not last long, and the small islands
were parcelled out in their turn. There was, it is true, a provisional
partition at first, to last for twenty years; there are several very
likely explanations for this precautionary measure. Whatever the reason
may have been, at the end of twenty years the partition was made over
again, and this time it was permanent; for Diodorus never says that a
division took place periodically down to his own time.[204]
The whole account of the Greek historian points to the fact that the
Greek emigrants established what was customary throughout Greece, a
system of private ownership. In order to thoroughly understand it, we
must compare this with similar passages in which the same historian
shows us Greek colonists dividing the soil amongst themselves from
the very first day of their settlement.[205] The settlement of these
Cnidians and Rhodians differs from other instances only in this, that
it was necessary, for reasons which Diodorus indicates, to postpone the
partition for some years. This is what the historian wished to tell
us; he never says that these people thought of establishing common
ownership: they had no more disposition for it than other Greeks.
Whatever communism they may have practised was not an institution, but
a temporary condition of things, lasting for a brief period, with no
past and no future. Private property was with them, as with all other
Greeks, the normal state of things. The account of Diodorus is, we see,
the reverse of M. Viollet’s statement; and it is startling to find M.
Viollet writing, that “as late as _the time of the Emperor Augustus_,
private property was not yet established amongst these Greeks, at the
very gates of Rome” (p. 468).
6. M. Viollet now passes on to Pythagoras. On the evidence of a
biography of the philosopher written eight hundred years after his
death, he relates that Pythagoras got together as many as two thousand
disciples, and induced them to live in common. This may be true; but
does the fact that a philosopher succeeded in founding a phalanstery,
which did not outlast himself, prove that it was habitual at that
time for people to live together in common? It seems to me that it
proves exactly the opposite. If the disciples of Pythagoras were forced
to leave their towns in order to found a communistic settlement, it
was because the life in the towns was not communistic. It is certain
that this institution of Pythagoras was something exceptional, which
left no trace behind it. The story itself, when we look at it, has no
connection with a primitive community in land. But notice M. Viollet’s
method of proceeding. Just because he comes across these two thousand
(others say six hundred) disciples of Pythagoras, he concludes that
“we have here the origin of many of the towns in Greater Greece; this
shows that these towns were founded and settled under a system of
undivided property.” Nothing of the kind. They were all founded before
Pythagoras, and outlived him; and neither before nor after his time did
they recognise a system of undivided property.[206]
7. We now come to an instance which would appear to be more historical.
“The citizens of Tarentum,” says M. Viollet, “seem to have preserved
something of their old community in land down to the time of
Aristotle.” And he refers to the _Politics_ vi. 3, 5. You turn to
the passage quoted and you read as follows: “It is the duty of an
intelligent aristocracy to watch over the poor and to furnish them
with employment. We should do well to imitate the men of Tarentum;
they have portions of land whereof they leave to the poor the common
enjoyment (literally, which they make common to the poor for their
enjoyment[207]), and in this way they secure the attachment of the
lower people.” We see how far removed the original is from M. Viollet’s
interpretation of it. Aristotle says nothing whatever of a communistic
system. He places Tarentum amongst aristocratic States, and shows
that there were poor people, ἄποροι, in it; only he points out that
the rich took care to set apart certain land _for the use_ of these
poor, in order to win their attachment.[208] M. Viollet has mistaken a
charitable institution for a communistic one, though it is perfectly
clear that what Aristotle describes was merely a concession made by
the rich to the poor; that is to say, it was precisely the opposite of
communism.
8. M. Viollet tells us that there are “other survivals which enable
us to travel back in thought to primitive common-ownership: there are
the common meals;” and he devotes fully three pages to the common
meals of the Greeks. He begins with the meal which the Spartans called
_Copis_; describes it in detail from Athenæus, and concludes (p. 471):
“All this is primitive, and we have here the common meal in all its
early simplicity.” Now, it unluckily happens that the meal called
_copis_ was in no way a common meal. Ancient writers tell us that the
Spartans had some private meals;[209] the _copis_ was one of them.
Read the page from Athenæus which M. Viollet has translated; read it
in the original;[210] and not only will you not find a word which
suggests that the copis was a public meal, but you will find clear
evidence to the contrary. “Whoever likes gives the copis, κοπιζει ὁ
βουλόμενος,” and he who gives it invites to it whomsoever he pleases,
“whether Spartan or stranger.” Such are not the characteristics of
public meals ordered and arranged by the State. Let us add that the
Greek writer lays stress upon the religious character of this meal; it
ought to be celebrated before the god παρὰ τὸν θεὸν, _i.e._, in front
of a temple and in presence of the image of the divinity. Ancient
rites are observed; a tent must first be built with branches of trees,
and the ground strewn with boughs for the company to recline upon;
the only meat which may be used is goats’ flesh; and each guest must
be presented with a particular kind of loaf, made according to a
fixed rule both as to its ingredients and shape. These rites will not
surprise anyone who is familiar with early Greek life. Every Spartan
could give this repast when he pleased; but the usual custom in the
town was to give it “at the festival called Tithenidia, celebrated to
secure the health of children;” and the nurses used to bring the little
boys to it. The description of Athenæus is perfectly clear. M. Viollet
has committed the error of mistaking a private and religious meal for a
common meal, and of supposing that he sees in it a sign of community in
land.
There still remain the true common meals, which took place daily or
almost daily at Sparta, and which were called συσσίτια. M. Viollet
says at once that they are evidence of community. It seems reasonable
to argue: “If men eat the fruits of the earth in common, it is because
in primitive times the earth itself was common;” but we think that
M. Viollet ought to have distrusted this apparently logical process
of reasoning. If he had studied this institution of common meals at
Sparta in the original writers, he could not have failed to notice
four circumstances: 1. It does not date from the earliest period of
the city; and far from being connected with a time when land may have
been common, it is later than the institution at Sparta of private
property.[211] 2. These common meals did not constitute a common life;
for in the first place the men alone partook of them, not the women
nor the children;[212] and in the second place, the men did not take
all the meals of the day together, but only one, that of the evening.
3. The expenses of the meal were not defrayed by the community, by the
State, but each man had to bring his contribution, which was fixed at
a _medimnus_ of flour a month, eight _congii_ of wine, some fruit, and
a sum of money for the purchase of meat.[213] This is something very
different from citizens being fed in common by the State; they had to
eat in common, but each ate at his own expense, because each was the
owner of property. 4. The common meals were so far from representing
community in goods, that poor Spartans were not admitted to them; a
fact which is distinctly mentioned by Aristotle, who goes on to say
that these meals were the least democratic things in the world.[214]
It is the greatest mistake to imagine all the Spartans eating of the
same dishes at the same table. The so-called common meals were taken
in small groups of fifteen members each, in separate houses. Every one
was free to choose the group which he wished to join; but he was not
admitted except by the unanimous vote of the members composing it.[215]
We also know that the meals were somewhat luxurious, and that the
famous black broth, μελάς ζῶμος, was merely the prelude to them.[216]
It is, then, very evident that these common repasts, whose meaning
or object we need not here try to discover, have not the slightest
connection with a common life and certainly not with community in
land.[217]
M. Viollet also refers to the feasts which the fifty Athenian
_prytanes_ used to celebrate near the sacred hearth; reminds us
that when the young Athenian was received into the _phratria_, the
_phratria_ performed a sacrifice which was followed by a feast; and
refers to the feasts which the Roman _curiae_ celebrated before an
altar on certain festivals. But one must indeed be dominated by a
fixed idea to suppose that these three different kinds of feasts are a
proof of community in land. It is exceedingly ingenious to say that
“these meals are the lingering evidence of a primitive nomad life and
of community in the soil;”[218] but the fact is that they were simply
religious ceremonies. They were celebrated around an altar, according
to prescribed rites. The custom of a common meal in the presence of the
divinity is found in many religions.
9. For his ninth proof, M. Viollet sets before us “a widespread
tradition which represents the inhabitants of a country as dividing
its soil amongst themselves;” and in support of this he gives a few
references to Diodorus. He might have given many more, and to other
writers also.[219] What he takes for a vague tradition is an historical
fact perfectly well known and authenticated. We know that every Greek
city preserved the memory of its foundation, which was the occasion of
a yearly festival. This tradition was handed down either by means of
religious songs repeated from year to year without any change, or on
bronze inscriptions kept in a temple. It is from these sacred records
that we obtain such exact evidence as to the founding and founder of
each city. Now these records lay stress on two circumstances; the
founding of the town on a given day by the performance of a religious
ceremony; and the division of the land amongst the citizens,--a
division which was effected by a drawing of lots, called κληρουχία or
κληροδοσία. These two operations took place at the same time; we might
almost say on the same day. Where M. Viollet makes the mistake is in
saying that “this division presupposes primitive community, and puts an
end to an era of non-division” (p. 473). It is precisely the contrary;
for whenever we see Greek emigrants making settlements on territory
either previously unoccupied or else conquered by them, we find them
_immediately_ founding a town and _immediately_ dividing the soil.[220]
The soil may have been conquered in common, but not for one single year
is it cultivated in common. They do not divide it “in order to get out
of a system of non-division”; but they make haste to divide the country
that they have just found unoccupied or have just conquered, so that it
shall not remain for one moment undivided.
In those cities, indeed, which date from very early times, there was no
occasion for a division. We do not find it in Athens. Why? Because we
know that Attica was at first occupied by some hundreds of independent
families, γένη; and that these families afterwards were grouped into
phratries, and finally into a city. There is no partition here, for
each family keeps the land which has belonged to it for centuries. But
when it is a case of a colony, a body of people who emigrate and take
possession of fresh territory, a division is quite needful. Only this
division does not, as M. Viollet would suppose, come at the end of a
period of non-division; it is the first step in the establishment of
the colony. The practice is one of the most re-markable, and one of the
best authenticated of those early times. It proves that the Greek city
never cultivated its land in common; that it had no wish for a common
ownership of the soil; that the very idea of such a system was unknown
to it. If M. Viollet had studied the κληρουχία in all the authorities
which refer to it, he would not have supposed for a moment that it
could be a proof of community in land, and he would have taken care not
to bring it forward in support of a theory of which it is in reality
the refutation.
10. I shall not dwell long upon another argument of M. Viollet’s (p.
481). I have elsewhere pointed out that in the most ancient Greek law,
as well as in early Hindoo law and with many other peoples, the land
originally attached to a family was so closely bound up with it that
it could neither be sold, nor transferred to another family, either
by bequest or as dower.[221] This rule is clearly explained in many
Greek writings; it is the result of the conception of property not
as an individual right, but as a family right. A father was compelled
to leave it to his sons. Even if there were no son, he could not
bequeath or sell it; it must pass to the nearest relation. M. Viollet
imagines that there is another explanation. The prohibition of sale
and bequest results, according to him, from the circumstance that land
was originally common to all. I do not follow the argument. If the
soil was originally the common property of the people, and the people
maintained a kind of eminent domain over it (which is M. Viollet’s
theory), one cannot see why the law should have forbidden the sale of
land to another member of the same people; one cannot see why the law
should have prohibited any family from parting with it, even in favour
of the people itself. The old rule, or rather the ancient custom which
forbids a family to separate itself from its land, cannot be a proof
of community in land. It only proves the ownership of property by the
family. As Plato says, in a passage where he expresses not his own
private utopias but the ideas of the men of his time: “You cannot leave
your property to whomsoever you please, because your property belongs
to your family, that is, to your ancestors and your descendants.”[222]
The hypothesis that M. Viollet sets against this is purely fanciful.
He appears to believe that the restriction as to sale and bequest
weakened the rights of property; he does not observe that it renders
inheritance more absolute, and secures the rights of the family. One
may search through the whole of Greek law and the whole of Greek
literature without finding either the “eminent domain” of the State, or
a restoration of the land to a supposed ownership common.
11. M. Viollet’s last argument is taken from a passage of Theophrastus.
When Greek law at last authorised the sale of land--property being from
that time onwards looked upon as an individual right,--it required
that the sale should take place under certain conditions of publicity.
“Many legislators,” says Theophrastus, “require that sales should be
made by a public crier, and that they should be announced several days
beforehand; others prefer that they should take place in the presence
of a magistrate; while some lay down that notice of sale must be posted
up for sixty days. There are two motives for all this: in the first
place that claims may be presented against the seller, and secondly,
that all may know who is the new owner.” This sentence is perfectly
clear; it tells us that a sale ought to be made publicly, so that it
may be surrounded by all possible guarantees; but M. Viollet sees in it
something different from this. “If the public are present,” he says,
“it is because the land belongs to the people” (pp. 484-485). This
is drawing a conclusion of which Theophrastus never dreamt. When he
described the various kinds of publicity which were enjoined in the
matter of sale, and when he explained in such a natural manner the
reasons for this publicity, he did not suppose that his meaning would
be so far distorted as to lead to the conclusion that the land had once
been common. But M. Viollet has a fixed idea and follows it. If he
reads that neighbours act as witnesses to a sale, he adds that their
consent had doubtless to be asked, since the land properly belonged to
all. If he reads in another passage that it was the custom in a certain
town for the purchaser to present three of the neighbours with a small
piece of money, so that they might afterwards remember the act and be
able to vouch for it, he at once adds that “this piece of money is
the price which the purchaser pays to the three neighbours for their
original rights over the land.” All this is pure imagination. The
Greeks certainly did not connect any idea of community in land with
these simple customs.
Such, then, are the eleven authorities by whose help M. Viollet tries
to prove that the early Greek cities held their land in common during a
period more or less protracted. M. Viollet does not give a single other
reference. Now the first taken from Plato, the fifth from Diodorus,
and the seventh about Tarentum are absolutely incorrect; the second,
third and fourth from Virgil, Trogus Pompeius and Tibullus are beside
the subject, since they apply to the tradition of a savage state
which does not here concern us; the sixth, the one about Pythagoras,
points to an exceptional episode, only lasting for a brief period, and
clearly not in harmony with Greek habits; the eighth, about public
meals, has been misunderstood; the ninth about the κλερουχίαι, and
the tenth concerning the primitive inalienability of land belonging
to the family, are absolutely opposed to M. Viollet’s theory; the
eleventh points to publicity of sale, not community in land. And so out
of eleven quotations or arguments there is not a single one which on
examination stands firm.
And this is not all. Supposing that there could be found in the whole
of Greek literature two or three, or even eleven, quotations, which
seemed to imply community in land, it would still be the duty of every
serious historian to look at the evidence on the other side; to search,
that is, for other passages or other facts which point to an opposite
conclusion. It did not occur to M. Viollet to do this. If he should
ever think of undertaking the task, I venture to point out to him four
classes of authorities or of facts: 1st, Those to be found in Homer,
Hesiod and the most ancient documents, which show us the land held as
private property, with no mention or trace of community. 2nd, Those
vestiges of the oldest Greek law which have come down to us, which do
not contain the slightest trace of a state of things in which the land
belonged to the people, and which do contain, on the contrary, precise
rules as to family property. 3rd, The rites of ancient religions, which
show the worship of land and of consecrated bounds; and this side by
side with the worship of the dead. 4th, and finally, the records of
all the κληρουχίαι; that is, the division of the soil into hereditary
portions, a division which was made on the very day of the founding
of each city, and almost implies an actual inaptitude for common
ownership. Here will be found, not eleven imaginary pieces of evidence,
but a whole body of evidence and of facts; and this mass of evidence
proves precisely the opposite of a system of community. History would
be too easy a science if it were enough to pick out here and there
isolated lines and interpret them as one liked. _Every_ authority ought
to be consulted, the _whole_ of Greek literature ought to be studied,
in treating of such a problem as M. Viollet’s. One cannot judge of the
whole Greek world from a chance occurrence in the Lipari isles. Eleven
quotations, which, even if they were exact, would be insignificant in
comparison with the rest of Greek literature, are not enough to build a
system upon. What is especially surprising is that the author of such
a theory should not have thought of studying either the law, or the
beliefs, or the permanent institutions of the Greeks. He has solved the
question without so much as setting himself to investigate it.
May I add that I am sorry to find myself taken to task by M. Viollet?
“M. Fustel,” he says (p. 464), “was unable to recognise this great
historical fact (_i.e._, the supposed community in land), because he
saw that every family had its own hearth, its own worship, its own
ancestors.” This is true. I willingly grant that the facts which I
saw, and which I have completely proved, prevented me from seeing the
imaginary facts that M. Viollet thought he descried in his eleven
quotations. He further adds (p. 465), that since I admitted the
existence of property common to the family, it was an easy thing to go
a little further and recognise, as he did, the common-ownership of the
people. Here M. Viollet throws a little too much light upon his own
method of proceeding. According to him, an historian who recognises
one fact or institution ought to guess at another fact or institution,
merely because there is an apparent analogy between them; in this way
logic takes the place of evidence, and the imagination can construct
all the systems it chooses. I am not bold enough for this; I do not
find in history what I wish to find, but only what is there. I am
careful not to insert anything I do not find. I saw in ancient law and
ancient religion the co-proprietorship of the family, and I said so.
I did not see the common ownership of the whole people, and I did not
say I did. History is not a science of speculation; it is a science of
observation.
No one, moreover, but M. Viollet, considers that the co-proprietorship
of the family and the common ownership of the whole people “are two
things which resemble one another.” It is clear to every careful
observer that they are essentially different, both in character and
in results. The co-proprietorship of the family is an ownership which
is complete, absolute, hereditary, independent even of the State.
If it is undivided, it is because the family at this time is itself
still undivided. It is, besides, legally in the hands of the head of
the family, the real owner, who is absolute master of it, and does
what he likes with it; but who can neither transfer it or bequeath it
“because he owes it to his descendants such as he has received it from
his ancestors.” What resemblance is there between such a system and
one under which the land would be common to all, and belong to a whole
nation?
I shall not dwell at length on the second portion of M. Viollet’s
work, in which he gives a hasty and superficial glance at the Middle
Ages. Here I have not been more fortunate than before in verifying his
evidence. For example: he dwells at length upon the prior right of
purchase which belonged to neighbours. Everyone knows of this custom,
the meaning and reason of which are obvious enough. But in M. Viollet’s
eyes this right of the neighbours is a vestige of community in land.
He does not notice that the preference given in case of sale to a
neighbouring proprietor over a distant one has nothing to do with
community. Under a system of common ownership this prior claim of the
neighbour would not be found. The two things are incompatible. The
right of the neighbour is a custom belonging essentially to private
property; it is a grave error to convert it into a communistic practice.
Further on, M. Viollet speaks of the Franks; he represents them as
“dwelling in small groups called _villæ_ or _genealogiæ_.” One must
never have seen in the charters what a _villa_ is, to imagine it a
group of men; and it is something more than rashness to identify the
_villa_ with the _genealogia_. M. Viollet says again that amongst the
Franks “the tie of neighbourhood was so strong as to hold in check
the rights of blood in matters of succession;” and he does not notice
that this is absolutely opposed to the explicit statement of the Salic
law. He maintains that the Frank _villa_ was a village community, and
quotes section xlv. of the Salic law, which not only does not say one
single word about a community, but, on the contrary, one is surprised
to find, has nothing whatever to do with one. He maintains that the
Ripuarian law requires “the consent of the community” to a sale of
land, and quotes a section of the law which merely says that the sale
ought to take place in the presence of witnesses and in a public place.
It is his own addition that these witnesses are “a community,” and that
they have to give their “consent.” Elsewhere he maintains that the
Thuringians were unacquainted with the sale of land, and his only proof
is the section of the law which authorises such a sale. He says again
that according to the Ripuarian law real property could only be sold by
virtue of a royal writ; and he supports this statement by a reference
to the section of the law which enacts that the purchaser of an estate
shall demand a written document from the seller.
M. Viollet’s quotations are always exact in this respect, that the line
he quotes is to be found at the place mentioned; their inexactness
merely consists in this, that the same line taken with its context
means precisely the opposite of what M. Viollet says. In the same way
he once quoted a passage from a document of 890 in which he found
the word _communes_; surely this meant community in land, collective
ownership. Unluckily it turned out that the document did not contain
any reference to community, or even to a village, or to cultivators of
the soil; it concerned a dispute between two landowners, an abbot and
a count. The adjective _communes_ related not to lands, but to certain
“customary rights in a royal forest.” The abbot declared that “these
common rights were his,” free of charge, while the count maintained
that the abbot had always paid a rent, _sub conductione_. All this is
evidently the very opposite of community; but M. Viollet had seen the
word _communes_, and that was enough.[223] I have gone through his
whole work in a similar manner and tried to find a reference that was
to the point; and I have not found one.
[198] P. Viollet, _Du caractère collectif des premières propriétés
immobilières_, in the _Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes_, 1872,
pages 455-504.
[199] “Nec signare quidem aut partiri limite campum Fas erat; in medium
quærebant.” M. Viollet makes a mistake, however, as to _in medium_,
which he translates as if it was _in commune_.
[200] We have italicised the words that are inexact. Diodorus does not
say that these men were divided into two “classes;” he does not say
that they “declared” the land “common property.” κοίνας ποιήσαντες
means that the islands were made common for a moment, it is the
statement of a fact, not the announcement of a perpetual institution.
In place of “they threw together all their possessions,” the Greek
tells us that they clubbed together their resources. However, the chief
mistakes are in the last words of the translation.
[201] Viollet, pp. 467-468.
[202] The passage is in Diodorus v. 9, bipontine edit., iii. p. 267.
[203] Thucydides explains this very well: “They lived on the island of
Lipara, and went from thence to cultivate the other islands,” iii. 88.
[204] Τὰς νησοὺς εὶς εἴκοσι ἔτη διελόμενοι, πάλιν κληρουχοῖσιν
ὄταν ὁ χρόνος οὗτος διέλθη. The word πάλιν means a second time and
not periodically. There is no expression such as νῦν ἔτι which the
historian would have used if he had meant to imply that it was still
practised in his own time. The conjunction ὄταν indicates a single
action; the historian has not written όσάκις. It is true he uses
κληρουχοῦσι in the present tense; whether copying an old document,
or employing the “narrative present” so usual with historians. It
is necessary, moreover, to notice the intrinsic meaning of the word
κληρουχεῖν; the term is usual enough in Greek for its meaning to be
perfectly well ascertained. It is always used of a definitive division,
a partition made for all time. We cannot suppose that Diodorus would
have used κληρουχεῖν for a temporary and periodical division.
[205] Diodorus, v. 53; v. 59; v. 81; v. 83 and 84; xii. 11; xv. 23.
[206] See Strabo vi. 1.
[207] Κοινὰ ποιοῦντες τὰ κτήματα τοῖς ἀπόροις ἐπὶ τὴν χρῆσιν.
[208] Εὔνουν παρασκευάζουσι τὸ πλῆθος.
[209] Xenophon, _Commentarii_, i. 2, 61, tells us that the Lacedæmonian
Lichas was celebrated for the generosity with which he entertained
his guests at dinner; Herodotus, vi. 57, represents individuals as
inviting a king to dinner in their own houses; Plutarch, _Lycurgus_,
12, says that every Spartan who made a sacrifice was excused from the
public meals, _i.e._, he could eat at his own home the animal he had
sacrificed. It is, therefore, a great mistake to say that the Spartans
always ate in common.
[210] Athenæus, iv. 16.
[211] Herodotus, who knew Sparta very well, says that the public meals
were not established till two centuries after the foundation of the
city; i. 65. The same will be found in Xenophon, _Republ. Laced._, v.
and in Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 10, who says distinctly that before this
period the Spartans ate their meals at home. Private property, on the
other hand, was established from the very beginning of the city.
[212] Plato, _Laws_, vi. p. 781; Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 7; Alcman,
in Strabo, x. 4, 18.
[213] Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 7; Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 12.
[214] Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 6, 21.
[215] Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 12.
[216] Cicero, _Tusculan. Disput._ v. 34; Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 21;
Xenophon, _Republ. Laced._, v; and, above all, the authors cited by
Athenæus, iv, 20.
[217] We have elsewhere pointed to the evidence for private property in
Sparta, and the rules concerning it. (_Comptes rendus des séances de
l’Académie des sciences morales_, 1879-1880.) See, on the same subject,
the excellent work of M. Claudio Jannet.
[218] Viollet, p. 472.
[219] Diodorus, v. 53; v. 59; v. 81; v. 83; v. 84; xii. 11; xv. 23;
Odyssy, vi. 11; Herodotus, v. 77; Plato, _Laws_, iii. pp. 684-685;
Pausanias, _passim_.
[220] We do not doubt that there were some exceptions. What Diodorus
tells us of the Lipari Islands is one of them. It might occasionally
sometimes happen, for some reason or other, that the partition was put
off for a few years.
[221] Heraclides of Pontus, edit. Didot, vol. ii. p. 211; Aristotle,
_Politics_, ii. 4, 4; vii. 2, 5; Plutarch, _Instituta laconica_, 22;
_Life of Agis_, 5; _Life of Solon_, 21. Cf. _Laws of Manou_, ix.
105-107, 126.
[222] Plato, _Laws_, xi.
[223] The statement of M. Viollet is in the _Revue critique_, 1886,
vol. ii., p. 109. The document of 890 ought not to be interpreted from
the extract he gives from it; it is necessary to read the whole of it,
as it is to be found in the _Urkundenbuch der Abtei S. Gallen_, nᵒ 662,
vol. ii., p. 265.