Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/58

 liv THUCYDIDES occurs the following, — 'AapSai^s loo drachmae, AapSaviJs iTncf>opa<; 4 drachmae 2 obols ; ' and that the name AapSar^s also occurs among the supposed arrears in the eighth year of the lists. It is evident then that other payments besides the <}>6po^ are included in the quota lists, and it is possible that the sums afterwards called l-m^topai were inserted in the earlier lists without a distinguishing note. What was the nature of these payments we cannot pre- cisely tell. They may have been arrears ; or they may have been payments about which there was a dispute between the allies and the Athenians ; possibly they were dues or fines, or rather percentages of them, paid to the Goddess. One conjecture is as good as another. But, instead of offering conjectures which are gradually as- sumed to be certainties, it is better simply to acknowledge that the repetition of the same names in the same year, sometimes with, sometimes without the mark eVt<^opu9, is a curious fact which remains unexplained. Some lesser points of connexion between the inscriptions relating to the tribute and the narrative of Thucydides are the following : — (i) The name of Melos occurs among the tributaries in the Tctfis ^opov (b. c. 425). But Melos was not taken by the Athenians until the year 416 b. c. There is however no necessary discrepancy between the inscription and the narrative. The ra^'is (f)6pov, as has been already remarked, is only an estimate of money to be received, not a record of actual payments, and therefore the sum set down may not have been received. In the preceding year the Athenians had made an attack on Melos (iii. 91), but without success. It may be conjectured that they there- upon inserted the name of the island in the ra^t? <;^opoi; as a pledge to themselves of their own intention to enforce their demand : the events of 424-417 fully account for the delay. If the tribute was really paid by Melos, we must suppose Thucydides, who in his first enumeration of the allies (ii. 9 fin.) had described the Melians as not vtto-