Note 169 — Chapter LVII · SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXTINCTION OF THE GELONIAN DYNASTY.

Mr. Mitford, in the spirit which is usual with him, while enlarging upon the suffering occasioned by this extensive revolution both of inhabitants and of property throughout Sicily, takes no notice of the cause in which it originated, namely, the number of foreign mercenaries whom the Gelonian dynasty had brought in and enrolled as new citizens (Gelon alone having brought in ten thousand, Diodor. xi, 72), and the number of exiles whom they had banished and dispossessed.

I will here notice only one of his misrepresentations respecting the events of this period, because it is definite as well as important (vol. iv, p. 9, chap. xviii, sect. 1).

“But thus (he says) in every little state, lands were left to become public property, or to be assigned to new individual owners. Everywhere, then, that favorite measure of democracy, the equal division of the lands of the state, was resolved upon: a measure impossible to be perfectly executed; impossible to be maintained as executed; and of very doubtful advantage, if it could be perfectly executed and perfectly maintained.”

Again, sect. iii, p. 23, he speaks of “that incomplete and iniquitous partition of lands,” etc.

Now, upon this we may remark:—

1. The equal division of the lands of the state, here affirmed by Mr. Mitford, is a pure fancy of his own. He has no authority for it whatever. Diodorus says (xi, 76) κατεκληρούχησαν τὴν χώραν, etc.; and again (xi, 86) he speaks of τὸν ἀναδασμὸν τῆς χώρας: the redivision of the territory; but respecting equality of division, not one word does he say. Nor can any principle of division in this case be less probable than equality; for one of the great motives of the redivision was to provide for those exiles who had been dispossessed by the Gelonian dynasty: and these men would receive lots, greater or less, on the ground of compensation for loss, greater or less as it might have been. Besides, immediately after the redivision, we find rich and poor mentioned, just as before (xi, 86).

2. Next, Mr. Mitford calls “the equal division of all the lands of the state” the favorite measure of democracy. This is an assertion not less incorrect. Not a single democracy in Greece, so far as my knowledge extends, can be produced, in which such equal partition is ever known to have been carried into effect. In the Athenian democracy, especially, not only there existed constantly great inequality of landed property, but the oath annually taken by the popular heliastic judges had a special clause, protesting emphatically against redivision of the land or extinction of debts.