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.