ABSTRACT
The Greek philosophical idea of natural right, associated primarily with Plato and Aristotle, grew out of a conflict between ancestral right in the Homeric clan and natural right as it was established by the city. Because all modern and contemporary notions of rights begin with a repudiation or radical revision of Platonic or Aristotelian natural right, modern and contemporary ideas of rights cannot be understood fully without first examining the nature and character of that to which they stand as the repudiations. Households, the smallest units of the ancient Greek society, ordinarily found themselves part of larger clans or tribes. The sacred character of ancestral authority in Homeric Greece was solidly buttressed by Greek theology. Stoicism had its historical beginnings with Zeno of Citium and lasted at least through the time of the Roman Emperor, Marcus Atireiius. Ownership of land, originally the exclusive property of the family or clan, was ultimately transferred to the State, much as happened in Greece.
