30 Transactions. — Miscellaneotis. 



merit are few and scattered, so they are indefinite. They indi- 

 cate both process and result : as actus signifies both a balk 

 and a measure of length, so o'po?, in II. xii. 421, seqq., is used 

 of result, and is translatable "balk," "ridge," "rig," or 

 " link," while in II. x. 351 it indicates a process : the number 

 of furrows a yoke of mules can lay down in a day, measured 

 breadthwise, is an ovpov, which may be thus translated " rod " 

 or " rood." 



The general argument, summarised, is as follows : — • 



Wealth is reckoned in kind, not in land. The epithets 

 descriptive of a wealthy man do not include the notion of land. 

 KX^/Dos in the Iliad does not indicate severalty in land : /<A^po? 

 may be illustrated by the Italian possessio. The Common 

 House, II. vi. 243, indicates a probable common-land system. 



TptTToAov is held to refer to the three-shift system of tilling 

 the soil. 



Ovpov is held to mean a balk or ridge in the common field. 



The scene in the Scutum Achillis is held to be a scene of 

 common toil in a common field. 



The conclusion is that in the Iliad the land-system is 

 most probably a common-field system, in which, however, the 

 beginnings of severalty in land may be traced. 



This brings us to the Teyaei'os. Grote and others have held 

 that in the Scutum Achillis a full proprietary system is 

 revealed. Grote (ii., p. 108) illustrates further from Od. vi. 

 9, 10 : 



a/jicjii 8e Tci^os eXacrcre TrdXei, koI eSetytxaro olkov;, 

 Koi vrjovs eTToiiqai. Oewv, koI l^aaaaT apovpa<;' 



which William Morris translates, — 



" And he drew a wall around the city, and the houses he 

 upreared. 

 And the shrines of the gods he fashioned, and the fruit- 

 ful acres shared." 



Grote thinks here that the King of PhiEakia is handing out 

 land in inheritance, and that there was fixed property in land. 

 cSao-o-aro does not carry so much with it. The words are quite 

 consistent with the theory of allotment of land from the com- 

 mon land. 



The rejaevos is undoubtedly land assigned or land seized. 

 It is cut off or enclosed primarily for sacred purposes, ulti- 

 mately as private property. The features of the acquisition of 

 landed property in the early stages of society are everywhere 

 the same. Land is held in severalty either by acquisition of 

 grant, or acquisition of seizure. The chieftain takes possession 

 of choice bits of land : he subsequently asks his subjects to 

 register his decision. So, in the scutum, the ySao-tXeus stands 

 like a fine old English gentleman viewing his young men and 



