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Buildings and Residence on the Land in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: The Contribution of Epigraphy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Robin Osborne
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Abstract

References to rural buildings mentioned in inscriptions are analysed, particularly the records of the temple estates of Delian Apollo on Delos, Rheneia, and Mykonos. It is concluded that, against earlier interpretations, none of the vocabulary employed in the leases necessarily implies residence. Evidence from other leases confirms this. It is suggested here that buildings referred to as oikiai were not primarily residences, but centres of agricultural activity, according to season.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 80 , November 1985 , pp. 119 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1985

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References

I am grateful to John Cherry, Peter Garnsey, Michael Jameson, and Anthony Snodgrees for comments on an earlier draft.

1 Cf. Thuc. v. 4 (Plataia), iv. 84, 88 (Akanthos), Xen. Hell. vii. 5. 14 (Mantineia), and more generally Ain. Takt 7. 1, 16. 2. Cf. also Xen. Hell. v. 4. 3 (Thebes).

2 Lysias i. 11, 20, 23.

3 Xen. Oik. 11. 15 f. For the epitropos see Oik 12.

4 Men. Kitharist. 54 f., Perikeir. 364, Samia 38 f, Phasma 16.

5 Polyb. iv. 73. The word for ‘rural establishments’ is simply κατσκενή.

6 Cf. Pečirka, , ‘Homestead Farms in Classical and Hellenistic Hellas’, in Finley, M. I. (ed.), Problèmes de la terre en Grèce ancienne (Paris 1973) pp. 113–47 at p. 114.Google Scholar Pečirka's study is the finest and most comprehensive published, but has been slightly outdated by archaeological developments.

7 Intensive surface survey is a recent enough development in Greece for little of what has been done to have been published in full. But see Renfrew, A. C. and Wagstaff, J. M.(eds), An Island Polity (Cambridge 1982)Google Scholar and the survey of surveys in Rupp, D. and Keller, D. (eds), Archaeological Survey in the Mediterranean Basin, British Archaeological Reports S155 (Oxford 1983).Google Scholar

8 For a collection of published evidence for tower buildings see Nowicka, M., Les maisons de tour dans le monde grec, Bibl. Antiqua 15 (Warsaw 1965).Google Scholar

9 Cf. Pečirka, op. cit. (n. 6) pp. 123, 136f. For further comments on the interpretation of rural sites in Attiké see Osborne, R., Demos: the Discovery of Classical Attika (Cambridge 1985) 15–46.Google Scholar

10 It is worth noting that even from the excavated site of the house below the Cave of Pan at Vari the material recovered was not sufficient to establish all the year round occupation. Cf. BSA 68 (1973) 418 f., 434–8.

11 Peirka, op. cit. (n. 6), did indeed bring the Delian material into his discussion, but although he devoted considerable space to it he did not review Kent's interpretation of the evidence with a sufficiently critical eye (but cf. his 138 n. 3, 139 n. 2).

12 The division of lease documents between lists and conditions is broadly that of Dareste, R., Haussoullier, B., and Reinach, Th., Recueil des inscriptions juridiques grecques i (Paris 1891) 251.Google Scholar

13 Kent, J. H., ‘The Temple Estates of Delos, Rheneia and Mykonos’, Hesperia 17 (1948) 243–338CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter cited as ‘Kent’). Some additional points about the administrative aspects of the leases are made by Tréheux, J., ‘Les Dernières années de Délos sous le protectorat des Amphictions’, Mélanges Ch. Picard ii (Paris 1949) 1008–32 at 1009–22.Google Scholar

14 See the map on p. 248 of Kent, and his n. 173 on p. 291. Peirka, op. cit. 140 n. 1, should read kilometres not miles!

15 Cf. Pleket, H. W., Epigraphica i (Leiden 1964) no. 43 11. 20 ff.Google Scholar, IG xii. 5. 872, ll. 52, 53, 63, 94.

16 Kent 254 n. 25. For the various terms in other contexts see Robinson, D. M. (ed.) Excavations at Olynthus xii (Baltimore 1946) 453–71.Google Scholar

17 IG xi. 2. 287 A 145, 146, 149, 151, 154, 156, 158, etc. It has been thought that aulē may sometimes be used elsewhere to refer to a farmstead, e.g. in the Thespiai land leases where it represents the only structure ever recorded on the land: see BCH 61 (1937) 177 f. A 11. 34, 38, 46, and particularly REG 10 (1897) 26 ff. 1. 11 where, on rationalist economic assumptions, the aulē appears to be worth 2696 dr. (see Cavaignac, , REG 66 (1953) 95 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar). It is certainly possible that aulē is used to cover the whole complex of farm buildings such as are found on Rheneia, an assumption supported by the inscription from Hyettos, published on Öjh 8 (1905) 276–85Google Scholar (cf. BCH Supp 3 (1976) 244) and perhaps by the meaning of aulostaten in Insc. Cret. in. iv. 78–80 no. 1 11. 55 ff.

18 IG xi. 2. 287 A 165.

19 Ibid. A 165, 149, 163.

20 Ibid. A 152.

21 Ibid. A 171, 147. The form andrōnion only occurs in these inscriptions.

22 Kent 297 f. Note Peirka's reference (op. cit. (n. 6) p. 139 n. 2) to Kent's ‘very controversial’ interpretation of the kleision.

23 IG xi. 2. 287 A 146. The thalamos also has a door.

24 Homer, Odyssey xxiv. 208–10Google Scholar, Lysias xii. 18, Hesperia 15 (1946) 185f.

25 IG xi. 2. 158 A 56.

26 Kent 298.

27 Pleket, H. W., Epigraphica i (Leiden 1964) no. 43 11. 20 ff.Google Scholar

28 ii2 1241. 17, 32f., 40 f. The word for ‘equip’ is ἐπιτκευάζειν.

29 Jameson, M. H., ‘The Leasing of Land at Rhamnous’, Hesperia Supp 19 (1982) 60–74.Google Scholar I am indebted to Professor Jameson for my knowledge of the text that follows.

30 Thuc. ii. 14. 1, Hell. Ox. 17 (12) 4f.

31 Pleket, H. W., Epigraphica i (Leiden 1964) no. 40.Google Scholar

32 Pleket, H. W., Epigraphica i (Leiden 1964) no. 40.Google Scholar

33 IG xiv. 645 I. 138 ff.

34 Bean, G. E. and Fraser, P. M., The Rhodian Peraea and Islands (Oxford 1954) 6–20 nos. 8–10.Google Scholar

35 There are, of course, a number of leases which make no mention of any buildings on the land at all. Cf. e.g. IG ii.2 2492, vii. 1739–42; BCH 60 (1937) 177 ff.

36 Hesperia 31 (1962) 54f. no. 138. For a lessee taking over storage vessels cf. IG xii. 5. 572 from Keos.

37 For these men see Kent 335 no. 222 and 328 no. 108.

38 For slave labour see Kent 280. For lessee residing on the estate see Kent 255 n. 28: ‘In 282 BC the lessee of Korakiai was also the less of Akra Delos … [It is] probable that Korakiai (“the places of the crows”) was merely grazing land, and that in 282 BC its lessee dwelt in Akra Delos.’

39 Kent 268 f.

40 For all these men see Kent's list of lessees of the temple estates, pp. 320–35, s.v.

41 IG xi. 2. 287A 169–72. For thefalling profitability of vines in the third century see Kent 310f.

42 Kent actually found some surface traces which he could match with certain inventory descriptions, Kent 248 n. 10, 251 n. 17. Cf. BCH 102 (1978) 874–7.

43 Jameson, op. cit. (n. 29) p. 72, with references; PAE 1977, 3–18.

44 IG xii. 5. 872. The variation in the amount of building on the land is, of course, precisely what intensive surface survey detects. Curiously the island of Melos does not appear to share the density of building on the land in the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods which the inscriptions attest for Tenos, Rheneia, and Delos. See Renfrew and Wagstaff, op. cit. (n. 7).

45 Finley, M. I., Studies in Land and Credit in Ancient Athens, 500–200 BC: The Horos-Inscriptions (NewBrunswick 1952) 62.Google Scholar Cf. Osborne, op. cit. (n. 9) 59 f. and Table 5, and for the fragmented pattern of land-holding ibid. ch. 3. Finley is equally mistaken in supposing that this ‘infrequency’ of buildings on land indicates a migration from country to astu: village residence will explain why people do not reside on their land just as satisfactorily.

46 Cf. Finley, op. cit. 124 no. 14 for a relatively clear case oikiai in more than one location are recorded on a horos stone, here revealing the ownership of one oikia at Halai Aixonides or Anagyrous and another in the astu.

47 Cf. Finley, op. cit. 95 f.

48 Cf. e.g. Inschriften von Olympia 18; AM 14 (1889) 137.