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 people252—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.
The possession of large estates and of multitudinous flocks and herds was one of the privileges of the chieftain or tribesman of princely rank.
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 [pg 103] 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.
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
[pg 104]
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 Troy260 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 Isaeus265 relates how an Athenian citizen flogged his brother in [pg 105] 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).
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. [pg 106] 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
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 [pg 107] 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.
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᾽ [pg 108] 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
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?
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 [pg 109] 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
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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:—
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
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 [pg 111] and ὁμόκαποι, and binding together those habitually nourished at the same board.
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,” [pg 112] 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:—
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.
The diversion of inheritance to any property from [pg 113] the direct line is spoken of in Homer as a lamentable circumstance greatly intensifying the natural grief at the death of the direct heir.
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:—
The same anxiety prompts his question to his mother in Hades, to which he obtains answer:—
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 [pg 114] 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:—
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 nobles298 levied contributions on their own or conquered peoples apparently at will [pg 115] in Homer. Agamemnon calls together the Greek chiefs:—
Priam chides his sons:—
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
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
In the Indian society that was regulated in [pg 116] 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.
the line always being drawn between legitimate demands and tyrannical extortion.
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
Solomon's table was provided after the same method.
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.
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 [pg 118] 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:—
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.
[pg 119]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.
And again:—
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
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.
[pg 120]At Achmetaga, in Euboea,
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.