Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/96

 90 THE FAMILY. BOOK II. in it, and it could neither lose them nor dispose of ihem. Plato, in his treatise on the Laws, did not pretend to advance a new idea when he forbade the propi'ietor to sell his field ; he did no more than to recall an old law. Everything leads us to believe that in the ancient ages property was inalienable. It is well known that at Sparta the citizen was formally forbidden to sell his lot of land.' There was the same interdiction in the laws of Locri nnd of Leucadia.* Pheidon of Corinth, a legis- lator of the ninth century B. C, prescribed that the number of families and of estates should remain un- changeable.' Now, this prescription could be observed only when it was foi bidden to sell an estate, or even to divide it. The law of Solon, later by seven or eight generations than that of Pheidon of Corinth, no longer forbade a man to sell his land, but punished the vender by a severe fine, and the loss of the rights of citizenship.* Finally, Aristotle mentions, in a general manner, that in many cities the ancient laws forbade the sale of land.* Such laws ought not to surprise us. Found prop- erty on the right of labor, and man may dispose of it. Found it on religion, and he can no longer do this ; a tie sti'ongerthan the will of man binds the land to him. Besides, this field where ihe tomb is situated, where the divine ancestors live, where the family is forever to perform its worship, is not simply the property of a man, but of a family. It is not the individual actually ' Plutarch, Lycurg., Agis. Aristotle, Polit., II. 6, 10 (II. 7). » Id., Ibid., II. 3, 7. » Aristotle, PolU.. VII. 2.
 * Aristotle, Polii., II. 4. 4 (II. 5).
 * iEschines, against Timarchus. Diogenes Laertius, I. 55.