Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/382

 856 HISTORY OF GREECE. Athens is here fairly chargeable, we ought to know what Has the sum thus expended on the festivals. What amount of money cou-d have been stored up for the contingency of war, even if all the festivals and all the distributions had been suppressed ? How far would it have been possible, in any other case than that of obvious present necessity, to carry economy into the festival- expenditure, truly denominated by Demades the cement of the political system, 1 without impairing in the bosom of each indi- vidual that sentiment of communion, religious, social and patriotic, which made the Athenians a City, and not a simple multiplication of units ? These are points on which we ought to have informa- tion, before we can fairly graduate our censure upon Athens for not converting her Theoric Fund into an accumulated capital to meet the contingency of war. We ought also to ask, as matter for impartial comparison, how many governments, ancient or mod- ern, have ever thought it requisite to lay up during peace a stock of money available for war ? The Athenian peace-establishment maintained more ships of war, larger docks, and better-stored arsenals, than any city in Greece, besides expending forty talents annually upon the Horse- men of the state, and doubtless something farther (though we know not how much) upon the other descriptions of military force. All this, let it be observed, and the Theoric expenditure besides, was defrayed without direct taxation, which was reserved for the extraordinary cost incident to a state of war, and was held to be sufficient to meet it, without any accumulated war-fund. When the war against Philip became serious, the proprietary classes at Athens, those included in the schedule of assessment, were called upon to defray the expense by a direct tax, from which they had been quite free in time of peace. They tried to evade this burthen by requiring that the festival-fund should be appro- priated instead ; 2 thus menacing what was dearest to the feelings 1 Plutarch, Quaestion. Platonic, p. 1011. <if l?,eye A^ueJ^f, icbXZav ovopu- fuv TU &upiKa TOV KoTiiTevfiaToc (erroneously written tieupijTiKu). ally provide, that in time of war, the surplus revenue should be devoted to warlike purposes K.&EVOVTUV TUV vofiuv, orav TroAe^of J?,TU -aepiovra %PT]' uara rfif iioiK^aeus oTpanuTiKa E'vai (p. 1346). But it seen;? to me thai
 * According to the author of the oration against Nesera, the law did actu-