Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/402

 380 HISTORY OF GREECE. Theoric or festival -money came to be pushed to an abusive and mischievous excess, which is brought before our notice forty years afterwards, during the political career of Demosthenes. Until that tune, we have no materials for speaking of it; and what I here notice is simply the first creation of the Theoric Board. The means of Athens for prosecuting the war, and for paying her troops sent as well to Boeotia as to Corinth, must have been derived mainly from direct assessments on property, called eis- phorae. And some such assessments we find alluded to generally as having taken place during these years ; though we know no details either as to frequency or amount 1 Bu': the restitution of the development of democracy at Athens. See the old oracles in Demos- then, cont. Meidiam, p. 531, s. 66 ; Homer, Hymn. Apollin. 147 ; K. F. Herr- mann, Gottesdienstlich. Alterthumer der Griechen, B. 8. 1 See such direct assessments on property alluded to in various speeches of Lysias, Orat. xix. De Bonis Aristoph. s. 31, 45, 63 ; Orat. xxvii. cont. Epi- kratem, s. 11; Orat. xxix. cont. Philokrat. s. 14. Boeckh (in his Public Econ. of Athens, iv, 4, p. 493, Engl. transl., which passage stands unaltered in the second edition of the German original re- cently published, p. 642) affirms that a proposition for the assessment of a direct property-tax of one-fortieth, or two and a half per cent., was made about this time by a citizen named Euripides, who announced it as intended to produce five hundred talents ; that the proposition was at first enthusias- tically welcomed by the Athenians, and procured for its author unbounded popularity ; but that he was presently cried down and disgraced, because on farther examination the measure proved unsatisfactory and empty talk. Sievers also (Geschichte von Griech. bis zur Schlacht von Mantincia, pp. 100, 101) adopts the same view as Boeckh, that this was a real propo- sition of a property tax of two and a half per cent., made by Euripides. Af- ter having alleged that the Athenians in these times supplied their treasury by the most unscrupulous injustice in confiscating the property of rich citi- zens, referring as proof to passages in the orators, none of which estab- lishes his conclusion, Sievers goes on to say, " But that these violences did not suffice, is shown by the fact that the people caught with greedy im- patience at other measures. Thus a new scheme of finance, which however was presently discovered to be insufficient or inapplicable, excited at first the most extravagant joy." He adds in a note : " The scheme proceeded from Euripides ; it was a property-tax of two and a half per cent. ^5ee Aristoph. Ecelesiaz. 823; Boeckh, Staatshaush. ii, p. 27. In my judgment, the assertion here made by Boeckh and Sievers rests upon no sufficient ground. The passage of Aristophanes does not warrant ns in concluding anything at all about a proposition for a property-tax. ^< iff o-s follows :