Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/279

 FOURTH YEAR OF THE WAR -REVOLT OF MITYLENE. 257 fortifications of Mitylene, and took possession of all her ships of war. In lieu of tribute, they farther established a new perma- nent distribution of the land of the island ; all except Methymna, which had remained faithful to them. They distributed it into three thousand lots, of which three hundred were reserved for consecration to the gods, and the remainder assigned to Athenian kleruchs, or proprietary settlers, chosen by lot among the citizens ; the Lesbian proprietors still remaining on. the land as cultivating tenants, and paying to the Athenian kleruch an annual rent of two minae, near four pounds sterling, for each lot. We should have been glad to learn more about this new land-settlement than the few words of the historian suffice to explain. It would seem that two thousand seven hundred Athenian citizens, with their families must have gone to reside, for the time at least, in Les- bos, as kleruchs ; that is, without abnegating their rights as Athenian citizens, and without being exonerated either from Athenian taxation, or from personal military service. But it seems certain that these men did not continue long to reside in Lesbos : and we may even suspect that the kleruchic allotment of the island must have been subsequently abrogated. There was a strip on the opposite mainland of Asia, which had hither- to belonged to Mitylene ; this was now separated from that town, and henceforward enrolled among the tributary subjects of Athens. 1 1 Thucyd. iii, 50 ; iv, 52. About the Lesbian kleruchs, see Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, B. iii, c. 18; Wachsmuth, Hell. Alt. i, 2, p. 36. These kleruchs must originally have gone thither as a garrison, as M. Boeckh remarks ; and may probably have come back, either all or a part, when needed for military sen-ice at home, and when it was ascertained that the island might be kept without them. Still, however, there is much which is puzzling in this arrangement. It seems remarkable that the Athenians, at a time when their accumulated treasure had been exhausted, and when they were beginning to pay direct contributions from their private property, should sacrifice fhe thousand four hundred minae (ninety talents) annual revenue capable of being appropriated by the state, unless that sum were required to maintain the kleruchs as resident garrison for the maintenance of Lesbos. And as it turned out afterwards that their residence was not necessary, we may doubt whether the state did not convert the kleruchic grants into a public tribute, wholly or partially. We may farther remark, that if the kleruch be supposed a citizen residen' VOL. VI. 170C.