The use of land to compensate those who rendered services to the state extended to the military as well, for example in the levies for the crews of ships in Pylos. In one case, approximately 600 men from places along the coast were being recruited to serve as rowers (An 610; cf. An 724). Most are referred to as ktitai, and a smaller number as metaktitai. A ktitas was probably the holder of a ktoina ktimena. A metaktitas had a dependent relationship to a ktitas, and was not the owner of a ktoina ktimena. Two closely related texts, unfortunately still imperfectly understood, provide the following formulae:
Aq 218, line 1: “How they are obligated to put out to sea Aq 64, line 12: “How they hold ktoinai. .
Aq 218, line 9: “How those without ktoinai. .
Here the concept of the “series” is crucial (see Box 2.1). Both texts, Aq 64 and Aq 218, belong together; “how they do or do not hold ktoinai” has something to do with “how they are obligated to put out to sea.” Although many problems remain with the interpretation of these two tablets, it appears that the owners of ktoinai (i. e., ktoinai ktimenai since ownership of the ktoinai kekhesmenai remained in the hands of the damos) bore some sort of an obligation to serve in the fleet.
Such obligations presumably extended to the rest of the military at Pylos as well. For example, a man named Cretheus held a certain plot specifically “on account of the horse” (Ea 59). Another tablet shows that this same Cretheus held the lease on the ktoina kekhesmena of the “Wagonwright of the Lawagetas” (Ea 809). That is, the wagonwright had received land from the damos (in compensation for his services to the lawagetas) and had then leased the land to Cretheus.
The elite arm of the Mycenaean military was the chariotry. Many tablets record large numbers of chariots and equipment for chariots (the Sa series from Pylos; the Sc, Sd, Se, and Sf series from Knosos). Chariots also appear frequently in visual depictions in the archaeological material (see Figure 2.9). The
Figure 2.9 Mycenaean chariot from stele from Shaft Graves at Mycene. Source: Photo © The Art Archive / DeA Picture Library / G. Nimatallah
Wagonwright of the lawagetas probably was responsible for building and maintaining chariots and, predictably, he received land as compensation. Holding the land in turn obligated him to produce chariots. Cretheus in turn held a plot of land as compensation for his service, the maintenance of a horse. Holding the land, however, obligated him to keep the horse and to serve as a charioteer whenever called upon. If this is the way the Wanax of Pylos recruited for the chariotry as well as for the fleet, then in all likelihood he levied his infantry in a similar way.
World History
