Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/381

 TIIEORIC FUND. 35* common sentiment, more conducive as a binding force to the uuity of the city, or more productive of satisfaction to each individual citizen. We neither know the amount of the Theoric Fund, nor of the distributions connected with it. We cannot, therefore, say what proportion it formed of the whole peace-expenditure, itself un- known also. But we cannot doubt that it was large. To be sparing of expenditure in manifestations for the honor of the gods, was accounted the reverse of virtue by Greeks generally ; and the Athenians especially, whose eyes were every day contem- plating the glories of their acropolis, would learn a different lesson, moreover, magnificent religious display was believed to con- ciliate the protection and favor of the gods. 1 We may affirm, however, upon the strongest presumptions, that this religious ex penditure did not absorb any funds required for the other branches of a peace-establishment. Neither naval, nor military, nor ad- ministrative exigencies, were starved in order to augment the Theoric surplus. Eubulus was distinguished for his excellent keeping of the docks and arsenals, and for his care in replacing the decayed triremes by new ones. And after all the wants of a well-mounted peace-establishment were satisfied, no Athenian had scruple in appropriating what remained under the conspiring im- pulses of piety, pleasure and social brotherhood. It is true that the Athenians might have laid up that surplus annually in the acropolis, to form an accumulating war-fund. Such provision had been made half a century before, under the full en- ergy and imperial power of Athens, when she had a larger revenue, with numerous tribute-paying allies, and when Perikles presided over her councils. It might have been better if she had done something of the same kind in the age after the Pelopon- nesian war. Perhaps, if men like Perikles, or even like De- mosthenes, had enjoyed marked ascendency, she would have been advised and prevailed on to continue such a precaution. But be- fore we can measure the extent of improvidence with which 1 S je the boast of Isokrates, Orat. iv. (Panegyr.) s. 40; Plato, Alkibiad. ii. p. 148. Xenophon ( Vectigal. vi. 1.), in proposing some schemes for the im- provement of the Athenian revenue, sets forth as one of the advantages, that " the religious festivals will be celebrated then with still greater magnificenc than they are now."