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The Archaia Moira: a suggestion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. F. Lazenby
J. F. Lazenby
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

In discussions of the complex and controversial problem of Spartan land-tenure,1 the mysterious ‘ρχαῖα μοῖρα’ (archaia moira) has assumed an importance out of all proportion to its prominence in the sources, for the actual phrase only occurs once in extant literature. It owes its importance to the fact that the reference to it has been used to support the theory that there were two categories of land in Sparta, a theory which in turn is held to explain how, when all Spartans supposedly owned equal estates, there could nevertheless be rich ones and poor ones, as authors such as Herodotos, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Aristotle make clear. The answer, it is claimed, is that although all Spartans possessed an equal share of one category of land, they could own more or less of the other category.2

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , May 1995 , pp. 87 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 Walbank, F. W. famously described the problem as ‘one of the most vexed in the obscure field of Spartan institutions’ (Historical Commentary on Polybius, [Oxford, 1957], 728)Google Scholar. Many of the problems have, I think, now been solved byHodkinson, Stephen, ‘Land Tenure and Inheritance in Classical Sparta’, CQ (new series) 36 (1986), 378ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 E.g.Pareti, L., Storia di Sparta arcaica (Florence, 1917), 197Google Scholar ff.;Ehrenberg, V., Hermes 59 (1924), 45ff.Google Scholar;Chrimes, K. M. T. (Atkinson), Ancient Sparta (Manchester, 1948), 425Google Scholar;Michell, H., Sparta (Cambridge, 1952), 220Google Scholar;Forrest, W. G., A History of Sparta 950–192 B.C. (London, 1968), 135Google Scholar;Cartledge, P., Sparta andLakonia (London, 1979), 166Google Scholar, andAgesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (London, 1987), 168Google Scholar;David, E., Sparta between Empire and Revolution 404–243 B.C. (New York, 1981), 46ff.Google Scholar;MacDowell, D. M., Spartan Law (Edinburgh, 1986), 93Google Scholar f.

3 SeeDilts, M. R., Heraklidis Lembi Excerpta Politiarum (GRBS Monographs 5, 1971)Google Scholar. The discovery of the ‘Athenian Constitution’ confirmed that ‘Herakleides’ was excerpting from the lost Aristotelian politeiai.

4 Bloch, H., ‘Herakleides Lembos and his Epitome of Aristotle'spoliteiai’, TAPA 71 (1940), 27ffGoogle Scholar.

5 Dilts, , op. cit., 8–9Google Scholar.

6 von Holzinger, C., Philologus 52 (1894), 58ffGoogle Scholar.

7 J. J. Keaney, ‘Hignett's HAC and the Authorship of the Athénaiõn Politeia’,LCM 5 (1980). 53Google Scholar.

8 E.g.Michell, , op. cit., 221Google Scholar;MacDowell, , op. cit., 103Google Scholar.

9 Cartledge, , Sparta and Lakonia, 166Google Scholar.

10 Hodkinson, , op. cit., 388Google Scholar.

11 Busolt, G. and Swoboda, H., Griechische Staatskunde (3rd ed., Munich, 1926) ii, 633ff.Google Scholar;Walbank, , op. cit., 728Google Scholar;Cartledge, , Sparta and Lakonia, 166Google Scholar;Hodkinson, , op. cit., 385–6Google Scholar.

12 Forrest, , op. cit., 137Google Scholar;Cartledge, , Sparta and Lakonia, 167–8Google Scholar;Hodkinson, , op. cit., 386Google Scholar & 389ff., esp. 391;Schütrumpf, E., GRBS 28 (1987), 441ffGoogle Scholar.

13 Cf.David, , op. cit., 211Google Scholar n. 86.

14 Hodkinson, , op. cit., 385–6Google Scholar, and refs. in n. 11 above.

15 Hodkinson, , op. cit., 404–5Google Scholar and n. 120.

16 An attempt has been made to explain how the surplus was used byFigueira, T. J., TAPA 114 (1984), 87Google Scholar ff. On rations seeForbes, H. and Foxhall, L., Chiron 12 (1982), 41ffGoogle Scholar.

17 Hodkinson, S., ‘Sharecropping and Sparta's Exploitation of the Helots,’ in ΦΙΛΟΛΑΚΩΝ, Lakonian Studies in Honour of Hector Catling (Oxford, 1992), 123ffGoogle Scholar.

18 The immediately preceding excerpt (Dilts, 11) is about the honour paid to Terpander (cf.Plut, ., Lyk. 28. 5)Google Scholar, the one before that (Dilts, 10) a mish-mash of references to Lykourgos' having been responsible for bringing the Homeric poems to Sparta, reforming the constitution and creating the krypteia (cf.Plut, ., Lyk. 28. 1–2)Google Scholar; to the creation of the ephorate and the honours paid to dead kings. The succeeding excerpt (Dilts 13) is about the restrictions placed on women, the upbringing of the young, burial customs and eating habits!