Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/492

 466 HISTORY OF GRKECE. each person in the group being proportional to the sum for which he stood rated. This new proposition, while materially relieving the poorer citizens, made large addition to the assessments of the rich. A man rated at twenty talents, who had before been charge- able for only the sixteenth part of the expense of one trierarchy, along with partners much poorer than himself but equally assessed now became chargeable with the entire expense of two trie- rnrcLies. All persons liable were assessed in fair proportion to the sum for which they stood rated in the schedule. When the impeachment against Demosthenes came to be tried before the Dikastery, he was acquitted by more than four-fifths of the Di- kasts ; so that the accuser was compelled to pay the established fine. And so animated was the temper of the public at that mo- ment, in favor of vigorous measures for prosecuting the war just declared, that they went heartily along with him, and adopted the main features of his trierarchic reform. The resistance from the rich, however, though insufficient to throw out the measure, con- strained him to modify it more than once, during the progress of the discussion ; l partly in consequence of the opposition of JEs- chines, whom he accuses of having been hired by the rich for the purpose. 2 It is deeply to be regretted that the speeches of both 1 Dcinarchus adv. Dcmosthen. p. 95. s. 43. Elai rives kv TUV v roZc rpiaKoaioif ye~yevri[j.vuv, &&' ovrof (Demosthenes) trivet rbv nepl TUV Tpirjpupxuv fopov. Ou ^pdapre rolf -^i]ciov Srt rpia raXavra Aa- 3uv fj.sTEypae KO.I ftersaKevaZe rbv vofiov /ca$' EKu.a~rjv enK^jjaiav, xai TU ftiv liruTiei, uv. elhriQEi TJ~/V Tipijv, TU 6' u^o66fj.evoq OVK efiefiaiov ; Without accepting this assertion of a hostile speaker, so far as it goes to accuse Demosthenes of having accepted hribes we may safely accept it, so far as it affirms that he made several changes and modifications in tho law hefore it finally passed ; a fact not at all surprising, considering the in tense opposition which it called forth. Some of the Dikasts, before whom Deinarchus was pleading, had leen included among the Three Hundred (that is, the richest citizens in tho State) when Demosthenes proposed his trierarchic reform. This will show, among various other proofs which might be produced, that the Athenian Dikasts did not always belong to the poorest class of citizens, as the jests of Aristophanes would lead us to believe. 1 Demosthen. De Coron^, p. 329. Boeckh (Attisch. Seewesen, p. 183, and Publ. Econ. Ath. iv. 14) thinks that this passage diruhavTov (5' eZ^ef ipavuv fiupeuv napu TUV T/ye/j.6vuv ruv avfifiopitiv, e<p' olf k7.vftyvu TOV Tpiij- vo/uoi' must allude to injury done by ^E.^chines to the law in