Diodorus of Sicily (15) further relates, that, among the islands in the Arabian Ocean, along the coast of Arabia Felix, there areseveral worthy of mention. One is the island of Panchaia. In Chapter 45 of Book v. he explains the political and socialorganization of this island. He there says, among other things, that the population is divided into three orders (?: thepriests and the artisans () form the first, the cultivators form the second, the soldiers and shepherds the third. Thepriests are chiefs and judges of the inhabitants. "The cultivators till the soil, and afterwards bring the produce together incommon. Whichever of them is adjudged to have tilled his portion the best, receives a choice part in the distribution of theharvest; the first, the second, and so on to the number of ten, being proclaimed by the priests to serve as examples." "Noone, in short, is allowed to own anything as separate property, except a dwelling-house and garden." This agrees with theagrarian system of Russia, of ancient Germany, and India. (16)Strabo, speaking of the Dalmatians, says: "The Dalmatians have a custom, peculiar to themselves, of ****** a new divisionof lands every eight years." (17)
M. Viollet sees in the custom of common repasts, sussitia , so general among all ancient nations, a remnant of the primitivecommunity, and his conclusion seems to be correct. In fact, even now we find common repasts and common property, as wehave seen, in Switzerland. The passage in which M. Viollet expresses his opinion on this point is so important that we willgive it, as it stands.
"If the produce of the earth is consumed in common, it is because originally the soil was not regarded as the domain of anindividual, but as the foster-mother of all mankind. `They bring all their possessions into a single lump, and eat together inpublic repasts,' writes Diodorus of Sicily when speaking of the inhabitants of the little Lipari Isles. In my opinion, thesevaluable lines reveal the origin of the public repasts to us. The custom springs from the community of lands; it is closelyconnected with it as effect with cause, and it even enables us to go further back still, beyond the establishment of the earliestfixed communities, to the wandering life of patriarchal families. The practice of public repasts was general in Greece andItaly. According to Aristotle, the Oenotrians, at the time when they abandoned the nomadic life for agriculture, receivedfrom their king Italus the institution of common repasts. The philosopher would have been more correct, had he told us thatthe Oenotrians, on becoming settled, preserved, instead of adopted, the institution of common repasts. For it is, in allprobability, a relic of the nomadic life. The Opici, living on the Tyrrhenian coast, also ate at a common table; and, in the timeof Aristotle (some four hundred years, that is to say, after the foundation of Rome), the Chonisna on the coast of Iapygia,and the inhabitants of some districts of Bruttium and Lucania, remained faithful to the old tradition. (18) And every one knowshow long this practice was maintained in the island of Crete. (19)"Among the Spartans the ancient public repasts left a double trace, alike on their laws and their manners. On the one hand,the legislator took hold of the old custom; he sanctioned and perpetuated it by formal commands, obliging all the citizens,including the kings themselves, to sit down at the same table; and on the other hand, the people retained a religiousremembrance of these primitive customs; and, side by side with the Sussitia , or legal repasts, they had other meetings,entirely spontaneous, which preserved the old tradition in even greater purity. This popular repast of the Spartans, which isfar less known than the official banquet, was called Copis . Athenaeus has preserved the description given by Polemon, awriter of the second century before our era:--"When the Spartans celebrate the , they begin by setting up tents near to a certain temple; they then make beds ofgrass, on which they stretch carpets, and there hold the banquet, all lying down. They entertain not only people of ourcountry, but also travellers who are staying there. In these copis banquets they sacrifice kids, and no other animal. They giveevery one a portion of the meat, and also what is called the physicillon , that is, a small piece of bread like an encridon , butmore spherical in form. They also give to every one present a fresh cheese, a slice of the paunch and fat intestine of thevictim, and dessert of dried figs and beans. Every Spartan may give a copis when he pleases; but in the town they are oulygiven at the feast called Tithenidia, celebrated for the preservation of infants. At this time the nurses bring the male childreninto the country to present them at the temple of Diana Coruthallis, situated near the river Tiassa, by the side of the graceCleta. There they celebrate the copis , as we have just described it. They sacrifice on this occasion sucking pigs; and ipnetes ,or balked bread, is served at the banquet." (20)"Everything here is primitive; and we see the common repast in its ancient simplicity.
