Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/164

154 public objects; and that thus, by enacting the part of a benevolent tyrant, he will be forgiven for being a tyrant at all, and will attain that most desirable end, of being happy without being envied;—all which is pleasing theory, but perhaps hardly borne out by history.

Several of Xenophon's tracts are on special practical subjects, and of these one of the most interesting is his "Essay on the Revenues of Athens," in which he gives advice for improving the financial position of his country. During the flourishing times of the Republic, the great body of Athenian citizens had been trained to habits of idleness. The state revenues were almost entirely drawn from the contributions of tributary allies, and were largely expended in payments to the citizens for sitting as jurymen (see above, page 96), and performing other unproductive functions, and in the provision of theatrical exhibitions and other pageants.

Xenophon observes that this system was based on a certain amount of injustice towards the allies from whom tribute was exacted, and he proceeds to offer suggestions for rendering Athens more dependent on herself for the means of meeting state charges. These suggestions have not very well borne the test of modern criticism. They are evidently the production of an amateur financier, and not of a practical statesman. One thing particularly strikes the modern reader, and that is—the smallness of the sums in which Xenophon thinks. He speaks of Attica (which, though possessing a silver mine and marble quarries, was still like a small county, with a thin soil) as