§ 5. Early Evidence continued: The Κλῆρος And The Maintenance Of The οἶκος.
The κλῆρος was the holding of the head of an οἶκος.
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]
and supplied the maintenance the house.
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]
Force of the bond of food.
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.
The need of an established household strongly felt.
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:—
“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.
Diversion of inheritance by death of heir a sore evil.
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.
“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]
Naboth's vineyard bound to his family and heir.
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:—
“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]