Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/383

 PERSONAL SERVICE NECESSARY. 357 of the majority of the citizens. The ground which they took was the same in principle, as if the proprietors in France or Belgium claimed to exempt themselves from direct taxation for the cost of a war, by first taking either all or half of the annual sum voted out of the budget for the maintenance of religion. 1 "We may judge how strong a feeling would be raised among the Athenian public general- ly, by the proposal of impoverishing the festival expenditure in order to save a property-tax. Doubtless, after the proprietary class had borne a certain burthen of direct taxation, their complaints would become legitimate. The cost of the festivals could not be kept up undiminished, under severe and continued pressure of war. ; As a second and subsidiary resource, it would become essential to apply the whole or a part of the fund in alleviation of the bur- thens of the war. But even if all had been so applied, the fund could not have been large enough to dispense with the necessity of a property-tax besides. We see this conflict of interests, between direct taxation on one side, and the festival-fund on the other as a means of paying for war, running through the Demosthenic orations, and espe- cially marked in the fourth Philippic. 2 Unhappily, the conflict served as an excuse to both parties for throwing the blame on each other, and starving the war ; as well as for giving effect to the repugnance, shared by both rich and poor, against personal military service abroad. Demosthenes sides with neither, tries to mediate between them, and calls for patriotic sacrifice from both alike. Having before him an active and living enemy, with the liberties of Greece as well as of Athens at stake, he urges every species of sacrifice at once personal service, direct-tax tliis must be a misstatement, got up to suit the speaker's case. If the law had been so, Apollodorus would have committed no illegality in his motion ; moreover, all the fencing and manoeuvring of Demosthenes in his first and third Olynthiacs would have been to no purpose. 1 The case here put, though analogous in principle, makes against the Athenian proprietors, in degree ; for, even in time of peace, one half of the French revenue is raised by direct taxation. Whether these two orations were actually delivered in their present form may perhaps be doubted. But I allude to them with confidence as Demos- thenic compositions ; put together cut of Demosthenic fragments ami thoughts.
 * Demosth. Philipp. iv. p. 141-143 ; De Republics! Ordinanda, p. 167