The Farmer's Law. II

Abstract

In a former number of this periodical (Vol. XXX., pp. 85 f.) I brought out a revised text of the νόμος γεωργικός, In this article I propose to discuss some of the problems which it raises and to add a translation. The account which Zachariä von Lingenthal gave of the law in his Geschichte des Griechischrömischen Rechts, 3rd ed., pp. 249–57, has formed the basis of most later studies on the subject and his opinion of its origin and scope has been generally followed. To take only one example, Albert Vogt in his work on Basil the First (Paris, 1908) accepts all the views of Zachariä and deduces from them various interesting but, in my opinion, ill-grounded conclusions. For I have the misfortune to differ from Zachariä in three important particulars. We differ first, as to the origin of the Law, secondly, as to the legal position under it of the agricultural classes, and thirdly, as to the economical character of the two forms of tenancy which it refers to. It will facilitate the discussion of these points if I preface it by an analysis of the Law and a sketch of the state of society which, as I read it, it presents.