synoikia

SYNOI´KIA(συνοικία) differs from οἰκία in this: that the latter is a dwelling-house for a single family; the former is adapted to hold several families, a lodging-house, insula, as the Romans would say. The distinction is thus expressed by Aeschines (c. Tim. § 124): ὅπου μὲν γὰρ πολλοὶ μισθωσάμενοι μίαν οἴκησιν διελόμενοι ἔχουσι, συνοικίαν καλοῦμεν, ὅπου δ' εἷς ἐνοικεῖ, οἰκίαν. The lodging-houses were let mostly to foreigners who came to Athens on business, and especially to the μέτοικοι, whom the law did not allow to acquire real property, and who therefore could not purchase houses of their own (Dem. pro Phorm. p. 946.6). As they, with their families, formed a population. of about 45,000, the number of συνοικίαι must have been considerable. Pasion, the banker, had a lodging-house valued at 100 minas ([Dem.] c. Steph. 1. p. 1110.28). Xenophon recommended that the μέτοικοι should be encouraged to invest their money in houses, and that leave should be granted to the most respectable to build and become house-proprietors (οἰκοδομησαμένοις ἐγκεκτῆσθαι, de Vect. 2, 6). The ἰσοτελεῖς laboured under no such liability; for Lysias and his brother Polemarchus, who belonged to that class, were the owners of three houses (c. Eratosth. § 18). The value of houses must have varied according to the size, the build, the situation, and other circumstances. Those in the city were more valuable than those in the Peiraeus or the country, caeteris paribus. Two country-houses are mentioned by Isaeus (Hagn. § 42) as yielding a return of a little less than 8 1/2 per cent. interest on the purchase-money. But this probably was much below the average. The summer season was the most profitable for the letting of houses, when merchants and other visitors flocked to Athens. The rent was commonly paid by the month. Lodging-houses were frequently taken on speculation by persons called ναύκληροι or σταθμοῦχοι, who made a profit by underletting them, and sometimes for not very reputable purposes (Isae. Philoct. § 19). Hesychius explains the word ναύκληρος · ὁ συνοικίας προεστὼς σταθμοῦχος; and Harpocration (s. v.), and Lex. Rhet. Cantabr. p. 673, 20, remark that Hyperides used the word in a peculiar sense for ὁ μεμισθωμένος ἐπὶ τῷ τὰ ἐνοίκια ἐκλέγειν ἢ οἰκίας ἢ συνοίκιας. (Boeckh, Sthh. i.3 pp. 49, 84, 176 ff.)

SYNOI´KIA(συνοίκιαor συνοικέσια), a festival celebrated every year at Athens on the 16th of Hecatombaeon in honour of Athena. It was believed to have been instituted by Theseus to commemorate the concentration of the government of the various towns of Attica and Athens (Thucyd. 2.15; Steph. Byz. s. v. Ἀθῆναι). According to the Scholiast on Aristophanes (Pax, 1019), an unbloody sacrifice was on this day offered to the goddess of peace (εἰρήνη) [C. I. A. 1.157]. This festival, which Plutarch (Plut. Thes. 24) calls μετοίκια, is mentioned both by him and by Thucydides as still held in their days. It must not be connected with the Panathenaea (which was a far more ancient festival), as has been done by some writers, but must be regarded rather as a separate peace festival. (A. Mommsen, Heortol. p. 114.)