Search

[German version] (ἱπποβόται; hippobótai). The hippobotai were the social elite in  Chalcis [1] on Euboea; the founding of Chalcidian   apoikiai in the 8th cent. BC is attributed to them (Str. 10,1,8). According to Aristotle, Chalcis was an equestrian oligarchy, whose power rested on its military supremacy (Aristot. Pol. 1289b 36-40); during the  Lelantine War, however, Chalcis could defeat the cavalry of Eretria only with the help of Thessaly (Plut. Mor. 760e-f; Str. 10,1,10; 10,1,12). However, b…

[German version] The closer the relationships within a society are and the more limited mobility is, th…

(αὐτάρκεια; autárkeia). [German version] A. Economic The Greek term autarkeia …

I. Near East and Egypt [German version] A. Introduction In the…

[German version] (συκοφάντης/ sykophántēs, 'sycophant'). The term first appears in Old Comedy (Aristoph. fr. 228, 427 BC). The origin of the word is unknown, with ancient conjectures on the etymology ( sykophantes as a man who 'reveals figs') being unconvincing. In Comedy, sykophantai are linked with threats, demands for money and extortion; their acting as prosecutors in court is also characteristic (Aristoph. Av. 1410-1469; Aristoph. Plut. 850-959). This perception of sykophantai is echoed in numerous mentions in the orators; for instance, Lysias [1] alleges that sykophantai a…

[German version] The contractually regulated leasing of land used in the agricultural economy was probably widespread in the Greek poleis; the designation ἑκτήμοροι ( hektḗmoroi ) indicates that even in archaic times, farmers were working land which did not belong to them. Leasing was forbidden to the klēroûchoi on Salamis by a people's decree of 510/500 BC (IG I3 1 = Syll.3 13; cf. for Lesbos Thuc. 3,50) - an indication that the leasing of land was entirely commonplace at this time. As well as agriculture, inde…

[German version] (οἶκος/ oîkos; “house, household”). The Greek terms …

[German version] I. Greece No Greek term corresponds exactly to the English word farmer. The Greek word γεωργός ( geōrgós) described someone who cultivated the land, whether landowner, simultaneously proprietor and farmworker, or merely a farmworker (Xen. Oec. 5,4); it thus applied to rich and poor, citizen and non-citizen, slave or free man. The relatively unusual term αὐτουργός ( autourgós) meant someone who worked for himself or with his own hands, and was restricted to free men; although it means ‘men who have no leisure’ (Thuc. 1,141,3-5), it relat…

[German version] (ἑκτήμοροι; hektḗmoroi) were tenants on agricultural land in Attica; their impoverishment was one of the most important manifestations of the social and economic crisis that  Solon as mediator (διαλλακτής, diallaktḗs) and archon was meant to settle. The spelling of the term (ἑκτήμορος in Aristot. Ath. Pol. 2,2 and in most lexicographers; ἑκτημόριος in Plutarch) was discussed in antiquity just as much as its meaning. According to Plutarch (Solon 13,4f.), the hektemoroi kept five-s…

[German version] (σεισάχθεια; s eisáchtheia). Greek authors used the term seisachtheia (lit.'shaking off of burdens') from at least the 4th cent. BC to denote the abolition or mitigation of debts by Solon [1]. The portrayal of Solon's measures in Aristotle suggests that the word was in general use in the 4th cent. (Aristot. Ath. pol. 6,1). While according to Androtion (FGrH 324 F 34; Plut. Solon 15,4), it was coined by those who had been freed from part of their debts by means of a reduction in interest, Diodorus Siculus (Diod. Sic. 1,79,4) and Plutarch attest that Solon himself t…

[1] Greece [German version] A. Introduction In the Linear B archives of the late Bronze Age a relatively detailed picture of land ownership and land use appears for the first time. This system was centrally supervised from the palaces. In Pylos, where the E-series clay tablets give comprehensive details, the land was divided into categories of which two can be reliably defined: ko-to-na ki-ti-me-na was farmed by private landowners or their tenants, ko-to-na ke-ke-me-na was common property and was mainly leased in small plots [3; 5]. Osborne, Robin (Oxford) [German version] B. Land dis…