Annales littéraires de l'Université

de Besançon

Class in the ancient Greek countryside

Michael H. Jameson

περίληψη
Οι επιφανειακές έρευνες αναδεικνύουν ένα πυκνό πλέγμα μικρών θέσεων στις περισσότερες περιοχές του ελληνικού
χώρου και το οποίο αφορά μόνο σε συγκεκριμένες περιόδους. Αυτές οι θέσεις αποτελούν δεδομένα μιας διαφορετικής και
περισσότερο εντατικής εκμετάλλευσης της γης, που βρισκόταν σε άμεση γειτνίαση με τις θέσεις αυτές. Η παρούσα
ανακοίνωση θέτει το ερώτημα με ποια οικονομική τάξη συνδέεται το φαινόμενο αυτό στην κλασική και την πρώιμη
ελληνιστική εποχή. Προτείνεται η άποψη ότι η έκταση των χωραφιών και η μορφή του πλέγματος υποδηλώνουν ότι οι
κάτοχοι των περισσοτέρων θέσεων δεν ανήκαν στην μεσαία τάξη ούτε ήταν φτωχοί πολίτες, αλλά πρόσωπα κάποιου
οικονομικού εύρους. Οι δούλοι και οι εξαρτημένοι φτωχοί πολίτες επένδυαν τον περισσότερο κόπο. Οι ελεύθεροι φτωχοί
πολίτες φαίνεται ότι ήταν συγκεντρωμένοι σε οικιστικά κέντρα και ίσως στο περιθώριο των πόλεων.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Jameson Michael H. Class in the ancient Greek countryside. In: Structures rurales et sociétés antiques. Actes du
colloque de Corfou (14-16 mai 1992) Besançon : Université de Franche-Comté, 1994. pp. 55-64. (Annales littéraires de
l'Université de Besançon, 508);

https://www.persee.fr/doc/ista_0000-0000_1994_act_508_1_1386

Fichier pdf généré le 25/03/2022

 CLASS IN THE ANCIENT GREEK COUNTRYSIDE*

In memory of Jan PECIRKA

ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗ. Οι επιφανειακές έρευνες αναδεικνύουν ένα πυκνό πλέγμα μικρών θέσεων στις περισσότερες
περιοχές του ελληνικού χώρου και το οποίο αφορά μόνο σε συγκεκριμένες περιόδους. Αυτές οι θέσεις αποτελούν
δεδομένα μιας διαφορετικής και περισσότερο εντατικής εκμετάλλευσης της γης, που βρισκόταν σε άμεση γειτνίαση με τις
θέσεις αυτές. Η παρούσα ανακοίνωση θέτει το ερώτημα με ποια οικονομική τάξη συνδέεται το φαινόμενο αυτό στην
κλασική και την πρώιμη ελληνιστική εποχή. Προτείνεται η άποψη ότι η έκταση των χωραφιών και η μορφή του πλέγματος
υποδηλώνουν ότι οι κάτοχοι των περισσοτέρων θέσεων δεν ανήκαν στην μεσαία τάξη ούτε ήταν φτωχοί πολίτες, αλλά
πρόσωπα κάποιου οικονομικού εύρους. Οι δούλοι και οι εξαρτημένοι φτωχοί πολίτες επένδυαν τον περισσότερο κόπο. Οι
ελεύθεροι φτωχοί πολίτες φαίνεται ότι ήταν συγκεντρωμένοι σε οικιστικά κέντρα και ίσως στο περιθώριο των πόλεων.

The greatly increased interest in the ancient countryside in récent years has led to the widespread use of
intensive techniques in surface surveys. They hâve brought about some sharp changes in our knowledge. The
most striking phenomenon they hâve revealed has been the prevalence in the countryside, in certain periods, of
numerous relatively small and isolated sites. They show up as concentrations of pottery and tile fragments and,
less commonly, as the remains of the walls of buildings. It is clear that, aside from a few military, cuit and
grave sites, identifiable by their particular location or the artifacts associated with them, thèse sites had a
function in the use of the land adjacent to them and are to be connected with agricultural activity which at times
included the rearing of animais. Thèse sites hâve been described as isolated or independent farmsteads !. In
whatever way faim and farmstead are defined, the attachment of land to the structures that stand on thèse sites
should be beyond dispute. The few examples of excavated country houses and the many remains of isolated
country towers, which hâve been shown to be for the most part éléments in such country houses, give us a good
idea of the character of the larger and better built structures that once occupied thèse locations 2.

*. In revising this paper I hâve profited from having heard the other papers at the Kerkyra conférence and from having
participated shortly thereafter in the Laurence Seminar at Cambridge University on "Seulement and Rural Economy in
Classical and Later Greece".
Abbreviatons:
Carter 1990 = J. C. Carter, Metapontum-Land, Wealth, and Population, in J.-P. Descoeudres (éd.), Greek Colonists and Native
Populations, Oxford 1990, 405-1 1.
Lohmann 1992 = Hans Lohmann, Agricultural and Country Life in Classical Attica, in Wells 1992: 29-57
Wells 1992 = B.Wells (éd.), Agriculture in Ancient Greece, Skrifter Utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Athen, 42, 1992.
1 E.g., J.L. Bintliff - A.M. Snodgrass, The Bradford/Cambridge Boeotia Expédition: The First Four Years, JFA 12, 1985, 139,
143; Carter 1990, 408. The first, and still indispensable, gênerai examination of dispersed farmsteads was J. Pecirka, Homestead
.

Farms in Classical and Hellenistic Hellas, Problèmes de la terre en Grèce ancienne, M.I. Finley (éd.), Paris 1973, 1 13-147.
2. E.g., J. Jones - A. Graham - L. Sackett, The Dema House, BSA 57, 1962, 75-1 14; iidem, An Attic Country House below the
Cave of Pan at Vari, BSA 68, 1973, 355-452. Cf. Lohmann 1992.
56 M. JAMESON

Once the existence of dispersed patterns of rural sites has been established, the next task is the
détermination with as great accuracy as possible of the periods in vvhich they occur. The phenomenon is uniform
neither over time nor between régions, no doubt because of differing social, économie and démographie
circumstances. The prevalence of small, dispersed sites in the later Classical and early Hellenistic periods, and
then again, if to a lesser degree, in the Late Roman period (after ca. 3 OU A.D.), seems to be the gênerai rule 3.
Continuing refinement of dating is necessary both to facilitate comparison between régions and also to clarify
what is happening in a single area at any given time. This may permit corrélation of the rise and décline of the
phenomenon with particular historical circumstances and the establishment of the chronological relationship of
adjacent sites, though précision is difficult with the coarse ware and rooftiles that constitute the prépondérance of
finds from thèse sites. To appreciate the importance of refinement in dating, consider twenty sites of the fourth
century B.C. in a single small valley; if it turns out that hait of thèse were occupied only early in the century and
the rest only late, the individual properties are seen to be twice as large as first thought and we get quite a
différent impression of how the land was divided up and exploited4.
To give an example of the information that can be obtained when dating is relatively secure, in the
southern Argolid it has been possible to show that thèse rural sites were particularly numerous in the period ca.
375-275 B.C., which, to be sure, gives a larger span of time than one would like 5. In one agriculturally
désirable part of the région (known as Flamboura) a séries of properties, ranging in size from 5.5 to 22.5 ha with
the notably high médian of ca.13.18 ha, can be postulated on the basis of the location of a group of 17 sites 6.
Hans Lohmann's work in south Attica has also revealed many sites of the fourth cent. B.C 7. In some régions
(Boiotia and the southern Argolid are sure examples) the next peak for small rural sites is in the Late Roman
period, for which neither the same social nor perhaps économie and agrarian conditions can be invoked as for the
Classical period. This gives a warning that students of this subject hâve not failed to heed very similar
archaeological patterns may represent quite différent social and économie structures. Even so, it is incumbent
upon us to look for the same or similar basic factors when the same phenomena appear in the same historical
periods in a single, well defined culture, such as that of Classical Greece.
Two questions are of prime importance for interpreting the phenomenon of dispersed rural sites: what
was the agricultural régime and what was the class structure? This paper will concentrate on the latter which,
however, is closely linked to the former. The présence of buildings on isolated sites suggests différent ways of
using the land than when the countryside is comparatively empty and the population is concentrated in nuclear
settlements. The contrast can be conceived of as between (a) an extensive system growing field crops on
relatively large properties with biennial fallow, the use of the ox-drawn plough, and the rearing of animais, and
(b) an intensive system cornbining field crops, vines, fruit trees (including the olive), and vegetable gardens (the
last requiring that water be available), with less time lost to fallow, more attention to soil improvement
(manuring, weeding, terrace building and maintenance) and the provision of water for starting young plants,
fewer animais and a higher înput of labor, especially by hand. The intensive syslem would seem to require much
more time on the land as well as more facilities for storage, both of which would explain the construction of

3. See c.g., A. Snodgrass, An Archacology oiGrcccc, Berkeley 1987, 110, 1 16-17; C.N. Runnels - Tj. van Andel, The Evolution
of Seulement in the Southern Argolid: An Heonomie Explanation, Hcspcria56, 1987, 303-334.
4. H must be granted that surveyors probably register fewer sites of any one period than actually existed and therefore the
estimated size of the properties is too high, though to some extent this is offset by the erudeness of our ehronology whieh makes
more sites appear contemporary than really are. J.L. Bintliff - A. M. Snodgrass, Boeotia Expédition (supra n. 1), 143, believe
that the number of sites missed by their survey in Boiotia is considérable and that their estimâtes of density arc too low.
5. M. Jameson - C. Runnels - Tj. van Andel, A Grcck Countryside, Stanford (in press).
6. M. Jameson, Agricultural Labor in Ancient Greece, in Welles 1992, 141 (the médian oi 13.8 of ha, for 13. 18 ha, given therc is
a slip).
7. Lohmann 1992 and id., Zur Prosopographie und Démographie der attischen Landgemeinde Atenc (Άτήνη), in E. Olshausen -
H. Sonnabend (eds.), Stuttgarter Kolloquium zur historischen Géographie des Altertums 2 1984 und 3, 1987, Bonn 1991,203-
STRUCTURES RURALES ET SOCIETES ANTIQUES 57

permanent buildings. It has seemed reasonable therefore to associate the intensive System with the dense
patterns of sites and the extensive with thin patterns. An increase in density may be taken to be an indication of
the wider adoption of the intensive System 8.
It might be argued that an increase in the number of sites simply indicates a higher population in the
area as a whole. But so long as a nucleated center is no more than an hour and a half or two hours away, rural
buildings may only be secondary or temporary résidences of a stable population in a nearby town and their
présence need only show a différent relationship to the countryside, i.e., a change in the agricultural régime 9.
Thèse need not, however, be alternative explanations. A rise in population and agricultural change may well
accompany each other. In the Classical period at least, the number of houses and hence the population within
nucleated centers also rises. Simultaneous rural and urban density, as can be demonstrated for the southern
Argolid, indicates an absolute increase in population, though future research correlating urban and rural
densities may discover other trends elsewhere. Thus, although we are not justified in supposing that every
private building in town or country represents a separate family and thus in adding them together to estimate the
population, population rise, and with it the réduction in the amount of land available to each family, is not
irrelevant to the patterns of denser settlement and intensified agriculture.
As for the postulated shift to more intensive agriculture, confirmation will hâve to corne from the
évidence of texts and examination of the construction, equipment and, whenever possible, the organic remains
associated with the small sites. The combination of pressing equipment and suitable land has led to the proposai
that there was a concentration on olive culture in the southern Argolid in the late Classical/early Hellenistic
period 10. A similar concentration on the olive has been proposed for south Attica by Lohmann who lays stress on
the steep land with its numerous terraces (eschatiai, one would suppose), being much more appropriate for olives
and vines than for cereals u. Contemporary land leases, mostly from Attica, show, when they are spécifie, the
présence of ail three; légumes as alternatives to cereals also appear and, where there was water, vegetables n.
In practice, the proportion of the land given over to each crop would hâve depended on the character of the land,
the needs of the particular family and the demand exisiting for any surplus. But the attention in the more
detailed leases to the continuai replacement of vines and trees and références to cereals as being planted
"between the rows" (τα μετόρχία, IG I2 2493), does not suggest that cereals were the most important crop. On
Attic eschatiai, on the other hand, the cultivation of cereals should not be underestimated, to judge from the
practice in periods of high rural population in the last century and a half. At Khersonesos in the Crimea land for

8. For discussion of the agricultural régimes in the Greek countryside, see e.g. M. Jameson, Agriculture and Slavery in Classical
Athens, Classical Journal 73, 1977/78, 122-145 and Agricultural Labor (supra n. 6), 135-146; M.-C. Amouretti, Le pain et
l'huile dans la grèce antique, Paris 1985, especially 259-62; P. Halstead, Traditional and Ancient Rural Economy in
Mediterranean Europe: plus ça change? JHS 107, 1987, 77-87; J.L. Davis, Contributions to a Mediterranean Rural
Archaeology, JMA 4, 1991, 138-141 and J.F. Cherry - J.L. Davis - E. Mantzourani (eds.), Landscape Archaeology as Long-
Term History, Los Angeles 1991, 462-465. Extensive Systems may be less productive per unit of lend but more profitable to
the owner and therefore attractive when the amount of land begins to require too heavy investment in labor for intensive
cultivation. Cf. S. van Bath, The Yields of Différent Crops (Mainly Cereals) in Relation to the Seed c. 810-1820, Acta
Historiae Neerlandica 2, 1967, 60-65. This may hâve been the situation in much of Greece between the early Hellenistic and
late Roman periods.
9. For scepticism about population growth as an explanation for increased density, R. Osborne, Classical Landscape with figures.
The Ancient Greek cityand its Countryside, London 1987, 69-70.
1 0. Cf. C.N. Runnels - Tj. van Andel, The Evolution of Settlement (supra n. 3).
1 1. Lohmann 1992.
12. There is no useful collection, translation and analysis of agricultural leases (though I am attempting to prépare one) but an idea
of their contents can be had from R.J. Hopper, Trade and Industry in Classical Greece, London 1979, 160-63. IG IV 2493,
from Rhamnous in Attica, assumes that ail cereals on two properties will be grown between rows of vines and requires working
the fallow and the sowing of légumes in alternation with wheat. IG IV 2494, from the same inscription, is very spécifie about
what is to be grown in a garden.
5* M. JAMESON

trees, vines and field crops hâve been identified through excavation n. However, a degree of intensification in
primarily cereal culture is also possible by means of repeated working of the soil, soil amendment and
alternation of crops 14. Metapontion in southern Italy, with a dense rural seulement pattern in the Classical
period was known for its cereals. Organic remains, according to preliminary interprétation, show a shift from an
extensive System of cereal cultivation, fallow and animal husbandry in the Archaic period to olives, cereals and
légumes, and then to concentration on wheat by the later fourth century B.C. l5.
To return to the question of class, who occupied thèse sites and worked the adjacent land? The natural
inference would be that the sites represent "small typically, single family-farmsteads" 16. What was the social
and économie status of such families? Archaeologists hâve been properly cautious about describing thèse sites as
those of peasants, farming primarily for their own subsistence needs and poised on the edge of économie
disaster17. The impression one receives at présent, and so far we cannot go much beyond impressions, is of more
substantial farmers who aim at producing significantly more than their families' subsistence needs. The notion of
density itself is impressionistic. By contrast with other periods in which the landscape is relatively empty, the
appearance of a number of sites will suggest a degree of density, but that fact alone does not mean that the
individual sites are small in terms of the local economy.
One criterion to use is the amount of land associated with each site. From literature and inscriptions a
typical property, one large enough to support a family of five, has been estimated to hâve been between 3.6 and
5.4 ha in size, somewhat above or below 50 ancient plethra (a plethron was 100 square feet), a unit of land
measurement known from a Thessalian inscription and from archaeological study in the Crimea and at
Metapontion 18. How do known properties compare in size to this unit?
Most of the properties mentioned above at Flamboura in the southern Argolid are estimated to be more
than twice that size. At Khersonesos in the Crimea a large number of plots, with their 'associated structures,
hâve been delineated by means of excavation and surface study. Lying close to the town, 80 out of some 460
properties seem to correspond to the "typical" Greek farm of 50 plethra (4.5 ha), while 380 properties are of 300
plethra, six times as large. Hère, in a colonial situation where land was taken in some way from the native
inhabitants and divided up for the benefit of the Greeks, there is an initial uniformity and egalitarianism. If, as
has been suggested, the 50 plethra parcels were the original allotments for the first settlers, one may suspect
that they were regarded as minima and that there was also access to other land farther from the town. Certainly
once the larger plots were laid out, the original and no doubt politically privileged original settlers would hâve

13. The most récent review of research in the area can be found in F. Favory, Propositions pour une modélisation des cadastres
ruraux antiques, Cadastres et espace rural. Approches et réalités antiques, M. Clavel-Lévêquc (éd.), Paris 1983, 91-107. The
abstract prepared for this conférence by V. Ku/.ishchin - L.V. Marcrienko - CM. Nikolaenko indicates that continuing research
has coniirmed and refincd earlicr conclusions. The reviews and summaries of J. Pccirka, Country estâtes in the polis of
Chersonesos in the Crimea, in Riccrchc storichc cd cconomichc in memoria di Corrado Barbagallo, Naplcs 1970, 1, 459-477;
Idem, Homestcad Faims (supra n. 1); J. Pecirka - M. Dufkova, Hxcavations of Farms and Farmhouscs in the Chora oi
Chersonesos in the Crimea, Hircne 8, 1970, 123-174; A. Wasowicz, Traces de lotissements anciens en Crimée, MEFRA 84,
1972, 199-229, remain valuable.
14. See e.g., M. Jameson, Agriculture and Slavery (.supra n. 8).
1 5 Carter 1 990, 42 1
16. J.L. Davis, Mediterranean Rural Archaeology (supra n. 8), 132.
.

17. For modcls ot the Classical Greck peasant, sce P. Garnsey, Famine and Foodsupply in the Greco-Roman World, Cambridge
1988, 44-45; T. Gallant, Risk and Survival in Ancient Greecc: Reconstructing the Rural Domcstic Economy, Stanford 1991,
xi and 4. There has been Icss attention given to locating the gênerai conslruct in particular historical contexts. Garnsey sees
smallholdcrs surviving through access to common land, rcntal land or to other employment. Except for gra/.ing, common land
docs not seem to have bccn an option for the Grcck farmer.
IS. Sec Y. Salviat - C. Vatin, Le cadastre de Larissa, BCH 98, 1974, 247-62; A. Coopcr, The Family farm in Greecc, CI 73, 1977-
1978, 162-75; T. Iioyd - M. Jameson, Urban and Rural Land Division in Ancient Grcece, Hcspcria 50, 1981, 327-42; Y.
Favory, Proposition (supra n. 13.), 5 1-135, esp. 90-107. See note 13 supra, where références to the literature on the Crimea
arc given. For Metapontion, Carter 1990. There has bccn much discussion of the amount of land needed to support a family. If
50 or 60 plethra was the common conception of the size of a family farm, there may have been a rule of thumb of 10 plethra
(roughly 1 ha) per person.
STRUCTURES RURALES ET SOCIETES ANTIQUES 59

begun with basic allotments that guaranteed the survival of the settlers'families and then moved to more
generous arrangements 19. At Metapontion, where the unit of 50 plethra was also in use, the actual properties
associated with the farmsteads that hâve been studied show a range from 4.41 to 79.38 ha, i.e., from 50 to 900
plethra. More significant is that, according to one scheme, the largest group of plots (49%) is of 150 plethra (13.2
ha), by another of 200 plethra (17.64 ha). The plots are then most commonly three and four times the basic unit
of 50 plethra. Hère too ail settlers may initially hâve been assigned one or more plots of the basic unit of 50
plethra 20.
A new or reorganized community usually began with a uniform division and distribution of land,
providing the largest possible properties to its members with the aim of improving their économie status 21.
Thèse initial distributions may be taken to be unitary properties, constituting ail or most of the member's
landholding, aside from small, specialized plots such as vineyards or gardens. But in time, inevitably, both the
uniformity and the unity of the property would dissolve as some families died out or failed economically and
others increased their property by adding adjacent or separated plots. The range of property sizes at Larisa in
Thessaly and at Metapontion despite the présence of a basic unit is suggestive of what happened 22.
A number of scattered parcels rather than single, very large estâtes seems to hâve been the way the rich
held land in Attica 23. How common a pattern this was even in Attica and whether, as has been suggested, it was
generally regarded as désirable to hâve land in différent locations to minimize natural risks, are questions we
need not pursue hère. What we can conclude is, first, that after the moment of création for some newly
organized communities and at any time for old communities, a single property is only the minimum holding of
any one family; secondly, that a range of property sizes is to be expected and that the parameters of that range
are what we should seek.
As for the high end of the range, it is probably safe to say that in few parts of old Greece (as opposed to
colonial areas) without serf Systems of labor were there many very large estâtes, which is not to say that rich
men may not hâve owned several properties of lesser size. Some of the best candidates for very large properties
are those that hâve the remains of a sizable structure in relatively isolated locations (e.g. the Vari house on the
slopes of Mt. Hymettos) 24. But thèse are not likely to hâve had land of the best quality and their isolation
distinguishes them from the dense pattern which was our starting point. They are évidence of the willingness to

1 9. Cf. SIG* 141, the early 4th cent, inscription for a settlement on Kerkyra Melaina, where it is usually supposed that the later
arrivais were to be given larger but inferior plots of land. Cf. D. Asheri, Distribuzioni di terre nell'antica Grecia, Memoria
ddl'Accademia délie Scienze di Torino, cl. di Se. Morali, Stor. e Fil., ser. 4, no. 10, Turin 1966, 15, 28. Nicholas Cahill (personal
communication) is preparing a revised interprétation of the text.
20. See Carter 1990: 427-29, who however, does not identify his basic unit with 50 plethra (210 m=707 feet, the side of a 50
plethra square, (whose diagonal is 1.000 feet), a land unit known from Larisa, Khersonesos and, as Boyd and I hâve argued, from
the town of Halieis (see note 18 supra.) I am not sure I hâve understood completely Carter's figures, ail given in hectares, on. p.
427 of his important article. It should be noted that with a foot that varied as much as 0.039 m in différent parts of the Greek
world (T. Boyd - M. Jameson, Urban and Rural Land Division [supran. 18], 332), the actual metric measurements calculated on
the ground will vary.
2 1 Cf. IG V 46 (I2 45), an Athenian colony to Brea, ca. 445 B.C, and in gênerai D. Asheri, Distribuzioni di terre (supra n. 19),
1966.
.

22. At Himera one can see expansion and contraction of properties within the town. Cf. N. Bonacasa, II problema urbanistico di
Himera, Quademo Imerese, Studi e Materiali, Istituto di Archeologia Univestità di Palermo, Rome 1972, 1-16.
23. R. Osborne, Demos: The Discovery of classicaî Attica, Cambridge 1985, 60-63, but see also V.D. Hanson, Agriculture and
Warfare in classicaî Greece, Pisa 1982, 38-41. A. Snodgrass, The Rural Landscape and its Political Significance, Opus 7-8,
1987-88, 55 has noted the contradictions between the implications of the dense pattern and the partible inheritance System, ;
he suggests that various expédients operated to préserve the advantages of a unitary property with a house on it. The advantages
of reducing natural risk through scattered loldings hâve been stressed by récent ethnographie studies, cf. H. Forbes in the rugged
terrain of modem Methana (e.g.). We Hâve a Little of Everything': The Ecological Basis of Some Agricultural Practices in
Methana, in M. Dimen and E. Friedl, (eds.), Régional Variation in Modem Greece and Cyprus, Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences 268, New York 1976, 236-50, and T. Gallant, Risk and Survival (supra n. 17), 42-45. But thèse did not
hold universally as the nature of new land division shows.
24. J.E. Jones - A.J. Graham - L.H. Sackett, Country House at Vari (supra n. 2).
οϋ M. JAMESON

exploit more remote and marginal land and to invest considérable manpower in the construction of buildings,
terraces, roads etc. in stcep country. The estate of the Athenian Phainippos, thought its size was exaggerated by
his opponent (and by modem commentators), clearly was large r than most Athenian properties, but it was an
εσχατιά (Dem. 42.5,), probably with an irregular contour and much rough land, from which wood was eut 2\ The
causes of expansion to the margins may be similar to those that brought about the dense pattern, but they resuit
in the farming of quite différent land and perhaps on a larger scale.
In more densely settled areas the présence of stone towers as part of well-built farm complexes also
suggests landowners of more than moderate means. Of 33 farms identified by Lohmann in the deme of Atene in
south Attica, he estimâtes the size of eight or nine as around 25 ha (=ca. 275 plethra). Threshing floors indicate
cereal cultivation, but Lohmann believes many of the terraces must hâve been devoted to olives or vines 26. At
Metapontion, where the average size of the properties is estimated at 21.2 ha of which 16.6 were arable, the
quality of the construction and of the finds in farm complexes argues, in the opinion of the excavator, for
résidence by owners rather than slaves; thèse owners, however, are thought to hâve had households of some ten
persons, which would necessarily include several slaves or other dependents 27. The question of résidence is
complex. The more well-to-do the owners the more likely they were to hâve had a house in town as well and to
hâve been able to maintain a staff permanently in the countryside; how much time a landowner of this class
would hâve spent on his land would hâve depended on his other obligations and his tastes {cf. Dem. 55.1 1).
The évidence from literature, largely of Athenian origin and applicable mostly to Attica, also tends to
présent a middling or upper class as engaged with the countryside. We cannot be sure that any of the landowners
mentioned by the Attic orators is a citizen of poor or even of modest means 28. Xenophon writes of and for men
of ample means. Comedy présents us with farmers attached to the countryside who own slaves and do not
dépend entirely on their own labor 29. Most literature was written for the upper classes and it is arguable that
even drama presented an idéal picture of the ordinary Athenian as more prosperous than he really was, just as
popular entertainment today may be thought to do. Epigraphic sources also tend to skew the picture.
Inscriptions, dealing only with leases of public land (with one possible exception) for which only the well-to-do
could provide the required security and with properties confiscated by the state, by-pass the majority of the
population 3().

25 See G. de Ste Croix, The Estate of Phaenippos (Ps.-Dem.xlii), in Ancient Society and Institutions, Oxford 1 966, 1 09-14, who
suggests it may hâve been between 40 and 80 ha in size, i.e., ca. 450-900 plethra, still extremely large by Attic standards. The
.

farm enclosed by ficld walls near Karystos on Euboia, described by D. Kcller and M. Wallace, The Canadian Karystian Project:
Two Classical Farmsteads. EchCI 32, 1988, 151-154, is of ca. 9 ha=100 plethra (a strange chance in view of the irregular
terrain). It is in hilly, terraeed country, and would surely hâve been described as an ί-σχατιύ. The larm of Timesios in south
Attica is estimated at ca. 180 plethra ol rough country and lerraced lïclds, M. Langdon - L. Watrous, The Farm of Timesios:
Rock- eut inscriptions in South Attica, Hcspcria 46, 1977, 162-77.
26. Lohmann 1992. While the arca was less isolated than the Vari house Ihough larther from the city. Lohmann believes it was, in
effect, colonized only in the 5th cent., al'tcr the rctorms ol Kleisthcncs.
27. Carter 1990, 430, who, stresses that they arc not aristocratie, large landowners (i.c., members ol a small élite). But, as he points
out, the wealthiest Metapontines could hâve owned more than onc of thèse faims.
28. Isoc. Arcop. 32 daims that in "the good old days" of the 5th cent, the wcll-off provided the poor with reasonable rentals
(μκτρίαις μισΟώσ^σι) for farming. Does this imply that in the 4th cent, most rentals were beyond the means of the poor? CI.
G. de Ste Croix, 7Yjc Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, London 1981, 191. J.Pecirka, Homestead farms (supra n. 1),
121, n. 2, cites a study of L. Gluskina (VDI 1968, 2, p.58) to the effect that most private land in 4th cent, tenancy is not
regarded as charactcristic of their status.
29. I hâve argued elsewhere that slave-owning was advantageous in intensive agriculture and extended relatively far down the social
scale in Classical Athens (M. Jameson, Agriculture and Slavery [supra n. 8J). But I would not claim that it characterized the
Athenian lower classes or deny that most slave owners were of middling and higher status. CI. also M. Jameson, Agricultural
Labour (supra n. 6), 142-44. T. Gallant, Risk and Sur ν iv al (supra n. 17), 30-33, argues that owning slaves was too expensive
for most Athenians though they regarded it as désirable.
30. R. Osborne makes a good argument for IG XII 5, 544 and 1075-76, from Karthaia on Keos, being a record of moncy receivcd
by private lessors ca. 300 B.C. from which Apollo received one tenth, Land Use and Seulement in Hellenistic Keos: the
Epigraphic Evidence, in J.F. Cherry - J.L. Davis - E. Mantzourani, Landscapc Archaeology (supra n. 8), 320-23.
STRUCTURES RURALES ET SOCIETES ANTIQUES 61

In archaeology the skewing is no less serious. The larger structures with more associated paraphernalia
are the ones most easily discovered and recorded. The flimsier the remains, the more easily they are
overlooked31. The positive indications we hâve so far, from property size, fréquent substantial construction both
of buildings and associated walls, threshing floors, presses, wells etc. ail point not to an élite but to a middle
class, not dépendent on others but able to secure the labor of others to help in the work required for an intensive
System of agriculture. Certain parts of Greece, Khios and Kerkyra in particular, were known for the heavy
employment of chattel slaves in the countryside. While agricultural sites hâve been identified in Khios neither
there nor on Kerkyra does the dense pattern seem to be characteristic 32. In Attica, where the dense pattern is
clearly visible, the land was surely held more widely than in Kerkyra or Khios 33. Nonetheless the farmers
(georgoi) mentioned in the literature of the later fifth and fourth centuries do not easily fit the description of
peasant 34. Even making allowance for the skewing of évidence, the virtual invisibility of the genuinely poor
small-holder in ail types of sources seems to me significant. This still leaves many poor citizens to be located in
the landscape of Attica in and much of Greece where one expects that most agricultural work was done by free
landowners of modest or very modest means.
This brings us to the biggest problem in this whole enterprise. Where are the poor in the Greek
countryside? It has been postulated that most poleis must hâve possessed many poorer households of sub-hoplite
status who depended primarily (I would prefer to say partly) upon farming plots as small as 2 hectares or less35.
But, as Osborne has said, for the poor we simply hâve no évidence 36. We need to consider what we mean by
the poor in thèse periods. First, a distinction has to be drawn between the dépendent and the independent poor.
Slaves are extraordinarily hard to detect in the archaeological record. Whereas most scholars expect them to be
fairly ubiquitous in urban Athens (whatever is thought of the contention that they were no less common in the
countryside) no distinctive quarters hâve been identified for them in the houses of the town, nor in other towns
elsewhere in Greece. They lived in small numbers with their owners'families or with their own,
indistinguishably from citizens or metics 37. No distinctive structures that can be identified with εργαστήρια
employing slaves (e.g. Lys. 12.8, 12) hâve been found; the buildings may not hâve been distinguishable in form
from the ordinary town house. No identifiable slave quarters need be expected in the countryside 38. The larger

31 Examples discussed at this conférence of conspicuous buildings of Classical and Hellenistic date suggesting above average wealth
are found in Leukas (Dousougli and Morris), and south Attica (Goette) in this volume. A rare example of a small, isolated
.

country house, in an area of poor soil near Vari in Attica, is described H. Lauter, Zum Heimstàtten und Glitschausern im
klassischen Attika, in F. Krinzinger- B. Otto - W.Walde-Psenner (eds.), Forschungen und Funde. Festschrift Bernhard Neutsch
(Innsbrucker Beitràge zur Kulturwissenschaft, 21), Innsbruck 1980, 279-286. Lauter's remarks on the status of the occupants
of Attic country houses are very much to the point.
32. Cf. M. Jameson, Agricultural Labor (supra n. 6), 140. J. Boardman, Delphinion in Chios, BSA 51, 1956, 45, has noted the
coïncidence of villages and substantial farmhouses on Khios, perhaps the résidences of the laborers and the owners, respectively.
On the farmhouses on Mt. Aipos, see note 47 int'ra.
33. For isolated farmsteads as being common in Attica, see V.D. Hanson Agriculture and Warfare (supra n. 23), 38-4 1; J. Roy,
Demosthenes 55 as Evidence of Isolated Farmsteads in Classical Attica, LCM 130, April 1988, 57-60; M. Langdon, On the
Faim in Classical Attica, C7 86 (1991), 209-213; Lohmann 1992, 48, n. 43. While Osborne emphasizes villages and minimizes
dispersed seulement in classical Attica (Demos [supra n. 23], 15-36), a mixed pattern of villages, hamlets and isolated
farmsteads has, with good reason, more adhérents. Only one rural deme center, Halai Aixonides at Ano Voula, has been
excavated (Lohmann 1992, 35-39); Rhamnous and Thorikos are rather garrison and mining towns, respectively, though no
doubt with agricultural components. Some demes may hâve had no built-up center at ail, as argued for Atene by Lohmann.
34. See M. Jameson, Agricultural Labor (supra n. 6), 145.
35. S. Hodkinson, Animal Husbandry in the Greek Polis, Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity, C.R. Whittaker (éd.),
Cambridge Philological Society, Suppl. 14, 1988, 39. Cf. L. Foxhall, The Control of the Attic Landscape, in Wells 1992, 157.
36. R.Osborne, Buildings and Résidence in the Land in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: The Contribution of Epigraphy, BSA 80,
1985, 127.
37. Cf. M. Jameson, Private Space in the Greek City, The Greek City from Homer to Alexander, O. Murray and S. Price (eds.),
Oxford 1990, 191-92; id, Domestic Space in the Greek City-state, Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space: An
Interdisciplinary Cross-cultural Study, S. Kent (éd.), Cambridge 1990, 103-104.
38. A no- doubt exaggerated description of Ottoman Keos speaks of the farming population being forced when working for its
masters to dwell far from town in wretched stables more suitable for animais for a third or a quarter of the year. This was in a
62 M. JAMESON

the rural establishment the more likely that it was primarily inhabited by slaves since, as I hâve argued, the
well-to-do owners would be the more engaged in the life of the town.
The free poor are the real problem. Insofar as they constitute oikoi they should hâve their own oikiai.
Should we assign to them the smallest sites with the most unsubstantial remains, in the interstices, so to speak,
ot a network of more substantial sites? But we need to ask about such smali properties whether they are viable
unitary farms or only one of several properties held by a more substantial farmer. Perhaps in certain areas
small holdings worked by farmers of modest means predominated. The Boiotian survey directed by Bintliff and
Snodgrass hâve reported a clustering of small rural sites within 1-2 km of the town of Thespiai 39. But it is
doubtful that such a pattern really represents the enterprises of farmers at the Iow end of the range, even if it
can be determined that the properties are smaller than, say, 50 plethra.
Land close to the nuclear settlement is always especially valuable. Plato's recommendation (Lgs. VI,
754e) of one property at the center and another towards the borders of the state is not irrelevant. Aristotle (Pol.
Vl.2.5, 1319a) mentions laws restricting the possession of land within a certain distance of the town. Such land is
easier to cultivate, especially if the cultivation is intensive. Savings in time, proximity to consumers of any
surplus produced, access to labor, to fertilizer from the town's houses (cf. Ault's paper in this volume), and to
water if the same sources are used as for the needs of the town, are among the advantages it offers 40. Working
such a small property intensively would not be incompatible with extensive agriculture and even pastoralism at a
greater distance. Where water is available, plots close to town are attractive for gardens with the constant
attention they require. There were many gardens near the town of Pherai in Thessaly (Polyb. 18.20.1) and
probably near the town of Athens 4I. The traditional Greek village shows many examples of nearby gardens for
vegetables and fruit. At Tegea gardens seem to hâve been inside the town, near the résidences (SIG^ 306, lines
12-15), and it has been suggested that at the Attic country deme center of Halai Aixonides, there were gardens
within the nucleated settlement. If so there must hâve been a source of water at hand 42. The smaller 50 plethra
plots close to the town of Herakleia at Khersonesos in the Crimea would hâve remained valuable even after the
development of the larger, 300 plethra properties. At Kerkyra Melaina the first settlers were given some small
plots of only three plethra, no doubt particularly valuable either for their location or their soil (5KP 141). The
size of properties near towns, we must conclude, is unlikely to reveal the status of its owners.
Jan Pecirka has said that "the lower the status of the workers the more possible or likely their résidence
on the /ami" 43. This is probably true of the un-free but the opposite may be the case for the free poor. The
landless and small holders, who hâve some land but not enough to be securely selfsufficient, are dépendent to
some extent on others for work. The land they may be able to lease may well be in the form of scattered
parcels. In addition to seasona! agricultural labor 44, there was work as artisans, peddlers, in transport, as
seamen, and in government service - ail of this may be occasional, part-time work for which a central location
in a nucleated settlement is advantageous 4S. My own unsystematic observations in traditional Greek towns and

pcriod of highly nucleated settlement (Psyllas, cited by J.F. Cherry - J.L Davis - E. Mantzourani, Landscapc Archacology, 467).
At the Kerkyra conférence Sarah Morris shared the interesting suggestion she and John Papadopoulos have made, that one
function of the towers found in many country houses was to serve as locked quarters for keeping slaves (ci. Dcm.47.56, wherc
slave women and other property are kept safe in a tower).
39. J.L. Bintliff - A. M. Snodgrass, Boeotia Expédition (supran. 1), 145, who doubt that most ot the structures can represent full-
time résidences.
40. a: M. Chisholm, Rural Seulement and Land Use, Chicago 1 970.
4 1. G. Audring, Proastion, Klio 63, 1981, 217. CI. R. Osborne, Classical Greek Gardens: Between Farm and Paradisc, Gardcn
History, Issues, Approachcs, Mcthods, J.D. Hunt (éd.), Washington 1992, 378.
42. Lohmann 1992, 35.
43. J. Pecirka, Homestead Faims (supra n. 13), 1 18-19
44. Cf. M.-C. Amourctti, Le pain et l'huile (supra n. 8), 2 14-15.
45. On free labor in gênerai, Y. Garlan, Le travail libre en Grèce ancienne, Non-slave labour in the Greco-Rnman world.
Cambridge Philological Society. P. Garnsey (éd.), Suppl. 6, 1980, 6-22. V. Rosivach has seen Athenian farmers as the chie!
source of recruitment for the Athenian navy, Am. J. oï Ane. Hist. 10, 1985 (1992), 41-66. Fie argues that the agricultural
STRUCTURES RURALES ET SOCIETES ANTIQUES 63

villages would bear this out. One place, therefore, we should look for the "rural poor" is, paradoxically, in
towns. Attic deme centers and villages would hâve had a similar function.
As parts of ancient towns are excavated, analyzed and published we should try to see to what degree we
can make distinctions between the économie status of the inhabitants of différent houses and districts, and
whether there is any corrélation possible with the présence of agricultural equipment. A difficulty hère is the
initially egalitarian division of urban land in Greek foundations and the egalitarian ethos that prevailed in the
Classical poleis, particularly in the central settlement where public scrutiny was more intense. Thucydides spoke
of the Attic country houses together with their furnishings lost by the rich as luxurious (2.65.2), which is not how
one would describe any of the Athenian town houses that hâve been excavated 46. Town houses may in their
modesty conceal social and économie différences.
The other place we should look for the free poor is in the marginal areas with the poorer land. It is not
too cynical to suspect that in one way or another the best land will always come into the possession of the more
well-to-do. Our ethnographie colleagues can be helpful hère. Can survey archaeologists detect différences in the
sites they find in marginal areas as compared to those on the best land and on that near the central settlement
(which no doubt is often the same)? Careful study, however, can produce surprises. On the basis of the earliest
reports one had supposed that the rural structures reported on Mt. Aipos on Khios were the homes of shepherds
and others reduced to the exploitation of the most marginal land. But further research has shown decisively that
thèse are ambitious enterprises, the resuit of the investment of much labor to make cultivation possible in hostile
conditions, while at the same time engaging in the grazing of animais on the mountainsides 47. Like other
impressive farm sites discussed at this conférence, thèse would seem to be the properties of persons of
substantial means. On Khios, as elsewhere, the poor remain elusive.
In this paper I hâve limited myself to raising a number of issues and pointing out some of the difficulties
in the way of trying to relate social and économie class to the archaeology of the Greek countryside. But the
rewards from such efforts could be considérable - no less than the recovery of the économie structure of Greece
societies at différent times and in différent régions. 48

Michael JAMESON

calendar allowed their seasonal employment at a lower rate than that received by full-time professional rowers. While
reasonable, there is not, I believe, any historical confirmation of the suggestion. The chief économie advantage to the towers, if
they received only enough money for their food, would be that they were not drawing on their own resources for those months.
46. Some of the town houses at Halieis were very modest indeed (T. Boyd - W. Rudolph, Hesperia 47, 1979, 338-55). At Siphai in
Boiotia a small, two-roomed house presumably was occupied by a poor family (W. Hoepfner - E.L. Schwandner, Haus und
Stadt in klassichen Griechenland, Munich 1986, 268-69), but no doubt there were some towns, such as Pausanias's notorious
Panopeus in Phokis (10.4.1), where ail the houses would hâve seemed wretched by sophisticated standards.
47. I am grateful to Dr. E. Semantoni-Bournia with whom I was fortunate to talk at Kerkyra. See her account of the excavation of
two buildings in, 'Αρχαίες εγκαταστάσεις στό Αίπος, Αρχαιογνωσία 3, 1982-84 [1987], 195-222. They were occupied
without interruption form the late 5th cent. B.C. well into Roman times. The regular inhabitants no doubt were slaves or free
dependents.
48. Study of the issues raised in this paper will be enriched by attention to A. H. Galt, Far from the Church Bells. Settlement and
Society in an Apulian Town, Cambridge 1991. While concentrating on the relationship of résidence in the countryside to
agriculture and landholding for a particular community (Locorotondo), the author also compares other "historically spécifie
developments having to do with particular économie expériences" (236) elsewhere in southern Italy. For the ancient Greek
world factors, that deserve spécial considération are the poor quality of soil requiring, therefore, exceptional efforts for
intensified agriculture, the relative weakness of large landowners, and the choices of résidence and agricultural stratégies made by
the cultivators themselves.