Estates and the Land in Early Hellenistic Asia Minor: The Estate of Krateuas

Abstract

This study is primarily concerned with an inscription from Gambreion in Mysia, dated to the eleventh regnal year of Alexander III of Macedon (Syll.³ 302). The inscription records the conveyance of a small estate in the Kaïkos plain from a Macedonian named Krateuas to a certain Aristomenes. The tenureconditions implicit in the terms of the conveyance, and the fiscal dues payable on the estate’s agricultural produce, are analysed in detail. The inscription is set in the context of earlier royal grants of land, both Macedonian and Achaemenid, with a view to determining the institutional models followed by Alexander in his granting of land in western Asia Minor. The author concludes by proposing a new hypothesis concerning the methods of tribute assessment and tribute collection in early Hellenistic Asia Minor.