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 family bound to their land at Athens;
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.
and in Lokris.
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.:—
“The colonist has the right to return to Lokris and sacrifice with his γένος both in the rites of his δᾶμος and his φοίνανοι for ever. He can only return permanently without paying the re-establishment tax if he has left ἐν τᾷ ἱστίᾳ at Naupaktos a grown-up son or a brother. If a γένος of the colonists is left without a representative (ἐχέπαμον) ἐν τᾷ ἱστίᾳ, the nearest of kin (ἐπάγχιστος) in Lokris shall take the property, provided he go himself, be he man or boy, within three months to Naupaktos. A colonist can inherit his share of his Lokrian father's or brother's property....”
“If a magistrate deals unfairly and refuses justice, he shall be ἄτιμος and shall lose his μέρος μετὰ οἰκιατᾶν.”[332]