the attic stelai - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

276 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
usually became large land-holders without forming large estates, and that Attica was
almost unacquainted with the agrarian system which consists in the formation of vast
continuous domains organized for cultivation.102
On the extent of holdings in non-Attic territory, more will be said elsewhere,
since the main evidence in our Stelai comes from the summaries which included the
totals for all types of possessions. It may be noted here, however, that line 15 of Stele
IV, which contained the word lrEpopfta, ' foreign land,' seems to be the heading for a
list of real property owned abroad. Whereas the real property listed above line 15
was located in Attica, the first item beneath the heading was in Euboea. The property
was owned by Nikides of Melite, and included a house. The remainder of the stele
is fragmentary. In Stele VI, lines 55-56, the property of Adeimantos of Skambonidai
included a house and agros on the island of Thasos. The real estate, including pithoi,
was sold for a price which contained six numerals. Only the last three figures are
preserved, but the sum could not have been less than 950 drachmas and may well have
been much more. Finally, in Stele VII, line 78, there is clear reference to property at
Abydos, which I take to be the city of that name on the Hellespont.
VI. SLAVES
With regard to slave problems in Greece, Zimmern wrote over twenty-five years
ago: " the same authors are ransacked; the same evidence is marshalled; the same
references and footnotes are transferred, like stale tea leaves, from one learned
receptable to another." 1 Our inscriptions, if preserved complete, would have shed much
new light on the whole problem of slavery. But even in their fragmentary condition,
the Agora pieces do contribute some measure of new information about prices and
nationalities, in particular.2
PRICES
The average price for the twenty-five slaves whose sales prices are complete is
approximately 174 drachmas. One of our slaves was described as a young child
(Oaat&ov) and sold for 72 drachmas, another as a child (7raZS) and sold for 174 drachmas,
the average fee for an adult. The average price for the five women was 178
drachmas; for the seventeen men, 179 drachmas.3 The sex of the Cappadocian is
uncertain.
102
See, for example, Glotz, op. cit., pp. 299-300; and Michell, Ec. of Anc. Greece, pp. 43-44.
' Solon and Croesus, London, 1928, p. 106. Quoted by W. L. Westermann in Athenian
Studies Presented to W. S. Ferguson (= Harv. Stud. Class. Phil., Suppl. Vol. I, 1940), p. 452.
2 The slaves listed in Stele XI have not been considered in this section because of the uncertain
nature of the list.
3 I find no basis for Andreades' statement (Hist. of Gr. Pub. Finance, I, p. 283) that in the
fifth century the average price of women slaves was somewhat higher than that of men. Andreades
himself notes that this was not the case at Delphi during the second century.