Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/490

 464 HISTORY OF GREECE. greater sura than the poorer; and sometimes even evaded nnj payment of their own, by contracting with some on*; to discharge the duties of the post, on condition of a total sum uct greater than that which they had themselve? collected from tb^se poorer members. According to Demosthenes, the poorer members of these trie- rarchic symmories were sometimes pressed down almost to ruin ly the sums demanded ; so that they complained bitterly, swid even planted themselves in the characteristic attitude of suppliants at Munychia or elsewhere in the city. When their liabilities to the state were not furnished in time, they became subject to impris- onment by the officers s iperintending the outfit of the armament. In addition to such private hardship, there arose great public mis- chief from the money not being at once forthcoming ; the arma- ment being delayed in its departure, and forced to leave Peirasus either in bad condition or without its full numbers. Hence arose in great part, the ill-success of Athens in her maritime enterprise^ against Philip, before the peace of 346 B. c. 1 The trierarchy, and the trierarchic symmories, at Athens, are subjects not perfectly known ; the best expositions respecting them are to be found in Boeckh's Public Economy of Athens (b. iv. ch. 11-13), and in his other work, Urkunden iiber das Attische Seewesen (ch. xi. xii. xiii.) ; besides Par- reidt, De Symmoriis, part ii. p. 22, seq. The fragment of Hyperides (cited by Harpokration v. Svp/nopia) alluding to the trierarchic reform of Demosthenes, though briefly and obscurely, is as interesting confirmation of the oration De Corona. 1 There is a point in the earlier oration of Demosthenes De Symmoriis, illustrating the grievance which he now reformed. That grievance consisted, for one main portion, in the fact, that the richest citizen in a trierarchic partnership paid a sum no greater (sometimes even less) than the poorest. Now it is remarkable that this unfair apportionment of charge might have occurred, and is noway guarded against, in the symmories as proposed by Demosthenes himself. His symmories, each comprising sixty persons or one-twentieth of the total active twelve hundred, are directed to divide themselves into five fractions of twelve persons each, or a hundredth of the tvelve hundred. Each group of twelve is to comprise the richest alongside of the poorest members of the sixty (uvTavan^ijpovvTaf irpbf rbv einropura- rov uel rove cnropuruTovf, p. 182), so that each group would contain indi- viduals very unequal in wealth, though the aggregate wealth of one group would be nearly equal to that of another. These twelve persons were to de- fray collectively the cost of trierarchy for one ship, two ships, or three ships, according to the number o. ships which the state might require (p. 183).