Attempts to check land-monopoly etc 67 



had led to extensive colonization from those centres. And the normal 

 procedure in the foundation of Greek colonies was to divide the occu- 

 pied territory into lots (ic\r)poi) and assign them severally to settlers. 

 In course of time the discontents generated by land-monopolizing in 

 old Hellas were liable to reappear beyond the seas, particularly in 

 colonial states of rapid growth: a notorious instance is found in the 

 troubles arising at Syracuse out of the squatter-sovranty created by 

 the original colonists. We meet with plans for confiscation and redis- 

 tribution of land as a common phenomenon of Greek revolutions. The 

 mischievous moral effects of so unsettling a process on political well- 

 being did not escape the notice of thoughtful observers. But on one 

 important point we have practically no evidence. Did the new allottees 

 wish to be, and in fact normally become, working farmers (avrovpyoi)? 

 Or did they aim at providing for themselves an easy life, supported by 

 the labour of slaves? I wish I could surely and rightly decide between 

 these alternatives. As it is, I can only say that I believe the second to 

 be nearer the truth. 



Under such conditions Greek lawgivers and theorists alike seem to 

 have looked to much the same measures for remedying evils that they 

 could not ignore. The citizen as landholder is the human figure with 

 which they are all concerned. To prevent destitution arising from the 

 loss 1 of his land-lot is a prime object. Some therefore would forbid the 

 sale of the lot. To keep land in the same hands it was necessary to 

 regulate numbers of citizen households, and this was attempted 2 in the 

 laws of Pheidon. Families may die out, so rules to provide for per- 

 petuity by adoptions 3 were devised by Philolaus. Again, there is the 

 question of the size of the lots, and this raises the further question of 

 a limit to acquisition. Such a limitation is attributed 4 to certain early 

 lawgivers not named, and with them apparently to Solon. Phaleas 

 would insist on equality of landed estate 5 among his citizens : a proposal 

 which Aristotle treats as unpractical, referring to only one form of 

 wealth, and leaving out of account slaves, tame animals, coin, and the 

 dead-stock tools etc. His exclusive attention to internal civic wellbeing 

 is also blamed, for it is absurd to disregard the relations of a state to 

 other states: there must be a foreign policy, therefore you must pro- 

 vide 6 military force. The fanciful scheme of Hippodamus, a strange 

 doctrinaire genius, seems to have been in many points inconsistent 

 from want of attention to practical detail. From Aristotle's account he 

 appears not to have troubled himself with the question of equal land- 

 lots, but his fixing the number 7 of citizens (10,000) is evidence that his 



1 See Newman on Ar Pol II 7 7. 2 Ar Pol II 6 13. 



3 Ar Pol II 12 10. 4 Ar Pol II 7 3-7. 5 Pol II 7 passim. 



* t'ol II .7 14, 15. 7 ftvpiavdpov Pol II 8 2, 3, with notes in Newman. 



52 



