Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/136

 114 HISTORY OF GREECE. hundred medimni) at five times their income. A medimnus of corn was counted as equivalent to a drachma ; which permitted the application of this same class-system to movable property as well as to land. So that, when an actual property-tax (or eisphora) was imposed, it operated as an equal or proportional tax, so far as regarded all the members of the same class ; but as a graduated or progressive tax, upon all the members of the richer class as compared with those of the poorer. The three Solonian property-classes above named appear to have lasted, though probably not without modifications, down to the close of the Peloponnesian war; and to have been in great part preserved, after the renovation of the democracy in B. c. 403, during the archonship of Eukleides. 1 Though eligibility to the great offices of state had before that time ceased to be dependent on pecuniary qualification, it was still necessary to possess some means of distinguishing the wealthier citizens, not merely in case of direct taxation being imposed, but also because the lia- bility to serve in liturgies or burdensome offices was consequent on a man's enrolment as possessor of more than a given minimum of property. It seems, therefore, that the Solonian census, in its main principles of classification and graduation, was retained. Each man's property being valued, he was ranged in one of three or more classes according to its amount. For each of the classes, a fixed proportion of taxable capital to each man's property was assumed, and each was entered in the schedule, not for his whole property, but for the sum of taxable capital corresponding to his property, according to the proportion assumed. In the first or richest class, the taxable capital bore a greater ratio to the actual property than in the less rich ; in the second, a greater ratio than in the third. The sum of all these items of taxable capital, in all the different classes, set opposite to each man's name in the schedule, constituted the aggregate census of Attica ; upon which all direct property-tax was imposed, in equal proportion upon every man. Respecting the previous modifications in the register of taxable property, or the particulars of its distribution into classes, which 1 This is M. Boeckh's opinion, seemingly correct, as far as can be made aut on a subject very imperfectly known (Public Economy of Athens, B> V, ch. 5)