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The Economics of Greek Temple Building

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

A. M. Burford
A. M. Burford
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

This is a subject of great relevance to the proper understanding of the Greek cities' economy. So far, however, it has scarcely been given the attention it deserves in modern discussions. There is, too, a curious ambiguity in the Greeks' attitude to this activity. On the one hand, temple architecture was a public art, and temple building a cultural activity of great importance to Greek society. The patrons of temple building—aristocrats, tyrants, oriental potentates, citizens, or devotees of a Panhellenic cult—all were concerned not only for the end product of temple building, but also in the process itself, for the opportunity it gave of showing to the rest of the community, or to the world, that they had taken part in so complex, unusual, and costly an undertaking. There was merit in the building of temples, as much as in being able to boast their existence, once built.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 11 , 1965 , pp. 21 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

page 21 note 1 The significance of the building inscriptions lies partly in their serving as memorials of the men who contributed to the work, whether money, administrative ability, or craftsmanship. The record of Kroisos' gift to Ephesos, inscribed on the column bases, is a prime example (SIG 3, 6, cf. Hdt. I, 92), and the fourth-century Epidaurian accounts for the temple of Asklepios, another (IG IV 2, I, 102Google Scholar).

page 21 note 2 Nic. Eth. IV, 2, 11Google Scholar, where the patronage of temple building is allowed to be one of the activities that the good (and rich) citizen should pursue.

page 21 note 3 E.g. Michell, H., Economics of Ancient Greece, 366–7Google Scholar.

page 21 note 4 (Eng. trans.) An Ancient Economic History, vol. II, 133Google Scholar: ‘our sources (for) the public finances of the Classical Hellenic polis are so abundant that we are…able to come to clear and final results’. He then lists the ‘real estate’ of the polis which ‘are all mentioned in the numerous financial and budget inscriptions’, but makes no reference to public works at this point, neither fortifications nor temples, whose very existence, let alone their building records, should have been acknowledged here, as demonstrating a particularly interesting aspect of public finance. At pp. 142–3 he actually mentions public works among items of expense in the Athenian budget, along with the upkeep of a police force, road repairs, and war expenses.

page 22 note 1 Op. cit. 128 ff. He modifies slightly the implications of this phrase, but is not concerned to review the temple-building crafts in the context of day-to-day industry, or to discover the extent to which the ordinary trades and crafts of a city, whether Athens or Epidauros, could supply the requirements of temple building. Francotte, H., L'industrie dans la Grèce ancienne, II, 54–115Google Scholar, gives an excellent account of the organization of public works based on epigraphic evidence, and points the way to the wider implications of temple building for the economics of the Greek city, but (naturally, considering the scope of his work) stops short of pursuing these problems to a conclusion.

page 23 note 1 P. 98.

page 23 note 2 Furthermore, no city possessed more than one temple quite the size of the Parthenon, the Olympieion at Akragas, or the Samian Heraion. The Periklean programme comprised the Parthenon, the Propylaia, the temples of Ares and Hephaistos, Nemesis at Rhamnous, Poseidon at Sounion, Athena Nike, the Erechtheion, and the Telesterion at Eleusis (begun but not completed in the fifth century). At Akragas the fifth-century building included the temples of Olympian Zeus (unfinished), Athena, Demeter, Hera Lakinia (so-called), Concord (so-called), Hephaistos, and the Dioskouroi.

page 24 note 1 Dinsmoor, W. B., The Architecture of Ancient Greece, 154–5Google Scholar, comments on the quality of the stone used at Bassai. I am indebted to DrPlommer, W. H.'s paper in B.S.A. 55 (1960), 218–33Google Scholar, ‘The Temple of Poseidon on Cape Sunium: some further questions’.

page 24 note 2 IG IV 2, 1, 102Google Scholar (Corinthian quarry contractors) et al.; Fouilles de Delphes, III, v, 19. 20Google Scholar; IG IV 2, 1, 103Google Scholar. 15, 36; IG IV 2, 1, 102Google Scholar. 42–3, 62–3.

page 24 note 3 ‘The Cost of the Parthenon’, JHS, LXXIII (1953), 68–76Google Scholar.

page 24 note 4 IG IV 2, 1, 102Google Scholar.

page 24 note 5 This is the result of Stanier's calculations.

page 24 note 6 The total cost of fluting each of the six columns on the Erechtheion's east façade was 350 dr. (Caskey, L., The Erechtheum, 411 ff.Google Scholar). The area fluted was 14·326 sq.m.

page 25 note 1 Plut., Per. 12, 3Google Scholar.

page 25 note 2 Diod. XII, 40: 4000 talents were spent on the Propylaia and on the siege of Potidaia. Harpokration quotes Heliodofos' figure for the cost of the Propylaia alone as 2012 talents. Francotte, H., Les Finances ties cités grecques, 175Google Scholar, and Zimmern, A., The Greek Commonwealth, 411–12Google Scholar, suggest that between 447 and 432 alone 8000 talents were spent on building; cf. Andreades, A., Geschichte der gr. Staatswirtschaft, 248Google Scholar.

page 25 note 3 Andreades, op. cit. 235, says that ‘eine Gesamtaufrechnung der Kosten des Peloponnesischen Krieges ist meines Erachtens unmöglich’, but refers to the calculations of Francotte and Beloch who arrived at totals of 47,000 and 35,000 talents, respectively. A rough estimate of the revenues during the period 431–405, together with the reserve fund at the beginning of the war, comes to at least 30,000 talents.

page 25 note 4 The Epidaurian evidence is discussed in a forthcoming study, The Greek Temple Builders at Epidauros.

page 26 note 1 I would not argue, however, that the Athenians would have built so many temples between 449 and the end of the century if there had not been the reserve fund to hand.

page 26 note 2 Thomsen, R., Eisphora, 46 ff.Google Scholar, reopens the discussion of the total wealth in Attica; the assessed value on which the eisphora was levied was 5750 talents. The probable real value of Athenian property was between 10,000 and 12,000 talents. The capital wealth and revenues of the Delian sanctuary were estimated by Homolle, B., BCH XIV (1890), 450Google Scholar, to be about 5,000,000 dr. and 50,000 dr. respectively, that is about 830 talents and 8½ talents.

page 26 note 3 See Jones, A. H. M., Athenian Democracy, 87 nn.Google Scholar, for references to Athenian fortunes; and R. Thomsen, op. cit. 176 and 180 ff. Diphilos' fortune was 150 talents, according to [Plut.] Mor. 843 D.

page 26 note 4 Plut., Nikias 3Google Scholar; Kent, J. H., ‘The Temple-Estates of Delos, Rheneia, and Mykonos’, Hesperia, XVII (1948), 243 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 26 note 5 DGE 462. Provision was made, in the event of the subscription not being used for the construction of the temple, for recording the surplus which was to be saved for repairs. In fact the amount collected was very small—473 dr. (Reinach, Th., ‘Un temple élevé par les femmes de Tanagra’, RÉG XII, 1899, 53–113)Google Scholar.

page 27 note 1 Contributions at Delphi, : Fouilles de Delphes III, v, 3 and 4Google Scholar; Epidauros' contribution: III, ii, 43. Another city in the Argolid, Hermione, gave 1241½ dr. to the Epidaurian temple. It is interesting to see that both cities, probably of much the same size and economic standing, gave so nearly the same amount to another community's building scheme. The Epidaurian Hagemon's gift to the temple of Asklepios: IG IV 2, 1, 102, 105Google Scholar. Contributions to the Parthenon: IG I 2, 348 65–6Google Scholar.

page 27 note 2 Hdt. v, 62. Cf. Stanier, op. cit., on the relative costs of the temples at Delphi and Epidauros.

page 27 note 3 Megakleidas, : IG IV 2, 1, 103Google Scholar. 66, 98; Molossos (ll. 15 and 84): having paid a fine of over 4000 dr. he was then paid a mere 70 dr. for packing blocks at the Piraeus.

page 27 note 4 Concern for the easy exchange of certain goods between states is expressed in various inscribed trade agreements; but there is no sign in these records of concern for fixing the price (cf. SIG 3, 135 and IG II 2, 1128)Google Scholar.

page 27 note 5 IG IV 2, 1, 102Google Scholar. 12–17.

page 27 note 6 Ibid. 3–5.

page 28 note 1 IG XI, 2, 146 AGoogle Scholar. 70–1; IG IV 2, 1, 103Google Scholar. 62 and 132.

page 28 note 2 Contractors' time-limits must often have extended over several months, and on some occasions over several years.

page 29 note 1 IG II 2, 1673Google Scholar, discussed by Glotz, G., RÉG XXXVI (1923), 26–45Google Scholar.

page 29 note 2 IG IV 2, 1, 103Google Scholar. 37 and 41—payments of 10% and 2% to Athens.

page 29 note 3 Diod. VIII, 11, 1–2. When the timé of stone is accounted for in building accounts (IG II 2, 1672Google Scholar, for example), die labouring costs of quarrying and carting are specified; it is not the value of die stone which is meant.

page 30 note 1 x, 2, 13–14.

page 30 note 2 Nor was it shortage of money which prompted the Greeks to swear an oath not to repair the sanctuaries damaged by the Persians in 480/79.

page 31 note 1 Cyrop. VIII, 2, 5Google Scholar.

page 32 note 1 The only activity in the period 400–375 seems to have been repairs, and very minor building: the tholos in the Athenian agora was reroofed c. 400 (Thompson, H., Hesperia Suppl. IV, 126 ff.Google Scholar); Athens' Long Walls were rebuilt (Xen., . Hell. IV, 8, 10Google Scholar and IG II 2, 1656–64Google Scholar); the Erechtheion was repaired (SIG 3, 129); in the Delian sanctuary the north building was put up (Vallois, R., L'Architecture hellénique et Hellénistique à Délos, 109–10Google Scholar). At Delphi there seems to have been no building between the completion of the tholos of Marmaria (late fifth century) and the new temple of Apollo (363 onwards). No building at Olympia is to be attributed to this period, and at Delos there was a long gap, from the 390's to the 340's, when the Keraton was put up (Vallois, op. cit. 110). The temple of Apollo Ismenias at Thebes dated to the early fourth century by Dinsmoor, , Architecture of Ancient Greece, 218Google Scholar, is much more convincingly dated to the period after the victory at Leuktra, 371 (Keramopoullos, A. D., Δελτ Ἀρχ. III (1917), 39 ff.Google Scholar).

page 33 note 1 Diod. XIV, 18, 3 (Dionysios' fortifications); Diod. XIV, 41, 3 (his armaments programme). As Claude Mossé suggests, op. cit. 341, Dionysios may have been obliged to advertise for skilled craftsmen because the labour force of Syracuse had been depleted by the wholesale movement of men and factories, such as Lysias' father Kephalos, who moved to Athens probably with the workers he had employed (or owned) at Syracuse and set up an arms factory in Athens. Xen., Agesilaos I, 26Google Scholar (arms production at Ephesos); Dinsmoor, op. cit. 256–7—the Nereid monument; Dinsmoor, op. cit. 257–8, Vitr. VII pref. 13, and IG V, 2, 89Google Scholar—Skopas at Halikarnassos and then at Tegea, in the 350's.

page 33 note 2 The elder Polykleitos: Raven, J. E., ‘Polyclitus and Pythagoreanism’, CQ I (1951)Google Scholar; the younger Polykleitos: W. B. Dinsmoor, op. cit. 235, Paus. II, 127, 5 and VI, 6, 2; Argive masons: IG IV 2, 1, 103Google Scholar—Polyxenos, Lysiadas, and Chremon.

page 33 note 3 Roux, G., L'Architecture dans l'Argolide aux IVe et IIIe siècles avant J.-C., 406Google Scholar; Thuc. v, 82, 6.

page 34 note 1 It may be that some attempt to regulate the movement of skilled labour was made in the symbolai-agreements between one city and another. Unfortunately the exact significance and scope of these agreements are not clear, but they certainly established a basis for legal action in various cases, surely including the breakdown of contracts (most relevant to public works' contracts, where nationals of other states were so often partners to the agreement); they may also have provided sanctions generally for the employment in either place of workers from the other. It would still have been perfectly possible for a craftsman to take up work in a place which had no diplomatic or commercial contact with his city of origin, if he chose to do so, of course.

page 34 note 2 IG I 2, 105Google Scholar.

page 34 note 3 Aeneas Tacticus, x, 10, says that in troubled times citizens of neighbouring states who are in the city for purposes of education, (e.g. temple building?), must be registered. Thuc. VI, 44: masons and carpenters were sent on the Sicilian expedition; whether as conscripts or volunteers, is not clear.

page 34 note 4 Thuc. v, 82, 3; IG II 2, 1657Google Scholar.

page 34 note 5 According to Livy, XLII, 3, 1–11, the senate's desire to undo the damage caused by one of the censors in 173 to the temple of Juno Lacinia, by replacing the marble tiles which he had stripped off, was frustrated quia reponendarum nemo artifex inire rationem potuerit. For some reason, Badian, E., Foreign Clientelae, 148, n. 5Google Scholar, says that Livy's statement is ‘patently absurd’.