ABSTRACT
THE pattern of rural organisation in early Attica is a matter of conjecture, but later developments indicate that the arable land was divided among the citizens, not necessarily on a basis of equality, and the grazing land on the hillsides was common. It is possible that private ownership of the land was at some stage confined to an inner group within the citizen body, and that citizens of a lower social status (possibly due to their ancestors’ late arrival on the scene) had a stake in the land only as members of a commune or clan. To the farming population the land was the home of the family, the resting-place of their ancestors and the livelihood of present and future generations: land was therefore not traditionally regarded as an article of merchandise, like trinkets or slaves, and it is very unlikely that it was subject to sale: at least as late as the sixth century B.C. there was a taboo upon its alienation from the family or clan. 1 Apart from the larger estates which were able to produce a surplus for exchange, the form of production was subsistence farming; each farm being more or less self-sufficient in grain and oil, and obtaining its milk, hides, and wool from such animals as the farm could support on the fallow during the winter, and which could be pastured on the hills for the rest of the year.
