The Impact of the Hiera Syngraphe (ID 503)
The hiera syngraphe, first put into effect with the leasing period of 299-290 B.C. ,[45] seems to have been designed to solve these problems. The text preserved sets out in great detail regulations to govern the rental of Delian estates. Among the provisions are stricter requirements for guarantors (who now must be renewed annually) and detailed regulations covering payment of rent and default. As Kent suggested many years ago, these regulations seem clearly intended to prevent further serious defaults.[46] In particular, two strong, broad clauses subjected all the belongings of the renters and their guarantors to seizure:
[45] On the date, see Appendix I.
[46] Pierre Roussel, Délos colonie athénienne (Paris, 1916), 73 (on the attitude of the Athenian administrators); Kent, 279–80, 285; Tréheux, BCH 68–69 (1944–45): 290–92, 295 (pointing out however that not all provisions were strengthened, only those covering default); Kent, 267–89; Marie-Françoise Baslez, REG 89 (1976): 347–48; Dieter Hennig, Chiron 13 (1983): 442–43 n. 71. Brunet, 62; contra, Erich Ziebarth, Hermes 61 (1926): 96–97, whose views Tréheux answers, however. Cf. also Felix Durrbach, BCH 35 (1911): 25–29, and René Vallois, BCH 55 (1931): 290–91.
[47] ID 503.34–36, 46–48; cf. Kent, 282.
A good deal of circumstantial evidence strongly hints that they did.[48] I argue that the efforts of the hieropoioi to rosecute defaulters under these new and stronger regulations had two important consequences: (a) the possessions of Apollo were increased by seizure of land and houses from defaulting renters, which (b) helped considerably to reduce the appeal of the estates, and hence the rents to which renters were willing to commit.
Let us consider three cases.
(1) In 297 B.C. , one Autosthenes was renting Dionysios for 1,372 dr. His guarantor was Kleokritos son of Hermon (IG XI 2.149.6–7, 11–12), whose prominent and wealthy family counted among its members a hieropoios of 297 and a khoregos in 255 B.C. The family had extensive interests in the sacred estates, three members having rented four different estates at different times.[49]
In 314 B.C. , Kleokritos's father, Hermon son of Kleokritos, paid interest of 150 dr on behalf of one Sosimakhos (IG XI 2.135.26–27). Hypothecated land or a house or both must lie behind this payment. Payments "on behalf of someone" were usually made either by guarantors or heirs (the guarantors themselves often being relatives with an interest in the hypothecated property) or by outsiders who bought the hypothecated property and assumed the debt that accompanied it.[50] Thus it is fairly certain that Sosimakhos's property had come into the hands of Hermon's family by 314 B.C.
If Autosthenes had defaulted at a time during his rental of Dionysios when Kleokritos was his guarantor, Kleokritos's property would have been "subject to the god" under the rules of the hiera syngraphe. If Autosthenes' debt could not be collected from his livestock and slaves, the hieropoioi would have proceeded against his real goods and those of his guarantors.
[48] Vial, 224, rejects the possibility: "il est peu vraisemblable que les hiéropes aient jamais saisi les biens personnels du fermier et de ses garants" and at n. 137 cites the hieropoioi's failure to seize the personal property of Hermadas and Arkhandros in 305 B.C. or slightly earlier. But the hiera syngraphe was not in force before 300 B.C. , and Vial's parallels—failure to act against defaulting house renters, tax-farmers, or borrowers—founder on our ignorance of the conditions that governed these transactions. (If ID 499 is a regulation governing loans, it remains unfortunately too fragmentary to be very informative.) The evidence outlined below, if correctly interpreted, outweighs these theoretical considerations.
[49] See Vial, 322, Stemma XXXI, for full details and references.
[50] For inheritance, see, e.g., IG XI 2.135.19–20 and 142.14; 199A11 and many other entries, with Vial, 82–83, Stemma XII, 372, no. 124; for the case of Apollodoros of Kyzikos, who bought a hypothecated garden (IG XI 2.142.14–15), see G. Reger, GRBS 32 (1991): 229–37; another example at IG XI 2.287A15 with Vial, 295, Stemma XXV.
In this way, Sosimakhos's land, now in Kleokritos's family's possession, might have fallen into the hands of Apollo, becoming the sacred estate Sosimakheia, known first from the rental period of 289-280 B.C.[51]
There is more. It would be strange if the hieropoioi had foreclosed on Kleokritos without also acting against the renter himself. Among the renters of the sacred houses appears the name of Autosthenes, who rented "the house that belonged to the children of Aristoboulos" (
This reasoning makes of Autosthenes a son of Aristoboulos. In fact, an Aristoboulos, who is twice specified as Aristoboulos son of Lysixenos,[53] rented the same house—undoubtedly originally his own—from 269 to 246 B.C. This man, who probably also leased one of the
[52] The house of Antigonos, IG XI 2.158A20; the house of Arkeon, 158A16–17, 161A23, 162A17, 199B94; perhaps the house where Ephesos had his shop, 161A13–14, although it was rented by Aristolokhos in the 280s (157A14, 158A21): perhaps Aristolokhos was Ephesos's owner and manumitted him sometime between 282 and 279 B.C. ?
[53] IG XI 2.226A19, 287A36; further 203A27, 204.34, 224A20–21, ID 290.23.
been the Aristoboulos who served as an epimeletes in 274 B.C. He rented Soloe in 289–280 B.C.[55]
Finally, it was typical for guarantors to have some connection with renters. The very first attested renter of the house of Aristoboulos was one Diakritos (IG XI 2.156A1, 158A23). The name recurs, and prominently: it belongs to Kleokritos's brother, who was hieropoios in 297 B.C. , the very year Kleokritos was named by Autosthenes as his guarantor (IG XI 2.148.77, perhaps for the first time).
None of this is proof, of course; what we most sorely lack is direct evidence of a default by Autosthenes. The circumstantial evidence, however, is strong, and a default and procedure by the hieropoioi (obviously not the board with Diakritos on it!) against Autosthenes and Kleokritos would explain neatly the appearance of two new properties among the possessions of Apollo.
(2) The renter of Nikou Khoros in 297 B.C. was a man named Sosilos (IG XI 2.149.5). Like Kleokritos and Autosthenes, he belonged to an important family.[56] Through a close relative (perhaps his cousin?) and his son Gorgias, the family bought up, between about 282-279 and 274-250 B.C. , a piece of property at Passiros (or Passiron) that had belonged to the family of Eurymanthes.[57] It is tempting to connect this family, and Sosilos in particular, with a series of houses owned by Apollo and called collectively
(3) Phytalia is another estate that first appears in the accounts during the rental period of 289-280 B.C.[59] On the basis of a restoration in an account of the Amphiktyonia, some have thought that Phytalia was one of the estates confiscated in 375 B.C. and returned to its owner's family in
[55] IG XI 2.161D3–12; 199A82–83 with Vial, 165 n. 9; 157A3, 158A12–13.
[56] Vial, 136–37, Stemma XVI, cf. also 326–28.
[57] Vial, 326–28, with Stemma XXXII, p. 327. Sosilos was the son of Mnesalkos, a name that recurs in the family of Stemma XVI. If this Mnesalkos was Telesarkhides' brother, then Sosilos and Mnesalkos I would be cousins (cf. Vial, 136, Stemma XVI).
[59] IG XI 2.158A14, rented by Philtes.
314 B.C. Tréheux and Brunet have expressed doubt.[60] Kent thought that, like Sosimakheia, it had come into Apollo's hands as a result of unpaid debt. As we shall see, this view cannot be supported, but the evidence Kent adduced does point to the solution. In 250 B.C. , Diaktorides son of Theorylos borrowed 400 dr from Apollo
If this is right, it is easy to find circumstances under which Pherekleides
[61] Kent, 286, with n. 149, where he restores the same expression at ID 287bis 20. Vial, 326 n. 56, mentions this entry without Kent's restoration.
[62] Vial, 326, followed by Brunet, 58–59. Bogaert, 152 n. 112, cited by Vial and Brunet, writes only, "Phytalia a en effet appartenu à un certain Phérécleidès . . . que M. Kent identifie avec le débiteur dont nous avons parlé supra p. 150. Mais il faut remarquer que ce domaine était devenu propriété du dieu avant 290 et que la dette de Phérécleidès existait encore en 250. Il ne peut donc s'agir de la même créance." His refutation of Kent proves only that Pherekleides' own personal debt cannot have been the cause of the loss of Phytalia, not that the estate cannot have come into Apollo's hands by the route I lay out below.
could have lost his property. In 297 B.C. , his two brothers Proxenos and Khares independently rented Leimon and Phoinikes. The default of either one could have led to the seizure of Pherekleides' land.[64]
Two other estates, Korakia and Akra Delos, also appear for the first time, and Epistheneia reappears,[65] in this decade. It may fairly be suspected that Apollo obtained them by the same route.
If these seizures are real, they would certainly have made a severe impression on potential renters. The threatened—and sometimes all too real—loss of personal property must have frightened both renters and their guarantors. The greatly lengthened leases of ten years, at least double the terms that had prevailed in 314-300 B.C. , added more uncertainty: who could be confident that a decade would not see at least one year when unexpected losses would make meeting payments difficult, if not impossible? After 290 B.C. , most of the defaults we hear of resulted from the failure of renters to renew guarantors; given the potential losses for guarantors in a bad year and the absence of any benefits during good ones, the problem is not surprising.
Unfortunately, the seizures I have postulated to explain Apollo's acquisition of new estates in the 290s are only hypothetical. Is there any positive evidence for such procedures during 299-290 B.C. ? The very poor state of the inscriptions for that decade renders definite conclusions difficult, but luckily a few indications do survive.
The most important is IG XI 2.152. In the absence of an arkhon's name or other definite indicators, it must be dated on style of writing, internal grounds, and other criteria. In style it fits well with other documents of the 290s; the few names point to the 290s or the 280s.[66] Of these, Diaitos may be identical with Diaitos son of Apollodoros, known from ID 502A29 of 297 B.C. and other documents of the next twenty years.[67] Diaitos is recorded here as a renter of an estate. Since no such renter is known from any period, he must have rented an estate for only part of a decennium: either he took over from a defaulter after 297 or he rented an estate in 290 and defaulted before 282 B.C. (I leave aside other imaginable, but more complicated, scenarios.) Of the two possibilities, I prefer the first. The few
[64] IG XI 2.149.3–4; Vial, 295, Stemma XXV. Starting in 289, Pherekleides himself rented Leimon, which Proxenos had held in 299-290.
[66] Theophile Homolle, Les Archives de I'intendance sacrée à Délos (Paris, 1887), 119, no. XI.
[67] IG XI 2.161A41, D82, 83; 203D77, 78; perhaps 199C85.
words of 152A7, [
The content of the document is arresting. Despite the very fragmentary state of the text, it clearly records judicial proceedings against renters: it mentions the boule (
In my view, this text records the trial and conviction of renters who violated the rental contract, payment of fines and/or back rent, and the seizure of property from those who could not or would not pay. Restoration at A12 as
Unfortunately, the absence of the names of all but one of the estates involved in IG XI 2.152 stymies further inquiry. For Kharoneia we have only hints. The figure at A14–15, 1,400 dr, might refer to the rent: one Xenomedes was paying 1,450 dr/yr for it in 297 B.C. (IG XI 2.149.7–8). His name recurs twice in contemporaneous documents. A Xenomedes son of Apatourios served on the commission of Eleven in 297 B.C. overseeing certain contract work done for the temple. The name also occurs as a purchaser, with two guarantors, in IG XI 2.153.[69]
IG XI 2.152 does not stand alone. Another account, probably of almost the same date, attests to a similar disaster, in which at least three renters defaulted (IG XI 2.153.21–27). The guarantors are explicitly included in the proceedings; we have the names of two, Aristodikos and Hypselos (ll. 22, 23), unfortunately not otherwise attested in connection with the
[69] ID 502A27; see Vial, 116–19, on the board; IG XI 2.153.17. It is not possible to trace the guarantors, Kallimos son of Patrokles and Dionysodoros son of Lysileos, farther, although Kallimos was perhaps the synonymous arkhon of 268 B.C. (IG XI 2.110.17–18). Neither Vial nor Brunet discusses IG XI 2.152.
estates.[70] The miserable fragment IG XI 2.151 may preserve a third reference to this business at 1.6 in the word
These cases are not unique.[72] In 247 B.C. , two renters were tried and convicted, one by unanimous vote of the jury. The one defendant had failed to pay rent,
In the most generally accepted view, however, the new estates of the early third century came into Apollo's hands through a very different process: they were seized from borrowers who had hypothecated them to Apollo for loans they failed to repay. The evidence to support this view comes from IG XI 2.135, where one Tharsynon son of Hierognotos paid 200 dr interest
[70] A Hypselos appears as a contractor in IG XI 2.145.18.
[72] I do not accept Ziebarth's very speculative restorations for IG XI 2.225b7 and 199D32–35 (ibid.).
[73] ID 291d35, 33, with Vial, 156, 230; cf. Brunet, 71.
[75] ID 369A40–41, cf. Brunet, 71. For what may be a similar case under the Amphiktyonia, see ID 104–19A.
[76] Although the surviving clauses of the hiera syngraphe contain no provisions about the maintenance of capital goods on the estates, numerous parallels make it virtually certain that there was such a stipulation: IG II 1241.30–33, 2492.14–17, 2494.11–16, 2496.15–17 (renter to repair structures as necessary), 2499.14–18 (Athens), IG XII 5.568.11–14 (Poiessa on Keos), IG XII 7.62.8–13 (Arkesine on Amorgos; care enjoined rather than cutting prohibited); cf. Kent, 272; Robin Osborne, Classical Landscape with Figures (London, 1987), 42–43. Vial, 230, claims that the hieropoioi carried out repairs on the estates, but can cite no evidence (cf. ibid., 144).
default on the loan is not hard to draw. The interest paid
There is one insurmountable objection to this view: never in the entire history of the island did the hieropoioi proceed against private debtors who had defaulted on their payments. The leniency with which Apollo treated slackers extended even to conferring new loans on defaulters; no one who failed to pay his annual interest payments was ever, to our knowledge, debarred from further traffic with the temple, whether as contractor or renter or official; and certainly, no property can be shown ever to have come into Apollo's possession because of action against a defaulting borrower.[78] Indeed, the owner of the property Sosimakhos had hypothecated may have himself benefited from this leniency. ID 104-8A15, which can be dated only to 360-330 B.C. , carries a payment
To see the seizures of Akra Delos, Epistheneia, Korakia, Phytalia, and Sosimakheia.[79] as a consequence of the hiera syngraphe, high rents for the estates, and subsequent defaults permits a very satisfying reconstruction of the events of the decade from 300 to 290 B.C. The defaults of the 300s must have frustrated the hieropoioi. Their inability to seize property prevented recovery of unpaid rent, and the relatively low risks to renters, who gambled only the investment made directly in the estates, did nothing to discourage the ever-increasing competition for the estates. By 301 or 300, the Delians at last extended the power of the hieropoioi to move against defaulters by the publication of the stricter regulations of the hiera syngra-
[77] Jardé, 147 n. 1 (with his minority view that the Epistheneia of independence had no relation to the Epistheneia confiscated in 375 B.C. ), cf. Heichelheim, Wirt. Sch., 134–35 n. 1, G. Glotz, REG 45 (1932): 243, Larsen, 405; J. Tréheux, "Dernières Années," 1016 n. 2; Kent, 256–57, 286 n. 149, with however the notion that Epistheneia and Kerameion were confiscated in 375 B.C. and never returned but registered among the houses (impossible for Epistheneia: see Appendix I; Kent explains IG XI 2.135.22–23, unconvincingly, as perhaps "interest on a loan that was raised on other security in order to avoid forfeiture of the lease of Epistheneia" as a house [Kent, 257 n. 38]); Bogaert, 152 n. 112; Vial, 224 n. 139; Brunet, 61–63.
[78] Bogaert, 138–65, esp. 151–52: "Pour aucun immeuble acquis depuis l'indépendance, nous ne possédons un document qui permette d'affirmer qu'il aurait été confisqué pour dettes"; Vial, 374; Brunet, 60–61.
[79] Always excepting Kerameion, which had evidently remained in Apollo's possession ever since 375 B.C.
phe. At first, having no experience with the new rules, renters proceeded as before: they bid high for estates in 300 B.C. , driven, as I have argued, as much by social as economic motives. But now the situation had changed. When the first inevitable defaults ensued, the hieropoioi took the renters to court, secured their condemnation, and seized real estate belonging to them and to their guarantors. A few such cases—recorded in the laconic but allusive inscriptions IG XI 2.151–53—chilled demand: fear of loss of property in the case of default dampened prices, since default would be less likely if rent was lower, and scared off potential guarantors, whose interests in the whole business were marginal anyway. The paradoxical result was to make the estates appealing only to the richest members of Delian society: men whose personal wealth reduced the likelihood of default, and whose connections with other wealthy men (especially their immediate relatives) eased the problem of finding guarantors.[80]
We can read the impact of these events in the rents of the estates. As figure 6.1 and table 6.1 show, between 297 and 290 B.C. rents plummeted by an average of more than 43 percent. For the rest of the third century, rents tended to be stable; moreover, the same renters often rented the same estates for more than one rental period or passed estates on to relatives. Over the following 110 years (to 180 B.C. ), there were eleven renewals by families and twenty-six by individuals out of two hundred rental cycles (twenty estates and ten rental periods each), a rerental rate of 18.5 percent, as opposed to 5.3–4.0 percent before 290 B.C.[81]
Defaults do not seem to have become any rarer, as the record shows thirty-one certain or probable instances from 290 to 175 B.C. , but their character changes: in the vast majority of cases where details are preserved—and that accounts for most of the defaults—the renter defaulted because of failure to renew his guarantors. In every case the hieropoioi found some-
[80] I think this account of the decline in rents far more plausible than Brunet's notion (61–64) that the new estates just exactly matched unsatisfied demand, and so depressed rents. The coincidence that six new estates exactly balanced demand seems incredible (there were then only six or seven unsatisfied bidders in 300?). Moreover, if this were so, one would expect the renters of 300 B.C. to continue renting in 290 (since there were now plenty of estates to go around), but in fact only one renter of the 299–290 period, Aristeides who held Hippodromos, continued in 289–280 B.C. Moreover, would not the expelled owners of confiscated estates, now deprived of their property, enter the bidding for estates (like exproprietors of the sacred houses) and thus increase demand, counteracting the expanded supply?
[81] See Appendix IV, pp. 309–38, below. I do not see how Robin Osborne, Chiron 18 (1988): 300, arrives at only eight cases of renewal by individuals and three by families.
one else to assume the lease, although sometimes for a reduced rent. In these cases the former renters (or their guarantors) were held responsible for the difference. The regulations seem to have protected Apollo's financial interests well.[82]
This stability had advantages for both Apollo and the Delian aristocracy. By eliminating the fierce and expensive competition that had prevailed in the two decades after independence, it minimized the impact of defaults and losses for Apollo. Renters were now able to hold estates over longer periods, and the ten-year lease, which virtually guaranteed that renters would face bad years during its term, would doubtless have discouraged speculators from bidding too high. The losers in the game were probably the less wealthy members of the Delian upper class who had neither wealthy relatives to stand surety nor the resources to cover rents in years when crops failed.[83]
Aside from its inherent probability, this reconstruction of events has the advantage of looking to local circumstances for an explanation of the boom and fall in prices of land, and is independent of any (possibly specious) account of prices for agricultural commodities on Delos or elsewhere in the Aegean. Local prices for agricultural commodities were, however, another issue: they mattered crucially to renters, as we saw above.[84]
[82] Defaults are recorded or inferred for Epistheneia in 288–283, 206?, 178–175 B.C. (IG XI 2.156B7–15, ID 369A41, 467.1–3); Hippodromos in 262, 189 (204.8 [cf.290.9–11], 403.51–53); Kerameion in 257 (226A36); Leimon in 257, ca. 190 (226A34–35, 406B80–83); Lykoneion in 218, 209–200 (354.35, 356bis B22); Phytalia in 207, 177 (368.26–27 [cf. 371A26, 372A18], 452.24–25); Soloe-Korakia in 177 (452.31–32, but there are problems: see Appendix IV, p. 321 below); Sosimakheia in 288–283 (156B16–20); Khareteia in 257, 250 (224A14 [cf. 226A30, 225a8–9], 287A30, 139–142); Kharoneia in 250, 189 (287A29–30, 138–39, 403.48–51); Dionysios in 207, 206, 192 (366A104–5, 369A40); Nikou Khoros in 279, 210, 178 (161A9, C116–20, 356bis A12, 445.16–24); Panormos in 279, 207, 192, 177 (161A9, C111–15, 366A105–6, 399A79–80, 452.20–21 [cf. 456A18, 440B17–20]); Porthmos in 274, 207 (199A3–4, 14, 366A102–3); Rhamnoi in 250 (287A25, 136–37); Skitoneia in 250 (287A26, 137–38, D27–28). I have not distinguished certain defaults from probable ones or counted defaults on estates whose rents are not known.
[83] Cf. Vial, 331, for a partial account of the control of the estates by individual families over more than one rental period after 290 B.C.
[84] This view does not really conflict with that of Robin Osborne, Chiron 18 (1988): 302–4. Osborne is analyzing data from the later third and second centuries, not from 314–290 B.C. Moreover, commercial attitudes toward farming need not preclude a social value to estate rental. I find Osborne's conclusion rather too categorical. That, however, there may have been substantial changes in attitudes in the later third century seems very likely to me.