Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/70

 Ixvi THUCYDIDES Goddess between b.c. 421 and 415, after a few years of peace, as before the commencement of the var. Kirch- hoff, having fixed the date of the inscription on other grounds, connects the payment of the 3,000 talents with the possession of 9,700 talents by the Athenians shortly before the war (Thuc. ii. 13 raed.), and with the indemnity' which they exacted from the Samians after the suppres- sion' of the revolt. It is quite true that the Athenians must have been rich when they transferred so large a sum from one account to another. But they had recovered their wealth before the Syracusan expedition. Kirchhofif argues that some words at the end of the inscription, in which provision is made for numbering and weighing some of the sacred treasures at that particular time {vvv), are a decree then for the first time establishing the inventories of the sacred articles of the temple, which com- mence in 434 and continue in a more or less fragmentary form down to the taking of the city (C. I. A. 117-173). Thus he imagines himself to obtain an accurate determina- tion of the date. But in reply it may be observed : (i) That the words of the inscription (32 ad fin.), tCjv xpvf'^"-'^^^' "^^^ [tcptoji', seem to refer to the treasures of the Goddess and ot the other deities mentioned in the words just preceding, which were kept or were henceforth to be kept in the o;rto-^oSo/xos ; why should we suppose a sudden transition to the treasures of the inventories which were kept in other parts of the temple ? (2) That a provision is made in the inscription for a weighing of the treasures. But several of the articles mentioned in the inventories were and continued to be unweighed. This seems to prove that the inscription has to do, not with the inventories, but with some other and more careful register of part t f the sacred treasure. (3) The direction that only such of the treasures as are unweighed and uncounted are to be weighed would imply that there had been previous in- ventories. But, if so, the custom of having an inventory was not then established for the first time. (4) That the