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.
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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.
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.
The power of the chieftain to draw upon the resources [pg 122] 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.
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.
But the evidence does not show that he ever had the right of coming between the οἶκος of his tribesmen [pg 123] 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.
In the time of Hesiod, the κλῆρος321 could be sold in case of need and added to the possession of another.
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 [pg 124] 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.
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
[pg 125]Plutarch and Heraclides say that the same law against the sale of the κλῆρος existed anciently at Sparta.
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—
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
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 [pg 126] 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 [pg 127] 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.
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.
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.
Besides the prohibition to sell the family land which Aristotle speaks of as prevailing in Lokris, the [pg 128] 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.:—
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 [pg 129] 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.
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 [pg 130] the life of a country gentleman, combined with that of the farmer, was by no means despicable in their eyes.
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
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 [pg 131] 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.
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. [pg 132] 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.
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
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 κληροῦχοι340 in two thousand κλῆροι, i.e. the country [pg 133] called Hippobotos; and, setting aside τεμένη to Athena in the place called Lelantos, they let out341 the rest according to the pillars that stand in the King's Stoa, which thus bear record of the leases.342
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 [pg 134] 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.
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:—
There is an instance of a proprietor of land at Mylasa, in Karia, deliberately selling his estates to a [pg 135] 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
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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?