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The Financial Administration of Pericles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

G. H. Stevenson
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Extract

Many eminent foreign scholars have investigated the principles on which Athens conducted her Public Finance during the ascendancy of Pericles, but the subject has been strangely neglected in England, and no apology is perhaps required for drawing attention to its importance and for suggesting certain considerations which appear to the writer fatal to some views which have been widely accepted. Competent writers have come to such different conclusions that certainty is probably unattainable, but it is hoped that the theory propounded in this paper may be regarded as consistent with the admittedly scanty evidence. Finance did not interest Thucydides, who omits such important facts as the transference to Athens of the treasury of the League and the increase of the φόρος during the Archidamian War. The inscriptions, though invaluable, are frequently so badly mutilated that they lend themselves to very different interpretations. Under these conditions dogmatism is obviously inadmissible.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , 1924 , pp. 1 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1924

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References

1 I wish to thank Mr. M. N. Tod, Fellow of Oriel College, for some valuable references to the recent literature of the subject.

2 Wilamowitz, , Ar. und Ath. I. p. 52Google Scholar; Meyer, , Forschungen, II. pp. 136–7.Google Scholar

3 Dittenberger, , Sylloge 3, 63, 83Google Scholar, cf. 93.

4 Dinsmoor, in A.J.A. XXV. (1921), pp. 118 f.Google Scholar

5 Thuc. iii. 19. For the possibility of an εἰσφορά before this, see Ditt.3 91, 1. 47, which has been wrongly taken by Bannier to prove that this part of the decree is later than 428.

6 I.G. I. 32; Hicks and Hill, 49; Ditt.3 91.

7 Meyer, , Forschungen II., pp. 89 f.Google ScholarBusolt, , Gr. Gesch., III. i., pp. 216 f.Google ScholarDe Sanctis, , Atthis, pp. 486 f.Google ScholarCavaignac, , Histoire Financière d'Athènes, pp. 104, 138.Google ScholarFrancotte, , Les finances des citée grecques, pp. 200 f.Google ScholarBannier, , Rhein. Mus., LXX. (1915), pp. 397 f.Google ScholarBeloch, , Gr. Gesch. 2 II. ii., pp. 344 f.Google Scholar Cf. Levi, in Atti della r. Accad. di Torino, LVI. (1921), pp. 113 f.Google Scholar

8 I.G. I. 195, 273; Michel, Recueil, No. 561.

9 Op. cit., p. 347.

10 I.G. I. 117 f.

11 This seems the probable meaning of

12 Hicks and Hill, 70; Ditt.3 94; Michel, 563.

13 I.G. I. 177, 179; Hicks and Hill, 53. Ditt.3 72. Cf. Busolt, pp. 218 f.

14 Epigraphical considerations prove that the surviving copy of the inscription was made after the Peace of Nicias. This is not, however, an insuperable objection to the date proposed, as it may have been considered desirable to reassert the principles which the decree lays down. There is a similar difficulty about the decree concerning Eleusinian first fruits. (Ditt.3 83. Cf. Busolt, III. i., pp. 474 f.)

15 Hicks and Hill, 26. Ditt.3 43.

16 Op. cit., p. 69.

17 Thuc. i. 111.

18 The Strassburg papyrus (Anonymus Argentinensis) has been interpreted by Keil as stating that 5000 talents came to Athens from Delos in 450/49. But it is quite uncertain whether Delos is mentioned, and Wilcken thinks that the reference is to the reserve in the year 431/0. (Hermes, XLII, p. 390).

19 The reference in Thuc. i. 121, 143 to as a possible source of revenue to the Peloponnesians suggests that by 431 considerable sums had accumulated in these temples, but this wealth may not have consisted of specie. In the sixth century Greeks all over the world were asked to contribute to the building of the temple; v. Herod, ii. 180.

20 Op. cit., pp. 104 f.

21 See the story in Plut. Cimon, 9.

22 E.g. Cavaignac, p. 61; Francotte, p. 166; Levi, p. 117.

23 Op. cit., p. 163.

24 II. 13. 3.

25 Op. cit., p. 93.

26 I see no good reason to question this figure in spite of the objections raised by Cavaignac and Beloch.

27 Some would read γενόμενα and translate ‘all sums coming in in the course of the year,’ but this controversy does not seriously affect the point at issue.

28 Op. cit., p. 206.

29 A.J.A. XVII. (1913), pp. 64–5.

30 Op cit., p. 326.

31 Cavaignac, p. 102.

32 Hicks and Hill, 62; Michel, 561.