Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T12:48:19.695Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Assessing the Scale of Property Confiscation in the Ancient Greek World

from Part I - Uncertainty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2022

By
Emily Mackil
Edited by
Myles Lavan ,
Daniel Jew  and
Bart Danon
Myles Lavan
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Daniel Jew
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Bart Danon
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

This paper utilizes Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the frequency with which private property was confiscated in the Greek world in the Classical period (circa 480–330 BCE). Confiscation is defined for the purposes of this paper as the uncompensated, sudden loss of landed property. The first step is to establish the demographic context within which confiscation occurred, and then to analyze four mechanisms for the confiscation of property: exile arising from stasis; the expulsion of a population by a foreign power; andrapodismos or mass enslavement; and the imposition of a cleruchy. Other mechanisms by which confiscation occurred, but which cannot be quantified, are briefly discussed. The model shows that, based on the beliefs I hold about the four mechanisms for confiscation that have been analyzed, the average estate owner faced a 2.6–18.6 % chance of experiencing confiscation in his lifetime, with a mean likelihood of 10.5 %. This finding is at odds with the prevailing view that Greek poleis ensured the security of private property, which in turn contributed to the remarkable economic growth of the period. The conclusion suggests some possible responses by the Greeks themselves to the imperfect property security they experienced.

Keywords

andrapodismoscleruchiesconfiscationeconomic growthexileproperty securityriskstasisviolenceClassical Greece
Type
Chapter
Information
The Uncertain Past
Probability in Ancient History
 , pp. 53 - 92
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akrigg, B. (2011). Demography and classical Athens. In Holleran, C. and Pudsey, A. (eds.), Demography and the Graeco-Roman World: New Insights and Approaches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 37–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akrigg, B. (2015). Metics in Athens. In Taylor, C. and Vlassopoulos, K. (eds.), Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 155–76.Google Scholar
Akrigg, B. (2019). Population and Economy in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Arcenas, S. L. (2018). Stasis: The Nature, Frequency, and Intensity of Political Violence in Ancient Greece. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Palo Alto, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Arcenas, S. L. (2020). The silence of Thucydides. Transactions of the American Philological Association, 150(2), 299–332.Google Scholar
Beloch, K. J. (1912). Griechische Geschichte, 2nd edn, Vols. I–IV. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Berger, S. (1992). Revolution and Society in Greek Sicily and Southern Italy. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Börm, H., (2019). Mordende Mitbürger: Stasis und Bürgerkrieg in griechischen Poleis des Hellenismus. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Bresson, A. (2016a). The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bresson, A. (2016b). Women and inheritance in ancient Sparta: The Gortynian connection. Studi ellenistici, 30, 9–68.Google Scholar
Brock, R. (1996). The tribute of Karystos. Échos du monde classique, 40(3), 357–70.Google Scholar
Coale, A. J., and Demeny, P. (1983). Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, E. E. (1992). Athenian Economy and Society: A Banking Perspective. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, E. E. (2005). Unintended consequences? The economic effect of Athenian tax laws. In Wallace, R. W. and Gagarin, M. (eds.), Symposion 2001: Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 159–73.Google Scholar
Cox, C. (1998). Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, J. K. (1977). Athenian citizenship: The descent group and the alternatives. Classical Journal, 73(2), 105–21.Google Scholar
De Angelis, F. (2003). Megara Hyblaia and Selinous: The Development of Two Greek City-States in Archaic Sicily. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Dössel, A. (2003). Die Beilegung innerstaatlicher Konflikte in den griechischen Poleis vom 5.–3. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Frankfurt am Main; New York: P. Lang.Google Scholar
Driscoll, E. (2016). Stasis and reconciliation: Politics and law in fourth-century Greece. Chiron, 46, 119–55.Google Scholar
Duncan-Jones, R. P. (1980). Metic numbers in Periclean Athens. Chiron, 10, 101–9.Google Scholar
Figueira, T. (1991). Athens and Aegina in the Age of Imperial Colonization. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Fornara, C. W. (1987). Review of Gehrke, Stasis. Gnomon, 59(2), 167–9.Google Scholar
Fouchard, A. (2013). Confiscations et politique en Grèce ancienne. In Ferriès, M.-C. and Delrieux, F. (eds.), Spolier et confisquer dans les mondes grec et romain. Chambéry: Université de Savoie, 13–43.Google Scholar
Foxhall, L. (1992). The control of the Attic landscape. In Wells, B. (ed.), Agriculture in Ancient Greece: Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 16–17 May, 1990. Stockholm and Gothenburg: Paul Åströms Förlag, 155–9.Google Scholar
Gabrielsen, V. (1986). φανερἀ and ἀφανὴς οὐσία in classical Athens. Classica et Mediaevalia, 37, 99–114.Google Scholar
Gagarin, M. (2008). Women and property at Gortyn. Dike, 11, 5–26.Google Scholar
Gallant, T. (1991). Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece: Reconstructing the Rural Domestic Economy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Gehrke, H.-J. (1985). Stasis: Untersuchungen zu den inneren Kriegen in den griechischen Staaten des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Munich: Beck.Google Scholar
Gernet, L. (1956). Choses visibles et choses invisibles. Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, 146, 79–86.Google Scholar
Gomme, A. W. (1933). The Population of Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, J. (1980). Law, custom and myth: Aspects of the social position of women in classical Athens. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 100, 38–59.Google Scholar
Gray, B. (2013). Justice or harmony? Reconciliation after stasis at Dikaia and the fourth-century BC polis. Revue des études anciennes, 115(2), 369–401.Google Scholar
Gray, B. (2015). Stasis and Stability: Exile, the Polis, and Political Thought, c. 404–146 BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, M. H. (1986). Demography and Democracy: The Number of Athenian Citizens in the Fourth Century BC. Herning: Systime.Google Scholar
Hansen, M. H. (1988). Three Studies in Athenian Demography. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters.Google Scholar
Hansen, M. H. (2006). The Shotgun Method: The Demography of the Ancient Greek City-State Culture. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, M. H. and Nielsen, T. H. (2004). An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by the Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hodkinson, S. (1989). Inheritance, marriage and demography: Perspectives upon the success and decline of classical Sparta. In Powell, A. (ed.), Classical Sparta: Techniques Behind her Success. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 79–121.Google Scholar
Hodkinson, S. and Hodkinson, H. (1981). Mantineia and the Mantinike: Settlement and society in a Greek polis. Annual of the British School at Athens, 76, 239–96.Google Scholar
Hoepfner, W. and Schwandner, E.-L. (1994). Haus und Stadt im klassischen Griechenland, 2nd edn. Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag.Google Scholar
Huebner, S. R. (2011). Household composition in the ancient Mediterranean: What do we really know? In Rawson, B. (ed.), A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 73–90.Google Scholar
Isaac, B. H. (1986). The Greek Settlements in Thrace until the Macedonian Conquest. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isager, S. (1981). The marriage pattern in classical Athens: Men and women in Isaios. Classica et Mediaevalia, 33, 81–96.Google Scholar
Jameson, M. H. (1977). Agriculture and slavery in classical Athens. Classical Journal, 73(2), 122–45.Google Scholar
Lavan, M. (2016). The spread of Roman citizenship, 14–212 CE: Quantification in the face of high uncertainty. Past & Present, 230(1), 3–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavan, M. (2019). Epistemic uncertainty, subjective probability, and ancient history. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 50(1), 91–111.Google Scholar
Lindley, D. V. (2014). Understanding Uncertainty, Revised edn. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Interscience.Google Scholar
Mackil, E. (2013). Creating a Common Polity: Religion, Economy, and Politics in the Making of the Greek Koinon. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mackil, E. (2015). The economics of federation in ancient Greece. In Beck, H. and Funke, P. (eds.), Federalism in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 487–502.Google Scholar
Mackil, E. (2017a). Property claims and state formation in the Archaic Greek world. In Richardson, S. and Ando, C. (eds.), Ancient States and Infrastructural Power: Europe, Asia, and America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 63–90.Google Scholar
Mackil, E. (2017b). Propiedad, deuda y revolución en la Grecia antigua. In Campagno, M., Gallego, J. and García Mac Gaw, C. G. (eds.), Capital, deuda, y desigualidad: Distribuciones de la riqueza en el Mediterráneo antiguo. Buenos Aires: Miño y Dávila, 27–53.Google Scholar
Mackil, E. (2018). Property security and its limits in classical Greece. In Canevaro, M., Erskine, A., Gray, B. and Ober, J. (eds.), Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 315–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matthaiou, A. P. (2011). Τὰ ἐν τῆι στήληι γεγραμμένα: Six Greek Historical Inscriptions of the Fifth Century BC. Athens: Greek Epigraphical Society.Google Scholar
Morris, I. (2004). Economic growth in ancient Greece. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 160, 709–42.Google Scholar
Nenci, G. (1980). Sei decreti inediti da Entella. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, 10 (series 3), 1271–5.Google Scholar
Nevett, L. C. (2010). Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1978). Governments, Voluntary Organizations, and Economic Life: The Preindustrial Development of Western Europe. In Pejovich, S. (ed.), The Codetermination Movement in the West. Lexington: Lexington Books, 115-129.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, D. C. and Thomas, R. P. (1973). The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ober, J. (2010). Wealthy Hellas. Transactions of the American Philological Association, 140, 241–286.Google Scholar
Ober, J. (2015). The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborne, R. (2009). Economic growth and the politics of entitlement. Cambridge Classical Journal, 55, 97–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pomeroy, S. B. (1975). Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Pomeroy, S. B. (1997). Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, S. (2011). Estimating ancient Greek populations: The evidence of field survey. In Bowman, A. and Wilson, A. (eds.), Settlement, Urbanization, and Population. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 17–35.Google Scholar
Raepsaet, G. (1973). À propos de l’utilisation de statistiques en démographie grecque: Le nombre d’enfants par famille. L’antiquité classique, 42(2), 536–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhodes, P. J. (1992). The Athenian revolution. In Lewis, D. M., Boardman, J., Davies, J. K. and Ostwald, M. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History. Volume V: The Fifth Century, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 62–95.Google Scholar
Roesch, P. (1985). Le femme et la fortune en Béotie. In Vérilhac, A.-M. (ed.), La femme dans le monde méditerranéen. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient, 71–84.Google Scholar
Salmon, J. (1984). Wealthy Corinth: A History of the City to 338 BC. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Salomon, N. (1997). Le cleruchie di Atene: Caratteri e funzione. Pisa: ETS.Google Scholar
Scheidel, W. (2003). The Greek demographic expansion: Models and comparisons. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 103, 120–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheidel, W. (2007). Demography. In Scheidel, W., Morris, I., and Saller, R. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 38–86.Google Scholar
Scheidel, W., Morris, I. and Saller, R. (eds.) (2007). The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shipley, G. (1987). A History of Samos, 800–188 BC. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Shipton, K. (1997). The private banks in fourth-century BC Athens: A reappraisal. Classical Quarterly, 47(2), 396–422.Google Scholar
Shipton, K. (2008). Bankers as money-lenders: The banks of classical Athens. In Shipton, K., Verboven, K., Vandorpe, K. and Chankowski, V. (eds.), Pistoi dia tèn technèn: Bankers, Loans, and Archives in the Ancient World. Studies in Honor of Raymond Bogaert. Leuven: Peeters, 93–114.Google Scholar
Simonton, M. (2019). The Telos reconciliation dossier (IG XII.4.132): Democracy, demagogues and stasis in an early Hellenistic polis. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 139, 187–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thür, G. (2011). Amnestie in Telos (IG XII 4/1, 132). Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 128, 339–351.Google Scholar
Tuplin, C. J. (1986). The fate of Thespiai during the Theban hegemony. Athenaeum, 64, 321–41.Google Scholar
Vose, D. (2008). Risk Analysis: A Quantitative Guide, 3rd edn. Chichester; Hoboken: Wiley.Google Scholar
Voutiras, E. (2008). La réconciliation des Dikaiopolites: une nouvelle inscription de Dikaia de Thrace, colonie d’Érétrie. Comptes Rendus / Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 781–92.Google Scholar
Voutiras, E. and Sismanidis, K. (2007). Δικαιοπολιτών συναλλαγαὶ. Μία νέα ἐπιγραφή από τη Δικαία αποικία της Ερετρίας. Ancient Macedonia, 7, 253–74.Google Scholar
Whitehead, D. (1977). The Ideology of the Athenian Metic. Cambridge: Cambridge Philosophical Society.Google Scholar
Woods, R. (2007). Ancient and early modern mortality: Experience and understanding. Economic History Review, 60(2), 373–99.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×