Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/76

 Ixxii THUCYDIDES TaXaiTTOipovvTat fidXia-ra (viii. 48 init. ; Aristoph. Knights, 923 ff.). {5) Kirchhofif is surely mistaken in supposing that the words of Thucydides, iii. 17, koL to. xp^/xara tovto fxaXKTTa viravaXoio-f. fxera UoTiSaias, imply that the reserve was exhausted. They might indeed have had this meaning if any statement of such exhaustion had been previously made. But as they stand they mean no more than 'this was the great drain upon the Athenian resources.' Again (6), supposing the Athenians to have used up their capital during the first three years of the war, it is hard to see how they supported the equal if not greater strain of the seven years which followed. Can we suppose that a prudent people would have depended merely upon the limited sum which could be raised by a property tax or upon the chance sums which were brought in from time to time by the exactions of apyvpoAoyot v^es? Whether the tribute was doubled in the year 425 or not, it is evident that the Athenians after a few years of peace enjoyed a plethora of wealth ; cp. Thuc. vi. 26, Andoc. de Pace, (iii.) 8. 9, 8ta TavTYjv Tr]v clprjvrjv kTrTaKi<j)(iXia raAavra vo/xiafJiaTO'i CIS TT/v aKpoTToXiv avfjviy Kafxtv. But would they in five or six years have risen to wealth from absolute bankruptcy, which must have been their state if during five or six years of war their treasury had been empty? Neither the notices of Thucydides nor any inscription hitherto found enable us to form a certain estimate of the total revenue or expenditure of Athens in any given year of the Peloponnesian War. We are at a loss to reconcile the words of Aristophanes, who (Wasps, 660) roughly estimates the income of Athens at 2,000 talents, — TOVTtav TrXrjpMfjLa TaXavT eyyi'S 8tcr>(t'Ata ytyverai rjp-i-v, — with Xenophon's statement (Anab. vii. i. 27) that at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War the Athenians had not less than 1,000 talents coming in yearly We cannot if we may venture to suppose that at that date the tribute amounted to
 * [' With regard to the statement of Aristoph. Wasps, 660, 422 b. c. . . . ,