the Acropolis, to have been two thousand and twelve talents'. In this he agrees very nearly with Diodorus, who remarks that four thousand talents were spent upon the Propylæa and the siege of Potidea, which latter we know from Thucydides to have caused an expenditure of two thousand talents3. But though we may deduce from this concurrence of testimony that such an opinion, as to the cost of the Propylæa, prevailed in the time of those writers, there is great difficulty in believing it to have been correct. Neither Philochorus, an Attic historian who lived only a century after the time of Pericles, nor Plutarch, who appears to have been diligent in his inquiries as to the buildings of Pericles, have left us any statement of the expense of the Propylæa, though they agree as to the name of the architect, and as to the length of time employed in its erection. Two thousand and twelve talents, or even two thousand, is too great a sum both in itself, and in proportion to the whole amount which could have been expended on the celebrated edifices of Pericles. Two thousand talents contained a quantity of silver equivalent in our present currency, as will be seen below, to 460,000., and they were capable of commanding two or three times the quantity of labour and skill which the same sum can obtain at the present day. If the Propylæa had cost two thousand talents, the Parthenon would have required double that amount, and all the buildings not less than eight or nine thousand talents. Such a sum it would have been impossible for the Athenian revenue to have afforded during the fourteen or fifteen years that the buildings were in pro 1 Περὶ δὲ τῶν Προπυλαίων τῆς ̓Ακροπόλεως ὡς ἐπὶ Εὐθυμένους ἄρχον τος οἰκοδομεῖν ἤρξαντο ̓Αθηναῖοι, Μνησικλέους ἀρχιτεκτονοῦντος, ἄλλοι τε ἱστορήκασι καὶ Φιλόχορος ἐν τῷ τετάρτη. Ηλιόδωρος δ' ἐν πρώτῳ περὶ τῆς ̓Αθήνησιν ἀκροπόλεως, μεθ ̓ ἕτερα καὶ ταῦτά φησιν· ἐν ἔτεσι μὲν πέντε παντελῶς ἐξεποιήθη, τάλαντα δὲ ἀνελώθη δισχίλια δώδεκα, πέντε δὲ πύλας ἐποίησαν, δι' ὧν εἰς τὴν ἀκρόπολιν εἰσίασιν. Harpocrat. in Προπύλαια ταῦτα. The same citation from Heliodorus occurs in Suidas and Photii Lex. in П. т. 2 Diodor. 12, 40. 4 Plutarch. Pericl. 13. 3 Thucyd. 2. 70. gress; the yearly revenue of Athens at that time, both foreign and domestic, having been not more than one thousand talents',—a sum scarcely sufficient for the growing exigencies of state. Among the sources of expenditure may be mentioned the public amusements, the sacred spectacles, the gratuities granted to the people, the completion of the two Long Walls, the minor buildings and general decoration of the City and Peiraeus, the restoration of some of the ruined temples of Attica, particularly those of Rhamnus and Sunium, a fleet increasing from two hundred to three hundred triremes', the revolt of Euboea and Megara, together with the hostile demonstrations of the Peloponnesians on that occasion; the expeditions to the Chersonese and to Pontus; the war of Samus, which alone consumed one thousand or twelve hundred talents; the colonies sent to Thurium, Amphipolis, and Sinope; the completion of the fortifications of Peiræeus; the building of the inter 1 Xenoph. Anab. 7, 1, § 27. The tribute of the Confederates having been at the same time six hundred (Thucyd. 2, 13. Plutarch. Aristid. 24), it follows from Xenophon that the domestic income was four hundred. Nine years afterwards, in the midst of the Peloponnesian war, when there were no less than one thousand cities in the alliance, and paying tribute, (Εἰσίν γε πόλεις χίλιαι, αἳ νῦν τὸν φόρον ἡμῖν ἀπάγουσιν. Aristoph. Vesp. 707), the whole revenue had nearly reached two thousand (Aristoph. Vesp. 661), and the pópos thirteen hundred (Plutarch. Aristid. 24). The domestic portion, therefore, had then increased to near seven hundred talents. That these numbers are not to be taken as a mere poetical exaggeration, seems evident from the accuracy with which Aristophanes has detailed the items of the revenue. καὶ πρῶτον μὲν λόγισαι φαύλως, μὴ ψήφοις ἄλλ ̓ ἀπὸ χειρὸς, Aristoph. Vesp. 657. 2 At Salamis the Athenians had 180 triremes (Herodot. 8, 44): at the siege of Samus alone, in the year 440 B. C, two hundred were employed (Thucyd. 1, 116. Isocrat. πepi rñs àvridóσews, p. 446, Oxon.). Nine years afterwards, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the fleet amounted to three hundred triremes (Thucyd. 2, 13). mediate Long Wall (rò dià pérov Teixos), and finally the preparations for that conflict, the magnitude of which was fully foreseen'. It seems evident, therefore, that when Pericles began his great buildings, he began also to draw upon the treasure of the confederates deposited in the Acropolis; and as this was the principal accusation urged against him by his opponents prior to the year 444 B. c. 2, it was probably in the preceding year that the treasure attained its maximum of 9700 talents, and began to be diminished. When Pericles, therefore, in his speech to the Athenians, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, stated that 3700 talents had been expended out of the 9700 for the Propylæa and other buildings, and for the Potidæan expedition3, he intended all the great buildings which Plutarch has particularly mentioned, namely, the Odeium, the Parthenon, the Mystic temple of Eleusis, and the Propylæa; to which we may add the Erechtheium until its progress was arrested by the war. Plutarch, who appears to have had good information on this subject, seems clearly to mark that the buildings of Cimon were defrayed from his private fortune and the spoils of his successful campaign against the Persians, and those of Pericles from the confederate treasure. The greater importance, therefore, given to the Propylæa by the words of Thucydides, or rather of Pericles (τὰ Προπύλαια καὶ τἄλλα 1 Thucyd. 1, 1. 102. 114 et seq. 2, 21. Corn. Nep. Timoth. 1. Diodor. 11, 88. 12, 5. 27. 32. Pausan. Eliac. pr. 23, 3. Vit. X. Rhet. in Lysia. Dionys. de Lysia, p. 453. Plin. H. N. 12,4 (8). Plutarch. Pericl. 6. 19. 20. Polit. Præcept. 15. A particular proof of the great expense of the state at the period here alluded to is found in Plutarch, who tells us that Pericles sent out every year for several years an exercising squadron of sixty triremes, for the instruction of the citizens in naval operations, and kept them in pay for eight months. As a talent was soon afterwards reckoned the ordinary monthly expense of a trireme on service against the enemy, this exercising squadron must have required a yearly expenditure of little less than three hundred talents, which was more than the average yearly expenditure from the confederate fund. 2 Plutarch. Pericl. 16. 3 See above, p. 458. Hh oikodoμnuara), may have been a consequence of its more recent construction and of the novelty and boldness of the design, which may have rendered it comparatively more costly than the other buildings; circumstances tending to make it an object of greater present curiosity to the people than any of them. Thucydides in recording the surrender of Potidea, observes that the whole siege had cost two thousand talents'. If, therefore, a probable estimate can be made of the portion of these 2000 talents which had been expended when 3700 talents had been laid out upon the siege and buildings together, we shall have a tolerably correct valuation of the entire cost of the works of Pericles. In the first year of the Peloponnesian war, eighty days before midsummer, six months of the siege were not yet terminated 2. Pericles made his financial statement to the Athenians when Archidamus, at the head of the Lacedæmonians, was moving from the isthmus into Attica. Hence if we consider the time occupied in collecting the combined forces at the Isthmus before that movement, together with the time spent in the siege of Enoe, between the movement and midsummer, when Archidamus entered the plain of Athens, we cannot be very wrong in concluding that the speech of Pericles upon the finances was made about forty days before midsummer, and that the siege had then lasted seven months. The siege terminated about the middle of the second winter, and consequently lasted twenty-seven months in all. The investing land force consisted of three thousand hoplita, with as many úηpérα, or light-armed attendants. Each hoplita was allowed two drachmæ a-day for himself and his attendant. The expense of the investing army was therefore, as follows: 2 Thucyd. 2, 2. 19. 1 Thucyd. 2, 70. 3 Thucyd. 2, 13. Thucyd. 3, 17. The ordinary pay of the hoplita was four oboli, whence τετρωβολίζειν and τετρωβύλου βίος for the life of a soldier. But Talents of 6000 drachmæ. Six thousand men for twenty-seven months, at thirty drachmæ per man per month 810 To this sum must be added the expense of the corps under Phormio, which was sent from Athens not long after the beginning of the blockade, and which, after completing the investment of Potidea towards the peninsula of Pallene, and after building a wall on that side, made occasional excursions upon the Chalcidenses and Bottiæi. As this corps was not in Macedonia in the ensuing autumn' (having probably been withdrawn at the time of the invasion of Attica by the Lacedæmonians in the spring), it was employed about six months against Potidea. It consisted of one thousand six hundred hoplita, paid at the same rate as the three thousand the expense of this corps, therefore, was, Three thousand two hundred men for six months, at thirty drachmæ per man per month Which added to 810 talents gives for the total expense of the investing land force This deducted from Leaves for the naval department of the investment, and for the occasional expeditions and operations against Potidea. As Thucydides remarks, that in the first year of the war the Athenians had two hundred and fifty triremes at sea, a hun this was the pio0og only; besides which there was a oirnpέotov, or ration of corn, sometimes paid in money; as it appears to have been on the expedition of Potidea, but which it was obviously more consistent with good discipline that the state should provide. Accordingly, we find that the expedition to Syracuse was accompanied by ouray@ya πλoĩа (Thucyd. 6, 30). In the nineteenth year of the Peloponnesian war a body of Thracian peltasta was hired at a drachma by the day for each man (Thucyd. 7, 27) ; these probably had no further allowance for provision. 1 Thucyd. 2, 31. 3 Thucyd. 3, 17. 2 Thucyd. 1, 64. 4 Ibid. |