The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 2 of 2

by Karl Otfried Müller

Chapter X.

§ 1. Tenure of land in Laconia. § 2. Partition of the land into lots, and their inalienability. § 3. Law of inalienability of land repealed by Epitadeus. § 4. Lacedæmonian law respecting marriage portions and heiresses. § 5. Similar regulations respecting landed property in other states. § 6. The syssitia of Crete and the phiditia of Sparta. § 7. Contributions to the public tables in Crete and Sparta. § 8. Domestic economy of Sparta. § 9. Money of Sparta. § 10. Regulations respecting the use of money in Sparta. § 11. Changes in these regulations. Taxation of the Spartans. § 12. Trade of Peloponnesus. Monetary system of the Dorians of Italy and Sicily.

1. Having now considered the individuals composing the state in reference to the supreme governing power, we will next view them in reference to property, and investigate the subject of the public economy. It is evident that this latter must have been of great simplicity in the Doric states, as it was the object of their constitution to remove everything accidental and arbitrary; and by preventing property from being an object of free choice and individual exertion, to make it a matter of indifference to persons who were to be trained only in moral excellence; hence the dominant class, the genuine Spartans, were almost entirely interdicted from the labour of trade or agriculture, and excluded both from the cares and pleasures of such occupations.[870] Since then upon this principle it was the object to allow as little freedom as possible to individuals in the use of property, while the state gained what these had lost, it is manifest that under a government of this kind there could not have been any [pg 196] accurate distinction between public and private economy; and therefore no attempt will be made to separate them in the following discussion.

All land in Laconia was either in the immediate possession of the state, or freehold property of the Spartans, or held by the Periœci upon the payment of a tribute. That there were flocks and lands belonging to the state of Sparta, is evident from facts which have been already stated;[871] although perhaps they were not so considerable as in Crete:[872] the large forest, in which every Spartan had a right of hunting, must also have belonged to the community. There can be no doubt that this property of the state was different from the royal lands,[873] which were situated in the territory of the Periœci: it is probable that these (as well as the rest of that district) were cultivated by the Periœci, who only paid a tribute to the king. The rest of the territory of the Periœci was divided into numerous but small portions, of which, as has been already remarked, there were 30,000;[874] a number which was probably arranged at the same time with that of the hundred towns.[875] In each lot (κλῆρος) only one family resided, the members of which subsisted upon its produce, and cultivated it, to the best of our knowledge, without the assistance of Helots. For this reason the 9000 lots of the Spartans, which supported twice as many men as the lots of the Periœci,[876] must upon the whole have been twice as extensive; each lot must therefore have been seven times greater. Now the property of [pg 197] the Spartans was, according to the united testimony of all writers, set out in equal lots; probably according to some general valuation of the produce;[877] for the area could not have been taken as a standard in a country where the land was of such different degrees of goodness. Yet even this method of allotment might not have precluded all inequality: which, on account of the natural changes of the soil, must in the course of time have been much augmented; and to this result the variable number of the slaves, which were strictly connected with the land, necessarily contributed. Nevertheless this fact proves that there existed a principle of equality in the contrivers of the regulation: for, as we remarked above, this division was in strictness only a lower degree of a community of goods, which the Pythagoreans endeavoured to put in practice, on the principle of the possessions of friends being common;[878] and which actually existed among the Spartans in the free use of dogs, horses, servants, and even the furniture of other persons.[879] The whole institution of the public tables in Sparta and Crete was, indeed, only a means of producing an equal distribution of property among the members of them.[880]

2. Although similar partitions of land had perhaps been made from the time of the first occupation of Laconia by the Dorians, the later division into 9000 lots cannot have taken place before the end of the [pg 198] first Messenian war.[881] There is something very remarkable in the historical account, that Tyrtæus by means of his poem of Eunomia repressed the desire of many citizens for a redivision of the lands.[882] It may be explained by supposing that the Spartans, who before that time had possessed allotments in Messenia, from which they then obtained no returns, wished that new estates in Laconia should be assigned to them.[883] At the time, however, of that division Sparta must in fact have had about 9000 fathers of families (or, according to the ancient expression, so many οἶκοι), of which each received a lot; for families and lots were necessarily connected.[884] If then we suppose that every family of a Spartan was provided with a lot, the chief object was to keep them together for the future by proper institutions: and to ascertain the means which were employed to attain this end (for they were upon the whole successful) is a problem which has never yet been satisfactorily solved.[885] The first part was the preservation of families, in which the legislator was in ancient times assisted by the sanction of religion. Nothing was more dreaded by the early Greeks than the extinction of [pg 199] the family, and the destruction of the house;[886] by which the dead lost their religious honour, the household gods their sacrifices, the hearth its flame, and the ancestors their name among the living. This was in Sparta provided against by regulations concerning heiresses, adoptions, introductions of mothaces, and other means which will presently be mentioned: those persons also who had not as yet any children were sometimes spared in war.[887] The second means was the prohibition to alienate or divide the family allotment,[888] which necessarily required the existence of only one heir,[889] who probably was always the eldest son.[890] The extent of his rights, however, was perhaps no further than that he was considered master of the house and property; while the other members of the family had an equal right to a share in the enjoyment of it. The head of the family was styled in Doric ἑστιοπάμων, the lord of the hearth;[891] the collective members of the family were called by Epimenides the Cretan ὁμοκάποι, that is, literally, eating from the same crib;[892] and by Charondas ὁμοσίπυοι, or “living [pg 200] upon the same stock;”[893] and by the Spartans perhaps παῶται.[894] The master of the family was therefore obliged to contribute for all these to the syssitia, without which contribution no one was admitted;[895] we shall see presently that he was able to provide this contribution for three men and women besides himself; the other expenses were inconsiderable.[896] If, however, the family contained more than three men, which must frequently have been the case, the means adopted for relieving the excessive number were either to marry them with heiresses, or to send them out as colonists; or the state had recourse to some other means of preventing absolute want. This would have been effected with the greater ease, if it were true, as Plutarch relates, that immediately after the birth of every Spartan boy, the eldest of the tribe, sitting together in a lesche, gave him one of the 9000 lots.[897] For this, however, it must be assumed that the state or the tribes had possession of some lots, of those perhaps in which the families had become extinct; but we know that these lots went in a regular succession to other families,[898] by which means many became exceedingly rich. These elders of the tribe, mentioned by Plutarch, were therefore probably only the eldest of the house or γένος, who might take care that, if several sons and at the same time several lots had fallen together in one family, the younger sons should, [pg 201] as far as was possible, be in the possession of land, without however violating the indivisible unity of an allotment.

In this manner at Sparta the family, together with the estate, formed an undivided whole, under the control of one head, who was privileged by his birth. But if the number of persons to be fed was too great, as compared with the means of feeding them, the natural consequence was, that the privileged eldest brother could afford to marry, while the younger brothers remained without wives or children. This natural inference from the above account is strikingly confirmed by a most singular statement of Polybius,[899] which has lately been brought to light, viz., that “in Sparta several brothers had often one wife, and that the children were brought up in common.” If we may here infer a misrepresentation, to which the Spartan institutions were particularly liable, it is seen how the custom just described might cause several men to dwell in one house, upon the same estate, of whom one only had a wife. But it must be confessed that the Spartan institution was very likely to lead to the terrible abuse which Polybius mentions, particularly as the Spartan laws, as we shall see presently,[900] did not absolutely prohibit the husband from allowing the procreation of children from his wife by strangers. It is therefore possible that the Hebrew institution of the Levirate-marriage (viz., that if a man died without leaving children, his widow became the wife of her former husband's brother, who was to raise up seed to his brother)[901] was extended in Sparta to the lifetime of the childless elder brother.

3. This whole system was entirely broken up by the law of the ephor Epitadeus, which permitted any person to give away his house and lot during his lifetime, and also to leave it as he chose by will.[902] Whence, as might have been expected, the practice of legacy-hunting rose to a great height, in which the rich had always the advantage over the poor. This law, which was directly opposed to the spirit of the Spartan constitution, was passed after the time of Lysander, but a considerable period before Aristotle; since this writer, manifestly confounding the state of things as it existed in his time with the ancient legislation,[903] reckons it as an inconsistency in the constitution of Sparta, that buying and selling of property was attended with dishonour,[904] but that it was permitted to give it away, and bequeath it by will.[905] From that time we find that the number of the Spartans, and particularly of the landed proprietors, continually decreased. The first fact is very remarkable, and can hardly be accounted for by the wars,[906] in which moreover the Spartans lost but few of their number; it was perhaps rather owing to the late marriages, [pg 203] which also frequently took place between members of the same family. After all, it must be confessed that the constitution of Sparta too much restrained the natural inclination of the citizens; and by making every thing too subservient to public ends, checked the free growth of the people, and, like a plant trimmed by an unsparing hand, destroyed its means both of actual strength and future increase. At the time of Aristotle they endeavoured to increase the population by exempting the father of three sons from serving in war, and the father of four sons from all taxes.[907] But even Herodotus only reckons 8000 Spartans in the 9000 families; in the middle of the Peloponnesian war Sparta did not send quite 6000 heavy-armed soldiers into the field.[908] Aristotle states that in his time the whole of Laconia could hardly furnish 1000 heavy-armed men;[909] and at the time of Agis the Third there were only 700 genuine Spartans.[910] Even in 399 B.C. the Spartans who were in possession of lots[911] did not compose a large number in comparison with the people; for the numerous Neodamodes must not be included among them, who it appears could not obtain lots in any other manner than by adoption into a Spartan family, before which time they were provided for by the state. We are entirely uninformed in what manner the loss of Messenia was borne by Sparta; it cannot be supposed [pg 204] that whole families completely lost their landed property; for they would have perished by famine. No writer has, however, preserved a trace of the mode in which these difficulties were met by the state. At the time of Agis the Third we know that of the 700 Spartans, about 100 only were in possession of the district of the city.[912]

4. From this view of the times, which succeeded the innovation of Epitadeus, we will now turn to the original system, which indeed we are scarcely able to ascertain, from the feeble and obscure indications now extant. In the first place, we know with certainty that daughters had originally no dowry (in Doric δωτίνη),[913] and were married with a gift of clothes, &c.;[914] afterwards, however, they were at least provided with money and other moveable property.[915] At the time of Aristotle, after the ephoralty of Epitadeus, they were also endowed with land.[916] This was the regulation in case of the existence of a son; if there [pg 205] was none, the daughter, and if there were several daughters, probably the eldest, became heiress (ἐπίκληρος, in Doric ἐπιπαματίς);[917] that is to say, the possession of her was necessarily connected with that of the inheritance. Regulations concerning heiresses were an object of chief importance in the ancient legislations, on account of their anxiety for the maintenance of families, as in that of Androdamas of Rhegium for the Thracian Chalcideans,[918] and in the code of Solon,[919] with which the Chalcidean laws of Charondas appear to have agreed in all essential points.[920] We will mention the most important of these regulations. The heiress, together with her inheritance, belonged to the kinsmen of the family (ἀγχιστεῖς); so that in early times[921] the father could not dispose of his daughter as he liked without their assent. But, according to the later Athenian law, the father had power either during his life or by will to give his daughter, with her inheritance, in marriage to whomever he wished. If, however, this power was not exercised, the kinsmen had a right of claiming the daughter by a judicial process; and the right to marry her went round in a regular succession.[922] But [pg 206] the unmarried man, to whom of all her kinsmen she was allotted, was not only privileged, but also compelled to marry her.[923] The laws also exercised a further superintendence over him, and enjoined that he should beget children from his wife,[924] which then did not pass into his family, but into that of his wife, and became the successors of their maternal grandfather. Now there is no doubt that in Sparta the family was continued by means of the heiresses; but it is probable that they always chose for their husbands persons who had no lots of their own, such as the descendants of younger brothers, and, first, persons of the same family,[925] if there were any, then persons connected by relationship, and so on. If the father himself had made no disposition concerning his daughters, (in which respect, however, his choice was limited,) it was to be decided by the king's court who among the privileged persons should marry the heiress.[926] It was not until after the time of Epitadeus that the father could betroth his daughter to whom [pg 207] he pleased; and if he had not declared his intention, his heir had equal right to decide concerning her.[927]

If, however, the family was without female issue, and the succession had not been secured during the father's lifetime by adoption in the presence of the king, it is probable that the heads of houses related to the surviving daughter married her to a son of their own, who was then considered as successor of the family into which he was introduced—a means employed at Athens,[928] and probably therefore at Sparta also, for preventing the extinction of families. But there were two customs peculiar to the Lacedæmonians; in the first place, a husband, if he considered that the unfruitfulness of the marriage was owing to himself (for if he considered his wife as barren he had power immediately to put her away),[929] gave his matrimonial rights to a younger and more powerful man, whose child then belonged to the family of the husband, although it was also publicly considered as related to the family of the real father.[930] The second institution was, that to the wives of men, who, for example, had fallen in war before they had begotten any children, other men (probably slaves) were assigned, in order to produce heirs and successors, not to themselves, but to the deceased husband.[931] Both these customs, which appear to us so singular (though similar regulations existed in the constitution of Solon), originated from the superstitious dread of the destruction of a family. When this motive lost its power [pg 208] upon the mind, these ancient institutions were probably also lost, and the population and number of families were continually diminished.

5. In Sparta, however, the principle of community of goods was carried to a further extent than in any other nation, although it was the principle on which the legislation of many other Grecian states was founded. Phaleas the Chalcedonian had made it the basis of his laws.[932] The prohibition of Solon, that no citizen should possess more than a certain quantity of land, appears to have been a remnant of a former equality in the lots of the nobles.[933] In cases, however, in which the restoration or introduction of equality was not possible, the legislators endeavoured to make the landed estates inalienable. For this reason the mortgaging of land was prohibited in Elis;[934] and among the Locrians land could not be alienated without proof of absolute necessity.[935] We have already spoken of the inalienability of the lots at Leucas.[936] The ancient Corinthian lawgiver, Phidon, made no alteration in the unequal size of landed estates, but he wished to restrict their extent, as well as the number of the landed proprietors, who were all citizens.[937] Philolaus the Corinthian, who gave laws to Thebes in the 13th Olympiad, went still further;[938] since he not only endeavoured to retain the same number of lots, by laws [pg 209] concerning the procreation and adoption of children,[939] but endeavoured to restore the original equality from time to time, perhaps in a manner similar to the jubilee-year of the Hebrews:[940] this was in fact most simply effected by the Illyrian Dalmatians, who made a new division of the tillage-land every seven years.[941] If the Doric legislation of Crete had originally a tendency of this kind, its adoption in practice had evidently been hindered by peculiar circumstances. For Polybius[942] at least knew of no Cretan laws which laid any restriction upon the purchase of land, nor indeed upon gain in general:[943] the landed estates were divided among the brothers, the sisters receiving half a brother's share.[944] In this manner, in the narration of Ulysses,[945] the sons of Castor, the son of Hylacus, made a division of their patrimony; the illegitimate son receiving only a small share (νοθεῖα). But the poor frequently, by marriage with wealthy wives, attained to riches, together with personal distinction. In addition to this, privateering expeditions, sometimes as far as Egypt, for which individual adventurers frequently equipped whole flotillas, gave an opportunity for a more rapid acquisition of wealth. This habit of living in ships, [pg 210] and at the same time the variable condition of the different states, necessarily produced a frequent change of property, and soon put an end to all firmness and equality wherever they existed.