Financing the Athenian Fleet: Public Taxation and Social Relations

Epilogue

Epilogue The huge requirements for funds to operate the awesome but costly engines of war, it has been argued, rendered the presence of an efficient fiscal infrastructure indispensable right after the creation at Athens of a large, state-owned fleet in the years 483/2-481/0. In particular, the unprecedentedly heavy logistic burden (posed partly by the structural and tactical characteristics of the new man-of-war, the trieres, and partly by its sizable complement), coupled with the immense expenditure accruing from maintenance, necessitated the presence aboard each ship of a financier capable of aiding the state treasury by supplying funds quickly and on the spot, and by undertaking financial responsibility for damages or losses. Despite the unavailability of direct evidence for the character of the trierarchy in early fifth century, it now seems hard to accept the previous postulate about a pristine initial stage in which the trierarchic institution was solely or even predominantly a military one. The Themistokles decree cannot affirm that contention. This is not to say that militarily the trierarchy was an empty shell; the point I wish to emphasize is rather that its fiscal significance was pronounced from the outset. Such a conspicuous military expansion and reorganization as that witnessed in the final years of the 4805—motivated by the objective of achieving naval supremacy, and purportedly championed by Themistokles —proved politically and socially disruptive in two important re- spects. For one, creation of a corps of warship commanders, the trierarchs , who were to take charge of ships exclusively belonging to a "national" fleet, transferred an important occupation from its previous locus of private ship ownership, based on the archetypal values of aristocratic military prowess and status-determined munificence, to the financial repository of the liturgy system. For another, the diversion of the naval command into the liturgical orbit placed munificence in this area under the regulatory mechanisms of democratic statutes that generally but unequivocally spelled out the obligation incumbent on wealthy citizens to serve the state (or the people) with their "body and property" (toi somati kai tois chremasi tei polei l&tourgeiri). Both processes, it has been suggested above, led to—and reflect—the emergence of a single institutional framework formally encompassing a section of the citizen body distinguished for its possession of wealth: that is, the liturgy of the trierarchy. No direct evidence survives to show the trierarchy as a liturgy during these early stages, but enough is now known about its vital role in naval finances during the subsequent and better-documented period for the onus of proof to be shifted to those who claim that it was not. An observation of a positive character should also be added: the operation of the liturgy system by 481/0 in the area of choregic performances renders the expansion of that system with the incorporation of the trierarchy perfectly possible and likely. In some measure, this new institutional structure seems to have been erected partly on the foundations of an earlier one, though in terms of evidence it would be unwise to identify this latter specifically with the naukrariai; it is a prevalent ethic rather than a narrowly delineated institutional entity to which one should properly turn to discover a possible precursor. "Ever for the sake ofaretai," uttered Pindar in his praise of the avenues to aristocraticexcellence (O/. 5.15), "do toil and expense strive to achieve a deed whose outcome is shrouded in danger and uncertainty; but when men are successful they seem wise even to the citizens" (tr. Adkins [1960] I6O).1 The originally aristocratic idea (acceptedat the heart of democracy and successfully cultivated throughout the fifth and fourth centuries) that toil and expenditure not only mark the excellence of a whole class, but also are honored by equals and unequals alike with the rewards of social and political esteem, made the terms of the liturgy system acceptableto most, if not all, wealthy Athenians. Due observance of his trierarchic duties in Epilogue 219 general, like his display of zeal to have his ship promptly fitted out and commissioned, earned the trierarch the honor of a crown and the much coveted title of philotimos.2 By the mid-fourth century the honorific attribute philotimos ideally embodied the twin virtues of munificence and military valor; this is succinctly brought out by Demosthenes' ruthless attack on Meidias (21.159-67), and by other sources as well.3 Yet, paradoxically, although the notion...