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.

It is generally agreed in social scientific scholarship that federal institutions promote efficiency and economic growth in the modern world. This chapter asks whether the same case can be made for antiquity. Political scientists and economists recognize three major mechanisms by which federal institutions promote economic growth: decentralized fiscal decision-making that incentivizes the adoption of policies enhancing local economies; high redistributive capacity that can direct resources where they are most needed; and reliance on local revenues that encourages local governments to invest in public goods that enhance market activity. Although there is some evidence to suggest that these each of these institutional arrangements existed in antiquity, it is argued that there is simply not enough evidence to demonstrate that they did, in fact, lead to economic growth in the ways that the modern theory of fiscal federalism predicts. The chapter then explores several different ways in which federal institutions may have led to economic growth in the case of Greek antiquity – regional property rights and the pooling of complementary resources, shared currency, and enhanced diplomatic power – while cautioning that there is no evidence to prove that there was a causal link between any of these practices and actual economic growth.

This chapter surveys the major developments in the economic history of the Greek world in the classical period (479–323 BCE). While agricultural practices and productive capacities did not change dramatically, this was a period characterized by a massive increase in the demand for certain commodities, especially timber for the ship-building and monumental-construction efforts of the period and grain to meet the dietary needs of a growing human population. It also considers the major developments in the supply and circulation of coinage in the classical period and the emergence of private banking and the expansion of credit, all of which facilitated both local and long-distance trade. As trade intensified throughout the Aegean and poleis developed more sophisticated institutions for local governance, they developed strategies to derive revenue from trade and imposed regulations on both the production and trade of commodities in which they had a special interest.

INTRODUCTION

‘Wealth consists in abundance of coined money, ownership of land and properties, and further of movable goods, cattle, and slaves remarkable for their number, size, and beauty, provided they are all secure (ἀσϕαƛῆ), free, and useful.’ Thus Aristotle enumerates the material goods that could make a person wealthy – cash, land, movable goods, cattle and slaves – and at the same time insists that the conditions of possession themselves would determine whether or not possession would yield wealth. The first condition, security (ἀσϕαƛϵία), he defines as ‘having acquired a thing in such places and such conditions that the use of it is in our own hands’. This he follows up with a functional definition of ownership: ‘a possession is one's own (οἰκϵῖα) when it is entirely up to him whether to alienate it or not, and by alienation I mean both gift and sale’. In this passage (Rhet. 1361a15–25), Aristotle implicitly recognises two components to what we call a property right: the right to use and the right to alienate, whether by gift or sale. These rights remain at the core of our understanding of a property right. The laws and practices of the alienation and use of property have been widely studied for the ancient Greek world, whereas the condition of security has been for the most part taken for granted. In this chapter I outline the legal and economic perspectives on property security in theory and in historical practice (section 2), before turning to an examination of the forms of property insecurity in classical Greece (sections 3–5) and a consideration of the economic as well as the political implications of my findings (section 6). I suggest that these limits point towards a distinctive property regime that reflects the priorities and interests of Greek states rather than a commitment to protecting absolute, perfect ownership as a means of promoting individual economic interests and aggregate economic growth. By focusing on the issue of property security I hope both to draw attention to the political and social importance of property in the Greek world, and to suggest that while the economic growth of the period was certainly a function of many complex and interrelated variables, property security was not prominent among them.