Before the discussion, it must also be pointed out that the concept of ownership in ancient Greece is very different from that in ancient Rome or modern law. In ancient Greek thought, there was no abstract concept of ownership, and correspondingly, there were no words to express this abstract concept in ancient Greece. Greek words expressing ownership, such as ousia, exein, kratein, kektesthai, ktema, etc., all indicate the specific possession of specific property in practical sense. In the modern legal sense, they refer to possession rather than ownership. The ancient Greeks understood ownership in the sense of actual possession, so when Aristotle tried to define solid possession, he was actually defining ownership:
The definition of firm possession is the possession of property, that is, the use of property depends entirely on oneself-the test standard for one's property is whether one has the right to transfer it; Here I use transfer to mean giving and buying. Aristotle's definition is generally accepted by today's ancient economic and legal historians. In ancient Greece, the first sign of land ownership was the owner's right to transfer land, that is, the right to give and the right to buy.
2. The struggle between the lower class and the aristocratic ruling class for political and economic rights in ancient times is the key to understand the formation of Greek polis and the establishment of private ownership of land. To be sure, private ownership of land had not been established before ancient times. In Mycenae's time, the materials provided by the clay tablets of the second line show that the economic structure at that time was centered on the palace, which is what scholars call the palace economy. A large number of records about land occupation show that Mycenae's land is generally divided into two parts: public land (ke-ke-me-na) and private land (ki-ti-me-na). Members of society-whether bureaucrats or ordinary farmers in the kingdom-have certain obligations to occupy land, which is what scholars call conditional tenure. This is quite different from the land system in various historical periods in Greece. In Homer's time, with the collapse of Mycenae's centralization, local nobles shared the rights of the court and controlled most of the land. Although some scholars think that the land system in Homer's society is a typical private ownership, the materials provided by Homer's epic show that the private ownership of land has not yet been established. In Homer's society, there is still public ownership of land, which is proved by the epic records about Bacceli's uz or Timnos. The word temenos appears in the letter B, which means the territory of Wang (wanax) and General (lawagetas). In Homer's epic, the word "* * *" appears thirteen times. Except four of them represent the territory of God, the other nine places represent the territory of Brazilian Julius and noble soldiers. According to epic records, these territories were collectively awarded heroes and leaders who made military achievements. This shows that at least part of the land is owned by the collective rather than the individual, and the collective has the right to give it to the individual. In addition, the records of land in the epic also reflect the existence of public land. In ancient Greek, the word kleros originally meant to draw lots. When it is used to represent land, its extended meaning is land obtained by drawing lots. There are two references to the distribution of land in the epic, and a metaphor used by Homer in the Iliad clearly shows that the land cultivated by individuals is distributed by the collective. When Homer described the fierce battle between the Greek allies and the Trojans, he compared the two armies to two people fighting for the boundary of the territory on a public land. They took measuring poles and quarreled about the uneven division of a small piece of land, but a fence separated them. Although some scholars have questioned this material, the existence of public land mentioned in it is undeniable.
However, public land is not the only form of land possession in Homer society. At the same time, the hero described by the poet is also the possessor of a large piece of land. They generally own a large number of orchards, pastures and cultivated land, and use slaves to work for them. Sometimes, nobles also give some land to loyal servants. Odysseus' pig Youmaios expects his master to give him a piece of land and a small house. He said: A kind master should repay his servants who work hard and are blessed by the gods. On the other hand, the epic also mentions people who have no land. When Odysseus saw Achilles' soul in the underworld, he praised him for being respected by people before his death and becoming the leader of all souls after his death. The latter replied: noble Odysseus, don't praise death to me. I'd rather live on the earth and be a slave to Akles than be the king of all the ghosts here.
Generally speaking, in Homer society, Oykos controls most of the land, but this is not the whole picture of its land system, and there are also factors of land public ownership. The most reasonable explanation is that the land system in Homer's era was in the transitional stage from public ownership to private ownership, and private ownership of land was gradually established only in ancient times.
3. The monopoly control of the aristocratic ruling class on political power and economic resources led to the struggle for political and economic rights by the lower classes, which in turn triggered great changes in ancient society. It was this great social change that led to the formation of the classical city-state system, and it was also in this change that the private ownership of land was gradually established. In Sparta, the obvious sign of this change is the reform of Lekugu. Although Lekugu himself is a legend, the reform traditionally attributed to him has a historical basis, and its main content is the distribution of Claroi and the reform of social and political system. In recent years, some western scholars, such as Hudson, have tried to deny the historical truth of the equal distribution of land, and put forward that the land system and property inheritance system of Sparta are no different from those of other city-states, but their research has neglected many important aspects of social and political life in Sparta. We have every reason to believe that Sparta's military system, citizens' food system and its education system are closely related to its land system. Unlike other city-states, Sparta has its own unique military and social system. All its adult male citizens are professional soldiers, and the noblest duty of citizens is to defend the city-state. Therefore, Spartan citizens took war and military training as their only occupation. As early as the Lekugu reform period, the city-state banned all free people from pursuing wealth and stipulated that their only duty was to defend the freedom of the city-state. The polis also stipulates that all adult male citizens under the age of 60
Compulsory military service at all times. This system of militarization of citizens is inseparable from the system of sharing land equally. Since citizens can't engage in any pursuit of wealth, it is obvious that the city-state must provide a certain guarantee for their livelihood, so that all citizens can have the economic foundation of relatively equal. On the other hand, the combat mode of heavy infantry will inevitably affect the social and political consciousness of citizens. All citizens, whether civilians or nobles, become members of the heavy infantry, fighting or training side by side in the same phalanx. This group life between nobles and civilians undoubtedly gave birth to a concept of equality. Although some scholars have questioned this, the combat mode of heavy infantry has undoubtedly enhanced the self-confidence of civilians in their struggle with nobles. Although this self-confidence may not be enough to form a strong political consciousness and make them demand equal political rights, their demand for equality in economy, especially in land, is confirmed by historical data. At the beginning of the 7th century BC, the poetry of Tyrrhesus, a Spartan poet, recorded the call of the lower class for land redistribution. Perhaps this call coincides with the reform of heavy infantry, which is not only coincidence, but also cause and effect.
Another unique feature of social life in Sparta is the system of * * * meals for citizens. According to this system, all male citizens, including the king, have a group meal. In order to maintain this system of collective dining, every citizen must pay a certain amount of food to the polis every year. If he can't pay the prescribed amount of food, he will lose his citizenship. Obviously, the basic premise of this * * * rice system is that from the beginning, all citizens must have a corresponding economic foundation, that is, the land they occupy is enough to produce the food they have to pay, and this foundation can only be realized through the equal distribution of land. Without such a foundation, the system of collective dining could not be implemented at all, because the purpose of Spartan dining system was not to exclude some citizens from the beginning, but to cultivate citizens' collective concept and city-state concept.
The land system of Sparta is closely related to its unique social and political system. Therefore, when discussing the land system of Sparta, we should not treat it in isolation, but should take it as a part of the whole social, political and economic system of the polis and conduct a comprehensive study. The purpose of equal land system is to maintain the unique social and political system of the city-state. Its significance lies in that it actually defines the scope of citizens' organizations, thus defining citizens' rights. Members of the society who share the land become members of the rice system and professional soldiers of the polis, that is, citizens of the polis. It is in this sense that Polybius called the land of Sparta a political part, and it was here that the land private ownership of Sparta was established.
In Athens, the struggle between the lower peasants and nobles led to the establishment of private ownership of land more directly. The direct cause of Solon's reform is the monopoly of the aristocratic ruling class on land and the dissatisfaction of the lower peasants caused by it. Before the reform, lower-class farmers did not have direct land ownership. Aristotle said that before Solon's reform, Athens' debts could only be mortgaged by individuals, that is, individuals had no right to mortgage their cultivated land. All the land is controlled by the ruling group called Eupatridai, and the lower peasants become their dependents. Aristotle said when talking about the social situation in Athens before the reform:
..... After that, the nobles clashed with the people. From all aspects, their political system is in the hands of a few people, especially the poor, and their wives and children are enslaved by the rich. They are called princes and June 1 Han. Because they cultivate the land of the rich according to this misunderstanding. All land is controlled by a few people; If they can't pay the rent, they and their children will lose their freedom.
Aristotle mentioned the issue of the June 1st Han Dynasty here, and there has been a lot of controversy about this issue. Traditionally, Liu Yihan was regarded as a poor man who paid rent to aristocrats, so the word misunderstanding in Aristotle's article was translated into rent, but there were different opinions about the specific share of rent, that is, one-sixth or five-sixth. In any case, one-sixth or one-fifth of the land rent seems incredible, so this conclusion is not generally accepted by scholars. In this regard, the British scholar Garrent put forward a new view that Liu Yihan was a farmer. He cultivated land for wealthy nobles during the busy farming season, and as a reward, they got one-sixth of their own harvest. But this theory is difficult to explain the dissatisfaction and social crisis of the lower peasants in Attica in the seventh century BC. In order to justify himself, Garrent had to introduce the concept of shame culture here, and further assumed that it was a shame for the Greeks to be forced to sell their labor. But in any case, this concept of shame culture cannot convincingly explain the root of the social crisis in Athens at the end of the seventh century BC and the beginning of the sixth century BC. Shame is not the only reason, or even the main reason, for social change in Athens.