Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/379

 THKOK1C FUND. 353 may also have been found of economizing from the other expen- ses of the state. Though the appropriation of the Theoric Fund to other purpo- ses continued to be thus interdicted to any formal motion, yet, ir the way of suggestion and insinuation it was from time to time glanced at by Demosthenes, and others ; and whenever money was wanted for war, the question whether it should be taken from this source or from direct property-tax, was indirectly revived. The appropriation of the Theoric Fund, however, remained un- changed until the very eve of the battle of Chaeroneia. Just before that Dies Irce, when Philip was actually fortifying Elateia, the fund was made applicable to war-purposes ; the views of De- mosthenes were realized, twelve years after he had begun to enforce them. This question about the Theoric expenditure is rarely pie- sented by modern authors in the real way that it affected the Athenian mind. It has been sometimes treated as a sort of alms- giving to the poor, and sometimes as an expenditure by the Athenians upon their pleasures. Neither the one nor the other gives a full or correct view of the case ; each only brings out a part of the truth. Doubtless, the Athenian democracy cared much for the plea- sures cf the citizens. It provided for them the largest amount of refined and imaginative pleasures ever tasted by any community known to history ; pleasures essentially social and multitudinous, attaching the citizens to each other, rich and poor, by the strong tie of community of enjoyment. But pleasure, though an usual accessory, was not the primary idea or predominant purpose of the Theoric expenditure. That expenditure was essentially religious in its character, incurred only for various festivals, and devoted exclusively to the honor of the gods. The ancient religion, not simply at Athens, but through- out Greece and the contemporary world, very different in this lhat any future motion to encroach on the Theoris Fund should be punished frith death. The authority of Ulpian is not sufficient to accredit this statement. The fine inflicted by the Dikastery upon Apollodorus was lenient ; we may there- fore reasonably doubt whether the popular sentiment would go along with he speaker in making the like offence cap! tal in future. 30*