All land in Laconia was either in the immediate possession of the state, or freehold property of the Spartans, or held by the Periœci upon the payment of a tribute. That there were flocks and lands belonging to the state of Sparta, is evident from facts which have been already stated;(871) although perhaps they were not so considerable as in Crete:(872) the large forest, in which every Spartan had a right of hunting, must also have belonged to the community. There can be no doubt that this property of the state was different from the royal lands,(873) which were situated in the territory of the Periœci: it is probable that these (as well as the rest of that district) were cultivated by the Periœci, who only paid a tribute to the king. The rest of the territory of the Periœci was divided into numerous but small portions, of which, as has been already remarked, there were 30,000;(874) a number which was probably arranged at the same time with that of the hundred towns.(875) In each lot (κλῆρος) only one family resided, the members of which subsisted upon its produce, and cultivated it, to the best of our knowledge, without the assistance of Helots. For this reason the 9000 lots of the Spartans, which supported twice as many men as the lots of the Periœci,(876) must upon the whole have been twice as extensive; each lot must therefore have been seven times greater. Now the property of the Spartans was, according to the united testimony of all writers, set out in equal lots; probably according to some general valuation of the produce;(877) for the area could not have been taken as a standard in a country where the land was of such different degrees of goodness. Yet even this method of allotment might not have precluded all inequality: which, on account of the natural changes of the soil, must in the course of time have been much augmented; and to this result the variable number of the slaves, which were strictly connected with the land, necessarily contributed. Nevertheless this fact proves that there existed a principle of equality in the contrivers of the regulation: for, as we remarked above, this division was in strictness only a lower degree of a community of goods, which the Pythagoreans endeavoured to put in practice, on the principle of the possessions of friends being common;(878) and which actually existed among the Spartans in the free use of dogs, horses, servants, and even the furniture of other persons.(879) The whole institution of the public tables in Sparta and Crete was, indeed, only a means of producing an equal distribution of property among the members of them.(880)