“In the land shall be his possession in Israel, and my princes shall no more oppress my people; and the rest of the land shall they give to the house of Israel according to their tribes. Thus saith the Lord God, Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel; remove violence and spoil and execute judgment and justice, and take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord God.”[314]
And again:—
“Moreover the prince shall not take of the people's inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession; that my people be not scattered every man from his possession.”[315]
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]
Modern specimens of the elasticity of Greek methods.
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.
“There is some cultivation from Plataea to Thebes, but strangely alternating with wilderness. We were told that the people have plenty of spare land, and not caring to labour for its artificial improvement, till a piece of ground once, and then let it lie fallow for a season or two. The natural richness of the Boeotian soil thus supplies them with ample crops. But it is strange to think how impossible it is, even in these rich and favoured plains, to induce a fuller population.”[317]
At Achmetaga, in Euboea,
“The folk pay for their houses a nominal rental of a bushel of wheat per annum, in order to secure the owner's proprietary claim, which would otherwise pass to the occupier by squatter's right after thirty years of unmolested occupation. They are at liberty to cultivate pretty well as much land as they care to, paying to the landlord one-third in kind.... The produce here is almost exclusively wheat or maize, but every family maintains a plot of vineyard for home consumption.”[318]
The gifts to the prince not actually food-rents for the land.