Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/182

164 ir.l HISTORY OF GREECE. furnished both the trireme with its 3-ssential tackle and oars, and the regular pay for the crew ; but t.ie trierarch, even in ordinary cases-, usually incurred various expenses besides, to make the equipment complete and to keep the crew together. Such ad- ditional outlay, neither exacted nor defined by law, but only by custom and general opinion, was different in every individual case, according to temper and circumstances. But on the present occasion, zeal and forwardness were universal : each trierarch tried to procure for his own ship the best crew, by offers of ad- ditional reward to all, but especially to the thranitaj or rowers on the highest of the three tiers :' and it seems that the seamen were not appointed specially to one ship, but were at liberty to accept these offers, and to serve in any ship they preferred. Each trierarch spent more than had ever been known before in pay, outfit, provision, and even external decoration of his vessel. Besides the best crews which Athens herself could furnish, picked seamen were also required from subject-allies, and were bid for in the same way by the trierarchs. 2 Such efforts were much facilitated by the fact, that five years had now elapsed since the Peace of Nikias, without any consider- able warlike operations. While the treasury had become re- plenished with fresh accumulations, 3 and the triremes increased 1 Thucyd vi, 31. e;n0opuf re irpbf roi etc 6t]fioaiov nia&iJ fit-Sovruv rolf fipaviraif TUV vavTtJv Kalralf VTrripeciaLf, not ru/JXa CTjueioii; nal KaraaKevaif xoAvTeteai ^prjaafievuv, etc. Dobrcc and Dr. Arnold explain vxTipectatf to mean the petty officers, such as KvpepvriTTjc, K&evarrif, etc. Goller and Poppo construe it to mean " the servants of the sailors." Neither of the two seems to me satisfactory. I think the word means " to the crews generally ;" the word inrrjpeaia being a per- fectly general word comprising all who received pay in the ship. All the examples produced in the notes of the commentators testify this meaning, which also occurs in the text itself two lines before. To construe Taif {iTTj/peo-i'atf as meaning " the crews generally, or the remaining crews, along with the thranito;," is doubtless more or less awkward. But it departs less from ordinary construction than cither of the two senses which iho commentators propose. z Thucyd. vii, 13. oi evoi, ol fiev (vayKaarol M/Juvrtf, etc. 3 Thucyd. vi, 26. I do not trust the statement given in JEschines Do Fals. Legat. c. 54, p. 302, and in Andokides, Do Pace, sect. 8, that seven thousand talents were laid by as an accumulated treasure in the acropolis during the Peace of Nikias, and that four hundred triremes, or three hun-