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The Homeric Land System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

The object of the following pages, the substance of which was read before the Cambridge Branch of the Hellenic Society in 1883, is to examine into the true nature of the land-system of the Greeks of the Homeric age by means of the evidence contained in the poems themselves.

On à priori grounds we might have expected, or at least should not be surprised, to find in the Iliad and Odyssey some traces of that primitive system known as the ‘Open-Field’ or ‘Common-Field’ system of agriculture, which the researches of recent years have proved to have once prevailed over a great part of the earth, and of which many survivals still exist.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1885

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References

page 323 note 1 There is also the var. lect. ἀπουρήσουσιν. I follow the explanation of Eustathius (1282, 15), Sch. B., who connect it with ὅρος and ἀφορίζω.

page 324 note 1 Mr. Bent, in his most interesting book, The Cyclades, p. 97, gives the following account of a plough which he saw-in the island of Anaphi: “A plough in these parts is an exceedingly primitive article, somewhat similar to those which Homer would have seen if lie had not been blind. The chief ingredient in a plough is a tree with a trunk and two branches: one branch serves as a tail, and the other has a bit of iron fixed to it, and penetrates the ground; the trunk is the pole.”

page 333 note 1 By Dr.Jackson, Henry. For τίμη = ποινὴ, cf. Il. i. 159.Google Scholar

page 336 note 1 The words likewise put the matter beyond all doubt, as an investigation of all the passages in which σκῆπτρον occurs makes it conclusive that it is always a symbol of office, whether kingly or judicial, and is never used simply for a staff or walking-stick.

page 338 note 1 That such was the practice in the time of Pindar is clear from Nem. vi. 10.