Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/86

 Ixxxii THUCYDIDES vovoTL Toi's T€ tTTTTea? riKovTa<; Ik tmv ^K6r]vCiV TrevTijKOVTd Kat oiaKO(Tiov<;, uvev twv lttttow fjiera crKei;^?, u)S avroviv 'iTnruiv iropicr- 6-qaofj.ivMV, ual iTTTToro^-ora? rpiaKOVTa, koI rdXavra apyvpiov TpLaKoa-M. The prytany in which the three hundred talents are given, the eighth, corresponds exactly to the time, shortly after the beginning of spring, when, according to Thucydides, money and other supplies reached Catana for the use of the Athenian army in Sicily. (5) A long but fragmentary inscription (C. I. A. 184-185 ; Newton and Hicks, xxiv), out of which it is impossible to make continuous sense, is assigned to the date 01. 92. 1-2 ; 412-41 1. The writing and the contents are such as we should expect to find about this time ; and inscriptions of the same character are extant for 01. 90. 3-91. 2 (just quoted) and for 01. 92. 3 and 92. 4 or 93. 2. It therefore very probably belongs to the intermediate years. Two interesting but uncertain conjectures, if they could be accepted, would confirm this date. Boeckh proposes to restore I. 5 (A) thus — [eK Twj/ €19 TO,? TptjT^pet? u)V 7rapcXa/3o,u[ej' Trapa rHiV Trporepoiv ' From the money for the triremes which we received from the last treasurers.' He ingeniously argues that the inscription refers to the reserve fund of 1,000 talents, which was not to be touched until Athens was threatened by an attack from the enemy's fleet. But it is not said either in ii. 24 or in viii. 15 that the 1,000 talents were especially reserved for the building of triremes. Hence the words et's rus TpnjpeL<; do not identify this occasion with that mentioned' in viii. 15, and very probably refer to some other : money must constantly have been spent ' on the triremes.' There was another provision, that 100 triremes were to be set apart annually, and only used, like the money, when the enemy menaced the Piraeus with a fleet. This latter provision it must have been impossible to observe after the S3'racusan