Occasionally a father feeling the weight of years would be glad to pass on to his son during his lifetime some of his burden of responsibility by making him master of his estate (κύριος τῆς οὐσίας).[207] In this case, the son would be responsible for the maintenance of his parent, a duty much insisted on by Plato and Isaeus. In fact the conclusion is justified that the family, until final subdivision into separate οἶκοι, drew its supplies from the common inheritance, and that the subdivision of the means of subsistence was contemporaneous and co-extensive with the differentiation of the various branches of the original οἶκος along the lines of the rising generations.
The same may be inferred from the words of Demosthenes describing the division of the property of Bouselos amongst his sons and the foundation of their several οἶκοι.
“And all these sons of Bouselos became men, and their father divided his substance amongst them all, with perfect justice. And they having shared the substance, each of them married a wife according to your laws, and there were born children to them all, and children's children, and there grew up five οἶκοι from the one οἶκος of Bouselos, and each dwelt apart, having his own house and his own offspring.”[208]
In the meanwhile, before division, all sons had equal right to participate in the family goods after the father's death, and dowries had to be paid therefrom to the daughters. The eldest brother was guardian (κύριος) of his sisters and those of his brothers who were minors, inasmuch as he succeeded to his father's position of head of his kindred at the altars of their ancestors. But in Greece at any rate his authority over his brothers when once a division had taken place seems to have been slight if it existed at all.
The prerogative of the eldest brother,
Amongst the Gods, the three brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, sons of Rhea, shared their inheritance from their father Kronos. They divided everything in three, shaking lots thereover (παλλομένων). Each took equal share of honour (ἔμμορε τιμῆς), but earth and Olympos were common (ξυνή) to all.[209] But Zeus was the first-born and “knew more things”—Ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς πρότερος γεγόνει καὶ πμείονα ᾒδη[210]—and Poseidon therefore avoided open strife with him, however [pg 091] unwillingly. Though Zeus be the stronger, grumbles the Sea-god, let him keep to his third share and not interfere with his brothers' pleasure on their common ground, the earth. Let him threaten his sons and daughters who needs must listen to him (ἀκούσονται καὶ ἀνάγκῃ). Yet because the Erinnyes ever take the side of the eldest born—ὡς πρεσβυτέροισιν Ἐριννύες αἰὲν ἕπονται—it were good counsel to knock under, even though the division was made in perfect equality (ἰσόμορον καὶ ὁμῇ πεπρωμένον αἴσῃ).[211]
contrasted with the power of the head of the household.
This passage contrasts the recognised autocracy of the head of the family over his own household with the courteous deference of the younger brothers towards the eldest; and it is evidence, so far as it goes, that the eldest brother did not succeed to his father's power over his grown-up brothers, but owed what influence he did not obtain from the superior advantages of his age and experience, to a superstitious feeling that something was due to him in his position of head of the eldest branch of the family.
In the Odyssey,[212] Zeus gives Poseidon the title of “eldest and best”—πρεσβύτατον καὶ ἄριστον—and elsewhere Hera lays claim to the same birthright.[213]
The power of the head of a household must have been something much more real. Telemachos declares that he is willing that some other basileus in Ithaka [pg 092] should take the kingship, but he will be master over his own house—ἄναξ οὄκοιο ἡμετέροιο—“and over the slaves that the divine Odysseus won for me.”[214]