Читать онлайн "Jews and Greeks in ancient Cyrene" - Эпплбаум Шимон - RuLit

Herodotus’ remark on the reforms of Demonax, to the effect that “(Demonax) made over to the people all remaining affairs previously the kings’, excepting their private domains and priestly functions”,[549] suggests that in the 6th century the royal estates had become very extensive, and it may be supposed that the nobility also possessed estates of some size. The “large private tower”[550] of Aglomachos, where the enemies of Arkesilaos III found refuge, was doubtless a fortified farmhouse and the centre of a large agricultural estate on the far fringes of the territory. The establishment of the mixed settlement of Barka by Arkesilaos’s brothers in cooperation with the Libyans, and the renowned horse-rearing of that town, point to the close connection between the live-stock branch and the Cyrenean nobility, paralleled in several other Greek states.[551] It may be assumed that in Cyrene too the aristocratic estates took the form of large units engaging in the rearing of horses, cattle and sheep and exploiting the labour of the natives in semi-feudal conditions. On the other hand both Battus II and Arkesilaos III brought new settlers to Libya under the slogan of new land-allotments” (ἀναδασμός γης), hence Cyrene also possessed a class of smallholding peasants, in part descended from the first settlers and in part colonists of the 6th century. This class subsequently included mercenaries settled in the Euesperitan region by Arkesilaos IV in the 5th century. As already suggested, the introduction of coinage in the 6th century may at first have impoverished the smallholder, and it is probable that we should see in contemporary royal policy the aim of intensifying agriculture by breaking up the aristocratic estates and settling smallholders on them, while the Delphic denunciation of Arkesilaos III may have been directed against royal centralization of authority and the development of economic étatism. The last Battiads seem to have devoted themselves to increasing the population of smallholders and also to extending the royal branches of silphium production and stock-farming.

4. Cyrenean Agriculture in the Fourth Century; The Demiurgi Steles

The known Demiurgi steles begin in the middle of the 5th century B.C. The two examples that survive from that time are unfortunately much mutilated, any record of the crops grown contemporarily being lost. But to judge by the uniformity of the records during the 4th century, it may be permissible to assume that they included similar items in the preceding century. The official character of these documents is made clear from the formulation and order of the opening lines: after the appeal to the gods (Θεοί, Θεός, Θεὸς Τύχα), comes a record of the year under the name of the eponymous priest of Apollo. Then the Demiurgi, the three officials responsible for the matters concerned, are named, and finally appears a list of agricultural produce and the price of each product with the total income of the year, followed by the items of expenditure from the recorded revenue and the balance in hand. It is therefore clear that we are dealing with an estate or estates administered by the Demiurgi for the polis of Cyrene. The produce of these lands was sold, all or in part, and the proceeds were devoted to the requirements of the cults. The place where most of these steles were found shows that the administrative office of the Demiurgi was in the Agora, perhaps in the Temple of Apollo (previously thought to have been the Temple of Demeter) or near it, although the fund supported several other cults, among them those of Artemis and Athene.[552]

It is not difficult to discover the source of the lands concerned. The king was the high priest of Apollo and also disposed of royal domains (τεμένεα). On the deposition of the Battiad dynasty these lands doubtless passed to the city and to the management of the priests of Apollo who took the place of the kings, or of other magistrates of the polis. As we have seen, the relations of the Battiads with the Libyans and the confiscation of the property of their numerous enemies had led to the growth of their estates. It is clear from the Cathartic Laws of Apollo, which reach us in a fourth-century copy, that the god’s domains also included sacred groves, from which timber was cut and sold for secular purposes.[553] The temple property is likely enough to have grown still larger as a result of bequests on the part of worshippers such as Barkaios son of Theochrestos, who bequeathed an olive plantation to the revenues of Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and Heracles in the first century B.C.[554] The name of one temple estate has come down to us, in the Ἀρτάμιτος Κώμη recorded by Ptolemy[555] in the western or southern Jebel in the middle of the 2nd century of the current era. The expression “from the revenues of Apollo” (ἐκ τῶν τοῦ Ἀπολλώνος προσόδων) appears in the middle of the 4th century B.C. in the Stele of the Founders,[556] and part of these revenues was doubtless derived from the sacred lands. In the same period the administrators included accountants (ἐπιστάντες ἐπί τὸς ἀπολόγος),[557] and in the same instance the revenues bear the expenses involved in the setting up of the “Stele of the Founders”. The officials receiving salaries from the fund in the 4th century included the ἐπίσκοποι[558] who, according to an analogy from Rhodes[559] were in charge of funds and sacred fields;[560] both the ἐπιστάντες and the επίσκοποι may be regarded as working under the supervision of the Demiurgi.

It may reasonably be supposed then, that the produce recorded in the inscriptions is that of the temple lands, its prices being fixed by the Demiurgi. An analogy may be found in the law of Samos[561] which lays down that “they (the officials concerned) will sell the wheat levied as a tax of twenty percent, from the Anaoi, valuing it at five drachmas and two obols, not less than was previously fixed by the people.” The government of Cyrene spends the proceeds of these sales on the celebration of given civic festivals and on sacrifices. The steles, however, do not inform us what percentage of the produce was levied or sold, hence the size of the estate or estates whence it came cannot be determined with any confidence. The total annual income from the produce in a normal year was 30,000 drachmas,[562] and while certainty is impossible, it is not improbable that the revenue was derived from no more than a percentage of the total produce, for most Greek temples leased their land to tenants by contract for a fixed percentage of the crops.[563] Unfortunately, our knowledge of rents in ancient Greece is scanty. The 20 percent, corn tax as levied by the Samos temples has been mentioned. Eleusis took 8 percent, tax on annual produce;[564] the estate of Phainippos yielded an interest of 9.5 percent, per year;[565] Delos imposed a ten percent, tax on wheat crops in the 2nd century B.C.;[566] in Elis rents of 10 percent, were paid;[567] at Heracleia — of 8 percent.[568] Michell[569] thinks that rents of 8-10 percent, were usual in Greece in the 4th century. But it should not be forgotten that the farms of Apollo at Delos, for example, were leased by auction, hence the rents varied according to circumstances.[570]