§ 10. The Idea Of Family Land Applied Also To Leasehold And Semi-Servile Tenure.
Further application of the idea of family land.
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.
Two methods of occupation of land: (1) by owner himself; (2) by subject population.
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]
At Gortyn on extinction of citizen-family the κλαρῶται inherited.
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.
Similar twofold tenure in the Athenian κληρουχίαι.
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.
Examples in Salamis,
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 Lesbos,
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 [pg 133] 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]
Each κλῆρος therefore supported two families.
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.
The same double ownership in leases “for ever.”
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 [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]
Perhaps due to the prevailing idea of the family as a continuing unit.
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?