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Some Observations on the Property Rights of Athenian Women

Author(s): G. E. M. de Ste. CroixSource: The Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Dec., 1970), pp. 273-278Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/706304

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 273

and the wrath of Zeus in the mouth of a goddess, and maintained, with thecustomary comic lapses, to the end of the scene. }?vlu~o(-cos)ever occurs inAttic prose (P1.Phaedr. 60 e is quotedfrom a Spartan,and [P1.]Ax.366 b may

be disregardedas of uncertain date), in tragedy is confined, except Eur. El.818, to lyrics or anapaests, and in Ar. occurs only twice, both in paratragicPeace II4-I8 (dact.). The corruption would be very easy in an uncial textlackingword-division: 6TYMONMOIcould becomebyhaplographyETYMO,and }?vl~oswas often corrupted by scribes into the commoner, and similarlypronounced,~ror!~oS.Cf. Aesch. Supp.81 where M's lro'luojshas been emendedby Arnaldus to 4rvuwc,P.V. 596 where M originally had Tro~l~aor E%v/ma,Platoll.cc. whereat least one manuscripthas the corruption,and Soph. Ph.205where all manuscriptsexcept R have e'ros,a. A scribe transferringuncial andundivided 0PACONAETOIMOIinto meaningful words would be forced to

produce the text of the paradosis. For the reverse errorin word-divisioncf.Aesch. Ag. 312 where Schiitz was the first to see that the senseless ro~ol$'

eToq~oL (~frVlOt F) was really roIo($e rot!LoW.

Somervilleollege,Oxford NAN V. DUNBAR

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROPERTYRIGHTS OF ATHENIAN WOMEN

A READINGf the late A. R. W. Harrison'srecent book, TheLawofAthens: heFamilyandProperty,eviewed on pp. 387-9? of thisjournal (and cited here as'Harrison'), and of various earlier works dealing with Athenian law hasrevealed a markedreluctanceon the part of scholars(especiallyin the English-speaking world) to examine properly the role of women at Athens in propertyownership.Ancient historians,one may think, too readily forget that womenare, afterall, half the human race. It is particularlyeasy to forgetthe Athenianwoman, whose legal position certainly placed her in a position of greatersub-servience to the male than her counterpart in some other Greek cities. The

standardworksarenot sufficientlyhelpfulon the subject,and there is not muchto be gained from dissertationssuch as those of A. Balabanoff, UntersuchungenzurGeschaftsfahigkeiter riechischenrau(Leipzig, 1905), P. Herfst,Letravaildelafemmedans a Grece ncienneUtrecht, I922), and H. Lewy, De civilicondicionemulierumgraecarum Breslau, i885).

What preciselywere the propertyrights which an Athenian woman couldenjoy, in the fifth and fourthcenturiesB.C.? This questionis exceedinglyhardto answer, and the very inconclusive observations that follow are offeredmainly in the hope of stimulatinga thorough inquiry into the whole subject.

In Greekcities in the Hellenistic and Roman periods,just as women some-

times received special honorificgrantsof full citizenshipand might then evenhold magistracies(see, e.g., W. W. Tarn and G. T. Griffith,HellenisticCivilisa-tion3, 8-9; D. Magie, RomanRule nAsiaMinor . 649, 653-4; ii. 1518-19 n. 50,I523 n. 57), so they are often found as property owners, even landowners.Athenswas ultimatelyno exception. No attempt can be made here to trace thedevelopment, and it will be enough to cite the Hadrianic inscription,I.G. ii2.2776 (discussedat length by John Day, An EconomicHistoryof Athensunder


and the wrath of Zeus in the mouth of a goddess, and maintained, with thecustomary comic lapses, to the end of the scene. }?vlu~o(-cos)ever occurs inAttic prose (P1.Phaedr. 60 e is quotedfrom a Spartan,and [P1.]Ax.366 b may

be disregardedas of uncertain date), in tragedy is confined, except Eur. El.818, to lyrics or anapaests, and in Ar. occurs only twice, both in paratragicPeace II4-I8 (dact.). The corruption would be very easy in an uncial textlackingword-division: 6TYMONMOIcould becomebyhaplographyETYMO,and }?vl~oswas often corrupted by scribes into the commoner, and similarlypronounced,~ror!~oS.Cf. Aesch. Supp.81 where M's lro'luojshas been emendedby Arnaldus to 4rvuwc,P.V. 596 where M originally had Tro~l~aor E%v/ma,Platoll.cc. whereat least one manuscripthas the corruption,and Soph. Ph.205where all manuscriptsexcept R have e'ros,a. A scribe transferringuncial andundivided 0PACONAETOIMOIinto meaningful words would be forced to

produce the text of the paradosis. For the reverse errorin word-divisioncf.Aesch. Ag. 312 where Schiitz was the first to see that the senseless ro~ol$'

eToq~oL (~frVlOt F) was really roIo($e rot!LoW.

Somervilleollege,Oxford NAN V. DUNBAR

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROPERTYRIGHTS OF ATHENIAN WOMEN

A READINGf the late A. R. W. Harrison'srecent book, TheLawofAthens: heFamilyandProperty,eviewed on pp. 387-9? of thisjournal (and cited here as'Harrison'), and of various earlier works dealing with Athenian law hasrevealed a markedreluctanceon the part of scholars(especiallyin the English-speaking world) to examine properly the role of women at Athens in propertyownership.Ancient historians,one may think, too readily forget that womenare, afterall, half the human race. It is particularlyeasy to forgetthe Athenianwoman, whose legal position certainly placed her in a position of greatersub-servience to the male than her counterpart in some other Greek cities. The

standardworksarenot sufficientlyhelpfulon the subject,and there is not muchto be gained from dissertationssuch as those of A. Balabanoff, UntersuchungenzurGeschaftsfahigkeiter riechischenrau(Leipzig, 1905), P. Herfst,Letravaildelafemmedans a Grece ncienneUtrecht, I922), and H. Lewy, De civilicondicionemulierumgraecarum Breslau, i885).

What preciselywere the propertyrights which an Athenian woman couldenjoy, in the fifth and fourthcenturiesB.C.? This questionis exceedinglyhardto answer, and the very inconclusive observations that follow are offeredmainly in the hope of stimulatinga thorough inquiry into the whole subject.

In Greekcities in the Hellenistic and Roman periods,just as women some-

times received special honorificgrantsof full citizenshipand might then evenhold magistracies(see, e.g., W. W. Tarn and G. T. Griffith,HellenisticCivilisa-tion3, 8-9; D. Magie, RomanRule nAsiaMinor . 649, 653-4; ii. 1518-19 n. 50,I523 n. 57), so they are often found as property owners, even landowners.Athenswas ultimatelyno exception. No attempt can be made here to trace thedevelopment, and it will be enough to cite the Hadrianic inscription,I.G. ii2.2776 (discussedat length by John Day, An EconomicHistoryof Athensunder



274 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

Roman Domination [I942], 221-35: see esp. 232-3), showing a considerable

proportion of women among a particular set of landowners. There is of course

plenty of Hellenistic evidence (some of it quite early) for other cities; this is

scattered and has rarely been brought together in any quantity, and it willsuffice to quote two or three very well-known and easily accessible texts: the

long inscription of Tenos of the mid third century B.C., recording sales and

dowries, where many women dispose of land (I.J.G. i, no. vii = I.G. xii. 5.872); the testamentary foundation of Epicteta of Thera, c. 200 B.C. (I.7.G. ii,no. xxiv A =- I.G. xii. 3. 330; note esp. avroKr~ro~s XcoploLs,. 32); and the

inscription from Boeotian Orchomenos recording the large loans totallingsome three talents made by Nicareta of Thespiae in the late third century B.C.

(I. o.G. ii, no. xiv = D.G.E. 523 = I.G. vii. 3172). Each of these ladies is

clearly regarded as the owner of the land or the money concerned, although she

acts with the concurrence of her kyrios(tEra Kvplov).For a general review of thelegal situation of women in the Hellenistic period, see Claire Preaux, 'Le statutde la femme a l'epoque hellenistique, principalement en l~gypte', in Recueilsdela SocieteJean Bodin, tome xi: La Femme(Brussels, I959), I27-75.

We can now return to the question of women's property rights at Athens inthe fifth and fourth centuries. Harrison deals with this subject on pp. I08-9,

I12-I4, 236, and cf. 73 n. 3. In spite of some qualifying expressions (e.g. the

Athenian woman 'could never be an uninhibited owner of property', p. I09,

and the references to the 'quasi-property' of women on pp. II2-I3), and the

claim that 'it is largely a matter of definition whether we say that at Athens

a woman's or a minor's capacity to own was restricted', he eventually comesdown firmly in favour of the view that, for the citizen, 'a woman's or a minor's

capacity to own either chattels or land was on all fours with that of a man who

was of age', subject only to the limitation that 'women, like minors, could not

make legally valid agreements for the disposal of goods above the value of one

medimnos of barley], except through the agency of their kyrioi' (p. 236).Let us deal with the limitation first. It rests upon the rule enunciated in

Isae. x (Aristarch.). I0 (cf. Dio Chrys. lxxiv. 9; Harpocr., s.v. ;'~rrrait3; Schol.

Ar. Eccl. I026):?rra~8$ pr) fervai crvadhheLvZtx,3 7yvvatKL 7repa /]?^tfVov Kpl0a)V.

This is always taken (as by Harrison, p. 236, and L. J. Th. Kuenen-Janssens, in

Mnemos.3ix [I94I], I99-214) to mean that an Athenian woman could notlegally contract above the value stated without the concurrencef her kyrios,but

that with that concurrence she could dispose of (see the preceding paragraph)or, for that matter, acquire property of any value. But is this assumption cor-

rect? It certainly does not suit the context of the Isaeus passage, where the

woman's situation is brought in by analogy with that of the minor, who cannotmake a will at all. Clearly the Athenian woman could not make a will either.

There is not the least reason to see a testamentary bequest in Dem. xli (Spoud.).8-9, 2I-2; even Dem. xxxvi (Pro Phorm.). 14 can be explained as a dispositionintervivos,out of the considerable personal property given to Archippe, in addi-

tion to her dowry, by Pasion (see Dem. xlv [Steph.i]. 28, 74), to which propertyPs.-Dem. 1 (Polycl.). 60 (a significant passage, not quoted by Harrison) must

also refer; and the donation mentioned in Lys. xxxi (Philon.). 2I, which was

made intervivos or mortiscausa, could have been made out of property acquiredin the same manner as Archippe's. From other cities there is plenty of Hellenis-tic and Roman evidence, some of which we have already noticed, for women

entering personally into contracts, even relating to land, with the concurrence




of their kyrioi.(See the not very satisfactoryarticle by T. W. Beasley, 'The

KVpLOSn Greek States other than Athens', in C.R. xx [I906], 249-53.) Forclassical Athens we have far more sources in which such evidence ought to

appear, if there were any reason for its existence; but it seems to be entirelyabsent. (Beauchet,Histoiredu droitprivede a Republiquethenienne1897], ii. 356,36I-2, 366-8, 370, hardly realized the significanceof the contrast etween theevidence fromAthens and that from other Greekcities and Ptolemaic Egypt.)Inferences ex silentiomust always be suspect, but in this case they are hard toresist. We quite often come acrosswomen at Athens who take part (if onlyoccasionally) in petty trade: e.g. in Dem. lvii (Eubul.).30 ff. and many scat-tered references in comedy (see V. Ehrenberg, The Peopleof Aristophanes2[I95I], pp. i I4-I5, i26-7, etc.); some evidence from inscriptions is given byHelen McClees, A Study f Womenn Attic nscriptionsColumbiaUniv. Stud. in

Class. Philol., I920), 3I-2. But if we take, as a convenient specimen, the longEleusinian accounts of the early 320s, I.G. ii2. I672-3, where thereare scores oftransactionswith men, we find in strong contrast but three women, only oneof whom, '.prT?ptsK HeLpacosI672. 64), enters into a contract for more thana few drachmae. Not even one woman is certainly identifiable among thescores of slave-owners named in the manumission inscriptions of the latefourth century (I.G. ii2. I553-78; S.E.G. xviii. 36-50): even the person con-cerned in I570. 3-4 ([- - K]al KVpwovVpEKrrTv)ay be a boy, in view of I558.

63-4 ([K]A?o?evosK,aKvp~os Tr,awvl[8]]js).nd as regards anded property,ifwe take one groupof texts of the fourth and thirdcenturies,the horoi tudiedby

M. I. Finley, Studiesn LandandCreditn AncientAthens,00-200 B.C. (1952; cf.J. V. A. Fine, Horoi = Hesp., Suppl. 9, I95I), in which a large number ofAthenian inscriptionsof certain specific types can be conveniently comparedwith a few similarones from other cities, including those of the island of Amor-

gos, we cannot help being struck by the contrast between the situation atAthens and that on Amorgos. In the Athenian horoi,with a very few possibleexceptions (to be dealt with presently), women never appear at all except inconnection with their dowries, of which they were certainly nothing like fullowners: see the able treatment of this thorny subject by Harrison,pp. 45-60(closelyfollowing the standardworkby H. J. Wolff, in R.E. [I957], s.v. srpo[~,

cols. 133-70); and cf. the statement by Harrison, p. I 3, 'her dowry was insome sense hers', with Wolff, in Traditio i (I944), at p. 63 = BeitragezurRechtsgeschichteltgriechenlands1961), I88; 'sheneverhad any rightwhatsoeverof her own in the ~rpoi'. Again, in the Athenian horoi(and other Athenian

sources)no woman is ever seen disposingof anything included in her dowry,even ixeraKvplov.The husband wasundoubtedly kyrios f the dowryduring the

marriage; and if it became returnable,e.g. in the event of divorce or the wife'sdeath without children, it was handed over not to the woman but to her

kyrioswho had given her in marriage.) In one Athenian horos Fine no. I2 --

Finley no. 2I A, p. I83) the words [K]al Kvp[.c[L] do seem to appear, but this is

a 'dotalapotimema',nd (as Finley suggests)'perhapsthe kyrioswas named herebecause the father had died prior to his daughter's marriage'.Among the re-

latively few horoi romAmorgos,on the otherhand, we have no less than five inwhich women play active roles in person.In threeof these,women, with their

kyrioi,are representedas lending on security of land (S.I.G.3 I I90 = Finleyno. 9), borrowingon such security (S.I.G.3 I I98 =- Finley no. 8), or makinga dedication mortis ausa rom propertyon which a dowry is secured (S.I.G.3




II89 = Finley no. I55); in a fourth inscription (S.I.G.3 I200 = Finley no.

i02), in which a man borrows on the security of land, a woman who may or may

not be his wife, with her kyrios (not the same man), joins in the transaction,

for reasons which are obscure; and in a fifth (I.G. xii, Suppl. 33I =- Finleyno. 130) two girls are named as the beneficiaries of a 'pupillary apotimgma', as

girls never are at Athens.

When Harrison (p. 236 n. 3) says that women are named as property

owners in some Athenian inscriptions, he cites only three such inscriptions, one

of which (S.E.G. xii. I00, lines 67-9) does not even mention the names of the

two women concerned, but describes each as the wife of so-and-so, and the

other two (I.G. ii2. 2765-6- Finley nos. I76, I74) very probably relate to

land included in dowries (cf. the notes in I.G., and Finley, op. cit., p. 266 n. 23),

as indeed does the first.

In all the considerable Athenian literary sources, including the orators (whodeal so often with property rights, especially in connection with inheritance and

adoption), we never meet a single woman landowner, or one who is represented

as owning any appreciable amount of property apart from the personal gifts

she might receive from a devoted husband or father (see Lys. xxxii [Diogeit.].

6; Isae. ii [Menecl.]. 9; Dem. xlv [Steph. i]. 28, 74). Such gifts would easilyaccount for the isolated cases in which we find women engaging in a transaction

such as making loans-within the family, at that (see Ps.-Dem. xli [Spoud.].

8-9, I I-I2, I7, 2I-2), and therefore probably of a friendly character, devoid of

legal significance. Passages from comedy which have been quoted in this con-

nection (e.g. Ar. Eccl. 446-9) are far from sufficient to prove the capacity ofwomen to make legally enforceable loans: Ar. Plut. 975-I032 is speaking of

gifts, and only Ar. Thesm. 839-45 (the mother of Hyperbolus) offers even

a prima facie case. Harrison (i 14 n. I) rightly scorns Aeschin. i (Timarch.). 170

('I07' is a false reference); cf. the more specific ? I7I, which is nearer the legal

reality.

We must ask ourselves in what other ways women could become property

owners. Even if, as suggested above, they perhaps could not legally purchase,

even with the concurrence of their kyrioi, there does seem to have been one

way in which they could acquire ownership of property, apart from gift: by

inheritance in their own right, not of course as daughters, when they wouldalways be mere epikleroi, but as sisters, probably as aunts, and certainly as

nieces and cousins, though probably not as mothers (see Harrison, 14i-7), in

the absence of nearer relatives according to the list given in Ps.-Dem. xliii

(Macart.). 5I, cf. Isae. xi (Hagn.). 2, I I-I2 (and see Harrison, 138 n. 3), where

males always come before females in the same degree of relationship. In these

capacities they seem to inherit personally and not as epikleroi. (See Isae. vii

[Apollod.]. 31, 44; xi [Hagn.]. 49. In view of Isae. x [Aristareh.]. 4, not discussed

by Harrison, we might possibly make an exception where a sister inherited the

estate of a brother who died while still a minor; but see W. Wyse, Speeches of

Isaeus, pp. 655-6; Beauchet, op. cit., i. 420-2.) Harrison seems doubtful on thisquestion in two or three places (pp. 137-8, I42, 31 I), but on p. I13 he decides

rightly that if a woman with no surviving brothers inherited 'from a relative

other than her father, . . . it is fairly certain that she was not technically an

epikleros'. A possible alternative (very similar in practice to the theory that

women always inherited as epikleroi) is the view expressed by Wolff (op. cit.,

p. 5? = I67), that it was not the sister (etc.) of the deceased who inherited but




her sons; the Athenian woman was 'herself deprived of the right to receiveinheritances',but 'was able to transmita right of succession n her own familyto her sons,who were members of her husband'sfamily'. If we preferto see the

sister, niece, etc. as inheriting in her own right, we may feel even greatersurprisethat we never encounter female Athenian propertyowners.For Harrison,as we have alreadynoticed, 'it is largelya matterof definition

whether we say that in Athens a woman's . . . capacity to own was restricted'.But we have seen that Athenian women, although they appear to have beenable to inherit property in their own right in certain (probably quite rare)circumstances,and could no doubt receive it by gift, may possiblyhave had no

power to acquireit contractuallyor to deal with it, except to an inconsiderableamount, even !xer& Kvplov.Is it not conceivable that, dowries apart, anAthenian woman's kyrioshad virtually complete practicaland even legal con-

trol of her property, ill much the same way as the guardian (&drporros)er-tainly had of the property of his ward during minority? This would explainwhy we never come acrossany mention of Athenian women as owning signi-ficant amounts of property.As positiveevidence in supportof this positionwe

might cite (with some hesitation, since the oratormay be misrepresenting he

situation) Isae. vii (Apollod.). I, 44, where the propertyof the deceasedApollo-dorus (II), inheritedby his sisters,is representedas having been sold off bytheir husbands,or at any rate by Pronapes,the husbandof the survivingsister.But if there is reason to supposethat the Athenian woman could not deal with

property to which she was nominally entitled, it could hardly be considered

hers, at any rate according to the one contemporarydefinition we have ofownership: that of Aristotle, Rhet. i. 5, I36I~2I-2, where its hallmark is

adraAAorp[Hoont, consisting of ?00lS Kat ,rpaams.

In order to appreciate fully the inferior position of women at Athens in

regardto property ownership,we need to contrast the Athenian situationwiththat in some other cities, where we find good evidence of ownership on the

part of women on something like the same footing as men, even before theHellenistic period. When Aristotle criticizes what he is pleased to call 7 nrep;rag yvvatrKaS aveas at Sparta, the powerful position of women in the Spartan

system of property ownership is evidently one of the features he most dislikes

(Pol. ii. 9, I269hI2 to I270o34, esp. I269b12-26, 3I-4, I27oaII-34). Heactually assertsthat almost two fifthsof Spartan land were owned by women

(I270a23-5: his words are &rF . . . rT3vyvvatKt3v).Doubtless the Spartan rules

governing dowries and the position of 7rarpo6xoL (Aristotle calls them by the

Athenian term, drrK;~pol; but see Hdt. vi. 57. 4) gave the women much morereal control over the propertiesconcernedthan the very limited rights enjoyedby their Athenian counterparts.Spartanwomen, fromat least the early fourthcentury, enteredtheirown teamsin Olympic chariotraces,as only the wealthycould afford to do, and even won prizes: the first to do this was Cynisca, thesister of King Agesilaus (see Paus. iii. 8. I; vi. I. 6; and other texts). By the

late third century it could be said that most of the wealth was in the hands ofwomen, and that King Agis IV's mother and grandmotherwere the richestofthe Spartans (Plut. Agis 7. 3-4 and 4. I). At Gortyn in the mid fifth century,women obviously had considerable property and could deal with it freely,without the intervention of a kyrios note esp. Lex Gort.viii. 47-51; ix. I-7);women's property is spoken of as their own (ii. 45-50; iii. I7-37, 4o-3; iv.

23-7, cf. 48-54; v. 1-9, 17-22; vi. 52 to viii. 30; ix. I-I I); we hear of p,arp6ta




equally with ~rarpo^a (iv. 43-6; vi. 31-46; xi. 42-5); and daughters alwaysreceive a share, although a smaller one than sons, of the property of their dead

father or mother (iv. 29-48). There is no need to multiply examples, and it will

be sufficient to add a reference to the well-known inscription concerning therestoration of exiles at Tegea in 324 B.C., where provisions about confiscated

property deal with ra I~arprgta as with ra 7raTppLa (Tod ii. 202- S.I.G.3 306,lines 4-9, 48-57). Enough has been said to show that there were cities even in

the fifth and fourth centuries where the law of property affecting women was

very different from the Athenian and where women enjoyed far more sub-

stantial property rights.W,?emust not, of course, imagine that Athenian women as a whole lived

a life of cloistered seclusion, in spite of several texts referring to the habits of

the upper classes which give that impression (Lys. iii [Simon.]. 6; xxxii [Diogeit.].

I I; Isocr., Epist. ix. I0, etc.). Harrison does not discuss this subject, a matter ofsociology rather than law; but many other scholars have been guilty of the

familiar error of describing as a general characteristic of Athenian life a feature

which was in fact peculiar to the propertied class. Even Wolff (op. cit., p. 46 --

I60) can say that 'Athenian women led a modest life in seclusion'. The

exaggeration in such opinions is sufficiently demonstrated by Aristotle's remark

(Pol. iv. I5, I300a4-7; cf. vi. 8, I323a3-6) that officials such as the yuvaLKovoloo

are not appropriate to a democracy-'for how can one prevent the women of

the arropo~ from going out of doors?'

NewCollege,Oxford G. E. M. DE STE. CROIX

ARROGANCE WITH THE ABACUS:A NOTE ON THEOPHRASTUS, CHAR. 24

CAREFULreaders of Theophrastus' Charactersobserve how frequently therelevant and observant precision of the author's typological illustrations has

been obscured by the vagaries of scapegrace scribes and contumacious scholars.A case in point, it seems to me, is the scene of the arrogant man and the abacus

at Char. 24. I2. d/JdeXA~ Kac hoy~o6evos rrposrlvca(the v~Seprrpavo~ s the kindof man) rc 7rat$l vrdva~at raS f?rjcovsi>0etv Kal Keq)\atov TroLrjaavrL ypa?aL

av,ra e6lAoyov.So all the manuscripts (V and the C class), uniting in a nonsensethat can be tolerable only to those whose knowledge of fourth-century Attic

idiom, of abacus calculations, or of both, is less than perfect. Casaubon (1597)and Ussing (I868), for instance, referred a,ooeOvhere to the movement of the

pebbles on the abacus during the calculation. Whatever ~co&ervoes mean inthe present context-no calculative parallels with this verb are cited by the

commentators or otherwise known to me-it cannot mean that. A verb whose

general application in the active is one of 'violently pushing objects aside or

through'x is unlikely to be referred correctly to the careful, methodical move-I e.g. Hesych. s.v. KqrE~ov (it should be shell), Brut. 52 (xoogb: Brutus &o3aavra is

KrfOov or Kritr[ov,he box into which raS breast when he ran on to his sword: cf.

?r?>ou?&Lcoova,v at elections: a parallel first also Philop.6 [359 b]). L.S.J. cite (s.v.) Eur.noted by Casaubon, but wrongly referred Heraclid.995 (8,o?oaaS nd killing my enemies),by him to a contextsimilar o that of Theo- P1.Tim.67 e (thehighvelocityof anobject'sphrastus here), Plut. Mor. 979 a (an octopus colour particles 317a~SLoovaav the passage-StoOoOVroSts tentacles nside the crayfish's waysin the eyes: see Taylorad loc., and in


equally with ~rarpo^a (iv. 43-6; vi. 31-46; xi. 42-5); and daughters alwaysreceive a share, although a smaller one than sons, of the property of their dead

father or mother (iv. 29-48). There is no need to multiply examples, and it will

be sufficient to add a reference to the well-known inscription concerning therestoration of exiles at Tegea in 324 B.C., where provisions about confiscated

property deal with ra I~arprgta as with ra 7raTppLa (Tod ii. 202- S.I.G.3 306,lines 4-9, 48-57). Enough has been said to show that there were cities even in

the fifth and fourth centuries where the law of property affecting women was

very different from the Athenian and where women enjoyed far more sub-

stantial property rights.W,?emust not, of course, imagine that Athenian women as a whole lived

a life of cloistered seclusion, in spite of several texts referring to the habits of

the upper classes which give that impression (Lys. iii [Simon.]. 6; xxxii [Diogeit.].

I I; Isocr., Epist. ix. I0, etc.). Harrison does not discuss this subject, a matter ofsociology rather than law; but many other scholars have been guilty of the

familiar error of describing as a general characteristic of Athenian life a feature

which was in fact peculiar to the propertied class. Even Wolff (op. cit., p. 46 --

I60) can say that 'Athenian women led a modest life in seclusion'. The

exaggeration in such opinions is sufficiently demonstrated by Aristotle's remark

(Pol. iv. I5, I300a4-7; cf. vi. 8, I323a3-6) that officials such as the yuvaLKovoloo

are not appropriate to a democracy-'for how can one prevent the women of

the arropo~ from going out of doors?'

NewCollege,Oxford G. E. M. DE STE. CROIX

ARROGANCE WITH THE ABACUS:A NOTE ON THEOPHRASTUS, CHAR. 24

CAREFULreaders of Theophrastus' Charactersobserve how frequently therelevant and observant precision of the author's typological illustrations has

been obscured by the vagaries of scapegrace scribes and contumacious scholars.A case in point, it seems to me, is the scene of the arrogant man and the abacus

at Char. 24. I2. d/JdeXA~ Kac hoy~o6evos rrposrlvca(the v~Seprrpavo~ s the kindof man) rc 7rat$l vrdva~at raS f?rjcovsi>0etv Kal Keq)\atov TroLrjaavrL ypa?aL

av,ra e6lAoyov.So all the manuscripts (V and the C class), uniting in a nonsensethat can be tolerable only to those whose knowledge of fourth-century Attic

idiom, of abacus calculations, or of both, is less than perfect. Casaubon (1597)and Ussing (I868), for instance, referred a,ooeOvhere to the movement of the

pebbles on the abacus during the calculation. Whatever ~co&ervoes mean inthe present context-no calculative parallels with this verb are cited by the

commentators or otherwise known to me-it cannot mean that. A verb whose

general application in the active is one of 'violently pushing objects aside or

through'x is unlikely to be referred correctly to the careful, methodical move-I e.g. Hesych. s.v. KqrE~ov (it should be shell), Brut. 52 (xoogb: Brutus &o3aavra is

KrfOov or Kritr[ov,he box into which raS breast when he ran on to his sword: cf.

?r?>ou?&Lcoova,v at elections: a parallel first also Philop.6 [359 b]). L.S.J. cite (s.v.) Eur.noted by Casaubon, but wrongly referred Heraclid.995 (8,o?oaaS nd killing my enemies),by him to a contextsimilar o that of Theo- P1.Tim.67 e (thehighvelocityof anobject'sphrastus here), Plut. Mor. 979 a (an octopus colour particles 317a~SLoovaav the passage-StoOoOVroSts tentacles nside the crayfish's waysin the eyes: see Taylorad loc., and in

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