Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/71

 • INSCRIPTIOA'S Ixvii inscription appears to speak of a single occasion only, and not of the establishment of an annual audit. It relates to the money paid in at that time, and to the plate, which is to be numbered and weighed in the presence of the magis- trates who are in the habit of accounting for it from time to time — ap)^al al tSt'So[o"av asl rov Xoyov Ik Tla'a6rjvaL(iiV cs na[m^7/v]ata (cp. C. I. A. 1 1 7. 1. i). Lastly, the fragmentary state of the concluding lines of the text renders it perilous to draw inferences from it, such as are drawn by Kirchhoff respecting the relation which the inscription bears to the inventories. The whole argument rests on one of those apparent coincidences which but for the slenderness of our materials would never have been observed, and when examined more closely turns out not to be a coincidence at all. More weight is due to the argument in favour of the earlier date derived from C. I. A. 194, in which Tafx-iai twv aAAojv 6ewv ai e mentioned as already existing [eV 'A/xel]- voi'os upxovTo?, in the year 429, that is if we could be sure that they were first established by the decree contained in C. I. A. 32. But, though there appears to be a special appointment of ra/Atat in this inscription, the wording of it (■rrapa 8e Twv vvv Ta/,<.iaiv /cat Twv €7ricrTaTwv Kai Twv lepoTTOtcov rmv iv ToTs lepoTs ot viv Siaxctpt'^ovo-i, k.t.X.), and indeed the very fact of nearly 200 talents having been borrowed, indicate that such TanML were already in existence. And these may be referred to in C. I. A. 194 as ra/xtat twv aAXwv Oewv. However this may be, the argument is hardly sufficient to counterbalance the indications given by the writing. The utmost that can be conceded is that the earlier date (Kirchhoff) is as likely as the later (Boeckb). [Beloch, Rheinisches Museum, xliii. p. 113 ff., argues strongly in favour of the later date : chiefly on the ground that a loan of 3,000 talents from the treasury of the Goddess is far more likely to have been required during the first ten years of the war than during the time between the Thirty Years' Peace and 434 b. c. With regard to the argument just