Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/46

 xlii THUCYDIDES for which our information is certainly imperfect. As however there is reason to think that not all the money paid into the Athenian treasury (see p. xxxiv above) was included in the tribute lists, we may, if the evidence of a rise in the tribute before the beginning of the war be thought too slight to explain the difference between 460 and 600 talents, resort to other hypotheses. [We may suggest with Busolt (Philol. 41, p. 703) that the annual instalments of the indemnity paid by Samos after the suppression of the Samian revolt were included by Pericles in his estimate of the ^opos derived from the allies : or more doubtfully with Beloch (Rhein. Mus. xxxix, p. 34 fif.) that some of the allies paid in whole or part by means of harbour duties or tolls not recorded at all on our quota lists : in fact by indirect taxation such as that which was substituted for the whole <^opos in 413 (Thuc. vii. 28).] We are much more certain, however, of the general fact that the tribute was not a fixed sum, but liable to be increased or diminished on grounds at which we can only guess. It appears from the De Republica Atheniensium (wrongly ascribed to Xenophon, but dating from the period of the War preceding the Sicilian expedition), 3. 5, that new estimates were made out every fourth year : to 8c /AeyKTTov flp-qTai TrXrjv at ra^ets tov cf)6pov' tovto Se yiyvvrai u)S Ttt iroXXa Si erous TTifnrTov. As a rule they remained the same during the interval. They were originally framed in the first of the four Panathenaic years, but were after- wards transferred to the second (or from the third to the fourth year of the corresponding Olympiad), as appears probable from a comparison of the ra^ts 6pov (425) with the quota lists (454, 450, 446) (although it must be remem- bered that after the first fifteen years the latter become more fragmentary). The tribute lists show a succession of slightly varying amounts, not corresponding, at any time, exactly to the sum of 460, much less to that of 600 talents. (Compare the qualifying words ws ctti to ttoAv in the financial statement of Pericles, ii. 13 med.) The original amount