We may farther remark, that if the kleruch be supposed a citizen
resident at Athens, but receiving rent from his lot of land in
some other territory,—the analogy between him and the Roman
colonist fails. The Roman colonists, though retaining their
privileges as citizens, were sent out to reside on their grants
of land, and to constitute a sort of resident garrison over
the prior inhabitants, who had been despoiled of a portion of
territory to make room for them.
See, on this subject and analogy, the excellent Dissertation of
Madwig: De jure et conditione coloniarum Populi Romani quæstio
historica,—Madwig, Opuscul. Copenhag. 1834. Diss. viii, p. 246.
M. Boeckh and Dr. Arnold contend justly that at the time of the
expedition of Athens against Syracuse and afterwards (Thucyd.
vii, 57; viii, 23), there could have been but few, if any,
Athenian kleruchs resident in Lesbos. We might even push this
argument farther, and apply the same inference to an earlier
period, the eighth year of the war (Thucyd. iv, 75), when the
Mitylenæan exiles were so active in their aggressions upon
Antandrus and the other towns, originally Mitylenæan possessions,
on the opposite mainland. There was no force near at hand on the
part of Athens to deal with these exiles except the ἀργυρόλογαι
νῆες,—had there been kleruchs at Mitylênê, they would probably
have been able to defeat the exiles in their first attempts, and
would certainly have been among the most important forces to put
them down afterwards,—whereas Thucydidês makes no allusion to
them.
Farther, the oration of Antipho (De Cæde Herod. c. 13) makes
no allusion to Athenian kleruchs, either as resident in the
island, or even as absentees receiving the annual rent mentioned
by Thucydidês. The Mitylenæan citizen, father of the speaker
of that oration, had been one of those implicated—as he says,
unwillingly—in the past revolt of the city against Athens: since
the deplorable termination of that revolt he had continued
possessor of his Lesbian property, and continued also to
discharge his obligations as well (choregic obligations—χορηγίας)
towards Mitylênê as (his obligations of pecuniary payment—τέλη)
towards Athens. If the arrangement mentioned by Thucydidês had
been persisted in, this Mitylenæan proprietor would have paid
nothing towards the city of Athens, but merely a rent of two
minæ to some Athenian kleruch, or citizen; which can hardly be
reconciled with the words of the speaker as we find them in
Antipho.
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