144 EDwARD M. HARRIS
4 Greeks have a more flexible concept of ownership: Thür 2008 : 174–5. For an analysis of
the flaws in Thür’s view and the evidence contradicting it, see Harris 2008b: 194–6. Erdas
2012 : 350 follows Harris and rightly rejects Thür’s interpretation of the phrase oune katochos.
Cf. Game 2008 : 80.
5 The view that the Greeks had a relative concept of ownership goes back to Leist 1886 and
has been followed by Harrison 1968 : 201–4, who is in turn followed by Todd 1993 : 240–1.
The view that the Roman ownership implied an unlimited power has been ‘erroneously
attributed to Roman law by modern Romanistic lawyers’ (Schulz 1951 : 339).
6 Athenian law has a concept of family ownership as opposed to individual ownership: Foxhall
1989 : 28, 31; Hunter 1994 : 10–13; Osborne 1996. For the evidence contradicting this view
and analysis see MacDowell 1989.
7 Honoré 1961 : 108. Compare the definition for Roman law given by Schulz
1951 : 338: ‘Ownership is that right over a corporeal thing (N.B.) which on principle
endows its holder with full rights over the thing, although this power may be subject to
various limitations.’ For ownership in Greek thought as the right to do whatever one wishes
with an object see Pl. Euthyd. 301e.
8 Pace Todd 1993 : 243: ‘Ownership and possession are bundles of rights which we package
together in particular ways; Athenians may have packaged them differently.’ Todd does not
explain what he means and provides no evidence for this assertion.
9 Even though there was no abstract noun in Greek equivalent to the Roman term dominium,
one should not make too much of this (Kränzlein 1963 : 29: ‘Dem Umstand, daß sich kein
Substantiv für Eigentum nachweisen läßt, ist keine Bedeutung beizumessen.’). The Greeks
expressed the idea of ownership with the genitive case; see Kränzlein 1963 : 34–5.
10 For this procedure see Harp. s.v. exoules. Harrison 1968 : 218, 311–2 follows Rabel 1915 and
1917 in believing that this action could only be brought against those who excluded some-
one who was entitled to enter into land for the purposes of execution, but the Harpocration
passage indicates that its application was broader than this. Todd 1993 : 144–5 follows
Harrison.
11 For this procedure see Harris 1994 = Harris 2006 : 373–90.
12 Dem. 23.60–61.
13 See, for instance, IG ii^2 2492, 2496, 2499. On leases in Attica see Behrend 1970.
14 For the payment of rent in leases see, for example, IG ii^2 1241, line 33; 2492, line 6; 2499, line- For the right to collect the earnings of slaves, see Dem. 53.20.
15 For modes of acquisition in Greek law see Kränzlein 1963 : 71–129. Some sources report
that land was inalienable in Archaic and Classical Sparta but see Hodkinson 1986. For the
alienability of land in Early Greece see Finley 1968b.
16 According to the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians (12.4) the seisachtheia of Solon
was an abolition of debts, but this view is based on a misinterpretation of fr. 36 [West]. See
Harris 1997.
17 For a similar guarantee not to cancel debts or to confiscate property at Pistiros in Thrace see
SEG 49:911, lines 7–12. For an oath not to cancel debts at Delphi FD III 294, col. VII, lines
6–7 (late fifth or early fourth century BCE).
18 Cf. Isocrates Panath. 259 (the Spartans never carry out a cancellation of debts).
19 For the right to disinherit children in Athenian and Roman law see Wurm 1972.
20 For confiscation of property as a penalty in Athenian law see, for example, Dem. 21.43;
23.45. For the apographe procedure to collect public debts see Harrison 1971 : 211–17.
21 For restrictions on ownership of land by foreigners see Hennig 1994. For the grant of enkte-
sis ges see Peçirka 1966. Women do not appear to have owned property at Athens, but there
is no evidence for a law forbidding the practice. On women’s property rights see Schaps
1979 and van Bremen 1996.
22 Isae. 10.10 with Kuenen-Janssens 1941.
23 On laws about mines in Attica see MacDowell 2006 and Faraguna 2006.
24 See Kränzlein 1963 : 53–70; Hennig 1995.