Two considerations made the communistic sentiment a normal one to the Greek democrat. (_a_) The institution of private property had not become so thoroughly imbedded in the very foundations of society as it has today. The custom of family tenure was not entirely forgotten, and in some backlying districts may well have been still in vogue.[287] In some states, also, a part of the land was probably still held in common by the citizenship. The frequent establishment of cleruchies in conquered territories, in which the land was regularly assigned by lot, and the ever-recurring revolutions, which usually resulted in confiscation of the land in favor of the victorious party, must have assisted materially in unsettling the confidence of the Greeks in private property as a basal institution of society. The actual existence of a polity like that of Sparta, where private ownership does not seem to have been so absolute,[288] doubtless also exerted its influence on the imagination of Greek thinkers. (_b_) As is generally recognized, the Greek, far more than the modern, took for granted the subordination of the individual citizen to the state. We have also seen that he tended to magnify the power of legislation as sufficient to encompass any reform, even in the face of economic laws. To him, therefore, the demand that the state be made the dispenser of private property did not seem unnatural.[289] We should be on our guard, however, against exaggerating the extent of this sentiment among the Greek writers, or against reading into them the modern socialistic doctrines. A consideration of the predecessors of Plato in social speculation may be conveniently introduced at this point, before we proceed to the discussion of the _Republic_. Some have thought to find traces of communism in Homer. The evidence of any real communism, however, is very slight, and the frankly individualistic spirit of the poems is against it. Moreover, this is a problem that concerns the economic conditions rather than the theory.[290] Little is definitely known of Pythagoras and his school, but it is improbable that he either taught or practiced a real communism.[291]