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Investing in Democracy:
The Practice and Politics of Jury Pay in Classical Athens
By Robert Sing, B.A. (Hons.)
This thesis is presented for the degree of Master of Arts of The University of Western Australia
School of Humanities, Classics and Ancient History
2010
Abstract
From the mid-fifth century the Athenian democracy paid every citizen who volunteered as a juror for
each day of service. This system of civic pay had the effect of reducing the loss in earnings ordinary
citizens incurred by participating in government. Since the popular courts were a powerful institution
of the democracy, civic pay strengthened the power of the demos and helped ensure that Athens
remained a democracy, of the direct Athenian kind, in fact and not just in name. Compared with other
disbursements made by the Athenian state, comparatively little is known about jury pay and the aim of
this study is to provide an over-due reassessment of this important political and financial phenomenon.
There is no clear-cut evidence for when jury pay began, but the introduction is conventionally dated to
shortly after the Ephialtic reforms of 462/1. This date is not, however, problem free, and the possibility
of a later dating and a connection with the citizenship law of Perikles (451/0) should be acknowledged.
The implications of juror remuneration extend beyond adjusting the makeup of juries. The provision of
public money was an investment in popular sovereignty and, at a time when the courts were being
incorporated into the administration of the Athenian empire, an investment in the empire itself. The
radicality of the dikastikon resides in the way it not only transcended but also synthesised traditional,
private benefaction with the distributions of surplus revenue the state had long made to its citizens as
shareholders in the polis. Analysis of the likely purchasing power of jury pay during the Peloponnesian
War suggests it provided most citizens with only partial compensation for lost earnings. That ordinary
Athenians appear to dominate juries nevertheless, is an additional reason not to dismiss outright as
comic distortion the Aristophanic characterisation of jurors as lower-class elderly men. The members
of this group, after all, were less likely to lose regular incomes by serving. The comedies of
Aristophanes, especially Knights and Wasps, focus intensely on the roll of jury pay in Athenian
politics. Once a distinction is made between the poet’s criticism of the abuse of jury pay and jury pay
itself, it appears that Aristophanes does not transgress the convention of not directly criticising the
institutions of the democracy. His criticisms of Kleon, who increased the rate of jury pay in 425/4, are
indeed scathing, but Aristophanes never questions the legitimacy of pay for jury service. The plays
serve to suggest that there was ample room for criticism within the public discourse on pay. The period
of Ionian War, particularly the temporary abolition of jury pay under the oligarchies of 411/10 and
404/3, nevertheless illustrates the tenacious commitment of the demos to jury pay and helps to explain
Aristophanes self-restraint. The most striking feature of jury pay in the fourth century is its failure to
keep pace with assembly pay and general wage inflation. When viewed in relation to the complex
procedures introduced in the fourth century to render the courts resistant to bribery, and the greater
allocation of responsibility to the courts, it is argued that a decision was made to maintain the
dikastikon at a fixed rate in light of its vulnerability, and that of the courts, to political manipulation in
the late fifth century.
i
ii
Acknowledgements
I am fortunate to have had in Dr. Lara O’Sullivan a supervisor of tremendous dedication and
knowledge who has contributed so much to the pleasure of research. Her unending encouragement will
always be greatly appreciated. Dr. Neil O’Sullivan also cast his discerning eye over the final
manuscript and made several helpful suggestions. Any errors that remain are of course my own. What
direct use I have been able to make of German scholarship is due to the generosity of Mrs. Gabby
Meiner in providing me with excellent translations. This thesis is dedicated to my parents.
iii
Contents
Abstract
i
Acknowledgements
iii
Note on the Text and Abbreviations
vi
Introduction
1
Chapter 1: Periclean Athens
The Growth of Athenian Power and the Ephialtic Reforms
7
The ‘Rivalry Tradition’
11
The Early and Late Datings
17
Accounting for Jury Pay: Participation
21
Accounting for Jury Pay: Benefaction
27
Conclusion
31
Chapter 2: Imperial Athens at War (431-15)
Measuring the Cost and Effect of Jury Pay in the
Fifth Century
33
The Increase of 425/4
42
The Politics of Pay and Aristophanes
45
Conclusion
65
Chapter 3: Revolution and Opposition (415-403)
Sicily and the Desire for Pay
67
The First Abolition (411/10)
70
The Restoration and Second Abolition (410/09-404/3)
76
Anti-Democratic Thought and Jury Pay
82
Conclusions
89
iv
Chapter 4: The Fourth Century (403-323)
The Restoration of Democracy
91
The Stability of Jury Pay and the
Composition of Juries
92
Jury Pay and the Democracy
98
Conclusion
100
Conclusions
101
Appendices
A. Cimon’s Ostracism
103
B. The Cost of Jury Pay
105
C. How much could 3 obols buy?
109
D. Payments for the Diobelia (410/09, 407/6-406/5)
111
E. The Ekklesiastikon
113
F. The Date of the Theorikon
121
G. Jury Pay after 322/1
123
Bibliography
125
v
Note on Text and Abbreviations
For consistency and comprehension, Latinised spellings of Greek names and places have been
preferred except when transliterating individual words or phrases i.e. ‘dikastikon’. The original Greek
is provided where the original wording is of special interest. Translations of the Aristotelian Athenian
Constitution are from the Penguin edition by P. J. Rhodes. All other translations are taken from the
Loeb editions. Athenian monetary denominations, with abbreviations, are as follows: 6 obols (ob) = 1
drachma (dr), 6000 drachma = 1 talent. The abbreviations of ancient authors and works are those of the
Oxford Classical Dictionary (rev. 3rd edition, 2003) and the following are used for modern
publications:
AC
L’Antiquité Classique
AJA
American Journal of Archaeology
AJAH
American Journal of Ancient History
AJPh
American Journal of Philology
AncSoc
Ancient Society
APF
J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families, 600-300 B.C. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1971)
Ath.Pol.
Pseudo-Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution
ATL
Benjamin Dean Meritt, H. T. Wade-Gery, and Malcolm Francis
McGregor (eds.), The Athenian Tribute Lists iii (Princeton:
American School at Athens, 1950)
C&M
Classica et Mediaevalia
CA
Classical Antiquity
CJ
Classical Journal
ClAnt
Classical Antiquity
vi
CPh
Classical Philology
CQ
Classical Quarterly
CR
Classical Review
CW
Classical World
Fornara
Charles Fornara, Archaic times to the end of the Peloponnesian
War (2nd edn., Cambridge: CUP, 1983)
G&R
Greece & Rome
GHI
P. J. Rhodes and Robin Osborne (eds.), Greek Historical
Inscriptions 404-323 BC (Oxford: OUP, 2003)
GRBS
Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
HCT
A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes, K. J. Dover, A Historical
Commentary on Thucydides, i-v (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 194581)
Hignett, AC
C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1952)
Hornblower, CT
Simon Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, i-iii (Oxford:
Clarendon Press and OUP, 1991-2008)
HSPh
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
Jacoby, FGrH
Felix Jacoby, Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker, i-iii
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1923-1954)
JHS
Journal of Hellenic Studies
KA
R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci, i-viii (Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter, 1983-2001)
L.S.
Immanuel Bekker, Anecdota Graeca, i: Lexia Segueriana (Berlin:
G. C. Nauck, 1814)
vii
LCM
Liverpool Classical Monthly
Loomis, WWCI
William T. Loomis, Wages, Welfare Costs and Inflation in
Classical Athens (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998)
LSJ
H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (9th edn.,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)
Meiggs, AE
Russell Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1975)
ML
Russell Meiggs and D. M. Lewis (eds.), A Selection of Greek
Historical Inscriptions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)
RE
Paulys Realencyclopadie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft
RhM
Rheinisches Museum
Rhodes, CAAP
P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia
(Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1981)
TAPhA
Transactions of the American Philological Association
YClS
Yale Classical Studies
ZPE
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
viii
Introduction
The Athenian experiment in popular government was breathtaking in scale. The great civic
performances that showcased the power of the citizenry, the demos,1 are familiar enough: the
presentation of tribute at the Dionysia, the mass juries which were as emblematic of the city as
Athena’s owl (Ar. Nub.197-200, Av.40, 108; Lucian, Ikaromenippos 16), and the assembly meetings
where issues of state were decided by citizens raising their hands and voices. By the middle of the fifth
century, a no less profound demonstration of the power of the demos took place upon the close of
business in the courts. In the fading light, every citizen who had volunteered his time that day to help
conduct the business of the polis came forward to collect his pay.
The monetary payment made to citizens who served in the popular jury courts (dikasteria) was one
of a number of regular payments made by the state known generally as misthos or trophe.2 The
dikastikon is distinct from the stipends paid to officials, such as members of the Council of Five
Hundred (boule), in that it was provided to otherwise private citizens who volunteered on a daily basis
as jurors (dikasts) and who were not subject to the official scrutiny (euthyna) or term limits that were
imposed on magistrates. The dikastikon shares these characteristics with the ekklesiastikon, the wage
paid during the fourth century to every citizen who attended the assembly (ekklesia), the chief decision
making body of the democracy. Both jury pay and assembly pay represent a distinct class of payments
and will collectively be referred to as ‘civic pay’. The ekklesiastikon was established some 50 years
after the dikastikon, around the start of the fourth century, and while less evidence is available for
assembly pay, relative to jury pay it has received fuller study. Discussion of jury pay will inevitably
touch on assembly pay, but detailed discussion of the ekklesiastikon is provided in appendix E.
Spanning the mid-fifth to late fourth centuries, jury pay affords the opportunity to study the
development of the classical democracy through one of its most important, and idiosyncratic, features.
Athens was the first, and for most of its history, the only Greek city-state that rejected the more
usual practice of penalising citizens for non-participation (cf. Pl. Leg.764a; Arist. Pols.1294a38-40;
Ath.Pol.4.3), and instead chose to remunerate those prepared to devote some of their time to civic
service.3 It is no accident that jury pay was instituted at a time when Athens had grown to be
prodigiously wealthy thanks to its imperial revenues. What made Athens unusual, even more than its
wealth, was the constitution that had taken shape at the same time as the city’s rise to power and was
therefore inexorably bound up with it. Jury pay was, moreover, regarded as the most avowedly
democratic of all Athens’ institutions. Aristotle includes it among the typical features of democratic
states, together with the use of the lot to select office-holders, a ban on the reiteration of office, and the
1
That is, all Athenian citizens as opposed to the alternative use of demos to mean the non-elite
majority.
2
Or simply as lemata (distributions). For the sometimes opaque distinctions between misthos, trophe,
and sitos (rations), see Gabrielsen (1981) 67-81, 151-5 who notes that misthos and trophe can be used
synonymously but also specifically – misthos can denote a monetary payment, trophe/sitos payments in
kind, and trophe/sitos a component of gross pay (misthos); Loomis, WWCI 32-6 esp. n. 9 while
affirming that misthos can equal trophe, points out that misthos never equals sitos. This explains why
jury pay and assembly pay are never described as sitos despite the relatively small value of the
payments involved. The money was always in excess of what an individual adult required to buy food
for a day (see appendix C). Kallet (2001) 295-308 notes, like Gabrielsen, that trophe can refer to a
smaller amount than misthos.
3
See de Ste Croix (1975).
1
virtual absence of property qualifications for officials (Pols.1317b16-38). However, in setting forth his
taxonomy of democracy, with the history of the fifth and most of the fourth century before him,
Aristotle selects civic pay as fundamental for the most extreme form of democracy of which Athens
was the most obvious example in Greece:
and a fourth kind of democracy is the one that has been the last in point of time to come into
existence in the states. Because the states have become much greater than the original ones and
possess large supplies of revenue, while all the citizens have a share in the government because of
the superiority of the multitude, all actually take part in it and exercise their citizenship because
even the aporoi4 are enabled to be at leisure by receiving pay…owing to this the multitude of the
aporoi becomes sovereign over the government, instead of the laws. (Pols.1293a1-11, cf. 1299b381300a4, 1317b31-4)
The importance of jury pay has not escaped modernity. 5 The significance of jury pay, and of civic pay
in general, lay in its effect on political participation. By providing some compensation for loss of
earnings, those with little wealth and education would incur less economic loss if they chose to join
richer citizens and exercise their democratic rights as part of the sovereign demos. This was of
particular significance for the courts, in which mass juries of citizens over 30 years old (Ath.Pol.63.3)
presided over private and public suits, including those arising form the scrutinies of magistrates, and
chose between the punishments suggested by the defendant and prosecutor when the law did not
prescribe a penalty. The presiding magistrate was powerless to give direction and the jurors decided all
questions of fact and law for themselves, without being bound by precedent. No appeal was possible
against the decision of a jury court. Pay made it easier for numerically superior non-elites to exert a
decisive influence over this powerful judicial system and establish it as the most powerful institution of
the democracy after the assembly. Aristotle noted how the courts, in conjunction with pay, had indeed
been fundamental to the rise of popular power in Athens:
For as the law-court grew strong, men courted favour with the people as with a tyrant, and so
brought the constitution to the present democracy; and Ephialtes and Pericles docked the power of
the Council of the Areopagus, while Pericles instituted payment for serving in the law-courts, and
in this manner finally the successive leaders of the people led them on by growing stages to the
present democracy. (Pols.1274a1-20)
The author of the Aristotelian Athenian Constitution summed up the reality: ‘when the people are
masters of the vote they are masters of the state’ (Ath.Pol.9.1). The dikastikon thus helped to ensure that
demokratia was not an empty slogan but a robust reality. 6
Much research has been devoted to related areas of Athenian finance and politics, including the
evolution of the theoric fund set up to subsidise theatre-goers, pay for office holders, and the tribute
4
aporos and penes are usually translated to mean ‘a poor man’, but a more accurate translation would
be ‘one who must work for a living’, or in other words an ordinary Athenian, see p. 24.
5
Walker (1953a) 101: ‘possibly the most far-reaching of all the reforms of this period’; Finley (1973b)
19: ‘a lynch pin of the system’; Fornara (1991) 67: a ‘truly epochal’ development.
6
cf. Aristotle’s definition of democracy as the rule of the poor, not the majority (Pols.1279b171280a4).
2
lists of the Athenian empire, but in the absence of an epigraphic legacy, the dikastikon has received
little attention in its own right.7 The discussion of civic pay in the most frequently cited modern work,
James Buchanan’s Theorika (1962), is not only dated but devotes a mere 7 pages to the dikastikon. The
late 1980s and early 1990s saw a resurgence in interest in civic pay, assisted by Hansen’s investigations
into the meetings of the courts and assembly, and by Rhodes’ commentary on Pseudo-Aristotle’s
Athenian Constitution (1981). Sinclair’s Democracy and Participation in Athens (1988) discusses jury
pay in the wider context of participation in the democracy, and in the same year Markle made the first
attempt to quantify the purchasing power of jury pay. Todd (1990) reassessed the evidence of oratory
for the social composition of fourth century juries. In the intervening years, a number of important
studies have appeared that promise to further advance our understanding of jury pay. Sitta von Reden’s
Exchange in Ancient Greece (1995) considers the role of cultural and political practices in organising
exchange. The catalogue of wages compiled by William T. Loomis in Wages, Welfare Costs and
Inflation in Classical Athens (1998) allows for a better understanding of the economics of civic pay by
helping to fix its place on the contemporary wage scale. 8 Lisa Kallet has developed understandings of
the linkages between money and political power in imperial Athens, and her article ‘Money Talks’ in
Ritual, Finance, Politics (1994) demonstrates the possibilities of this line of research for jury pay.
Aristophanic scholarship, particularly the detailed articles of David Rosenbloom, continues to shed new
light on the relationship between comedy and contemporary politics, but the old disagreement persists
as to whether Aristophanes is as hostile to civic pay as he is to the demagogic politicians who
manipulate it. The work of Rosenbloom, as well as that of Ober (1989, 1998), show that despite the
longevity and stability of its democracy, Athens was not devoid of tension and dispute on the nature of
the democracy. By enabling more ordinary Athenians to share in government and by transforming a
formally altruistic civic service into paid employment, jury pay proved to be a lightning rod for many
political debates. The dikastikon is still conspicuous for being mentioned and, usually, briefly discussed
in nearly all studies of Athenian politics while still lacking an in-depth study of its own. Todd saw the
need over a decade ago: ‘a full treatment of jury-pay would need to cover a large number of aspects: the
rate of pay; the age of the jurors; their occupation; the extent to which work done by slaves or women
created additional leisure for the would-be juror; the distance which the potential juror had to travel; the
status of jurors; and the ideology of jury service’. 9 It is beyond the limits of the present study to offer a
definitive treatment of these and other questions, but understanding may yet be advanced by satisfying
the present need for a continuous history of jury pay in the classical era.
The imbalance in this study in favour of the fifth century is a reflection of the unevenness of the
evidence. The prosaic questions of chronology, cost, and efficacy for the dikastikon will be approached
afresh and serve as the foundation for two ongoing questions: what role did this fiscal-political
phenomenon play in the functioning of Athenian democracy by affecting its socio-economic basis, and
second, what competing discourses on jury pay existed as part of Athenian political culture?
This study is fortunate in dealing with the comparatively well-attested, and hence well-trodden,
area of fifth and fourth century Athenian politics. A phenomenon such as jury pay, not unexpectedly,
has failed to make an impression of its own upon the archaeological record. The methodological
considerations will therefore be those of interpreting the available written evidence. Whether in
7
Ostwald (1986) 183.
cf. Osborne (2000).
9
Todd (1990) 167, cf. Gauthier (1993) 232.
8
3
recognition of its importance, contentiousness, or out of curiosity, civic pay is touched on in many
works of ancient literature. Among the wide range of relevant texts, a handful require individual
attention in view of the quality and quantity of their material. Thucydides is, as always, the
indispensable source for the rise of the Athenian empire and the history of the Peloponnesian War. He
never mentions the dikastikon, but in the sense that all Athenian political and financial information in
this period – of which he provides a great deal – is pertinent to the dikastikon, he is the most generous
of sources. Care must be taken, however, to recognise the selectiveness and partiality that can lurk
behind his façade of detached omniscience. Of the eleven extant comedies of Aristophanes, 3 in
particular – Knights (staged 424), Wasps (422), and Assemblywomen (393-1) – engage at length with
civic pay as a political issue and are unrivalled as sources for the attitudes of mainstream audiences
towards pay and its role in contemporary politics. To those who are compelled to analyse these plays as
historical sources, the comic genre lays down the challenge of deciding to what degree reality is being
distorted and whether or not a given distortion is intended to raise inconsequential laughter or to pass
serious comment. Beginning in the late fifth century, there survives a large corpus of forensic and
deliberative oratory. Like comedy, these speeches were written to prevail in competitive performances
between speakers in the assembly or courtroom, and so will inevitably refer to events of recent history
not included by historians. They might also suggest something of the attitudes and backgrounds of the
jurors to whom many were delivered. The concomitant danger of the competitive imperative is that,
like comedy, it gives the courtroom speaker cause to distort reality. Other texts illustrate the pitfalls of
dealing with later, derivative sources. The Athenian Constitution, containing an invaluable history of
the democracy and an analysis of its structure and procedures during the 330s, was probably written by
a student of Aristotle (both author and work will be referred to throughout as ‘Ath.Pol.’) who has
unfortunately deprived the researcher of the full benefit of what was a large body of material by
misunderstanding, clipping, and rearranging it. 10 The resulting necessity of trying to identify his sources
is made more difficult by the entirely normal absence of source citations. The inaccuracies in Plutarch’s
Lives are of a different origin. While Plutarch is quite prepared to suggest the breadth of his research
with citations, and though he preserves precious information from lost contemporary texts or other later
authorities, his biographies utilise historical material in the service of moral instruction with little
regard for chronology (cf. Plut. Alex.1.1). Time and time again, material is interpreted in light of
Plutarch’s own, Roman world. 11 Other significant sources of information include the Constitution of
the Athenians by Pseudo-Xenophon (‘The Old Oligarch’), which explains how the Athenians manage
their misguided constitution so well, Xenophon’s Hellenica (covering events down to 362), and the
later history of Diodorus (down to 302). For the years 411-386, via Ephorus, Diodorus preserves the
fragmentary work of the seemingly well-informed Oxyrhynchus historian. 12 Athens provides the
dramatic backdrop and intellectual environment for Plato’s treatises and for Aristotle’s Politics (esp.
Book 6, 1316b30 f.), the latter owing much to contemporary Athens in its discussions of democracy, 13
and other fragmentary historians like Theopompus and Philochorus. 14 Epigraphic evidence for Athenian
10
See the introduction of Rhodes, CAAP 1-63, 56 for the date of Ath.Pol.
See HCT.i 54-84 for Plutarch’s evidence in the fifth century Lives.
12
Bruce (1967) 4.
13
On the general reliability of the Politics as a source for Athenian democracy, see Raaflaub (1996)
140-2.
14
For the fragments of Theopompus relating to fifth century Athens, see Connor (1968); Harding
(2007) provides a translation and commentary.
11
4
finances, in particular the tribute lists and accounts of loans made to the state by the Treasurers of
Athena for 410/9 and 407/6, provide quantitative data with which to compare literary sources and set
spending on jury pay in its proper financial context – particularly in the years of greatest financial stress
after 415.15 The soundness of any reconstruction or interpretation will depend on the judicious
integration of all the primary evidence and scholarship.
Chapter 1 will consider the development of jury pay in Athens with reference to the growth of
Athenian naval power. The introduction of the dikastikon is typically dated to the start of the period
allowed by the principle source tradition (c462/1-451/0), though the end of the period merits
consideration. The tradition itself highlights the wider implications of jury pay for mid-fifth century
politics and the future role of wealth in democratic politics. Chapter 2 begins by considering the cost
and practical impact of jury pay on participation in the fifth century. The nature of jury service made it
more attractive to certain groups of Athenians and lends credence to the impression of literary sources
that fifth century juries were not broad cross-sections of the citizenry. That it was Cleon who moved the
only pay rise jurors ever received, and that he did so after his victory at Pylos, are sure signs of personal
aggrandisement at work, but a consideration of the broader political and economic reasons rule out a
purely personal motivation. Aristophanic comedy has Cleon subsequently politicise pay to keep the
demos subservient and loyal in a time of war, and it is partly to determine the truth behind this claim
that the rest of the chapter will consist of a comprehensive analysis of the role of jury pay in the plays.
Of primary importance is whether Aristophanes’ attacks against the contemporary role of jury pay in
Athenian politics constitute an infringement of the conventional prohibition against attacking
democratic institutions, and what the implications of this problem are for popular attitudes towards the
dikastikon. Chapter 3 will trace the history of pay in the tumultuous years 415-403. Despite intense
financial pressure, the likelihood that the democracy never existed independently of the dikastikon
throughout this period, and that jury pay retained its distinctive character separate from the diobelia, is
taken as evidence of jury pay’s ideological and economic importance. The ideological background to
the attacks on jury pay will be explored by analysing the evidence for anti-democratic thought on civic
pay. Political and economic explanations will be considered in Chapter 4 for the conspicuous difference
between the rising rate of assembly pay in the fourth century and the static rate of pay for jurors. What
was the impact of this phenomenon on the composition of juries, and is it at all significant for our
understanding of the fourth century democracy that dikasts, unlike ekklesiasts, never received a pay
rise?
The provision of pay to a citizen who had given the polis a day’s service was one of countless
transactions that might occur every day in Athens, but it was also a transaction of uncommon
significance. Civic pay was a site not just of monetary exchange, but of political and cultural
negotiation. As such, the system of civic pay is an illustration of the larger reality that the economy of
classical Athens was ‘embedded’ in social and political structures to a greater extent than our own. 16 If
a clearer picture can be achieved of the way Athenians acted and meditated on the idea that democracy
was important enough to receive substantial and ongoing public investment, it follows that our
understanding of the relationships involved in the transactions of jury pay – those between rich and
15
For a concordance of inscriptions (IG i2, ii3, ML, ATL, Fornara) see Samons (2000) 343-5.
Finley's (1973a) is the classic treatment of Athens as an ‘embedded’ economy (the so-called
‘primitivist’ model). For brief overviews of the market vs. embedded paradigms, see von Reden (1995)
1-9; Loomis, WWCI 251-4.
16
5
poor, democrats and anti-democrats, money and power, and that between the demos and its leaders –
may also be improved.
6
Chapter 1. Periclean Athens
The Growth of Athenian Power and the Ephialtic Reforms
The interdependent surge in the wealth and naval power of Athens in the first half of the fifth century
established the two necessary preconditions for civic pay: surplus revenues and the political impetus for
democratic reform. While many of the key features of the classical democracy were in place by the start
of the fifth century, Athens was initially like other early classical poleis in having little capital
remaining after meeting its regular expenses and having its politics dominated by aristocratic elites. 1
Soldiers were expected to provide their own weapons and source their own rations, 2 and the state only
paid citizens for temporary work.3 The far-sighted construction of a fleet with which Athens won at
Salamis in 480/79 marked the beginning of a new era in the city‟s political and economic history. To
safeguard against future Persian aggression Athens invested in naval power, and the vast expense of
sustained naval campaigning consequently meant that a plentiful supply of money would be the future
guarantor of Athenian independence and democracy (cf. Ar. Ach.162-3; Hdt.7.144.1; Plut. Them.4.4).4
At the head of the Delian League formed against Persia in 478/7, Athens realised the long-term
financial strength it sought as a result of access to the financial contributions of its allies (Hdt.9.106.2-3;
Thuc.1.96.2 cf. 3.10.3; Diod.11.47.1), the burgeoning commerce of a peaceful Aegean, and increased
exploitation of the Laurium silver mines. As the monetary economy grew, so too did the importance of
coinage to the point that it became a fixture of daily life (cf. Ar. Ach.34-6). It is not otiose to point out
that Athens required a secure supply of silver to produce civic pay and pay itself would have been of
limited value if Athenians were not already accustomed to using coinage on a regular basis.
The suppression of armed revolts by Athens and the extension of Athenian administrative
interference transformed the Delian League into an Athenian empire by the 440s (cf. Thuc.1.98-117). It
is evidence of the substantial revenue from non-tributary sources that despite having the largest
population and fleet of any League member, and the right to appoint the Hellenotamiai in charge of
League funds,5 Athens does not seem to have made significant withdrawals from the common treasury
on Delos prior to the treasury‟s transfer to Athens c.454/3. 6 The collective contributions to the Delian
treasury amounted to 350-400 talents a year.7 It is probably Athens‟ unwillingness to become militarily
dependent on the prompt payment of these contributions (phoros), which explains how the League‟s
1
Andreades (1933) 161-2. For the treasuries prior to 431, see Samons (2000) 28-83.
Disabled veterans were however, given a dole by the state (Plut. Sol.31.3-4). Aristotle (Pols.1268a1012) says that Athens was following accepted practice by also supporting its war orphans, although it is
unlikely the state would have taken on this additional burden as early as Solon (cf. schol.
Aeschin.1.103; Diog. Laert.1.55) – though on this point Stroud (1971) 288 is not as sceptical.
3
The use of slave labour by the state for maintenance and administration would also have reduced the
need for pay. Some early payments are, however, recorded: under Solon citizens were paid 5 dr for
bringing in a wolf, 2 dr for a cub (Plut. Sol.23.3). The closest the archaic state got to encouraging
political involvement was Solon‟s laws making non-involvement in stasis a crime (Ath.Pol.8.5; Plut.
Sol.20.1), and allowing one citizen to seek redress in the courts on behalf of another (Ath.Pol.9.1; Plut.
Sol.18.5).
4
See Kallet-Marx (1994) 243-6.
5
Meiggs, AE 44-5.
6
Rhodes (1992a) 38.
7
Meiggs, AE 253. It is a well-known problem that the initial assessment of 460 talents (Thuc.1.96) is
higher than what was later collected from a great number of tribute payers, see ATL.iii 235-43; HCT.i
273-80; Meiggs, AE 50-67; Hornblower, CT.i 145-6; Kallet-Marx (1993) 49-53.
2
7
dedicated war chest had accumulated thousands of talents by mid-century.8 Such a stockpile would
have been impossible to amass if the treasury were the primary war chest of Athens: the cost of
Athenian campaigning in the 470s and 460s far outstripped the 1400 talents spent on the Samian War
alone (440-39).9 The sheer number of surviving coin dies from the 460s confirms the picture of an
Athens awash with cash.10 New long-term expenditures like the dikastikon, which would have appeared
excessive before the League‟s inception, though not necessarily financially impossible, could now seem
more feasible.
The economic relationship between citizens and state had already begun to change prior to the
dikastikon as Athenians found it necessary to spend unprecedented public resources on pay. In the case
of the civilian population, the state became an important generator of employment thanks to large
construction projects and the manufacture of matériel (cf. Ar. Pax 1210-64). By the time of the
Peloponnesian War (cf. [Xen.] Ath.pol.1.13; Ath.Pol.27.2) Athens had begun paying its hoplites and
sailors for the purchase of rations.11 The evidence offers no clear indication of how long before the war
military pay was introduced. Ulpian (hyp. to Dem.13.11) states that military pay was the first form of
state pay and that Pericles was responsible for it (cf. Plut. Per.11.4, 12.5).12 Set against this are
indications in Plutarch (Cim.9.4, 11.2) that pay for Athenian sailors pre-dates the political prominence
of Pericles. Philocleon in Wasps (1188-89) might be referring to military pay when he recalls how he
was paid for taking part in a state delegation to Paros in his younger days, which at the time of
production in 422 would be in the 460s or 450s.13 The need to attract citizen volunteers14 would have
been greatest before hostilities with Persia wound down after 450 and some kind of pay for servicemen
(probably Athenian) is found stipulated in a decree passed for Miletus in 450/49 (IG i2 22=IG i3
8
It is difficult to decide just how much the Delian treasury contained at the time of the transfer and by
what process the Acropolis came to hold 6000 talents in 431 (Thuc.2.13.3). Strasbourg Papyrus Graeca
84 (Anonymous Argentinensis), a commentary on Dem.22, has been reconstructed to show that 5000
talents (7-8) was removed to the Acropolis prior to the construction of the Parthenon (see Meiggs, AE
515-8; Fornara 94a-c). 8000 talents are stated to have been in the Delian treasury when it was
transferred (Isoc.8.126; Diod.12.38.2). There is agreement that at one point 10,000 talents were on the
Acropolis (Thuc.2.13.3; Dem.3.24; Isoc.8.69, 15.234), which Diodorus confuses with the total contents
of the Delian treasury (12.40.1-2; 12.54.3, 13.21.3). To complicate matters further there is the first
Decree of Callias (IG i2 91.3-4=IG i3 52a.3-4=ML 58a=Fornara 119a). For attempts to establish the
precise relationship between these figures, see ATL.iii, 118-32, 281, 327-8, 338; Gomme, HCT.ii 31-2;
Kallet-Marx (1993) 101-3; Samons (2000) 92 f.; Blamire (2001) 99-105.
9
IG I i3 363 (ML 55=Fornara 113), see Fornara and Lewis (1979) 9-12.
10
Starr (1970) 40-2. The spoils Athens gained from the victory against Persia at the Eurymedon in the
first half of the 460s were especially rich (Diod.11.62.1, 12.40.2). The exceptional issue of silver
decadrachms has been associated with the battle, see Starr (1970) 38-42; Fischer-Bossert (2008) 18-32.
11
See below, pp.34-5 on the rate of pay. There is a tradition that the Areopagus paid the Athenians 8 dr
each to fight at Salamis in 480/79 and that as a result it was credited with saving Athens from the
Persians (Ath.Pol.23.1; Plut. Them.10.4, cf. Isoc.7.50-2; Arist. Pols.1304a20-22). The story is probably
an anachronistic attempt to credit Salamis to the Areopagus rather than Themistocles. At any rate, all
sources agree that it was an extraordinary, once-off measure. See Wallace (1989) 77-8; McInerney
(1994).
12
Plutarch (Per.11.4) claims Pericles organised 60 triremes to provide citizens with nautical skills and
pay for 8 months of the year. Such expeditions may have occurred, but the cost of pay alone would
have been 480 talents at the rate of 1 dr per man p.d.. The emendation of S. K. Eddy, GRBS 9 (1968)
141-56 of the 60 ships to 16 is not helpful.
13
MacDowell (1971) 285 thinks the reference is to military pay, as does the schol. on Wasps 1189d.
The alternative is that Philocleon was paid as an ambassador, favoured by Loomis, WWCI 17-8, 207.
See also Pritchett (1971) 18-19.
14
Though slaves and metics were also used as rowers, the Athenian fleet was overwhelmingly manned
by citizens prior to the Peloponnesian War, see Raaflaub (1998) 64 n. 18, on their voluntary status in
particular see Jordan (1975) 101-3; Rosivach (1985) 53-4.
8
21.13=ATL.ii 29-35=Fornara 92).15 It is very likely that pay for sailors if not hoplites began as early as
the 460s and therefore pre-dated the dikastikon. The dikastikon would have been hard to justify if the
state were not already paying citizens something in return for risking their lives in war. This overall
expansion of the population on the state‟s payrolls would, in conceptual terms, have helped normalise
the large-scale provision of regular pay as a function of the state. It seems likely that military pay did
precede jury pay, and so established the additional precedent for jury pay that services traditionally
deemed to be the duty of a citizen could entail remuneration.16
It was through military service that those Athenians who would benefit most from civic pay were
acquiring a new significance in their polis. The campaigns conducted against Persia and rebellious
allies in the decades after 480/79 were predominately naval in character, and thus relied more on the
efforts of the largest and poorest group of citizens in the Solonic census, the thetes, who made up most
of the crews (Plut. Sol.18.1-2).17 In all Greek poleis, political power was traditionally the prerogative of
wealthy citizens or at least citizens who owned land. Service in the navy mandated neither wealth nor
even citizen status. The replacement of the hoplite by the thes rower as the backbone of Athenian
military power, compounded by the concentration of thetes in Athens, had long-lasting political
consequences for the balance of power not just in the Aegean but in Athens itself. It is a literary
commonplace that the naval mob (nautikos ochlos) became emboldened through campaigning and, by
agitating for a greater share in power back home, brought forth the „radical‟ democracy. 18 It is unwise
to treat the thetes as a totally passive force,19 but it is also more likely that the initiative for democratic
reforms came from democratically-minded elites rather than the thetes themselves. While there was no
ground-swell of democratic sentiment that precipitated a „revolution‟ in 462/1, the greater social
prestige and self-confidence won by thousands of ordinary Athenians from serving and sacrificing in
the fleet as citizen equals created a vital additional impetus for change without which civic pay would
never have eventuated.20
462/1 saw an all-important overhaul of the Athenian justice system. The reforms attributed to
Ephialtes extended popular control to all areas of government by depriving the last major institutional
expression of unaccountable elite power, the Areopagus, of the powers it had used to exercise a
„guardianship‟ over the state. 21 Chief among these were probably the judicial powers (kriseis) over the
15
Meiggs, AE 213-4, 222; Loomis, WWCI 37.
Jones (1952) 26 n. 3; Strauss (1996) 313-26; cf. Pritchett (1971) 12-3.
17
These distinctions were originally assessed in terms of the quantity of wet and dry produce
(Ath.Pol.7.4), but by the Peloponnesian War were probably being determined in terms of capital. On the
census classes, see Rhodes, CAAP 145-6.
18
Isoc.8.64, 74-5, 95, 126; Pl. Leg.707a-d; Ath.Pol.27.1, Arist. Pols.1274a12-5, 1304a22-5, 1321a14-5.
Pols.1327b4-15 suggests that radical democracy can be avoided if non-citizens only are used as rowers,
cf. Plut. Them.4.3, 19.4, Arist.22.1.
19
Ober (1998) 76-7.
20
On the transformation of Athens after the Persian Wars, see Raaflaub (1998) 44-62 together with
Ober‟s response and Raaflaub‟s rebuttal, and Strauss (1996) 313-25. Raaflaub (1996) notes that the
recognition of thetic military service probably contributed to 462/1 and suggests (155-9) that the
inferior social and economic status thetes occupied in relation to hoplites created a latent anxiety among
the former that their political participation was conditional on continued military success, cf. Hanson
(1996) 299-307.
21
The key sources are Ath.Pol.25-26.1; Arist. Pol.1274a8-12; Diod.11.77.6; Plut. Cim.15.1-2, Per.9.34. The reforms would have fundamentally been driven by a twin desire to strengthen popular control at
a time when „democracy‟ as a recognisable term first appears (cf. Aesch. Supp.604, 699), though see
Fornara (1991) 48-56, and to separate the operation of the law from personal authority. The acquittal of
Cimon and his pro-Sparta policy (see Ostwald (1986) 28-83, 179-80), the behaviour of individual
16
9
incoming (dokimasiai) and outgoing (euthynai) scrutinies of public officials. 22 It seems moreover, that
all cases involving the death penalty or fines in excess of 500 dr were heard by juries after 462/1. It is
impossible to quantify just how much additional legal business the demos eventually had to deal with as
a result, but its workload would have been greater than what the assembly had dealt with in its only
previous judicial capacity as Athens‟ final court of appeal (the heliaia, Ath.Pol.9.1; Plut. Sol.18). It is
possible that the reforms were, in part, a response to the increasing frequency with which magistrates
and the Areopagus had already been referring cases to the demos for trial. The structural response to the
reforms was the creation of the jury courts.23 These workhorses of the classical judicial system came to
handle not just all public suits but the vast majority of private suits outside of the Areopagus‟ narrowed
jurisdiction over murder and certain religious offences. Juries were open to all citizens over 30,
including thetes, and could be conceived as embodying the judicial power of the demos
(Ath.Pol.63.3).24 The absence of a property qualification meant that these popular courts were the
means by which the adjudication and enforcement of laws, like their creation, were made the
responsibility of all Athenians. With time, the jury courts came to be seen as the vanguards of the
democracy for, as noted earlier, „when the people are the masters of the vote, they are masters of the
state‟ (Ath.Pol.9.1; cf. Arist. Pols.1274a3-5). By 462/1 the requisite conditions for civic pay had been
established; Athens now found itself the wealthiest polis in Greece with a newly democratised justice
system. The eventual introduction of the dikastikon, was however, as much a product of these factors as
contemporary personality and politics.
Areopagites and (possibly) the over-bearing use of extra-legal powers, would each have provided
further political ammunition. For the role of the Areopagus and the reforms, see Hignett, AC 193-213;
Forrest (1966) 209-20; Rhodes, CAAP 309-22, (1992b) 72-80; Wallace (1989) 77-93; Rihill (1995).
22
Ath.Pol.27.1 states that just prior to the reforms of 462/1 Pericles prosecuted Cimon at the latter‟s
euthyna. The terminology of Plutarch, if accurate, suggests the demos had a role in euthynai trials prior
to Ephialtes; he refers to Cimon defending himself before „jurors‟ (δηθαζηαί)(Cim.14.4) and to Pericles
being one of the committee of prosecution „appointed by the people‟ (ὑπὸ ηνῦ δήκνπ
πξνβεβιεκέλνο)(Per. 10.5). Sealey (1964) 18-20 suggests a separate eisangelia trial (for crimes against
the state) brought by enemies after Cimon passed his euthyna, but Ostwald (1986) 41-2, 63-6 suggests
that when capital charges arose from euthynai in the Areopagus, the matter was referred to the heliaia
for final judgment. This would explain the success of Ephialtes in prosecuting Areopagites. For
eisangeliai trials already being conducted by the demos prior to 462/1, see Hansen (1975) 15-20;
Ostwald (1986) 28-40, contra Wallace (1989) 74-6.
23
On the view of Hansen (1978) that the jury courts date long before 462/1 and go back, in fact, to
Solon who constituted them out of a heliaia which was an assembly of jurors entirely separate to the
assembly, see Ostwald (1986) 10 n. 29.
24
The forms of address used of jurors can reflect this fiction: ηὸ ὑκέηεξνλ πιῆζνο, ηὸ ὑκέηεξνλ θνηλόλ
(cf. Pl. Ap.31c6; Lys.12.42.87) or simply ὦ ἄλδξεο Ἀζελαῖνη. The term heliaia ceased to be used after
462/1 when „heliast‟ became interchangeable with „dikast‟ as a term for a jurors in the dikasteria
(Dem.24.148-51) even though the assembly could still sit in a judicial capacity after 462/1, see Brock
(1988) 137-8. An ongoing controversy is whether the dikasteria were distinct from the demos (Hansen),
or were seen as equivalent to the demos itself according to the orthodox view, cf. Sinclair (1988) 70-1.
It is obvious that because jurors had to be over 30, juries were not exactly equivalent to the demos in
composition. For a review of this debate, see Blanshard (2004) who shows that there is a „structured
ambiguity‟ where a jury could be depicted both as separate from and equivalent to the demos,
sometimes in the same text, depending on the motivation at hand. This context-based variation is
comparable with the ambiguous position of jurors as quasi-officials (see below, p.75 n. 33).
10
The „Rivalry Tradition‟
The Athenian Constitution (24.1-3) preserves a tradition claiming that Aristides, not Pericles, conceived
the idea of civic pay.25 It claims that at some point soon after the inaugural assessment and collection of
tribute from the allies (478/7), Aristides proposed that Athenian citizens should be paid for a variety of
civic and military services and that the necessary funds should be sourced from the tribute of the allies:
…Now that the city was confident and a large amount of money had been collected, Aristides
advised the Athenians to assert their leadership, and to leave the fields and live in the city: there
would be maintenance for all, some on campaign, some on guard duty, others attending to public
affairs; and by living in this way they would secure their leadership. The Athenians were
persuaded. They took control of the empire, and became more domineering in their treatment of the
allies…In accordance with Aristides‟ proposal they provided ample maintenance for the common
people, so that more than twenty thousand men were supported from the tribute, the taxes and the
allies (Ath.Pol.24.1-3)
Ath.Pol. concludes that „this is how maintenance for the people came into being‟ (25.1), but the chapter
states that the Athenians followed Aristides‟ advice without explicitly saying when they decided to do
so. That time did pass between the proposal and its implementation is suggested by the intervening
description of the Athenians first asserting their authority over the League. If the proposal is then
tentatively dated prior to Athens‟ first overt act of imperialism with the suppression of Naxos in the
460s (Thuc.1.98.4), by which time Aristides was probably dead,26 many of its details do not appear to
be authentic to the first decade or so after 480/79. The payment of Athenian civilians out of tribute was
contrary to the terms of the League that Athens was not yet in the habit of ignoring. Aristides was not
adverse to political expediency, but his advocacy of blatant exploitation is surprising when his initial
assessment of the allied contributions was praised for its fairness. 27 The possibility cannot be excluded
that the idea of state pay may have emerged in the 460s and that Aristides implemented a less grandiose
pay scheme – perhaps that for servicemen – but there is no other evidence that pay for civic service
existed as early as the lifetime of Aristides. 28 The earliest hard evidence for state pay is for members of
the Athena Promachus board (IG i3 435.81-2, SEG x 243) beginning in the late 460s or early 450s. 29 All
sources agree, even Ath.Pol (24.3), that jury pay was instituted after the death of Aristides by Pericles. 30
The passage appears to project back the notion, current in the second half of the fifth century, that
Athenians had the right to dispose of the wealth of their subject allies as they saw fit. 31 The Aristidean
tradition for the origin of pay should then be dismissed as a garbled mistake or a later invention
25
For references to the dikastikon see Loomis, WWCI 9-10, 12-3, 15-8, 26.
Nepos Arist.3.3 puts the death of Aristides four years after the expulsion of Themistocles i.e. no later
than 464.
27
Ath.Pol.23.5; Plut. Arist.24; Diod.11.47.2 cf. Thuc.5.18.5.
28
Buchanan (1962) 11 n. 2, should be as suspicious of anachronism in Ath.Pol.24.1-3 as he is towards
the claim that Aristides moved a decree opening citizenship to all (Plut. Arist.22.1).
29
See Loomis, WWCI 10, 97-8.
30
Pl. Grg.515e; Arist. Pols.1274a1-20; Ath.Pol. 27.3-4; Plut. Per. 9, Cim.10.1-8; Ulpian on Dem.13.11.
31
See commentary of Rhodes, CAAP 296-309 at 301-2 for the passage as an anachronistic compendium
of material. The ultimate source for the list may go back to the 440s, cf. [Xen.] Ath.pol.3.4; Ar.
Vesp.707-11.
26
11
designed to associate the system of pay with a figure chiefly remembered for his uprightness and
conservatism.32
The other source for the origin of dikastikon is a tradition preserved by both Ath.Pol. and Plutarch.
Both versions claim that jury pay came about from a political contest between Pericles and Cimon for
popularity, and for this reason it will be referred to here as the „rivalry tradition‟:
Moreover, Pericles was the first man to provide payment for jury service, as a political measure to
counter the generosity of Cimon. Cimon was as rich as a tyrant: he performed the public liturgies
lavishly; and he maintained many of his fellow-demesmen, for any man of Laciadae who wished
could go to him each day and obtain his basic needs, and all his land was unfenced, so that anyone
who wished could enjoy the fruit. Pericles‟ property was insufficient for this kind of service. He
was therefore advised by Damonides of Oe (who seems to have been the originator of most of
Pericles‟ measures, and for that reason was subsequently ostracised) that since he was less well
supplied with private property he should give the people their own property; and so he devised
payment for the jurors. (Ath.Pol. 27.3-4)
In the beginning, as has been said, pitted as he was against the reputation of Cimon, he tried to
ingratiate himself with the people. And since he was the inferior in wealth and property, by means
of which Cimon would win over the poor – furnishing a dinner every day to any Athenian who
wanted it, bestowing raiment on the elderly men, and removing the fences from his estates that
whosoever wished might pluck the fruit – Pericles, outdone in popular arts of this sort, had
recourse to the distribution of the people‟s own wealth. This was on the advice of Damonides, son
of the deme Oe, as Aristotle has stated. And soon, what with festival-grants and jurors‟ wages and
other fees and largesses, he bribed the multitude wholesale, and used them in opposition to the
council of the Areopagus.
(Plut. Per.9.2-3)33
In the Cimon (10.1-3) Plutarch offers another, more colourful, description of Cimon as a Wenceslaslike figure who shares his wealth not just with his fellow demesmen but all Athenians:
And since he was already wealthy, Cimon lavished the revenues from his campaign, which he was
thought to have won with honour from the enemy, to his still greater honour, on his fellow-citizens.
He took away the fences from his fields, so that strangers and the needy citizens might have it in
their power to take fearlessly of the fruits of the land; and every day he gave a dinner at his house –
simple, it is true, but sufficient for many, to which any poor man who wished came in, and so
received a maintenance which cost him no effort and left him free to devote himself solely to
public affairs. But Aristotle says that it was not all Athenians, but only for his own demesmen, the
Laciadae, that he provided a free dinner. He was constantly attended by young comrades in fine
attire, each one of whom, whenever an elderly citizen in needy array came up, was ready to
exchange raiment with him. The practice made a deep impression. These same followers also
32
On the posthumous reputation of Aristides, see below p. 16 n. 55.
For Plutarch‟s sources and methodology in the Pericles see Podlecki (1987) 5-25; Stadter (1989)
xxxviii-liii, lviii-lxxxv.
33
12
carried with them a generous sum of money, and going up to poor men of finer quality in the
market-place, they would quietly thrust small change into their hands.
The two references Plutarch makes to Ath.Pol. (Per.9.3, Cim.10.2) confirm Plutarch knew of the
version in Ath.Pol. and in essence his version of events is the same, but it also clear from the Cimon that
Plutarch had at hand another source that gave a fuller and grander account of Cimon‟s munificence.
Based on their close parallels, it is generally agreed that this source was Aristotle‟s near-contemporary,
Theopompus,34 though it is unclear if Theopompus‟ text also went on to supply a version of the rivalry
tradition that has not survived in the fragments.35
The attribution of jury pay to a political feud is one-dimensional but is not, for this reason,
implausible. Cimon and Pericles diverged over relations with Sparta, Pericles was one of 10 prosecutors
at Cimon‟s euthyna trial in 463,36 and the two men stood on opposite sides of the divide over the
reforms of 462/1. Cimon‟s generosity was proverbial and it is first referred to not long after his death by
Cratinus (KA1=Plut. Cim.10.4). Pericles need not, however, have been quite so inferior to Cimon in
„wealth and property‟ as the rivalry tradition suggests. Pericles was also of liturgical standing and
Cimon‟s financial advantage may simply have come down to income from war spoils (Plut. Per.9.4,
Cim.10.1, 13.6-8) and his willingness to spend more (cf. Plut. Per.15.5-16.3-5; Isoc.8.126).37
Moreover, from the point of view of a popular democratic politician like Pericles, jury was an
inspired political manoeuvre. It probably mattered little that Pericles had not offered a personal
benefaction and so was not paying jurors out of his own pocket. Not only did this pseudo-benefaction
cost Pericles nothing, but no rival would be able to devise a measure of similar impact or one that
would continue to generate good will year after year. It would, moreover, be difficult to conceive of any
other politician introducing so unorthodox a measure as the dikastikon.38 In the dikastikon, Pericles
permanently altered the very operation of the democracy in a way that was personally beneficial to him,
34
This conclusion is based on two fragments of Theopompus from a digression on fifth century politics,
On the Demagogues in Book 10 of his Philippika (FGrH 115 F89, cf. Nepos. Cim.4.1-4; FGrH 115
F88), for which see Connor (1968) 30-7.
35
Wade-Gery (1938) 133-4 believes he did. He suggests, based on the order of Plutarch‟s narrative, that
fragment 88 of Theopompus (FGrH 115) (Cimon‟s recall from ostracism), actually came after fragment
89 (Cimon‟s generosity, see previous note) in the original text. Furthermore, he argues the two
fragments were connected by a (now lost) discussion of the dikastikon and the Ephialtic reforms. This
reconstruction is quite plausible, contra Podes (1994) 103-5. If Theopompus did supply his own version
of the rivalry tradition, it is sufficient to say that he differed from Ath.Pol in giving the story a more
precise chronological setting (i.e. c.462/1). The one hint that Theopompus might have actually
contradicted Aristotle on the details of the rivalry tradition itself is Plutarch‟s citation of Ath.Pol for the
detail that „Damonides‟ invented pay as if to correct the naming of „Damon‟ by Theopompus. On
Damon, see p. 17 n. 57. But Connor (1968) 153 n. 37 points out that Plutarch could also have inserted
this as an addition to Theopompus‟ account. Connor also shows, 108-10, that any hypothetical
similarity between the Aristotelian and Theopompan rivalry traditions need not be because Aristotle
drew on Theopompus (whose digression probably appeared before Ath.Pol.); Aristotle differs from
Theopompus F89 in restricting Cimon‟s largesse to his deme. Both writers could have used a common
source for the rivalry tradition.
36
Though for whatever reason, Pericles does not seem to have been especially aggressive (Plut.
Cim.14.7, Per.10.5).
37
See Davies, APF 459 (Pericles) and 311-2 (Cimon). There are some indications of Pericles‟ own
largesse (IG i3 49=Fornara 117; schol. Ar. Ach.548).
38
There is a resemblance, albeit passing, between his use of pay to best Cimon and the appeal of his
great-uncle Cleisthenes to the demos to overcome Isagoras in 510/09 (Hdt.5.66; Ath.Pol.20.1). The
Alcmaeonidae had been willing to pursue power by breaking with fellow aristocrats and championing
democratic change. It was this legacy that Pericles inherited (cf. Thuc. 1.126-7) and which must have
had some bearing on his political thinking.
13
and in a system where the power of a politician depended on his ability to command the confidence of
the demos (cf. Thuc.2.65.8-10), jury pay was a monument to his democratic credentials. Alarm over
popular measures like the dikastikon, and not just the Acropolis building programme, motivated the
attempt of Thucydides son of Melesias to organise conservative elites against Pericles (Plut. Per.12,
14). The gratitude (charis) Pericles won with these same measures partly explains Thucydides‟
ostracism in 444/3. To be sure, the charis of the demos was not unconditional. By the late 430s,
Pericles‟ political opponents seem to have been challenging him using the paid jury system itself,
though unlike his associate Phidias, Pericles was acquitted by a jury of 1500 (Plut. Per.32.2, cf. Diod.
12.39.1-2).39 Similarly, Pericles recovered from a popular backlash at the start of the war to be reelected general and have the fine imposed on him cancelled (Plut. Per.35.4-5). Pericles was probably
not immune to the juries he was responsible for paying, but it is not going too far to imagine that the
dikastikon assisted him in his rivalries with Cimon and Thucydides and thus to suggest that it
contributed to the unrivalled influence Pericles enjoyed until his death.
The connection of the dikastikon with a period of intense competition between two famous figures
is a promising basis for a dating of jury pay, since it allows the politics of this milestone to be explored
more fully. After providing his more detailed version of the rivalry tradition, Plutarch advances a
precise date for the dikastikon. He explains that as a result of the dikastikon and other new payments he
masterminded, Pericles was able to bribe the demos into supporting his attack on the Areopagus (9.2).
Wade-Gery argued that Plutarch‟s dating of the dikastikon to shortly before the reforms of 462/1 should
be trusted because it derives from Theopompus.40 Moreover, the prosecution of Cimon by Pericles in
462/1, as part of the former‟s euthyna, seems to provide a plausible context for the rivalry tradition
(Ath.Pol.27.1). There are nevertheless problems with dating pay to the late 460s. At this time it was also
not Pericles but Ephialtes who was the chief opponent of Cimon (cf. Ath.Pol.28.2; Plut. Cim.10.5) and
the belief that Pericles was behind and not just a supporter of the anti-Areopagite reforms seems to
bring forward Pericles‟ later political dominance at the expense, though not to the total displacement, of
their real but more obscure author.41 Plutarch accepts this inverted power arrangement in the Pericles,
though not in the Cimon (15.2), because it suits his purposes; an éminence grise Pericles allows him to
highlight the part played by his subject and explain how Pericles was able to be both popular and aloof
(9.1) by claiming that he left day-to-day politics to surrogates like Ephialtes (cf. Plut.
Prae.ger.reip.812c-d).42 Furthermore, if Plutarch did not just take the rivalry tradition from
Theopompus but also adopted his dating for the dikastikon to before 462/1,43 Wade-Gery‟s claim that
Theopompus painted Pericles as a „villain‟ must cast doubt on the accuracy of Theopompus‟
chronology. The way Plutarch also attributes the fourth century theorikon44 and unspecified „other fees
and largesses‟ (ἄιιαηο κηζζνθνξαῖο θαὶ ρνξεγίαηο) to Pericles alone is a questionable claim and should
39
For Phidias, see Philoch. FGrH 328 F121; Diod.12.39; Plut. Per.31. Frost (1964) closely associates
the two trials. On the Periclean trials in general, particularly the vexed issues of dating, see Ostwald
(1986) 191-8; Podlecki (1987) 105-8; Stadter (1989) 284-325.
40
Wade-Gery (1938) 32-4; Badian (1987) 8-9 also date pay just before the reforms as a means to help
Ephialtes secure the preliminary convictions of Areopagites (Ath.Pol.25.1-3; Plut. Per.10.7).
41
Fornara (1991) 24-8.
42
Podlecki (1987) 22, 37-8. In a similar fashion, Plutarch tries to reconcile competing views of Pericles
by establishing an artificial division between Pericles the demagogue and Pericles the statesman marked
by the ostracism of Thucydides son of Meleias (Per.15.2).
43
See previous page, n. 35.
44
See appendix F for the date of the theorikon.
14
give the reader pause. Suspicions are firmly aroused with the next claim that Pericles opposed the
Areopagus partly out of resentment at not being a member (9.3-4). The attribution of such a base
motivation is characteristic of Theopompus. 45 It is best to reject a chronology, whether it comes from
Plutarch or Theopompus, which defies historical probability and allows the dikastikon to be maligned
as a bribe which vanquished both Cimon and the Areopagus.
In Ath.Pol. the rivalry tradition is not integrated into the narrative but is instead attached, like an
explanatory note, to a brief description of wartime Athens in which it is noted how the citizens were
sustained and politically emboldened by the receipt of pay (27.3). Despite the eccentric handling of
chronology in the post-Persian War chapters (23-8),46 it is still surprising that Aristotle does not give an
archon date for the dikastikon when he does for the reforms of Ephialtes (462/1), the institution of deme
justices (453/2) and the citizenship law of Pericles (451/0) (Ath.Pol.26.2-4). Written evidence for the
dikastikon must have existed at one time; Pericles did not unilaterally authorise pay for jurors but
proposed a new expenditure that the assembly then approved (cf. Plut. Per.14.1-2).47 The probability is
not that the author of the Athenian Constitution, who shows little evidence of independent research,48
was unable to find evidence for the date of the dikastikon but that the date was absent from the source
he used. The likeliest source is the year-by-year account of an Atthis.49 If the Atthidographer in question
was Androtion, we might allege a special bias against the dikastikon which caused it to be glossed over.
It would appear that subsequent writers had no idea, beyond the general time indicated by the
rivalry tradition, of when jurors were first paid in Athens. The historical setting described in the
tradition may yet be defined more precisely. The close connection of the jury courts with the Ephialtic
reforms in 462/1 establishes that year as an approximate terminus post quem for the dikastikon.
Notwithstanding the involvement of an otherwise unknown Archestratus in the Ephialtic reforms
(Ath.Pol.35.2), the way in which the dikastikon is exclusively attributed to Pericles and the reforms of
462/1 to others allows the inference that the dikastikon was introduced at another time. Depictions of
Pericles as the „partner‟ (Plut. Per.10.7) or even superior (Ath.Pol.27.1; Plut. Per.9.3-4) of Ephialtes
owe to Pericles‟ later greatness. Pericles was no more than 35 in 462/1. Ephialtes‟ earlier prosecution of
the Areopagites (Ath.Pol.25.1-3; Plut. Per.10.7), his vocal opposition to Cimon over the issue of
sending military assistance to Sparta (Plut. Cim.16.8), and principal authorship of the changes of 462/1
and subsequent assassination,50 all strongly indicate that at the time of the reforms it was Ephialtes, and
not Pericles, who led the more strident democrats in opposition to the conservative supporters of Cimon
(Ath.Pol.25.1).51
45
On the reliability of Theopompus see Connor (1968) 13-5, 121-4; Flower (1994) 169-83, 184-213.
Rhodes, CAAP 283-6.
47
The introduction is referred to in non-technical language; Pericles „gave‟ ἔδωθε (Ulpian on
Dem.13.11), „prepared, furnished‟ θαηεζθεύαζε (Ath.Pol.27.3-4), or „set down, established‟ θαηέζηεζε
jury pay (Pl. Grg.515e; Arist. Pols.1274a10; Aristid. Or.3.98).
48
Rhodes, CAAP 27-8. In his disinclination for archival research the author of Ath.Pol. was not alone,
see Thomas (1989) 89-91. On the Atthidographers, see Jacoby (1949) 204 f.
49
Hignett, AC 342; Rhodes, CAAP 20-1, 29, 15-30 on Ath.Pol‟s sources in general.
50
Philoch. FGrH 328 F64; Ath.Pol.25.1-2; Diod.11.77.6; Plut. Cim.15.2, Per.9.4.
51
Athens lacked the distinct, ideologically motivated and highly disciplined parties of modern politics.
When considering political behaviour in the assembly, courts, or boule, it is better to speak of
followings or tendencies held together by a complex combination of friendship, interest, ideas, and the
personalities of individual elite leaders. Since all politicians in the public arena were „democrats‟ in the
sense of publicly supporting the existing system, on constitutional questions it is better to distinguish
between those who favoured the continued expansion of popular power, like Pericles, and conservatives
who did not, like Cimon. On political groups in Athens, see Strauss (1986) 15-31.
46
15
The impression given by the rivalry tradition, that Pericles and Cimon are competing as equals for
political ascendancy, would suggest a period after Ephialtes when Pericles had become the most
important democratic leader. In the absence of the rivalry tradition the latest date for jury pay is the
death of Pericles in 429. With the rivalry tradition, this date can be brought down to c.451/0, the likely
year of Cimon‟s death in Cyprus. 52 If the tradition is pressed even further to require a time when both
Cimon and Pericles were in Athens, the chronology becomes more complicated (and more tendentious)
due to Cimon‟s ostracism. Cimon was ostracised in 462/1 or the following year and was therefore
absent from Athens for a portion of the 450s. This would provide two possible datings for the
dikastikon: an early dating between the Ephialtic reforms and Cimon‟s ostracism, and a later dating
between Cimon‟s return to Athens and his departure for Cyprus.
The impossibility of knowing with any confidence when Cimon was in Athens makes him a very
unstable peg for any dating of the dikastikon. 53 Closer inspection of the tradition suggests that it would
in fact be unwise to rely on him. Its author is surely right to present Pericles as benefiting politically
from the dikastikon but the idea that self-interest was Pericles‟ only concern cannot be excused as the
analysis of an unsophisticated historian. The account portrays Pericles as an ambitious politician so
hungry for dominance that he literally „bribed the multitude‟ (ζπλδεθάζαο ηὸ πιῆζνο). The tradition
avoids conceding that Cimon‟s own benefactions could easily be labeled as bribery, especially since
bribery properly refers to corruption using private wealth. It is clear from Plutarch (Cim.10.7) that some
writers did in fact claim that Cimon engaged in „flattery of the rabble‟ (θνιαθεία ὄρινπ) with his gifts,54
and Plutarch does connect Cimon‟s popularity with his benefactions by saying he „out-demagogued‟
Pericles (Per.9.2). Nevertheless, the rivalry tradition seems to have built on the tradition found in earlier
writers from whom Plutarch excerpts, like Cratinus (Plut. Cim.10.4, 1) and Gorgias (DK
82b20=Cim.10.5), that celebrated Cimon‟s famous largesse as pure public-spirited philanthropy: „he
restored to human experience the fabled conditions of the age of Cronos‟ (Cim.10.6-7, cf. Arist.
Eth.Nic.1122b19-23a33). Plutarch himself is another defender of Cimon‟s virtue and espouses the
notion that Cimon sought only generalised reciprocity. Plutarch‟s additional comment that a citizen
lucky enough to experience Cimon‟s charity first hand was „free to devote all his attention to public
affairs‟ (Cim.10.2), overlooks the reality that anyone who experienced Cimon‟s generosity first hand
was hardly likely to hold it against him when spending some of that newly found free time in the
assembly. The basic plot of the rivalry tradition is also worryingly familiar. It was a topos of fourth
century literature to compose lists of leaders and assign years of hegemony to each. The list in Ath.Pol
(28.2-3) even pairs off democratic and conservative leaders against each other so that pair succeeds pair
in smooth succession (cf. Isoc.15.230-6; Pl. Grg.503c1-3, 515c4-d1). The pitting of a populist against a
sincere patriot is one illustration of the way Pericles and Cimon are type-cast as the heirs to an earlier,
and artificial, rivalry between Themistocles the cunning democrat and the patrician, upstanding
Aristides.55 The parallel with the Themistocles-Aristides dichotomy extends to the way the final part of
52
Meiggs, AE 124-6, 456-7; Rhodes, CAAP 29, 339-40.
See appendix A.
54
cf. Theopompus‟ description of Cimon as a thief and profit-maker (FGrH 115 F90) and his apparent
unworthiness at Ath.Pol.26.1.
55
cf. i.e. Plut. Them.3, Arist.2, 3.2-3, 4.2-3, 7.1-2, 24.4, Cim.5.4, Nepos Arist.1.1-2. The evidence
available for the enigmatic Aristides suggests he is just as likely to have worked with Themistocles as
against him after 480 (Them.12.6-7, Arist.8.1-9.4, 25.7; cf. Ath.Pol.23.2-24, 41.2). An alternative
tradition of Aristides as a crafty manipulator is suggested by the witticism that he was „fox by deme and
53
16
the rivalry tradition cheats Pericles of the credit for the original idea of jury pay. 56 Just as the role of
Themistocles is downplayed by the story that his winning strategy at Salamis was suggested to him by
Mnesiphilus (Hdt.8.57-8; Plut. Her.Mal.869d-f), so Pericles was told how to defeat Cimon by
„Damonides of Oe‟ (Ath.Pol.27.4; Plut. Per.9.2) who Aristotle says devised most of Pericles‟ measures
and was ostracised for this reason. 57 The apology Plutarch offers for Pericles by suggesting he
introduced the dikastikon out of political necessity and contrary to his own aristocratic instincts (Per.9.2
cf. 7.1-3), as elsewhere in the life, signals the presence of a long-standing hostile tradition to which the
rivalry tradition seems to belong. Plutarch notes the way „many others‟, one of whom must have been
Plato (cf. Grg.515e, 517b-518e), assailed the dikastikon and other supposedly Periclean payments like
the theorikon for corrupting the demos (Per.9.1). The original author of the rivalry tradition is therefore
likely to be a critic of civic pay who grafted the story onto that of Cimon‟s generosity and produced an
excellent contrast between the two – what Cimon cultivated through generosity, Pericles induced
through pay. Possibilities include Critias, one of the Thirty Tyrants and a known admirer of Cimon (cf.
Plut. Cim.10.5, 16.8). Hignett prefers a lost oligarchic pamphleteer. 58
It is untenable to date the dikastikon to within a year or two based on such untrustworthy evidence.
We need not seriously doubt that jurors were remunerated in Cimon‟s lifetime – it was in the interests
of the rivalry tradition‟s author, however biased he was, to have a credible historical setting for his
story. If the dikastikon was a political tactic meant to undermine Cimon, it is easier to believe that
Pericles deployed it while Cimon was absent from Athens and thus while he was unable to respond.
The most the tradition can be called upon to show is that jury pay was probably in place before 451/0.
The Early and Late Datings
An alternative route to a date for the dikastikon is to associate it with one of two major constitutional
reforms affecting participation in government and which, coincidentally, correspond with Cimon‟s
residency in Athens at either end of the decade 462/1-451/0 – the already familiar reforms of Ephialtes,
and Pericles‟ citizenship law. The majority of scholars prefer to date jury pay to within a few years of
the Ephialtic reforms and will state this as a fact or near-certainty.59 There is indeed a strong cause-andeffect link between the establishment of the system of mass juries and jury pay. E. M. Walker was the
fox by nature‟ ([Them.] Ep. iv, Hercher 743). Note too, how the transition between ThemistoclesAristides and Pericles-Cimon is smoothed by an inter-generational opposition between Themistocles
and Cimon (Plut. Them.5.3, 24.4, 30.2, Cim.5.4, 10.7-8, 16.2). There is the even less credible idea that
that Cimon was Aristides‟ ally and successor against Themistocles (Arist.23.1, Cim.5.4, 6.3, 10.8).
56
Podes (1994) 98 suggests instead that it saves him from the blame, but the overall presentation of
Pericles is too negative in the rivalry tradition for this to be likely.
57
cf. Mnesiphilus as a teacher of political wisdom in Plut. Them.2.4. It is a long-debated question, but
one of marginal importance, whether this Damonides was the same man as Pericles‟ teacher Damon.
The weight of the evidence and Occam‟s razor suggests he was, see Davies, APF 383, 369; Rhodes,
CAAP 341-2; Stadter (1989) 69-70; Podes (1994) 108-10.
58
Wade-Gery (1938) 133; Hignett, AC 342. It is possible oral tradition preserved it for its etiological
value in connection with the legend of Cimon‟s generosity (cf. the eclipse anecdote, Plut. Per.35.2) and
Stadter suggests other possible instances of oral tradition being used in the Pericles: 16.3-9 on Pericles‟
personal finances, 37.2-5 on his illegitimate son, and the famous quotations at 8.4-6 and 33.4.
59
Beloch (1912) 155; Busolt (1897) 263 cf. 255; Gomme, HCT.i 327; Hignett, AC 254, 343; Forrest
(1966) 217; Meiggs, AE 94 n.4; Pritchett (1971) 12 n.31; Rhodes, CAAP 339-40 only goes as far as
saying that jury pay came after 462/1 but later his preference is with the „the early 450s‟ (691), cf.
Rhodes (1992b) 76; Podes (1994) 105; Raaflaub (1998) 49.
17
first to dissent from what remains the orthodoxy by advocating a later date, around 451/0. 60 The
evidence at present does not permit a definitive date for the dikastikon, but the merits of the later dating,
and the problems involved in the earlier one, have not been sufficiently appreciated.
The key assumption of an early dating for the dikastikon is that the dikasteria, the sine qua non of
jury pay, were either set up in 462/1 or shortly thereafter. The earliest contemporary reference to a jury
court is in Pseudo-Xenophon at least a decade after the reforms (Ath.pol.13, 16-8).61 Aristotle states that
Ephialtes transferred the powers of the Areopagus „to the Council of Five Hundred and some to the
people and some to the law courts‟ (Ath.Pol.25.2, cf. Plut. Cim.15.2) but this may well be a highly
abbreviated account of a process that was almost certainly more complex and drawn-out than the
meager evidence suggests.62 Pay need not have been planned long in advance and, even after the
institution of the dikasteria, initial enrollments may have been strong enough to allow the system to
function well.63 Initially, there would certainly have been some thetes and zeugitai who were ready and
willing to devote more of their time to civic service than the occasional assembly meeting. Some
citizens who attended the assembly only infrequently may have found jury service a more attractive
prospect. A man sitting among a few hundred jurors would naturally feel his vote was of more weight
there than in an assembly of thousands, and on a jury he could enjoy the same anonymity, opportunity
for vocal participation, and lack of accountability he enjoyed in the assembly – with the added
entertainments of an adversarial contest and practiced oratory (cf. Ar. Vesp.548-630). 64
The two pieces of evidence that may favour an early date for pay are extremely weak. Plato
(Grg.515e) states that jury pay was the first type of state pay to be introduced. Meiggs was right to raise
this connection cautiously; Plato may only reflect the extent to which jury pay came to overshadow
earlier and less controversial forms of pay, or his own desire to criticise Pericles as the first to „corrupt
the Athenians‟ with pay.65 There is also a reference in the Eumenides of Aeschylus, first performed in
458. Podlecki points to Athena‟s declaration (704) that the newly established Areopagus would be a
court „untainted by money‟ (θεξδῶλ ἄζηθηνλ) as indicating that jury pay had been recently introduced. 66
If Aeschylus is objecting to pay as an existing institution his criticism seems a little pointless and would
only have force if pay were being proposed but had not yet been introduced. A hostile reference to civic
pay is, moreover, out of place in a play which expresses support for the existing system constituted out
of the reforms of 462/1 by referring obliquely to the failings of the pre-reform Areopagus. Sommerstein
60
Walker (1953a) 101-3; Jacoby, FGrH iiib Supp. 1 319 thought 449/8, due to „general considerations
about economic conditions in Athens‟ (iiib Supp. 2, 229 n.7) – presumably by which he means the
transfer of the League treasury and the cessation of hostilities with Persia; Buchanan (1962) 15-6;
Sinclair (1988) 20 „at some time in the 450s, probably late in the decade‟ without further explanation.
The two arguments of Bonner (1938) 228-30 in favour of 451 have been dealt with by Wade-Gery
(1938) 132 n. 6.
61
The most likely dating for Pseudo-Xenophon‟s pamphlet is the early 420s, see Gomme (1962) 38-69.
A date early in the Peloponnesian War finds strong support in the indication at 2.14-16 that Attica is
currently being ravaged by the Peloponnesians. The possibility of Sparta sending forces outside its
territory for long periods is not envisaged, suggesting perhaps Brasidas had not yet gone to Thrace.
62
Ostwald (1986) 49 points to an interim stage between 462/1 and the dikasteria by noting that the use
of κὲλ…δὲ in front of „boule‟ and „demos‟ at Ath.Pol.25.2 hints that „jury courts‟ were not part of
Ephialtes‟ package. Rhodes, CAAP 317 sees the sentence as merely distinguishing the boule from the
popular entities of „demos-and-dikasteria‟. Philochorus (FGrH 328 F64b) claims that many of the
Areopagus‟ powers were first given to a board of 7 nomophylakes, see O'Sullivan (2001) 51-5.
63
Rhodes, CAAP 338.
64
See Bers (1985); Lanni (1997).
65
AE 94-5.
66
Podlecki (1966) 99.
18
has seen the succeeding reference in lines 704-6 to the court being „awake on behalf of those who
sleep‟ (cf. 690-2) as just such an indirect criticism recalling the possible involvement of the Areopagus
in the nocturnal assassination of Ephialtes. 67 It is easier to read the reference to an untainted Areopagus
as an implied contrast with the pre-reform Areopagus and referring either to the cases of corruption
Ephialtes had highlighted before 462/1 or even to the proposed law which in the following year opened
up the archonship and thereby the Areopagus to nearly all Athenians and not just the rich. 68
These observations serve to point out only that the existence of popular juries would not
necessarily have compelled the swift institution of jury pay. The post-462/1 political climate may also
have encouraged delay. The details of the debates surrounding the reforms may be lost but their
intensity is apparent from their destructive consequences: on one side Cimon had been ostracised and
on the other Ephialtes was assassinated.69 The partisans of each leader would not have been silenced by
his removal and it is not going too far to imagine an atmosphere of extreme tension and bitterness.
Thucydides (1.107.4-108.1, cf. Plut. Cim.17.4) reports that the building of the Long Walls even led a
group of Athenians to make contact with the Boeotians prior to Tanagra in the hope of overthrowing the
democracy – only the second time such an effort is recorded (cf. Plut. Arist.13.1). There may have been
little public appetite, beyond perhaps a few extreme democrats, for further divisive debate. To push for
further democratic reforms, especially one that would always inspire the hostility of anti-democrats,
would be reckless. If the historical Pericles was endowed with the same degree of caution, restraint and
high-mindedness as his literary personality (Plut. Per.2.4, 15, 39), he is more likely to have realised that
time was needed for recent gains to be consolidated and wounds to be healed. Years would pass before
the next constitutional reform was carried in 457/6, when the goal was the comparatively easier one of
opening the increasingly ceremonial archonship to the zeugitai.70 In 459/8 the chorus in Eumenides
delivers a plea to avoid factional feuding (stasis) after the unusual conflict seen in 462/1:
I pray that discord, greedy for evil, may never clamor in this city, and may the dust not drink the
black blood of its people and through the passion cause ruinous murder for vengeance to the
destruction of the state. But may they return joy for joy in a spirit of common love, and may they
hate with one mind; for this is the cure of many an evil in the world. (976-87, cf. 858-866)
Despite the obvious relationship between the establishment of dikasteria and the dikastikon, the
existence of the former need not imply the swift succession of the latter. 71
The same desire for democratisation and greater popular participation which underpinned the
Ephialtic reforms reappears in the later 450s. In 453/2 the delivery of justice was improved with the
67
Sommerstein (1993) 9-11.
If Aristotle (Ath.Pol.26.2) means that Mnesithides was the first zeugite archon and not the archon at
the time of the reforms then, as Hignett, AC 225 n.2 suggests, the actual reform was carried in 458/7.
Note how merit rather than wealth informs Athena‟s selection of her jurors in the original, ideal,
Areopagus (487-8). For background see Podlecki (1966) 80-100; Wallace (1989) 87-93; Marr (1993).
69
On Ephialtes‟ assassination: Antiph.5.68; Ath.Pol.25.4 (=Plut. Per.10.7); Diodorus 11.77.6;
Idomeneus FGrH 338 F8; Plut. Per.10.7; [Pl.] Ax.368d; Stockton (1982); Sommerstein (1993) 6-9.
70
See n. 68 above.
71
The inconclusive evidence includes the remark of the chorus at Ar. Eccl.303-6 that no one received
assembly pay in the time of Myronides (cf. Plut. Per.16.2-3) who was the victor of Oenophyta in 457.
For the criticism to have any force the general implication must be that all civic pay in general did not
exist during Myronides‟ lifetime, but it cannot be assumed that Aristophanes knew precisely when the
dikastikon had been introduced.
68
19
revival of the Pisistratid deme justices (Ath.Pol.26.3, cf. 16.5). The significance of the deme justices
should not be exaggerated, but they do constitute the first recognition from the democracy that access to
polis-wide institutions of governance were affected by non-legal barriers, in this case geography, and
that the state could help to address them. At about the same time an important step Athens took towards
ruling the Delian League as an empire in the late 450s also favours the appearance of the dikastikon at
this time. The publication of the tribute lists in 454/3 suggests that the Delian treasury had recently been
transferred from Delos to Athens. 72 It cannot be known whether Athens succumbed to temptation and
used the tribute for jury pay, as Aristides proposed (Ath.Pol.24.1), prior to the Acropolis building
program of the early 440s (Plut. Per.12-4),73 but the transfer would have had an immediate impact on
perceptions of public finance. The path for the dikastikon had already been smoothed by the wealth
Athens enjoyed indirectly from the League. The additional acquisition of many talents of accumulated
tribute and direct control over all future payments, between 350-400 talents annually,74 would raise
confidence in the long-term financial security of Athens to new heights and deaden the force of any
argument against pay as an excessive or unsustainable expenditure. The apparent cessation of hostilities
with Persia around 450, whether planned or concluded at the time of the dikastikon, also promised the
end of expensive campaigns for the foreseeable future. 75 The Athenians could assume (and were proven
correct only a few years later), that the decision many allies had taken to contribute money rather than
ships would mean few would be able to offer effective protest (cf. Thuc.1.19, 99, Plut. Cim.11.1-3). It is
worth noting that the one increase in the rate of jury pay, in 425/4, also coincided with a major
projected increase in tribute revenues and the prospect of peace. 76
An event with which jury pay could be closely related is the citizenship law of Pericles which, in
451/0, redefined the very basis of political participation by stipulating that in future, only the offspring
of current citizens by free Athenian women could be counted as citizens in the future (Ath.Pol.26.4;
Plut. Per.37). By setting a standard qualification for citizenship the law constituted an assertion of the
principle that the entire demos, not local demes under the influence of local notables, had the right to
decide who would be admitted into its ranks.77 Aristotle explains that the immediate reason for the law
was the large number of citizens, but the changes would not have lowered the number of births and
there is no reason why the democracy itself should have proved unworkable with more citizens (cf.
Arist. Pols.1319b6-11). In practical terms, it prevented the sons Athenians might have by foreign or
slave women from becoming citizens.78 Walker argued for a chronological association between jury pay
72
There is probably truth to the Athenian claim that the move was necessary to protect the tribute once
Delos had become to attack after the Athenian defeat in Egypt (cf. Plut. Per.12.2; Thuc.3.29.1). See
Meiggs, AE 473-6 for discussion of sources for the expedition and Hornblower, CT.i 176-8.
73
Ath.Pol. (24.1) (see p. 11) states that Aristides proposed using the tribute to provide „maintenance for
all‟ and thereby secure the domination of Athens over its allies. Theophrastus (Plut. Arist.25.2-3) may
have connected Aristides with a proposal to move the treasury to Athens, this time originating from the
Samians, which Aristides judged „unjust, but advantageous‟. Sansone (1989) 181-201 suggests this may
be based on a fictional debate in Eupolis‟ Demes (produced 412). Pritchett (1969) argued in favour of
an earlier transfer in the 460s but the evidence for this dating is unimpressive: there is the vague
statement of Diodorus (12.38.2) that the treasury was transferred „while the Athenians were still
striving for mastery of the sea‟, and it is difficult to place much faith in Justin‟s epitome (2.6.1-4).
74
Meiggs, AE 253.
75
For the controversy over the „Peace of Callias‟, see Meiggs, AE 487-95, and Hornblower, CT.i 17981.
76
See pp. 43-5.
77
Patterson (1981) 104-7.
78
See Walters (1983).
20
and the citizenship law based on their complementary effect of enhancing the privileges attached to
citizenship. The case for a late dating has been restated by Fornara. 79 He follows Plutarch‟s statements
that Pericles instituted not just jury pay but the theorikon, „other fees and largesses‟ (9.3), and public
works „in order that the stay-at-homes, no whit less than the sailors and sentinels and soldiers, might
have a pretext for getting a beneficial share of the public wealth‟ (Per.12.5; cf. Ath.Pol.24.1-3). The
result was a self-sufficient emisthos polis. Once the resources of the state and the empire were being
delivered to the demos in these various ways it naturally became necessary to restrict the number of
future citizens. This invests too much in Plutarch. While Pericles probably introduced official pay,80 it
is necessary to date the two largest pay schemes of the theorikon and ekklesiastikon to the next
century.81 The building programme at most provided employment to a few thousand and not all of these
would have been citizens.82 The image of Athens choked by a proletariat, a „mob of lazy and idle
busybodies‟ partially relieved via colonies (11.5) illustrates the extent to which the contemporary
Roman world colours Plutarch‟s understanding in these chapters. 83 It is therefore difficult to argue that
the dikastikon was one of several redistributive initiatives which became the raison d’etre for the
citizenship law and which collectively formed an otherwise unattested policy of full-employment. 84
The obvious consequence of the citizenship law was to make the franchise more exclusive, but it is not
certain that the law was made necessary by the recent attachment of new privileges to citizenship. Once
the citizenship law is not subordinated to the idea of an emisthos polis, a stronger basis is needed to
associate it with jury pay. Such a solution is forthcoming if we consider why jury pay was introduced in
the first place.
Accounting for Jury Pay: Participation
It is unlikely that jury pay was introduced because too few citizens were serving as jurors. The reforms
of Ephialtes increased the amount of judicial business the demos would have to deal with in terms of
euthynai and dokimasiai trials. The heliaia was, however, already hearing eisangelia cases,85 and
Athens had just begun to increase its judicial jurisdiction over the empire in the late 450s. It is assumed
79
Fornara (1991) 67-75. At 71-2 Fornara suggests that because the chapter containing the rivalry
tradition in Ath.Pol. is introduced as happening „after these things‟ (κεηὰ δὲ ηαῦηα) by which is meant
the citizenship law of 451/0, Ath.Pol. might have believed pay came after 451/0, cf. Rhodes, CAAP 335
on κεηὰ δὲ ηαῦηα. Rather, pay appears in chapter 27 because the author was unable to date what he
knew was a Periclean measure, and so chose to place pay at the point in his narrative where it takes on
added political significance because of the war with Sparta.
80
The first actual evidence that boule members and archons were paid only comes in 411 (Thuc.8.69.4;
Ath.Pol.29.5). Rhodes, CAAP 304, 691-2 thinks bouletic pay was more likely to have been introduced
before rather than after the war. On the cost of bouletic pay, see p. 79 n. 52.
81
See appendix F for the date of the theorikon.
82
Burford (1963) 34 calculates that only about 200 men would be needed on the Parthenon at any one
time.
83
Plutarch‟s preceding claim (Per.11.4) that Pericles provided entertainments to win popularity also
recalls the policy of the Caesars. A Greek parallel which springs to mind is that of the tyrants, Aristotle
advises a „good‟ tyrant to „lay out and adorn the city as if he were a trustee and not a tyrant‟
(Pols.1314b37-8) but tyrannical building projects aimed, it is also said, to impoverish the people rather
than enrich them (1313b20-5).
84
Contra Meiggs, AE 157, 258; Burke (1992) 215-8; Fornara (1991) 73-4. For criticism of these
chapters of Plutarch, see Andrewes (1978) 1-5 and Ameling (1985) 53-4, cf. the more positive
assessment of Powell (2003) 60-1.
85
See above p. 10 n. 22.
21
that pay aimed to increase the supply to meet demand, 86 but it is hard to believe that Athens
experienced an increase in judicial business so great as to require, within the space of a single decade,
not just the establishment of the jury system but pay for jurors as well. 87 The chance to hold magistrates
to account in court would have exercised its own attraction, especially for the first few years in the life
of the new courts.
The phenomenon to which a sudden growth in judicial business in Athens can be attributed is the
abovementioned expansion of Athenian legal jurisdiction over the allies during the 440s. 88 A badly
damaged fragment (IG i3 15) from the decree passed for Erythrae in 453/2 (IG i3 14=ML 40) or one
supplementary to it, seems to show Athens involving itself in certain types of cases as a way of
tightening control over a recently rebellious city. 89 Clearer is the decree passed for a similarly prodigal
Miletus around 450/49 (IG i2 22=IG i3 21.13=ATL.ii 29-35=Fornara 92) which indicates that cases
involving a fine in excess of a prescribed amount were reserved for Athenians courts. In the decree
concerning Chalcis in 446 (IG i2 39.3-4=IG I3 39.4=ML 52), the jurors of Athens even swear the
Athenian oath on behalf of the demos. With time, any suit in the empire involving a penalty of death
(cf. Antiph.5.47), expulsion, disenfranchisement, or the confiscation of property, was automatically
referred to Athens for trial – as were any disputes arising from empire-wide regulations such as the
Coinage Decree.90 In addition, appeals against tribute assessments by the allies were heard by the jury
courts and, from 430, a temporarily convened court of at least 1000 jurors (cf. IG i3 71.12-8, 28 cf. 514).91 This initially selective and then blanket extension of Athenian legal jurisdiction allowed Athens to
offer effective protection for its proxenoi and to preside over disputes where its vital interests were
most likely to be at stake (cf. [Xen.] Ath.pol.2.16). The expansion of jurisdiction necessarily increased
the workload and importance of the jury courts. The expansion of jurisdiction and tribute appeals made
the dikasteria tools of Athenian control and made jurors, in effect, part-time administrators of the
empire (cf. Thuc.1.77.3-4). It is from this time that the sentiment attributed to Aristides in Ath.Pol.
(24.1-3) most likely originates – the way for Athenians to „secure their leadership‟ is to provide pay to
jurors, servicemen, and officials, and so free up more citizens to manage the city‟s interests. Just as
citizens were paid to protect the power of Athens on the benches of its triremes, so they would be paid
to serve on the benches of its courts. Most of these developments were still in the future, but they might
not have been hard to foresee. It is possible that the dikastikon, in part, anticipated the future needs of
imperial administration rather than the immediate needs of domestic justice. In hindsight, paying
citizens for jury service certainly helped maintain a direct democracy of up to 60,000 voting citizens at
a time of growing public business without resorting to increased specialisation. 92 Strong attendance was
86
Rhodes, CAAP 338; Sinclair (1988) 71.
Podes (1994) 107-8 likewise argues that jury pay was not meant to attract jurors, but there is no basis
for Podes‟ argument that because jury pay did not increase over time it never served to attract jurors.
Fornara (1991) 71 points out that increased litigation could be an effect, rather than a cause, of pay
thanks to increased capacity.
88
See Lewis (1992) 132-3 and Meiggs, AE 205-19 on non-judicial control.
89
See discussion in ML 89-94; Meiggs, AE 112-5, 421-2; Rhodes (1992a) 56-7. The main decree (ll.
31-3) does indicate that Erythrae, unlike Miletus, retained jurisdiction over its capital cases.
90
de Ste Croix (1961a). On questions of Athenian jurisdiction in general, see also de Ste Croix (1961b)
; Meiggs, AE 220-33, 167-72 for the Coinage Decree. Morris (2009) argues for an Athenian view of the
empire as a single super-polis, though the empire was not a single jurisdiction.
91
ATL.iii.78-80. ML 197-8 suggests tribute appeals were being heard by jury courts back in 446.
92
Estimates of the population of Attica, and of the breakdown of citizens, metics, and slaves, are
problematised by lack of evidence and the number of variables. The task is more difficult for the fifth
87
22
especially important due to the fifth century system of dividing jurors into permanent panels: because
each panel was assigned to one or more particular courts, 93 a court depended on most of its particular
panel turning up on whatever day it happened to be sitting.
The growth of Athenian power in the Aegean was, however, one narrative played out in the 450s
and beyond: the other was the parallel growth of popular sovereignty at home. Jury pay must be viewed
in the context of the reforms undertaken in the decade 461-451, all of which suggest a desire to advance
popular sovereignty by enhancing the political participation of citizens, particularly the poorer citizens:
the Ephialtic reforms, the admission of zeugitai to the archonship (457/6), the institution of deme
justices (453/2), and the citizenship law (451/0). Pericles‟ own involvement in reform spans the decade.
By progressively removing obstacles to the participation faced by some of its citizens, Athens
resembles the development of modern western democracies. The broad diffusion of wealth in western
societies has, however, masked the reality that western democracy is also „formal democracy‟, that is, a
democracy which endows citizens with equal political rights while largely ignoring the social and
economic forces which affect the distribution of power outside formal political institutions.94 In a
society governed by the principle that non-elites should have an equal share in power, with far greater
inequalities in wealth and without a redistributive system of taxation, Athenians were keenly aware of
the way poverty undermined the active citizenship necessary to make democracy successful. In the case
of the judicial system, juries were seen as embodiments of the judicial power of the whole demos,95 and
juries with conspicuously few poor Athenians might undermine confidence in the legitimacy of the
justice system as a whole.96 The radicalism of the dikastikon was that it went beyond the gradual
elimination of legal discrimination seen during the 450s, and addressed the hitherto untouched
economic dimension of participation.
The closest we come to a contemporary source for the thinking behind the dikastikon is the funeral
speech of 431/0 which Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles (Thuc.2.35-46).97 The vexed
question of the „authenticity‟ of Thucydidean speeches is an obstacle to their use as historical sources. 98
century. Gomme (1933) 26 estimates 47,000 citizens in 431, 24,000 in 400. Ehrenberg (1960) 31, 3540,000 citizens in 431, 20-25,000 in 400, and 28-30,000 in 360. Sinclair (1988) 223-4 provides a
bibliography up to 1988. There is consensus that the number of citizens in the second half of the fourth
century was around 30,000, see Hansen (1986a) 9-13, 64-9. For the fifth century, the task is harder. The
figure of 60,000 citizens in 431 used here is that of Hansen (1988) 24-28. Hansen works back from the
fourth century using population losses to arrive at an antebellum minimum of 60,000 citizens. The
number of metics in 431 was 30-40,000, that of slaves 80-100,000, see Sinclair (1988) 9. For two recent
reviews of the population problem, see Moreno (2007) 28-33 who favours Hansen‟s citizen numbers
with adjustments for slaves, and Oliver (2007) 76-87 who focuses on the late fourth century.
93
Ar. Vesp.242-4, 303-5, 687-91, 1107-9; Antiph. 6.21-3. See Bonner (1938) 233-5, 244-8 on the
allocation of panels.
94
Wood (1996) 126-9.
95
See above, p. 10 n. 24.
96
cf. Hignett, AC 233.
97
It is well known that Athens did not bequeath a formal theory of democracy, see Jones (1957) 43-72;
Loraux (1986) 176-9, 202 f.
98
It is a cruel irony of history that none of the legendary orator‟s speeches or proposed decrees survive.
Some Periclean documents made it into the third century Collection of Decrees by Craterus of Macedon
(cf. Plut. Per.17, 30.3, 32.1-2). If contemporary comic playwrights like Eupolis and Cratinus shared
something of Aristophanes‟ enthusiasm for the comic potential of paid jurors, this has not survived in
their fragments. See Podlecki (1987) 81-88 and Schwarze (1971). A possible exception to the silence
may be the following fragment of Cratinus‟ Tutors (KA258); „Old Cronus mated with Faction, and their
offspring was the biggest tyrant of all: now the gods call him “The Head-Gatherer” (kephalegeretan)‟
(Plut. Per.3.3, modified Penguin translation). The joke is presumably the similarity between „head
gatherer‟ and „cloud gatherer‟, an epithet of Zeus (Hom. Il.1.511). Beyond poking fun at Pericles‟
23
Of all the speeches he composed, the funeral oration has the best claim to be based on recollections of
the original (cf. Thuc.1.22.1). Any blatant distortion of such a memorable speech ran the risk of
detection by informed readers, and in its content the oration conforms to the genre of the epitaphios as a
celebration of the heroic dead.99 His praise for the Athenian constitution is of particular interest:
With us it is not a shame for a man to acknowledge penia, but the greater shame is for him not to
do his best to avoid it. And you will find united in the same persons an interest at once in private
and public affairs, and in others of us who give attention chiefly to business, you will find no lack
of insight into political matters. For we alone regard the man who takes no part in public affairs,
not as one who minds his own business, but as good for nothing; and we Athenians decide public
questions for ourselves or at least endeavor to arrive at a sound understanding of them.100
(Thuc.2.40.1-2)
In understanding this and other passages, it is important to bear in mind that terms typically translated
as „poverty‟, penia or aporia, can nearly always be better translated as meaning „lack of leisure‟, so that
a penes „lives thriftily and attentive to his work; he has not got too much, but he does not lack what he
really needs‟ (Ar. Plut.553-4, cf. Pl. Resp.565a).101 The use of the term „poor‟ or „ordinary‟ in this study
to refer to the majority of Athenians should henceforth be taken to mean that these citizens were
penetes, that is, self-supporting men who worked for a living. 102 Pericles‟ boast, therefore, is that even
those Athenians who spent most of their time earning their daily bread still have some knowledge of
public life by participating in the assembly. Earlier in the oration Pericles stresses the importance of
participation on an official level (2.37.1).103 He refutes the recurrent criticism that „democracy‟ qua the
rule of non-elites, enforces an unnatural equality by insisting that merit and not socio-economic
background decides the selection of magistrates (cf. Eur. Supp.406-8). Moreover, there is unparalleled
scope for the recognition of talent because a citizen is not kept in political obscurity because of penia
supposedly elongated head, the comic epithet is quite non-sensical. It is therefore tempting to also see it
as a reference to the audiences Pericles attracted with his oratory or the jurors he was responsible for
empanelling thanks to pay. I owe this suggestion to Lara O‟Sullivan.
99
On the reliability of Thucydides‟ funeral oration, see HCT.ii 129-30; Loraux (1986) 189-92;
Hornblower, CT.i 294-6.
100
θαὶ ηὸ πέλεζζαη νὐρ ὁκνινγεῖλ ηηλὶ αἰζρξόλ, ἀιιὰ κὴ δηαθεύγεηλ ἔξγῳ αἴζρηνλ. ἔλη ηε ηνῖο αὐηνῖο
νἰθείωλ ἅκα θαὶ πνιηηηθῶλ ἐπηκέιεηα, θαὶ ἑηέξνηο πξὸο ἔξγα ηεηξακκέλνηο ηὰ πνιηηηθὰ κὴ ἐλδεῶο
γλῶλαη: κόλνη γὰξ ηόλ ηε κεδὲλ ηῶλδε κεηέρνληα νὐθ ἀπξάγκνλα, ἀιι᾽ ἀρξεῖνλ λνκίδνκελ, θαὶ νἱ αὐηνὶ
ἤηνη θξίλνκέλ γε ἢ ἐλζπκνύκεζα ὀξζῶο ηὰ πξάγκαηα.
101
Markle (1985) 267-70.
102
On the question of exactly how rich someone had to be to be freed from the necessity of having to
work for a living, see p. 35.
103
„It is true that our government is called a democracy, because its administration is in the hands, not
of the few, but of the many;…[but] as regards the value set on them it is as each man is in any way
distinguished that he is preferred to public honours, not because he belongs to a particular class, but
because of personal merits; nor, again, on the ground of poverty is a man barred from a public career by
obscurity of rank if he but has it in him to do the state a service‟
(θαὶ ὄλνκα κὲλ δηὰ ηὸ κὴ ἐο ὀιίγνπο ἀιι´ἐο πιείνλαο νἰθεῖλ δεκνθξαηία θέθιεηαη…θαηὰ δὲ ηὴλ
ἀμίωζηλ, ὡο ἕθαζηνο ἔλ ηῳ εὐδνθηκεῖ, νὐθ ἀπὸ κέξνπο ηὸ πιεόλ ἐο ηὰ θνηλὰ ἢ ἀπ´ἀξεηῆο πξνηηκᾶηαη,
νὑδ´αὖ θαηὰ πελίαλ, ἔρωλ δέ ηη ἀγαζὸλ δξᾶζαη ηὴλ πόιηλ, ἀμηώκαηνο ἀθαλείᾳ θεθώιπηαη.)
The alternative translation (Hornblower, CT.i 300-1) of νὐθ ἀπὸ κέξνπο as „not by the rotation of
offices‟ should be rejected as an unparalleled way of referring to sortition and a departure from the
speech‟s general ambiguity on constitutional matters, see Pope (1988) 292.
24
(cf. Pl. Menex.238d) – a remark which could be interpreted as alluding to pay for officials. 104 The
notion in the funeral oration that poverty does not obstruct participation on the mass or official level is
striking for a speech heavily coloured by notions of aristocratic, martial virtue (arete). The praise of
democracy in the speech has long been recognised as curiously anemic, 105 and Nicole Loraux accounts
for the scant praise of democratic institutions as a way to instead characterise the polis as one of perfect
unity, exemplifying and paradoxically outclassing aristocratic government. 106 Indeed, the adoption of
older, aristocratic ideas by the democracy is familiar: isonomia seems to have started its life as a slogan
of equality among aristocrats. Isocrates‟ description of an earlier and better Athens prior to the rise of
democracy is largely his own invention, but one which illustrates the degree to which his ideas had a
popular resonance: „Those who possessed wealth on the other hand, did not look down on those in
humbler circumstances, but, regarding poverty among fellow-citizens as their own disgrace, came to the
rescue‟ (7.32).107 The emphasis placed on participation in the context of the funeral speech is a
testament to the general agreement that poverty should not, ideally, affect a citizen‟s capacity to be
useful to the polis.
The archetypal citizen, free from grinding poverty, was the „middling-man‟, a metrios – a
responsible, land-owning husband and father whose farm provided him with the means to acquire all he
needed to help run his community and to procure the armour and weapons needed to defend it (cf. Eur.
Supp.328-45, Or.917-22, Ar. Plut.245-7).108 Dire poverty could rob a man of independence and force
him into degrading behaviour,109 and might even undermine his very masculinity by assimilating his
citizenship to the status of a woman.110 This concern was especially significant for Athens, in which the
freedom of citizens was predicated on a belief in arithmetic equality, that is, political equality between
all citizens and not just those with the same wealth or talent (cf. Arist. Pols.1301a28-35, 1317b4-5).111
The extent to which the resulting system of self-government granted political and personal liberty
(eleutheria) to each citizen meant that liberty became the defining characteristic of the democracy. 112
Broadly speaking, all citizens cast equal votes (isopsephia), were equally free to speak in the assembly
(isegoria), and above all were equal before the law as well as in their right to participate in public
affairs (isonomia). It was a system that allowed citizens to govern and be governed in turn
104
Loraux (1986) 186-9. For official pay, see p. 21 n. 80. Markle (1985) 271 overlooks the limitation of
penia in this context to officials and takes the last line of 2.37.1 as a reference to civic pay in general.
Loraux (188) denies that there is any implication of pay at all. The thetes in the audience could well
understand Pericles to mean that poverty is a barrier to office that has been overcome by official pay
because poverty deprives a citizen of the time and money needed to serve, rather than the alternative
sense that poverty does not count against a candidate in the eyes of his fellow Athenians.
105
HCT.v 335.
106
See Loraux (1986) 174-92, 202-13.
107
νἵ ηε ηὰο νὐζίαο ἔρνληεο νὐρ ὅπωο ὑπεξεώξωλ ηνὺο θαηαδεέζηεξνλ πξάηηνληαο, ἀιι᾽
ὑπνιακβάλνληεο αἰζρύλελ αὑηνῖο εἶλαη ηὴλ ηῶλ πνιηηῶλ ἀπνξίαλ ἐπήκπλνλ ηαῖο ἐλδείαηο, see Ober
(1998) 282-6.
108
Morris (1996); Rosenbloom (2002) 318-22 sees the metrios as an „everyman‟ figure who aligns with
the chrestoi against the worst elements. Todd (1990) 160 notes the absence of a word for „subsistence
farmer‟ or „peasant‟, which we might use to describe most Athenians, suggests that the preference for
self-sufficient agriculture rather than cash-cropping allowed small farmers and great landowners to
perceive their interests as being essentially the same.
109
Dover (1974) 109-12.
110
Morris (1996) 22 cf. Meier (1990).
111
On Athenian notions of equality, see Raaflaub (1996) 139-43; Cartledge (1996) 175-85.
112
Thuc.2.37.2; Pl. Resp.562c; Arist. Pols.1291b34-8, 1317a40-b17, Rhet.1366a1-5. Hansen (1996b)
92-3 points out that isonomia was not the defining trait of both democratic equality and democratic
ideology altogether: demokratia and eleutheria only were deified, cf. Wallace (1996).
25
(Pols.1261b1-10),113 and Aristotle observed that „assuming that freedom is chiefly found in a
democracy…and also equality, this would be so most fully when to the fullest extent all alike share
equally in the government‟ (Pols.1291b34-7). The right of eligible citizens to enroll for jury service and
for all citizens to sit in the assembly was, moreover, predicated on the notion that citizens were equally
capable of offering good advice. Even if the expertise of a small farmer could not match that of an
educated member of the upper class, the judgment of many ordinary citizens was considered superior to
that of an elite few.114 This „summation theory‟ helps justify the preference of Athenian government to
seek the wisdom and common sense of amateurs rather than specialists. It followed that including more
citizens in the institutions of government, including the courts, delivered the greatest benefit to the polis
and prevented the concentration of power in the hands of the few.
Citizens, however, needed leisure if they were to be completely free and independent political
participants. Even though all free-born males were virtually guaranteed citizenship in Athens and the
democracy required as many citizens as possible to participate, the economic basis of citizenship in
earlier times meant poverty was inconsistent with ongoing cultural understandings of what „a citizen‟
should be. The gap between ideal and reality was potentially the most glaring for thetes who had for
years been fulfilling one of the key duties of a citizen by performing military service in the fleet (cf
[Xen.] Ath.pol.1.2), but, unlike hoplites, were still excluded by law from the magistracies. It was
perhaps not difficult for most thetes to set aside time for the occasional assembly meeting – the
assembly, unlike the courts, did not require citizens to pre-register and be selected to serve.
Paradoxically, the establishment of the jury courts „raised the bar‟ for what constituted full, active
citizenship: a penes could no longer be just an ekklesiast, but a dikast as well. Athenians never
countenanced absolute economic equality or the forced redistribution of private property (cf.
Ath.Pol.56.2), but by the 450s Athens found itself with abundant supplies of cash. Civic pay, in essence,
was a bid to address the disconnect between the ideal of citizen participation and its reality.
Even more worrying for thetes than the widening disparity between hoplites and themselves in
terms of participation, was the elision of the boundaries between citizen and non-citizen. By the midfifth century economic development had brought significant numbers of metics and thousands more
slaves to Attica.115 Despite his clear legal and political advantages as a citizen, a thes might be hard
pressed to distinguish his dress and standard of living from that of a metic and slave, and the superficial
similarity between free and slave in Athens is a subject of frequent negative comment in both the fifth
and fourth centuries ([Xen.] Ath.pol.1.10-12; Plut. Per.12.7, cf. [Dem].47.61; Pl. Resp.563b-c). Even if
these complaints are dismissed as those peculiar to elite Athenians, Athens as a whole was at pains to
stress the division between citizens and non-citizens. Manumission was less common in Athens than in
Rome, and freed slaves became metics and not citizens. Metics could not own land and were subject to
direct taxation but a metic could, however, find himself serving in the fleet alongside citizens. For their
part, these same citizens could be excluded by poverty from the assembly and the new jury courts
113
An exception was made for the generalship because of the specialised knowledge required for
warfare (cf. [Xen.]Ath.pol.1.3). This doubtless helped to answer the oligarchic complaint that
democracy treats unequals as equals (Pl. Resp.558c). In the fifth century, thetes were still excluded
from the generalship, the boule, and some financial posts such as the Hellenotamiai. In the following
century the prohibition against thes magistrates had become a dead letter, cf. Ath.Pol.7.4. On sortition
and rotation for office holders, see Hignett, AC 221-32.
114
Eur. Andr.693-702, El.369-72; Thuc.2.40.2, 6.39.1; Isoc.12.248; Pl. Prt.320c-323a; Arist.
Pols.1282a15-23, 1286a26-b2; Ath.Pol.41.2.
115
See p. 22 n. 92.
26
almost as effectively as a metic was by law. 116 We might expect that the anxieties expressed by later
writers were particularly acute when Athenians were still becoming accustomed to the transformation
of their polis into a cosmopolitan city in the 450s.
It is at this point that we can resume our unfinished discussion of the date of the dikastikon. The
most likely explanation offered for the citizenship law is the suggestion that it addressed a concern that
citizen status and identity was being eroded by a growing non-citizen minority.117 A citizen could take
some comfort after the passage of the law from the fact that the descendents of metics could never
aspire to the status of his own children and, from a materialistic standpoint, that there would be less
competition for land and fewer recipients of public distributions like the grain gifted to Athens in 445/4
(FGrH 328 F119=Fornara 86; cf. Plut. Per.37.3).118 At the same time, because the law was not
retrospective, the number of citizens would not be immediately reduced. 119 While an ordinary Athenian
then knew that the children of metics could not hold the same rights as his own children, he experienced
no tangible elevation in his status. If jury pay was introduced shortly before or after the citizenship
changes, ordinary citizens would have an immediate means to demonstrate regularly and in the most
dramatic terms their higher status vis a vis metics as political „insiders‟ and full members of the
community. It was the right to participate in deliberative and judicial organs of the state, together with
deme sacrifices and cult, which defined Athenian „citizenship‟ itself (Arist. Pols.1275b17-22).
The
lack of definitive evidence and the limited trust that can be placed in the details of the rivalry tradition
prevent a confident choice between an early or late date for jury pay. There is however, as much cause
to associate the dikastikon with the citizenship law as there is to associate it with the Ephialtic reforms
and it is enough to say that the introduction of the dikastikon and its relationship with events in
Athenian history should be treated as a much more open-ended problem than has been the case.
Accounting for Jury Pay: Benefaction
For the author of the rivalry tradition the dikastikon was conceived, and had the same intended affect, as
the conventional benefactions of Cimon, namely, to win political support by out-bidding another
member of the wealth elite. Its unusual nature is attributed solely to the exigencies of the predicament
in which Pericles found himself. The implication is that if Pericles had possessed more resources than
Cimon, jury pay would never have come about. There is however, something self-defeating about the
dikastikon as a piece of patronage par excellence – if a rival could not better jury pay in the future,
neither could Pericles. While the dikastikon signaled a shift in the nature of Athenian political
leadership, it also permanently altered the political landscape by undermining private patronage. Thus,
116
On slaves and metics in fifth century Athens, see Sinclair (1988) 28-31, 196-200.
Raaflaub (1996) 159; Rhodes, CAAP 334; Patterson (1981) 102-7 cf. 96-102; Sinclair (1988) 24.
118
Jacoby, FGrH iiib Supp. 1 462-70; Rhodes, CAAP 331-5; Harding (2007) 114-5. It has been
suggested the nearly 5000 citizens found to be „illegally enrolled‟ (FGrH 328 F119) in the course of
this distribution indicates that the citizenship law was retrospective from 445/4. The number seems
impossibly high and it is not necessary to assume retrospective force: those enrolled illegally prior to
451/0 and afterwards under the new requirements could account for at least some of the
disenfranchisements.
119
Jacoby, FGrH iiib Supp. 1 472-82 argues otherwise, but his notion that Pericles held the law in
reserve to be used against Cimon, whose mother was foreign, is unpersuasive.
117
27
while the rivalry tradition may be an unreliable guide to the precise timing of jury pay, its conception of
the dikastikon in terms of patronage proves to have deeper explanatory power.120
The inhabitants of Attica had long been accustomed to receive benefactions from elite patrons. 121
The Pisistratid tyrants (c.546-511/0) first demonstrated the political potential of benefaction on a
national scale. The aim of the tyrants had been to keep Athenians busy with their private concerns and
uninterested in political affairs (Ath.Pol.16.2-3; Arist. Pols.1318b9-16). With the reforms of Cleisthenes
(508/7) citizens gained greater opportunities to participate in government as independent political actors
via the creation of a new tribal organisation. This severed the link between the cults and old tribal
organizations, dominated by the aristocracy, and the national political system (cf. Arist. Pols.1319b207). Elites in turn, sought to maintain power within the new order by encouraging political participation
in their favour by deploying wealth. In time, competitive generosity in the interests of the sovereign
demos came to be expected of elites and led to the introduction of an obligatory set of benefactions,
liturgies, from the 480s on both a national and local deme level. 122 Wealth was not the only prerequisite
for a successful politician – ability and kinship were equally if not more valuable assets. Still, whether
benefactions took the form of small loans to fellow demesmen (cf. Lys.16.14, 31.15-6) or the staging of
a magnificent chorus, they were a vital means of accruing distinction (lamprotes) and gratitude (charis)
and with them the political associates (philoi/hetairoi), which were important if a man wished to be
elected to office, to have proposals approved by the assembly (cf. „packed‟ assemblies, Thuc.6.13.1;
Xen. Hell.1.7.8; Dem.18.143), or to secure a sympathetic hearing in a courtroom. 123 The more
successful a politician became the more likely he was to continue to provide benefactions to supporters
and to the demos. Athenian citizens had been given tangible rewards, through the direct or indirect
benefactions of elites, in exchange for the exercise of political power long before the dikastikon.
It is possible to understand the operation of the liturgy system as a solution to the problem of how
the democratic state could continue to enjoy the wealth of elites without putting citizens in the inferior
position of receiving largesse they were unable to reciprocate, and without taking the risk that private
wealth might be used to manipulate the democratic process itself through bribery. Legally requiring
pre-determined benefactions from citizens who owned property worth at least 3 talents made the use of
wealth to exert undue political influence harder, because liturgies were always indirect: the funding of
choruses or triremes would earn the patron diffuse glory and credit, especially among his tribe, but not
with specific citizens or social divisions. 124 Liturgies left would-be patrons with less cash available for
private, targeted benefactions. For this reason, voluntary benefactions became especially prestigious.
Rich defendants were keen to avoid the impression of parsimony that could come from only funding the
minimum of liturgies, and so claimed to have not only fulfilled their liturgical responsibilities but to
have done so lavishly or to have performed more than their fair share. 125 Cimon was said to have „made
money that he might spend it, and spent it that he might be honoured for it‟ (Plut. Cim.10.5=DK 82b20,
cf. Arist. Eth.Nic.1122b20-1123a5) and it was only those who, like Cimon, belonged to the highest
120
Schaps (2004) 131-7.
See Millett (1990) 18-25.
122
Davies, APF, xxv.
123
Rhodes (1986) 135-6; Frost (1981) 37-9.
124
Rhodes (1986) 136-7 on the benefits of liturgies to elites.
125
For accusations of parsimony, see Isae.5.45; Dem. 18.312-13, 19.281-2, 21.151-74. For attempts to
curry favour through the recitation of liturgies, see Antiph.6.11; Isae.6.60, 7.36; Isoc.5.41 f.; Lys.19.29,
42-3; 57-9, 21.1-5, 11-12; 25.12-13; Dem.19.282.
121
28
echelon of the liturgical class that could boast about their outstanding liturgies while at the same time
set new standards in the old brand of in-kind benefactions. Cimon was elected general every year 477462,126 and his munificence prompted real or imagined comparisons with the liberality of the tyrant
Pisistratus: both men are described as recalling the idyllic „age of Cronus‟ (Ath.Pol.16.7, 27.3; Plut.
Cim.10.6).127 Pericles by contrast, was famously uninvolved in his own estate (Plut. Per.16.3-4). While
we cannot say that prevailing over Cimon was one motivation behind the dikastikon, by design or
accident jury pay worked on a national level to manage, in the interests of the democracy, the political
advantage that wealth afforded a few citizens in a state of nominal political equals. 128 Citizens would in
future be in less need of private subvention if they wished to serve on a jury but could not afford the
time.129 The dikastikon was thus another means the state used to facilitate non-partisan participation and
the advantageous disposal of private wealth.
By changing the way elites used wealth in their quest for power, the dikastikon constitutes
something of a landmark in the history of political leadership in Athens. Pericles is understood as a
transitional leader, not just for his ability to command the support of the demos and retain an
aristocratic independence (Thuc. 2.65.6 f.), but because of a concern with finance which was to become
fundamental to the influence of all his successors. His unprecedented attention to state finances was, in
part, a response to the new requirements of an imperial administration; finance was now a subject of
overwhelming importance but one with which ordinary citizens lacked both the time and skill to
acquaint themselves in detail.130 In addition to his financial knowledge (Thuc.2.13.3) Pericles offered
caution and incorruptibility, and so secured a reputation of sound fiscal management which the demos
was prepared to take on trust on at least one occasion, accepting his vague explanation that 10 talents he
had once spent were „for sundry needs‟ (Plut. Per.23.1 cf. Ephorus FGrH 70 F193).131 Cimon may have
had something of Pisistratus‟ fondness for benefaction, but it was only Pericles who came to exercise
unrivalled power in classical Athens. The association between tyrannic power and money in the Greek
126
Hignett, AC 191 n.4.
cf. Theopomp.FGrH 115 F89=Ath.12.533A-C. Later, the lavish generosity of Alcibiades would be
one trait which marked him out as a potential tyrant (Plut. Alc.16.1-2). Lavelle (1993) 78 n. 82 suggests
the „age of Cronus‟ tradition on Pisistratus may be the work of late fifth century oligarchs; Rhodes,
CAAP 218 suggests that it may be as old as the tyranny of Hippias.
128
Rhodes, CAAP 339.
129
Millett (1990) 37-41 goes so far as to call civic pay „a practical antidote to personal patronage‟ (38),
cf. Zelnick-Abramovitz (2000) 76-7. Ath.Pol. (27.5) claims that the dikastikon opened the door to the
bribing of jurors because poorer citizens were more susceptible to corruption. The claim is not
strengthened by citing as evidence the trial of Anytus in 410/9 – at least 40 years after pay was
introduced (cf. Diod.13.64.5-7). Pseudo-Xenophon (Ath.pol.3.3) claims that bribery is necessary to have
anything dealt with by the organs of state. The allocation of panels to specific courts meant that litigants
would have been able to determine by the nature of their case which jurors would hear them. Jurors
themselves could see which cases they would judge by consulting the notice-boards (Ar. Vesp.349, 848,
cf. „the lawsuit market‟ of Eq.797). Litigants were, it seems, even allowed to address the relevant jury
ahead of time (Vesp.242-4, 687-91). The fact that the juror rolls were fixed for each year offered some
protection by preventing litigants from flooding the juror pool with supporters as need arose. Bribery
was difficult but not impossible if those suborned (who also had a shared interest in secrecy) could be
counted on to persuade others, see Harvey (1985) 88-9. Attempts at corruption would have occurred
with or without jury pay, and if jury pay offered some inducement to bribery by increasing the number
of susceptible jurors and decreasing the payment required, it at least introduced some compensatory
safeguard by securing larger juries ([Xen.] Ath.pol.3.7; Ath.Pol.41.2).
130
On these developments, see p. 58.
131
cf. Pericles‟ alleged financial mismanagement as the cause of the Peloponnesian War (Ar. Pax 60511; Diod.12.38.2-4, 39.3).
127
29
imagination then led to the comic representation of Pericles as a „new Pisistratid‟. 132 The combination
of financial competence and mass appeal in the dikastikon, more than any other single initiative of
Pericles, presages the greater role finance would play in Athenian political leadership. Pericles would in
fact be the last in the ancient tradition of aristocratic leaders heavily reliant on personal largesse. Jury
pay was a sign that the old wealth politics, with its paternalistic relationship between elite and the
demos, was now giving way to a politics in which oratory and public money were the key sources of
power (Thuc.3.38.4).
It is worth digging a little deeper into the connection between civic pay and patronage. In the final
line of both versions of the rivalry tradition, Ath.Pol. (27.4) and Plutarch (Per.9.2) both make the
straightforward observation that in devising jury pay, Pericles gave the people their own money. The
comment, however, captures the important reality that civic pay constitutes the re-distribution of public
wealth to its owners. In 483/2 Athens was about to distribute surplus revenue from the Laurium silver
mines amongst the citizenry at the rate of 10 dr a man (Hdt.7.144) until Themistocles successfully
proposed that the money should be spent on a fleet. 133 Nepos reads the situation with Roman eyes when
he describes the distribution as an annual event courtesy of „the magistrates‟ (Them.2.1-2). Plutarch
however, refers to the distribution as being „the custom‟ (ethos) of the Athenians (Them.4.1-3).134
Herodotus (7.144.1-2) gives no indication that the distribution was exceptional. No source volunteers
information as to the practicalities or the regularity of the alleged carve-up of funds, but a parallel does
exist in Siphnos. There a surplus that was perhaps as much as 100 talents was distributed annually in
the late sixth century (Hdt.3.57.2).135 The depth of the workings at Laurium suggests intensive mining
before 483/2,136 which together with inevitable fluctuations in mining revenues and the increase in the
quantity of silver coin in early fifth century, 137 makes it unlikely that Athens had never before found
itself with surplus revenues it might choose to distribute.
The significance of 483/2 is the very idea, apparently already subject to negotiation, that excess
public wealth could be dispersed rather than spent or stored for future use. This suggests not just the
limited fiscal horizons of archaic government but the conception of mineral wealth as a communal
resource.138 For all the economic demands the Athenian polis might make of a citizen, ranging from
extraordinary taxes to outright expropriations, each citizen was equally eligible to receive what the
community might from time to time grant all its members. 139 Indeed, Greek citizenship was a share in
the social and political life of the community (Arist. Pols.1275b17-22, 1290a2-5, 1268a24, 1272a16).
Distributions of communal wealth in the form of proceeds from confiscated property (cf. [Plut.]
Vit.Xen.orat.843d-e), festivals (cf. Plut. Mor.818e) or gifts of grain from foreign benefactors (Philoch.
132
On tyranny and money, see pp. 50-1. For Pericles as a tyrant or Zeus, see Ar. Ach. 530-1, Pax 60911; Cratinus KA73, 118, 259; Hermippus KA42; Eup.KA102; Plut. Per.7.1, 8.2-3, 16.1, 39.2-3.
133
The use of orchedon „each man‟ by Herodotus refers only to adult males and does not encompass
under-age citizens, see LSJ s.v. orchedon.
134
Plutarch and Ath.Pol both value the surplus as 100 talents which was then used to build 100 ships,
whereas Herodotus‟ figures (7.144 and 5.97) produce 50 talents for an impossibly large number of 200
ships. Among the efforts to make sense of these figures, see Macan (1908) 208-17; LaBarbe (1957) 2151, 201-4; Wallinga (1993) 148-64; Lazenby (1993) 102-4.
135
Neer (2001)
136
Hopper (1961) 140-3.
137
Starr (1970) 5-6.
138
i.e. Aesch. Pers.327-8. See Andreades (1933) 134-5. For a discussion of archaic communal
ownership and the lack of distinction between public and private property, see Latte (1968).
139
Andreades (1933) 163-5, 184-8; Vidal-Naquet (1977) 118-28; Ostwald (1996) 55-6.
30
FGrH 328 F119=Fornara 86; cf. Plut. Per.37.3), would continue into the fourth century. It was perhaps
on the grounds of allowing citizens to benefit from the community‟s wealth (Plut. Per.12.5), and not
just the right of Athens to spend as much of the allies‟ money as it wished, that Pericles rejected claims
in the 440s that he was „playing fast and loose with the public monies and annihilating the revenues‟
(Per.14.1). The principle was manifest in the fourth century with the development of the theorikon to
subsidise theatre attendance. As a result, the dikastikon was not a dole simply handed out to all citizens
but the receipt of one‟s share of communal wealth. Consciously or not, it was a new manifestation of an
ancient civic ritual that recognised the recipients, according to the Athenian belief in arithmetic
equality, as equal shareholders in the polis. With time, the ritual of civic pay was re-enforced by the
symbolism Athenians attached to their coinage. Stamped with the emblems of the city and consistently
minted from silver taken from the soil of Attica, the coinage in both its symbolic function and essential
nature was analogous to the equal and autochthonous Athenian citizens who used it (cf. Ar. Ran.73449).140 The distribution of civic pay by the polis strengthened the membership of recipients in the civic
community. As the first direct investment made in the political system, the dikastikon was an
innovation and one that would not have come about without the wealth and democratic reforms
engendered by the acquisition of the empire. Yet recognition of jury pay as a new phenomenon has
obscured its very real antecedents in earlier Athenian history. 141 The dikastikon represents the synthesis
of the ancient and hitherto separate classes of private benefaction and state distribution: citizens were
paid both as citizens and as citizens who had chosen to activate their citizenship. The concepts of pay as
distribution and benefaction would remain central to Athenian understandings of the dikastikon.
Conclusion
Our understanding of the origins of jury pay is incommensurate with its importance. The tradition that
survives, for all its heuristic value in raising issues of political competition, is inadequate and suspect in
its details. We therefore have little choice but to speculate with the help of other sources. The case for a
dating in the late 450s is at least as strong as the conventional argument for the start of the decade, and
a later dating might advance understanding of Pericles‟ citizenship law and the wider implications of
the transfer of the Delian treasury. The most straightforward explanation of jury pay as a supply-anddemand mechanism to raise the number of jurors is unlikely, and the original decision to pay jurors
was, at its heart, a matter of expanding democratic power. Pay for civic service enacted the democratic
argument that poverty and its negative impact on participation was detrimental to the status of
Athenians vis-à-vis other citizens and non-citizens. To understand the dikastikon as power-play or as an
effort at raising participation is to miss its wider, cultural significance. By improving participation, jury
pay strengthened citizen status and identity against the forces of wealth and change, forces which
threatened the vision of a homogenous polis of citizen equals. The dikastikon did so both
instrumentally, through its economic dimension as compensation for lost earnings, and symbolically, as
a tangible confirmation of that citizenship. The dikastikon then reflects the transformations Athens had
undergone in the first half of the century but also points forward to changes yet to come. It implies a
government of great wealth and growing complexity and a polis in which the demos exercised greater
140
Kurke (1999) 299-331.
Finley (1978) 123: „there was no precedent anywhere…radical measures require powerful stimuli
and unprecedented necessary conditions‟.
141
31
control over private and public wealth. In place of elite benefaction, public money in the form of jury
pay was for the first time being used not only to defend, administer, or beautify Athens, but to assist in
the running of the democracy. As more ordinary citizens were integrated more closely into the political
process, they were at the same time provided with a tangible stake in the democracy and a material
interest in ensuring that Athens retained a steady supply of money. Questions of public finance, as a
result, were endowed with a new meaning that would affect not only public policy but the basis of
political leadership in the next decade.
32
Chapter 2. Imperial Athens at War (431-15)
Measuring the Cost and Effect of Jury Pay in the Fifth Century
Any discussion of the representation of jury pay and its associated politics during the Peloponnesian
War must be grounded in discussions of its cost and efficacy. On all questions of pragmatics and
polemics, Aristophanes is far and away our most important source. A proper methodological
introduction to the plays is delayed until the third part of this chapter, where it will be of greatest value
in establishing the basis for an analysis of these plays as sources for political history. For the present, it
can be noted that because one of Aristophanes‟ chief comic staples is satire, the information supplied to
set up a joke or comic situation is itself unlikely to be the subject of comic distortion. It need not be
doubted, for example, that the opening of the courts at dawn did compel jurors to commute from their
homes while it was still dark. The comedy of one such scene (Vesp.230 f.) is supplied by the jurors‟
extreme age, their gruff demeanor, and the assistance of their small sons. Foundational information
such as this can generally be accepted without the same degree of scepticism that is necessary in
studying the jokes themselves.
No epigraphic evidence survives for the fifth century dikastikon. In all likelihood, the accounts of
the domestic treasurers responsible for paying jurors – the kolakretai and, after 411/10, the
Hellenotamiai – were never published, and we should not expect that a record of yearly expenditure on
jury pay was even kept.1 There is no evidence at all for the rate of the Periclean dikastikon. We may at
least guess that the rate after 431 was 2 ob (schol. Vesp.88) rather than 1 ob, given that jury pay was
raised to 3 ob in 425/4 and a 50% increase would be easier to countenance in wartime. 2 Aristophanes
preserves a calculation for the cost of pay, when in Wasps Bdelycleon tries to show his pay-loving
father, Philocleon, that jurors enjoy less than 10% of the state revenues:
First of all, calculate roughly, not with counters but on your fingers, how much tribute we receive
altogether from the allied cities. Then make a separate count of the taxes and the many one
percents, court dues, mines, markets, harbours, receipts, proceeds from confiscations. Our total
income from all this is nearly two thousand talents. Now set aside the annual payment to the jurors,
all six thousand of them, “for never yet have more dwelt in this land.” We get, I reckon, a sum of
one hundred and fifty talents. (655-63)
Here the number of jurors, the revenue of Athens, and the number of sitting days are given as
unrealistic maximums, and so the passage is of little use for determining the actual activity of the
courts. The question of the cost of the dikastikon has already received attention,3 but precision is
1
Though portions of the revenue were set aside for definite yearly expenditures like the dikastikon, on
the Athenian „budget‟ see Andreades (1933) 364-72; Thomas (1989) 82.
2
Still, the possibility cannot be excluded that the dikastikon initially paid 1 ob (cf. Poll.8.113) just like
the ekklesiastikon. See Schulthess, RE.xv.2 2092 for early attempts to confirm Pollux.
3
Andreades (1933) 253 estimates less than 100 talents per year without working; Tod (1953) 30
estimates 100-110 talents for the courts and boule in 425/4; Fornara (1991) 73 has 122 talents as an
absolute and admittedly unrealistic maximum before 425/4 (300 days x 6000 jurors x 2 ob); Sinclair
(1988) 201 and Boegehold (1991) 172 calculate 33 talents (200 days x 2000 jurors x 3 ob); Podes
(1993) 497 n. 5 appears to give 15 talents pre-425/4, 30 talents after (499).
33
impossible given our ignorance of the average number of jurors who were being paid each day.
Assuming an average of 3000-6000 jurors, at 2 ob and then 3 ob p.d. after 425/4, sitting 180-225 days a
year, before 425/4 the dikastikon would cost 30-75 talents, and 45-112.5 talents thereafter. Xenophon
reports (Anab.7.1.27) that annual revenue in 431 was 1000 talents, and subtracting the 600 talents of
overseas revenue of Thucydides (2.13.3) produces a total domestic revenue of 400 talents. Pay
therefore amounted to 3-7.5% of total revenue at the start of the war. The increase in tribute revenues to
around 1000 talents after the reassessment of 425/44 meant that the rate rise to 3 ob, presumably from 2
ob, increased the cost of pay to 3.2-8% of annual revenue. The greater proportion of revenues
consumed by the war each year after 431 would make the proportional increase in jury pay even greater
still. By way of comparison, a personal wealth of 3 talents placed a citizen in the wealth elite of liturgy
payers. If Athens was spending the minimum on jurors after 425/4 this would still be enough to pay the
crews of 42 triremes for a month – almost 1 in every 5 ships the Athenian navy had at sea at the start of
the war (Thuc.3.17.2).5
The dikastikon was not an insignificant expenditure. Was the investment, however, successful in
allowing ordinary Athenians to serve? Bdelycleon claims that „the allies have caught on that you and
the rest of the riffraff are starving on what you get from the ballot funnel and splurging on nothing‟
(Vesp.673-4), though here exaggeration heightens the force of a wider argument replete with hyperbole.
The information of the chorus leader is more specific. Like his fellow jurors, he is being helped along
the road to the court in the early morning darkness by his young son. His response to a request from his
son suggests that 3 ob, while not generous, did have some purchasing power: ‘Look, out of this tiny
pittance I‟ve got to get barley meal, firewood, and dinner for the three of us, and you ask me for figs!’
(300-4). It can be inferred from the complaints of a bread seller later in the same play that 4 loaves of
bread could be bought for less than 1 ob (1390-1), though what size loaves these were is not known.
Markle calculates that a family of 4 could be fed for a day with the Athenian staple of barley meal
(alphita) for 1.65 obols. When a small error in his working is corrected, the final figure comes to 1.8
ob, and with the cost of other consumables factored in, the total daily food bill would come to 2.7 ob in
the late fifth and early fourth centuries – just above Markle‟s final figure of 2.5 ob. Although the basic
validity of Markle‟s conclusion is sound, his calculations underestimate the cost of grain and it is very
unlikely that a family of 4 would get much change from 3 ob unless they elected to survive solely on
hulled barley.6 The majority of Athenian citizens were subsistence farmers, but because classical Attica
as a whole relied on imports of between half and two-thirds of its grain,7 we can imagine that a
majority of dikasts did spend their pay on food. 8
A 3 ob rate of basic family subsistence finds support in the levels to which state wages were
reduced due to economic hardship in the last decade of the war, for at this time the polis would only
have been paying as much as it needed to. Though Thucydides provides figures showing servicemen
(sailors and hoplites) in different circumstances receiving anywhere between 3 ob (8.45.2) and 1 dr p.d.
4
ATL.iii 345; Meiggs, AE 332.
On Thucydides‟ ship figures at 3.17, see Kallet-Marx (1993) 130-4, 150-1.
6
For Markle‟s calculations and suggested revisions, see appendix C.
7
Garnsey (1985) 74 (half); Moreno (2007) 3-33 esp. 10 (two-thirds).
8
A joke in Wasps (785-93) shows that two jurors might receive a drachma to split between them. The
practice of having jurors share their pay suggests that most jurors could be expected to spend their pay
the day it was given, not to save it, and that the courts adjourned early enough for jurors who had to
share their pay to commute to the agora before the close of trading. It was no doubt easier for the
officials to work with the larger denomination.
5
34
(3.17.4, 6.8.1, 6.31.3).9 If 3 ob was standard, as Pritchett maintains, 10 jury pay would have been very
generous indeed. The balance is tipped in favour of 1 dr as the normal military pay rate by the
demonstration of Loomis that in Thucydides the words misthos and trophe refer to gross pay and not
exclusively to ration-money. 1 dr is therefore not a special bonus rate of pay, 11 and the 3 ob rate must
be the product of belt-tightening after 413. Like servicemen, archons and prytanes were exempted from
the general abolition of pay in 411, but they did have their pay slashed from 5 to 3 ob p.d.
(Ath.Pol.29.5). A variety of welfare figures from the same era indicate that 1 ob p.d. was enough for an
individual to keep body and soul together.12 The general clustering of data towards the end of the war
leaves open the question of whether 2 ob was equally sufficient for the first quarter century of jury
pay.13 A lower cost of living earlier in the century is supported by the Eleusinian epistatai, who were
paid 4 ob in 450/49 (IG i2 24=IG i3 32 l.8-9=SEG x 24, 8-9) despite their range of responsibilities. 14
Less certainly, servicemen may have been receiving the same amount at the time (IG i2 22=IG i3
21.13=ATL.ii 29-35=Fornara 92).
The true test of the efficacy of pay is ultimately not the amount of food it bought but the difference
between jury pay and the normal daily income of a non-leisured citizen. Non-leisured, self-supporting
citizens (penetes) can be defined as those 70% of citizens, both thetes and zeugitai, who possessed
property worth less than 2500 dr (the threshold for the eisphora) and who had to work regularly to
support their households.15 Of course, we must not suppose a sharp division at 2500 dr between
drudgery and indolence. Those just under this threshold were prosperous small farmers or craftsmen
who owned houses, land, and a few slaves, and who could take some time off work. Ath.Pol. (27.4)
claims pay flung the doors of the courts open to the masses „some people allege that it was as a result
of this that the courts deteriorated, since it was always the ordinary people rather than the better sort
who were eager to be picked for jury service‟, but we should be wary of the qualification that „some
people say‟ by which the author distances himself from the claim.16 There is disappointingly little
evidence indicating how far above the level of family subsistence (3 ob p.d.) most Athenians lived.
9
Evidence for military pay rates first appear during the Peloponnesian War. It is not certain that the 4
ob mentioned in the Miletus decree of 450/49 (IG i2 22=IG i3 21.13=ATL.ii 29-35=Fornara 92) is to be
paid to Athenian servicemen and in what capacity, or for what precisely a young Philocleon was paid 2
ob on a delegation to Paros (Ar. Vesp.1188-9).
10
Pritchett (1971) 3-29 esp. 23-4. For 1 dr p.d. as the norm, see Jones (1957) 142 n. 54; Andrewes,
HCT.v 97-9; Rhodes, CAAP 306-7; Jordan (1975) 113-15 believe nautai received more than noncitizen sailors; Rosivach (1985) 52-3 suggests 1 dr for professional, year-round sailors, cf. Loomis,
WWCI 56 n.100.
11
Loomis, WWCI 33-6, 55-7.
12
The 2 ob dole (diobelia) was paid from 410/9 (see pp. 78-80). Theopompus Comicus (KA56)
indicates that a man has to earn at least 2 ob to provide for himself in the last decade of the war. 1 ob
was the amount given to the orphans of citizens who died fighting for the democracy in 403/2 (SEG
xxviii 46.4-19) and of the invalid dole in the late fifth century (Lys.24.13.26, cf. Philoch. FGrH 328
F197a-b).
13
While the last years of the Peloponnesian War were difficult economic times, a 1-2 ob rate of
individual subsistence might be applicable to the years before 413 if the inflated cost of food caused by
the occupation of the countryside and the war in the Aegean was counter-acted by deflationary pressure
from the closure of the silver mines and reduced tribute revenues.
14
For the dating of the inscription see Meiggs (1966) 90-4, 96 contra Mattingly (1961) 171-3. It is
unclear how much the Athena Promachus board (see p. 11) was receiving in pay at about this time.
Loomis, WWCI 97-8 reviews the suggestions and prefers a rate similar to the Eleusinian epistatai.
15
Markle (1985) 295-6; Todd (1990) 148 n. 21 estimates that 85-95% of citizens were not subject to
the eisphora.
16
ἀθ᾽ ὧλ αἰηηῶληαί ηηλες τείρω γελέζζαη, θιεροσκέλωλ ἐπηκειῶς ἀεὶ κᾶιιολ ηῶλ ηστόληωλ ἢ ηῶλ
ἐπηεηθῶλ ἀλζρώπωλ.
35
There is a complete lack of wage information for the agricultural sector and there is good reason to
believe that the wage evidence from the Erechtheum (IG i3 475-6) is atypical.17 The accounts
surprisingly show workers – citizen, metic, and slave, skilled and unskilled – earning on average 1 dr
p.d. in the last decade of the fifth century. It is unknown whether 1 dr reflects the contemporary market
rate at a time when economic distress and high unemployment had put downward pressure on other
state wages. 18 Neither is there any evidence for the fluctuation of wages in the private market. For the
Erechtheum workers at least, jury service meant sacrificing half of one‟s daily pay – a prospect which
must have been made especially daunting at a time of general psychological and economic insecurity.
Given the overall prosperity of fifth century Athens and the extent to which the rate of pay for archons
and servicemen was reduced to that of jurors towards the end of the war, it can be inferred that most
fifth century Athenians did not live on the edge of starvation and that jury pay was to most partial
compensation. It at least ensured that the many enthusiastic amateurs on which the democracy relied
did not have to choose between voting and using some of their savings to put food on the table.
The precise socio-economic composition of the „average‟ fifth century jury is a matter of educated
guesswork. The occupations of the thousands of jurors who served will never be known. The single
most obvious determinant of jury composition is geography. Jury service would have been easiest for
citizens living within the walls of Athens and difficult for anyone who lived more than a few hours
from the city centre. Hansen rightly notes that lengthy commutes on foot were common in preindustrial societies.19 In practice, it has not been noticed that the most important factor in deciding what
proportion of citizens over 30 could serve as dikasts for pay is not how far one can walk but how many
citizens could travel to the city between first light and the opening of the courts at dawn (Ar. Vesp.230
f.). On this basis, all citizens would be able to reach the courts if they lived within 6 kms of the city as
the crow flies, and they might still arrive in time if they lived within 11.2 kms – a distance which
encompassed the Piraeus, all the city trittyes, and possibly Acharnae. 20 Working from the number of
boule members the demes returned on the basis of population, it appears that just over one third of
Athenians in the fourth century lived within 12 kms of the Pnyx, 21 perhaps a little less prior to the
Peloponnesian War. Thus, most citizens could not serve as a juror without unusual effort.
This „catchment area‟ for civic pay would include a great deal of farmland, and it has been pointed
out that craftsmen and urban labourers might lose money in attending the courts but that farmers had
free time during the agricultural off-seasons to earn some ready cash.22 It is difficult to apply this
argument to farmers who lived more than a few hours‟ travel from Athens based on the suggestion that
during their regular trips into town to sell produce (cf. Ar. Eccl.815-22; Arist. Pols.1331a34) farmers
17
See Randall (1953); Loomis, WWCI 105-8.
See Loomis, WWCI 234-9.
19
Hansen (1983) 235-6.
20
Most regular jurors would be reluctant to commute while it was still dark and then wait for the courts
to open. Apart from loss of sleep, traveling alone while it was dark brought the very real threat of crime
(Ar. Eccl.544-6, 666-71, Av.496-8, 1491). Once light appeared on the horizon, the activity of those
already awake and the cries of animals would have roused sleepers (Ar. Eccl.30-1, 740-1). In Athens
the time between astronomical twilight and dawn varies from almost 2 hours in June to a little less than
1.5 hours in March/October. Walking speeds (excluding difficult terrain) typically vary between 4.32
kms p.h. and 5.6 kms p.h, see Wirtz (1992) 80-1. In March/October, a juror at 4.32 kms p.h. could
arrive on time from up to 6.48 kms away, at 5.6 kms p.h. from up to 8.4 kms; in June, from 8.6 kms at
the slower speed, 11.2 kms at the faster.
21
Rhodes (1986) 236-7.
22
Todd (1990) 168-9; Crichton (1991) 66, cf. scepticism of MacDowell (1995) 157.
18
36
could leave family members in charge of the actual selling and spend time in the courts. 23 If hundreds
of jurors served after the harvest in the summer and during the slack winter season, we would expect
some evidence to survive of a regular influx of part-time farmer-jurors which brought the juror pool up
to full strength. The requirement that jurors register to serve would result in a great variation in the
number of „active‟ jurors and, therefore, in the volume of court business that could be handled at
different times of the year. Cases would be delayed for months until farmers had less work and the
backlog could be cleared. The only farmers likely to serve on juries in any numbers would be those
who lived near enough to Athens to return home each evening so as to avoid accommodation costs
eating into their pay, or those so well off that they could delegate the day-to-day work of the farm to
others. For Todd, so many of these farmers served that they constituted the majority on fifth century
juries.24 Yet there is the topos that farmers were less involved in daily politics than city-dwellers.25 In
Aristophanes‟ Peace, it is the payless farmers who end the war and break the dependence of the demos
on the politicians of the city (508). This contrast is a reflection of the wider, misleading dichotomy in
the sources between city and country. Nevertheless, a majority of citizens survived through subsistence
farming and many of them would be able to spend a day in town on a jury and then walk home for their
evening meal. Yet a farmer might find plenty to keep him occupied on his land or in his deme. Gallant
estimates that one hectare of grain required 48 days of work and that most farmers, working between 4
and 6 hectares, were then required to invest 192-288 days a year in the fields. 26 Many of these „days‟
would have to be worked simultaneously during ploughing and harvesting by other members of the
household and labourers, but the landowner probably put in the bulk of the work. Further time would
be devoted to smaller crops, livestock, and the celebration of festivals. During the warmer months
(May-Sept) a farmer might chose to spend his free time between harvest and planting serving in the
armed forces and guarantee himself a daily wage twice that of a juror. Moreover, city-dwellers still had
the advantage of proximity; a farmer who was not prepared to risk traveling into town only to find his
court was closed (cf. Ar. Vesp.303-11) would have to study the public court notices in advance
(Vesp.349, 848; Ath.Pol.59.1, 66.3, cf. Ar. Eq.979) or source the information second-hand. Neither
should we assume that urban workers had comparatively far less free time. An inscription from Eleusis
(IG ii2 1672.26-34) from the late fourth century, shows one group of workers labouring 40 days straight
while a stone dresser, a plasterer, 3 bricklayers and their unskilled assistants simultaneously worked
about half this number of days. It is unclear why these men took so much time off; perhaps some were
simply not needed, in which case they could have gone to other jobs or the courts, but this 40 day
period included the Panathenaea and other festivals. The inscription at least raises the possibility that
ordinary citizens who were not farmers, still had a say over when they worked. The ownership of
slaves by many Athenians (Ar. Eccl.593; Lys.5.5, 24.6; Dem.55.31-2, 25), though it is difficult to say
how many, made it easier for some to take time off since the slave continued to earn an income by
working in the owner‟s business or by being hired out as a casual labourer. Others had to resort to
23
Markle (1990) 164-6; Boegehold (1991) 168.
Todd (1990) 168-9.
25
cf. Hes. Op.27-34; Eur. Or.917-22, Supp.420-2; Ath.Pol.16.3; Arist. Pols.1292b25-9, 1318b71319a6, 31-9.
26
Gallant (1991) 82-7.
24
37
families, neighbours, or hired labour. The evidence for largely rural juries in the fifth century is
therefore inconclusive.27
Civic pay offered no economic inducement to those richer citizens for whom leisure came at no
cost. Those worth more than 2500 dr were best placed to exert disproportionate influence on the court
system, but it is precisely the richest and most leisured of Athenians who appear to be absent from
juries. The political activity of elites was always driven by a desire for distinction and for this reason
elites naturally preferred forms of civic participation that involved individual accomplishment and
honour like liturgies, oratory, and office-holding. Perhaps equally important was the way pay
„cheapened‟ public service in the eyes of some elites and some were no doubt unwilling to (quite
literally) rub shoulders with their social inferiors. 28 In this sense, the dikastikon actually discouraged
some Athenians from serving.29 For the true „poor‟ of Athens – those who struggled to subsist and who
might work as unskilled labourers, registration as a juror provided a welcome economic safety net. 30
Equally, citizens worth less than 300 dr who received a 1 ob p.d. dole from the state (Lys.24.13.26),
could turn to jury service to help feed their dependents. It is highly unlikely anyone actually lived off
the dikastikon. Pay was only given for each day of work and the courts did not sit every day. Festivals
or bad weather (cf. Vesp.770-4) could close the courts, and individual courts might be closed when
others were open. The very real risks someone took in depending on such an erratic income appear in
the rest of the conversation quoted earlier between the chorus leader of Wasps and his little son:
Boy: „…if the archon doesn‟t call the court into session today, how can we buy lunch? Do you
have any firm hope for us, any “holy way to Helle”?
Chorus-Leader: „Alas and ah me! I surely don‟t know where our dinner‟s coming from‟ (303-11)
Unlike Markle, it is not necessary to believe that this passage is an „aristocratic sneer‟. 31 Instead, the
joke seems to be that no juror would be so foolish as to pin all his hopes on the courts.
The one group in society for whom jury service entailed financial loss was precisely the mass of
ordinary non-leisured citizens (penetes), and yet our best source for the makeup of juries, Aristophanes,
indicates that they formed the majority of juries. The very word penes is applied to them (Ar. Vesp.463,
703, cf. Plut.553-4). In Knights and Wasps they are the faithful partisans of Cleon, the demagogue, 32
and they share his zeal in convicting the rich (Eq.1351-90, Vesp.240-5, 285-90, 575-6). Whatever the
accuracy of the charge, the key assumption is that the jurors are not affluent. 33
27
Aristophanes is not helpful. The comment of the jurors (Vesp.264-5) that rain will benefit the crops
does not necessarily imply that they are farmers, contra Rothwell (1995) 242 n. 37, but can be
interpreted as a typical „old man‟ comment, see MacDowell (1971) 168 (cf. Eccl.278-9).
28
On hostile thought towards civic pay, see pp. 82-9.
29
Podes (1993) 509-10.
30
On wage labour, see Schaps (2004) 56-7. The suggestion of Schachermeyr (1969) 27-9, 48-9 that
jury pay relieved citizen unemployment created by the importation of slaves, exaggerates the scale of
Athenian manufacturing to industrial levels.
31
Markle (1985) 267. On Aristophanes‟ attitude to jury pay see below pp. 60-5.
32
On the originally neutral meaning of demagogue, see Ostwald (1986) 201-3. It is used here in its
familiar, pejorative, sense to suggest the dislike some writers held for Cleon and subsequent „popular‟
or „democratic‟ leaders.
33
Forrest (1966) 31 recognises the difficulties facing self-employed Athenians „if the one abandoned
his stall or his vegetable patch for a day his customers would go elsewhere, the weeds grow higher‟, but
by overlooking the real indications of poverty that are attached to Aristophanes‟ jurors in Wasps he
38
Markle provides no solution to the problem of how penetes could dominate juries despite
conceding that all but the poorest Athenians would have to sacrifice half their pay to serve.34 The sheer
number of self-supporting Athenians was probably such that they participated in sufficient numbers to
still constitute a majority on juries. An additional explanation might be found in considering the
evidence for the age of fifth century jurors. Again, we must turn to Aristophanes. He explicitly refers to
jurors as being both penetes and old.35 Allowances must first be made for comic license, since
Aristophanes‟ jurors are very far from being ordinary senior citizens. In Wasps, Aristophanes has a
chorus of cantankerous veterans who turn into frenzied wasps if offended. Among them is the
irrepressible Philocleon, a „trialophile‟ (phileliastes, 88), who itches to condemn defendants and whose
last wish is to be buried under his beloved court (386). The chorus of Acharnians is almost the rural
counterpart to that of Wasps, again being composed of irascible old „Marathon-fighters‟ (178-81, 20822, 692-702).36 The jurors in Wasps are not exclusively identified with the heroes of 490 and 480/79
but boast military records that include Athens‟ subsequent imperial expeditions, including the siege of
Naxos c.467 (355). They collectively represent the generation of the Persian Wars and early empire –
the „old men‟ (gerontes/presbeis )37 – a status which allows Aristophanes to explore the social contrast
between the older generations of Athenians who forged the empire, and the present generation who
enjoy its benefits.38 There was a long-standing association between old age and wise counsel:39
Athenian men had to serve as arbitrators in their 60th year (Ath.Pol.53.4), ambassadors could be
required to be over 50 (Plut. Per.17.2, cf. Aeschin.2.108), in 413 the special commission of probouloi
were all over 40 (Ath.Pol.29.5),40 and some writers recommend giving the elderly precedence in
deliberation and judging (Aeschin.3.2, 4; Pl. Leg.873b, Resp.409b). On the other hand, there were also
rich comic possibilities in old jurors.41 No venerable Nestors are to be found in Aristophanes. His plays
naturally favour the more widespread and potentially more amusing view of old age as a time of
physical and mental decline (cf. Nub.169, 789 f., 1457, 844-6, Vesp.519-36) and as a sort of „second
childhood‟ (Nub.1417, cf. Aesch. Ag.75, 78-82).42 This can be taken literally, resulting in the comic
argues that jurors served for pleasure and are analogous to „our own town councilors, school governors,
trade-union officials‟ (33).
34
Markle (1985) 281.
35
Vesp.300-11, 342-3, 463, 703, as old see Ach.375-6, Eq. 977-8, Vesp.223-39, 395, 540-5, 1060-1100,
Pax 348-54, Lys.380, Plut.277-8. Philocleon, although a miser, is distinct from the other jurors in
Wasps for having a son who is rich enough to give him a life of luxury at home if he would only give
up judging (736-40, 1003-8). Markle (1985) 267 is wrong to suggest that Philocleon‟s colleagues might
be like him, for there is no suggestion that Philocleon is anything but an anomaly.
36
The complaint of the chorus in Acharnians (703-13) that elderly defendants are always being
convicted unfairly in the courts need not imply that jurors are younger than Aristophanes elsewhere
claims: the incongruous complaint arises by way of an extended joke about the pitiable fate of
Thucydides son of Meleisas (Ach.703-13).
37
It appears that an age of 60 or more allowed someone to be called „old‟, see Kirk (1971) 126-8.
Dover (1968) xxvi notes that Dionysius of Halicarnassus is probably engaged in some special pleading
when he says that one was only an „old man‟ after 70.
38
Ach.598-606, 676-91, Vesp.687-91, 1060-1100, cf. the old and new educations in Clouds (890-1104,
1321-1440). Dover (1974) 196-8 and Rosenbloom (2002) 295-6 suggests that that age divisions are
also class-based, the youth being branded as elite. To what extent this reflects a broader social and
cultural divide is unclear, see Crichton (1991) 69-70. Aristophanes maintains the characterisation of old
men to the point that in Lysistrata (285) some are still referring to their service at Marathon, which if
taken literally would make them centenarians.
39
Hom. Il.18.503-8, Od.2.16, 3.19 f., 4.20 f., 7.155-7; Hes. Theog.234.
40
See p. 70.
41
On which see Crichton (1991) 67-70.
42
For evidence and discussion, see Kirk (1971) 123-57.
39
reversal of age roles; in Clouds (1443 f.) Phidippides ends up assaulting his father, and in Wasps
Philocleon gets drunk and attacks bystanders while his son plays the exasperated chaperone (1122 f.).
The exclusive composition of the chorus by old men, together with Philocleon‟s claim to exercise neartyrannical power as a juror (548 f.), amusingly inverts the usual marginalisation of old men from public
life but also allows Aristophanes to emphasise the more serious point that the jurors are being duped by
Cleon‟s rhetoric. The addition of lengthy military records to the jurors in Wasps enliven the
characterisation and inspires sympathy by suggesting that while enfeebled and inferior to battle-ready
citizens, they still have fight left in them. 43 The complex function of Aristophanes‟ aged jurors does
not, however, exclude the possibility that they also parody the tendency of older citizens to serve in the
courts.
It is quite conceivable that older citizens would be attracted to jury service as an easy, entertaining
way to contribute to their households‟ income (cf. Ar. Vesp.548-630).44 All one was required to do was
walk to the courts, sit quietly, and drop a pebble into a jar. The conservatism that can be acquired with
the passing of time, and a sense of marginalisation which can accompany the transferal of political
leadership to the next generation, could also make the judgment and punishment of malefactors a
particularly attractive pastime. We are not completely reliant on Aristophanes for confirmation of our
suspicions. The conclusion of a defence speech made by a son for his 70 year-old father in the late fifth
century indicates that some of the jurors were expected to be elderly ([Lys.]20.36). It is not necessary
to imagine that the heavy presence of the old was the result of their preferential allotment to juries so as
to not reduce the numbers of fit citizens available for military service. 45 Service in the armed forces had
the attraction of superior pay, and because fifth century Athens only resorted to conscription on two
occasions at the end of the war, there would appear to have been little need for a preferential selection
of jurors. The demand for soldiers and sailors increased dramatically after 431, and in the year before
Wasps a force of 9000 had left for Mende and Scione (Thuc.4.129.2). Although such mobilisations
were seasonal and generally short-lived,46 the opportunity to earn double what jury service provided –
especially in such non-front line roles as rowers on troop transports – inevitably made jury service a
second preference for those young enough to supplement their income by these means. 47
The affect on juries of this high demand for fit adults would not have been off-set by the plague
claiming a disproportionately large number of elderly victims. Thucydides describes the plague as a
new disease (2.47.3-48.1) that killed without regard to age or health, 48 and this is consistent with the
impact of some infectious diseases on populations which have no immunological experience of them.49
There is no question of the juries being the exclusive preserve of very old men as they appear in
43
Handley (1993) 421-2. For the close association between status and military capacity in the polis,
and the suggested inferior status of old men as a result, see Crichton (1991) 70-4. The old, however,
contribute to the war effort: they formed part of a garrison force meant to guard Athens during periods
of Spartan invasion (Thuc.2.13.7) and they defeated a Corinthian force back in 457 (Thuc.1.105.4-6106.1-2).
44
MacDowell (1978) 34-5, (1995) 156-7; Sommerstein (1981) 171-2; Sinclair (1988) 127-30; Olson
(2002) 172, all see old men dominating juries.
45
Bonner (1938) 232-3.
46
Crichton (1991) 64-6.
47
Sinclair (1988) 128.
48
2.51.2-3, cf. the mortality among healthy adults serving as hoplites 2.13.6, 58.3, 3.87.3-4. Enough
skilled sailors had died by 428 to necessitate pressing metics into service for an expedition to the
Peloponnese (3.16.1).
49
Wylie (1981) 426, 443. On the identity of the plague, see Holladay (1979).
40
Aristophanes. The jurors of Wasps themselves acknowledge that others, not as old as themselves, serve
alongside them, the „drones sitting among us who have no stingers, who stay at home and feed off the
fruits of the tribute without toiling for it‟ (Vesp.1114-6). Younger men do not seen to be totally absent
from fifth century juries.50 A client of Antiphon refers to a travesty of justice which occurred in 428, at
the time of the revolt of Mytilene, which he says the older members of the jury (presbyteroi) would
remember and the younger jurors (neoteroi), men of similar age to himself, would have heard about
later (5.71). Even if the speaker has exaggerated his youth at the time of the revolt to elicit sympathy
(5.74, 75) and even if the speech was delivered in the last year of Antiphon‟s life (411), the speaker
could easily be in his 30s and the implication is therefore that some of the jurors are as well. At the
very beginning of the fourth century, Socrates in Plato‟s Apology claims that some jurors have been
poisoned against him by their elders years before, when „some of you were children and some
adolescents‟ (18c6-7). If the slandering in question is that which seems to have climaxed in the mid420s with Aristophanes‟ Clouds, then the presence of 30 and 40 year-olds may be surmised.51 The
personal nature of each of these appeals suggests the sentiment is not rhetorical cant. Demographically,
it is possible that some 750-1000 older citizens did commute to the courts regularly and thus formed a
very significant minority.52 Their presence would grow proportionally larger with the loss of younger
citizens in the war. It appears that Aristophanes has not selected an anomalous, die-hard cadre of old
„regulars‟ to stand for all jurors53 but has exaggerated the genuine liking that many older citizens had
for jury service and which had lately become more conspicuous due to the war. Although Aristophanes
chooses to stress view of old age as a time of decline, it need not be with any hostility in mind: the
alternative cultural association between old age and wisdom noted earlier meant that a higher average
age for dikasts may not have been met with disapproval by the rest of Athenian society – certainly, by
law, no one under 30 could serve as a juror.
Just as jury service was not exclusively an old man‟s sinecure, so the dikastikon was not an old
man‟s „pension‟.54 In the extended family households of Athens there were no doubt many in their 50s
and 60s who were no longer the primary breadwinners but were still working: a father for example,
might live as part of the family of his adult son and help run the family workshop. The pension analogy
also obscures the way in which any regular distribution quickly creates a wider economic network
beyond the recipients. About 27,500 citizens, less than one quarter of Athenians in 431, could serve on
50
See Crichton (1991) 62-4.
Strepsiades‟ disclosure in Clouds (863-4) that he served on a jury when his son Phidippides was 6
years old need not imply that Strepsiades was a young man at the time: at the time of his death Socrates
was 70 and had two dependant children (Pl. Ap.34d7). Similarly, there are no grounds for lowering the
age of what clearly are the very old jurors of Wasps based on the presence of their small sons. The
incongruity of so many men being recent fathers is overlooked for the sake of comic interaction
between the very old and young, MacDowell (1971) 10.
52
Hansen (1986a) 9-13, 21 applies a model life table, based on data from early modern Europe, to
Athens, on which cf. Rhodes (1988) 271-7. Combining the age group percentages with his calculation
of 60,000 citizens in 431 (see above, p. 22 n. 92), produces 27,600 citizens (46%) over 30, 13,800
(23%) over 50, and 5220 (8.7%) over 60. While approximately one third of citizens lived within 12
kms of the Pnyx, for citizens over 60 this radius should be halved to 6 kms – the distance one could be
guaranteed of arriving at the courts on time, no matter what the time of year, at a slow walking pace
(see p. 36 n. 20). Within this area, some 870 citizens over 60 could serve. If those over 50 are included,
the number of older citizens rises to 3,170. These are significant numbers if, as seems likely, the daily
average of jurors was only a few thousand. It must be stressed that these calculations are very rough,
and serve only to show the plausibility of the elderly being well-represented.
53
Contra Crichton (1991) 66-7.
54
Walker (1953a) 105; Macdowell (1971) 3, (1978) 34-5.
51
41
a jury.55 Nevertheless, the minimum age requirement would ensure that most jurors would be married
and that many would have children and even grandchildren. Most households would not have been so
well off as Bdelycleon‟s and most jurors would not, like Philocleon, have been able to treat their pay as
their own personal pocket money (Vesp.612-9). Since most jurors would have families and some, like
Philocleon, would have lived with citizen sons, there must have been thousands of Athenians who
would benefit indirectly from jury pay. At a further remove, producers of consumables and
manufactured goods benefited from the use of state revenues to cushion the impact of direct democracy
on productivity. In material terms, so many Athenian were able to eat and live a little better beyond the
few thousand who actually received pay that its abolition or reduction in aid of the war effort was an
unthinkable proposal.
The value in real terms of the fifth century dikastikon indicates that pay could allow a citizen to
participate in the judicial system without having to feed his family from his own pocket. That said, pay
did not – indeed, could not – positively attract most non-elite Athenians to take time off work. Without
providing travel allowances for those who lived far from Athens, the dikastikon did not prevent the
domination of juries by citizens of the city trittyes. Economic reality, the nature of jury service, and the
impact of the Peloponnesian War, eventually produced not the feared under-representation of ordinary
Athenians on juries but a demographic inequality of a different kind – one where the elderly served in
disproportionately large numbers. If, as is argued, the purpose of the dikastikon was not just to lift
participation but ensure that ordinary citizens were well-represented, it can be declared a qualified
success for the fifth century. It is only by keeping in mind the type of citizens who most often received
jury pay – older, ordinary men resident in Athens or its environs who were engaged in civic life – that
its political role during the war can be understood.
The Increase of 425/4
Even before the death of Pericles in 429 the economic pressures of war with Sparta had worked to
magnify the importance and the power of wealth in Athens. The intelligent expenditure of wealth,
according to Pericles, was the secret to success in war (Thuc.2.13.3, cf. 1.83.2, 6.34.2). Unrivalled
financial strength would therefore assure Athens of victory and the appropriate strategy was for the city
to trust in its walls and ships and to refuse battle with the Peloponnesian forces that had begun to
invade Attica each harvest. Instead, the enemy would be worn down by seaborne raids (Thuc.1.143.3-5,
2.13.2-5). Athens‟ vaunted financial resources were soon placed under some pressure in prosecuting
this attrition-based strategy: in the first year of the war 1370 talents were borrowed, and every year
from 433/2 to 422/1 the Hellenotamiai borrowed heavily from the sacred treasuries. 56 It was also
necessary to impose the eisphora in 428/7 after the revolt of Mytilene, perhaps for the first time
(Thuc.3.19.1).
The Periclean strategy entailed prolonged economic worry for ordinary Athenians. Nonconfrontation of the enemy meant that small farmers and great landowners alike endured the agony of
watching their homes, lands, and crops destroyed (Ar. Ach.183, 986-7, Pax 628-31). Pericles advised
those in the path of the enemy to seek shelter behind the walls of the city (Thuc.2.13.2, cf. Ar. Pax 6323). The temporary accommodation of thousands of additional inhabitants in cramped conditions and
55
56
See p. 22 n. 92.
IG i2 306, 324=i3 369=ATL.iii 341-4=ML 72=Fornara 134, see also Blamire (2001) 109-10.
42
sweltering heat posed an obvious sanitation risk and explains the ferocity of the plague which hit in 430
and again in 427-6 (Thuc.3.87.1).57 More people perished than Thucydides dares to estimate. The
sudden influx of new stomachs and the direct hit Athenian agricultural production sustained as the
result of the invasions forced up prices.58 War also brought the potentially crippling desertion of slaves
even before the Spartans established a permanent presence in Attica. 59 Among the attractions of peace
found in Acharnians (425) and Peace (421), are the return to the delights of country life, the
availability of imported goods, and plentiful supplies of local products such as honey, wine, and figs. 60
Few Athenians would have had their lives unaffected by the war. In such conditions a source of
income as easy as jury pay would be especially welcome (cf. Ar. Pax 120-1), and we may guess that
competition for a place on the jury rolls became more intense. While a juror‟s wage probably became a
more sought-after commodity, it was hardly used to ease the suffering of war refugees in general (Plut.
Per.34.4). There is no evidence that the size of the jury pool was increased and little reason for those
refugees who did not come from the northern and western parts of Attica most vulnerable to attack, to
remain in the city and enroll. The seasonal nature of the Spartan threat meant that all the invasions of
Attica were relatively brief expeditions which „had not prevented the Athenians from enjoying the use
of their land for the rest of the time‟ (Thuc.7.27.4); the invasion of 430 was unusual for being longer
than 40 days (Thuc.2.57.2), the shortest (425) lasted only 15 days and no invasion at all took place in
429 (2.71.2) or 426 (3.89.1). It was only for a few weeks of the year that most refugees came to
Athens,61 and then only those who lived in the enemy‟s line of march and who did not prefer to seek
shelter in remoter areas. The war did not, therefore, turn formerly contented farmers into embittered
jurors (pace Ar. Pax 348).62
It was during the war that the scholium on Wasps 88(a) (cf. Thuc.4.27-8) says Cleon increased the
rate of jury pay – the only known increase in its history63 – to 3 ob p.d. when he was serving as a
general.64 In addition to being the leading politician in post-Periclean Athens, Cleon served as general
at two different periods (425/4, 422/1). The references to 3 ob in Knights (51, 255-6, 797-800, cf.
Phrynichus KA70) show that pay had risen by the Lenea of February 424 and that the generalship
mentioned by the scholiast must be Cleon‟s first. The departure of Cleon for Pylos as general in early
57
On living conditions, see Thuc.2.17; Ar. Ach.71-2, Eq.792-4, cf. Eccl.243-5. On the plague in
general, see Thuc.2.47-54, esp. 52.2; Diod.12.45.2-4, 58.2-7; Plut. Per.34.3-4, Nic.6.3.
58
There are few indications of how much prices rose, but Aristophanes often refers to higher costs cf.
Ach.758, Eq.407, 644-5, 676-83, 896-7, Nub.56-7, Vesp.252, Pax 253-4.
59
Ar. Eq.19-29, Nub.451, Pax 451, cf. Thuc. 4.118.7.
60
Ach.759-61, 873-94, 1085-1142, Pax 531, 571-81, 715-8, 999-1005, 1144-51, 1312-5, 1357-9.
61
The extended years of exile country folk endure according to Aristophanes (Ach.266-7, Eq.792-4) are
exaggerations which stress wartime hardships, Markle (1990) 156.
62
This line from Peace forms part of the farmers‟ joyous reaction to the return of peace; „You will no
longer find me a bitter and angry juror‟ (θοὐθέη᾽ ἄλ κ᾽ εὕροης δηθαζηὴλ δρηκὺλ οὐδὲ δύζθοιολ). If an
interpretation is desired which saves Aristophanes from great distortion, one possibility is that because
the war (temporarily) trapped farmers in the city, being a juror is used as a metaphor for someone who
lives in or very near Athens.
63
There is no further evidence for the claim of Photius s.v. tetropolizon that the dikastikon was at one
time 4 ob.
64
θηιοδηθαζηής. ἦζαλ δὲ ἡιηαζηαὶ ηὸλ ἀρηζκὸλ θ´. ἐδίδοηο δὲ αὐηοῖς τρόλολ κέλ ηηλα δύο ὀβοιοὶ,
ὕζηερολ δὲ Κιέωλ ζηραηεγήζας ηρηώβοιολ ἐποίεζελ ἀθκάδοληος ηοῦ ποιέκοσ ηοῦ πρὸς
Λαθεδαηκολίοσς (Rav. MS) (cf. scholia for Vesp.300, Av.1541e, Ran.140).
43
July 425 and his victorious return within 20 days (Thuc.4.39.3, cf. Plut. Nic.7.2-4) allows the dating to
be narrowed to the second half of 425 and the very start of 424.65
Athens, and Cleon, achieved a stunning success at Pylos by securing a toehold in the Peloponnese
and capturing 120 Spartiates. Spartan prestige had been dealt a humiliating blow and Athens now had
hostages to prevent any future invasions of Attica (Thuc.4.41.1). The loss of Pylos, on top of Cythera,
seriously rattled Spartan confidence (Thuc. 4.55). Even if the impression in some quarters was that
Cleon, the leading politician in Athens after the death of Pericles, had fallen on his feet, his success was
spectacular enough to earn him free meals at the Prytaneum (e.g. Ar. Eq.281, 709, 766, 1404-5),
privileged theatre seating (Eq.702), and later re-election as general (Thuc.5.2.1). It seems the tribute
reassessment of 425/4 (IG i3 71=ATL.iii 70-80=ML 69=Fornara 136) was proposed soon after Cleon‟s
return in order to capitalise on his newly-won prestige.66 425/4 was, after all, not a normal assessment
year.67 The decree raised projected tribute revenues from what were at most 800 talents 68 to 1460-1500
talents a year – a leap so large as to be well in excess of inflation.69 The ambitious target was not quite
reached (Aeschin.2.175; Andoc.3.9; Plut. Arist.24.5) and actual tribute amounted to around 1000
talents.70 The increased revenue would nevertheless help to fund the war effort (now evidently being
paid out of the tribute, IG i3 71.38, 45-6), to repay with interest the 5600 talents in loans taken out by
423/2 (IG i2 306, 324=i3 369=ML 72=Fornara 134), and to find at least 15 additional talents each year
to pay the jurors their extra obol.71 At the end of 425 Cleon found himself with the requisite political
and anticipated capital to lift the dikastikon. The war, it seemed, might soon be brought to an end on
terms favourable to Athens. It is difficult to find another time in the war when Athens would be willing
to allocate so much money to non-military spending.
The increase in the dikastikon, like its introduction, does not permit of a single explanation. It was
first a celebratory payment at a time of general confidence (Thuc.4.65.4), albeit one with a serious
political purpose. A higher wage would not only work to boost domestic morale and whet appetites
with the prospect of future riches (Ar. Vesp.798-800), but make a declaration to both Sparta and the
subject allies of Athens‟ continuing financial strength.72 For Cleon himself, a higher dikastikon
performed a more defensive function as a war-allowance. His core constituency seems to have been the
thetes who served as paid rowers in the fleet and who had therefore benefited from the continuation of
the war (cf. Vesp.910). They were often however, in their thousands, absent on sometimes lengthy
campaigns and therefore cut off from the assembly and courts. Earlier discussions point out the special
65
See Kallet-Marx (1993) 191-4. When precisely Cleon returned depends ultimately on the date on
which the Spartans launched their 425 invasion of Attica, based on Thucydides 4.1.1. Wade-Gery
(1936) prefers mid-September for Cleon‟s homecoming, more likely is Gomme, HCT.iii 478 who
suggests late July to early August. For discussion see ML 194-6.
66
Cleon had pledged to return in 20 days and there is an intense desire in the decree that matters should
be put to a vote on the second day after the return of an unnamed expedition (probably Cleon‟s) on pain
of stiff penalties for the prytanes (lines 34 f.).
67
The proposer of the decree, Thudippus, was a relative of Cleon, see Wade-Gery (1936) 392 n. 36.
68
Meiggs, AE 325.
69
Meritt (1934) 88-90.
70
ATL.iii 345; Meiggs, AE 332.
71
See appendix B, p. 108. Plutarch, for what he is worth here, connects the reassessment with the need
of demagogues to raise cash to satisfy the people‟s hunger for „spectacular entertainments, and for the
erection of images and sanctuaries‟ (Arist.24.3). Interest in improving imperial revenue was not new: in
426 the decree of Cleonymus, another one of Cleon‟s supporters (Ar. Vesp.592-3), had sought to ensure
that the allies would in future pay their tribute in full (IG I3 68=ML 68=Fornara 133).
72
Kallet-Marx (1993) 170, 191-3 argues the symbolism of the decree proved to be more important than
its actual efficacy in raising tribute, hence the decree‟s absence from Thucydides.
44
political attraction of an increase in jury pay: it would help combat war-weariness among a far greater
number of Athens than the jurors who received it, and at the same time directly target those citizens
who were most willing and able to involve themselves in mass decision making. 73 In the aftermath of
the first Spartan invasion in 430, Plutarch (Per.34.2) claims Pericles eased discontent by distributions
of money and land. This way of currying favour is also contrasted by Plutarch (Nic.2) with the personal
largesse favoured by the very wealthy Nicias (cf. Davies, APF 403-4), who appears as the leading
conservative politician of post-Periclean Athens and as Cleon‟s main opponent. Nicias was not „old
money‟ but the use of public money by an eloquent politician against the benefactions of a wealthier,
more staid leader instantly recalls the circumstances in which the dikastikon was introduced.74 One
must refrain from drawing an uncritical parallel, yet with his recent acquisition of military glory that
had hitherto belonged only to Nicias, Cleon may well have looked to Pericles‟ example and appreciated
that increasing the dikastikon would again reduce the competitive advantage a seasoned general was
enjoying through personal resources.
While political symbolism and opportunism seem to have dictated the timing of the increase, there
was also a long-standing economic need for a 3 ob dikastikon. The detailed catalogue of wages
assembled by Loomis indicates that the 1-2 ob rise in wages detectable between the middle and end of
the fifth century had already occurred by the start of the war, perhaps due to the influx of tribute. 75 By
431 military pay and pay for officials such as inspectors of the water supply (IG i3 49.3-7), and a little
later (422) the prosecutor of cases arising from official audits (synegoros) (Ar. Vesp.691),76 had all
risen to 6 ob. The increase of 425/4 was then „overdue‟ by some years and was necessary if the relative
level of remuneration was to be maintained. The findings of Loomis also lead to the counter-intuitive
conclusion that wages did not increase as a result of war-time inflationary factors. If wages during the
Archidamian War were relatively stable, it should be noted that most known wage data are for state
wages and these wages may not have respond rapidly to changes in the private market. Inflation may,
for example, have continued to drive wages up in the private market in the first years of the war while
the state was reluctant to make corresponding increases to its own wages in wartime. One additional
obol might have been less than what was required to maintain the real value of the dikastikon, but it
crucially made survival in a wartime economy easier.
The Politics of Pay and Aristophanes
The political consequences of the dikastikon increase stretch beyond Cleon‟s post-Pylos political
honeymoon and go to the heart of his chosen political persona of popular champion and financial
manager in times of adversity. The war elevated the temperature of political debate in Athens (cf.
Ath.Pol.27.2, Arist. Pols.1319a20-39) and earned Pericles the fiercest criticism of his career
73
Paphlagon/Cleon in Knights, boasts how Pylos silenced his enemies (Eq.843-6), but he is
nevertheless attacked for throwing away an ideal opportunity for peace at the time of Pylos (792-6, cf.
1388-95, Thuc.4.21.2-22.3, 4.41.3-4; Philoch. FGrH 328 F128a-b). The timing of the dikastikon would
also allow Cleon to guard against any resentment among his supporters over what, with some
hindsight, seemed to have been his pointless intransigence.
74
Plutarch (Nic.4.1) attributes Nicias‟ largesse, as he does for Cimon, to something other than a desire
for political power – in this case piety. The overt parallel with Pericles-Cimon may suggest the use of
Theopompus by Plutarch in this chapter, see Connor (1968) 35.
75
Loomis, WWCI 240, 243.
76
Ibid., 76-86.
45
(Thuc.2.22.2, 59). Cleon seems to have been at the forefront of the attacks, rising to prominence by
railing against Pericles for cowardice (Hermippus KA47=Plut. Per.33.6-7). After the death of Pericles
in 429 it was Cleon who „had by far the greatest influence with the people‟ (Thuc.3.36.6, cf. 4.21.3).
Symbolically, an Athenian received more than a day‟s sustenance when he received civic pay. As
pointed out in the first chapter (pp. 30-1), he also received a dividend – a tangible stake in the
prosperity of his city. The increase in jury pay enhanced this stake yet further at a time when financial
issues had assumed an unprecedented level of importance as a result of the war effort. That aspect of
jury pay which receives the most attention in the sources is its significance to the political leadership of
the 420s. The potential of jury pay to change the way the demos and its leaders interacted, and in the
process to open a divide between rich and poor, had never been fully realised during Pericles‟
leadership. Cleon‟s greater willingness to engage in divisive politics allowed him to cultivate political
support from those Athenians who chiefly benefited from the dikastikon.77
We are almost completely dependent on the comedies of Aristophanes, especially Knights (424)
and Wasps (422), for evidence of Cleon‟s political manipulation of the dikastikon and for popular
attitudes towards jury pay. All the extant plays form barely a quarter of Aristophanes‟ output over his
50-year career, and Aristophanes was in turn one of many poets who collectively wrote hundreds of
comedies in the course of the fifth century. 78 Fortunately, in Knights and Wasps and to a lesser extent
Acharnians and Peace, we probably have the best dramatic evidence that ever existed for jury pay. The
survival of the plays is due to the high regard in which Aristophanes‟ Attic Greek would later be held,
but the poet‟s success in his own lifetime was more a question of his incisive observation of the
contemporary world and creative skill. If, moreover, there is one period for which we would most like
to have evidence for the dikastikon, it is precisely the first few years after 425/4, one of the most
important periods for the study both of jury pay and the democracy.
The problems of using dramatic texts as historical sources cannot be ignored. At the start of this
chapter it was noted that Aristophanes preserves a good deal of prosaic information that is credible
because it is not inherently funny. More caution is required when analysing the substance of the plays.
Aristophanes, like a fun-house mirror, reflects but also distorts reality. Are obvious distortions made
with no other purpose in mind than irreverent entertainment? Aristophanes often declares that it is his
intention to offer more than pure entertainment and „to say much that is humorous and much that is
serious‟ (Ran.391-2), and thereby improve the polis as the friend of the demos either through
commentary on contemporary issues or democratically-spirited ridicule of the high and mighty. 79 Old
77
Thus, in its timing Rosenbloom (2004b) 353 observes how the dikastikon represents more than an
isolated victory of money over largesse, but „expresses not so much a historical as a cultural fact‟, that
is, that Athens was transitioning to a new breed of politician and a new style of politics, both dominated
by money.
78
For example, politics must have dominated Plato Comicus‟ Hyperbolus and Cleophon.
79
For Aristophanes‟ claims to give sound advice: Ach.499-501, 629-64, Eq.510-1, Nub.591-4, Vesp.64,
1015-7, Pax 751-60, Ran.686-705, 734-7, 1008-10, cf. Cratinus KA52; as crusader against the enemies
of the demos: Vesp.1030-43, Pax 752-61, esp. Cleon, Vesp.1029-43, Pax 752-60. For a full collection
of such references, see Sommerstein (1992) 27-30 (=Sommerstein (2009) 116-35). The ongoing debate
over the ultimate „seriousness‟ of Aristophanic comedy also requires attention. That Aristophanes
meant to make sincere political points seems clear to me, pace Gomme (1938) who equates
Aristophanes‟ inconsistency with impartiality, and Heath (1987), (1997). Heath (1987) 18-21, (1997)
239 explains the claims to give advice (with the exception of Ran.686-705) as tongue-in-cheek –
believing that the plays are pure entertainment with only tenuous links to reality (cf. Halliwell (1993)
337-8). Halliwell (1993), esp. 335 f., makes the valid point that comedy will not always strive for
topicality. In response to Heath however, it should also be noted that fantasy and humour, including
46
comedy blends playful, celebratory laughter meant for communal release with elements of antagonistic
„consequential‟ laughter.80 If we wish to know what the plays „say‟ about the politics of pay, the
challenge is to distinguish „playful‟ laughter from „consequential‟ laughter on the basis of comparative
evidence, the presentation of individual characters, and the context in which the lines are delivered.
When meaning is to be conveyed, humour can be an effective technique of persuasion. Humour
unobtrusively circumvents obstacles to serious discussion of a delicate subject. To manage this
communication successfully – and both Knights and Wasps probably won first place at their respective
festivals – a poet must mobilise the shared values and attitudes of his audience. This immediately
imposes limits on the degree of festive licence enjoyed by the poet, for the problems the plays highlight
are never blamed on any inherent inadequacies of the demos (cf. [Xen.] Ath.pol. 2.18), but merely a
failure of Athenians to live up to their own standards. A situation can then always be rectified if only
the demos would listen to its better angels, and the poet. The poet‟s choices reflect distinctively
conservative values: the country is idealised in contrast to the city, both rich Athenians and Sparta are
treated mildly, and there is plenty of nostalgia for an earlier, better Athens led by the well-born and
well-healed rather than the vicious, uneducated, and corrupt demagogues of the present. 81 At the same
time, the indecorous ribaldry and slapstick of the plays indicate that the audience was not
predominately wealthy but must have contained many ordinary citizens, including jurors and partisans
of Cleon.82 It then appears that the traditional values and the vision of an inward-looking democracy led
by the kaloi kagathoi espoused by Aristophanic comedy still had broad resonance. The plays do not
surreptitiously subvert the democracy but are artifacts of cultural negotiation between two versions of
democratic life in the polis, revealing divisions in order to heal them and mediate conflict. 83 The plays
self-mockery, do not rob a play of real-world relevance and topicality but can serve as the vehicles for
serious comment. The other recurrent objection to there being serious political intent is a lack of
discernable political impact, yet Cleon was not prepared to laugh at Aristophanes‟ jibes as
inconsequential (cf. Ach.377-82 and schol. Ach.378 on Aristophanes‟ prosecution by Cleon) and during
the Samian War some restriction was placed on comedy (Ach.377-82, 502-3, schol. Ach.67), see
Henderson (1990) 288-290, 301-3; Halliwell (1991a), esp. 64 f., on comedy‟s cultural „licence‟. For the
Athenians, votes in the assembly never equated to the unreserved endorsement of a politician or all his
policies: many citizens may have disliked Cleon but could not deny he had succeeded at Pylos and
thought him the best of a bad bunch. For a refutation of the scepticism espoused by Heath, see
Henderson (1990) 271-5. I set aside the question raised by Silk (2000) 301-49 as to whether political
commentary in itself was Aristophanes‟ chief goal, as argued by de Ste Croix (1972) 355-71, Edmunds
(1987) 59-66, MacDowell (1995) 3-6, 33-4, and most forcefully by Henderson (1990) 307-13. Silk is
right to note that while „some argumentative blows, inevitably, are struck‟ (337) the curious
discontinuities and recreative elements in plot are not satisfactorily explained under the rubric of
„political satire‟. For Silk, political satire is a means to the end of writing an exuberant „comedy of
possibilities‟ with an authority drawn from tragedy, cf. Reckford (1987) 219-32.
80
Halliwell (1991b) 292-6.
81
See Rosenbloom (2002) for the way fifth century drama, especially comedy, denies cultural
validation to the new wealth elite. On the „vision‟ of democracy in Aristophanes, see Sommerstein
(2005) (=Sommerstein (2009) 204-22).
82
Aristophanes mentions farmers, merchants, carpenters, and craftsmen at the Dionysia (Pax 295-9).
There were far fewer foreigners at the Lenaea (cf. Ach.502-8). Theatre audiences could be 3 times
larger than the assembly and could also attract citizens with little interest in politics. Poorer citizens,
however, may have been discouraged if attendance incurred a fee. Audiences are still likely to have
been mainly citizen, urban, and non-elite (though not necessarily overwhelmingly thetic). The upperclass may well have been a significant minority. On the composition of audiences see Walcot (1971);
MacDowell (1995) 13-6; Henderson (1998) 19-21.
83
Ober (1990) 249. Failure to recognise this attitudinal common ground (and a belief in the
homogeneity within classes/social groups) is one of the flaws of de Ste Croix (1972) 355-71 in his
discussion of the jury courts in Aristophanes. The discussion of de Ste Croix prompts the question of
47
were, after all, publicly funded and staged at civic festivals which served as celebrations of the polis. It
is impossible to know to what extent the demos approved of any statement or joke made about jury pay,
but it can at least be said that the presence of an idea indicates it was not utterly unacceptable to most
Athenians. The limits of comedic discourse, in other words, cannot exist too far outside those of public
discourse. The especially heavy criticism Aristophanes directs against Cleon and the dikastikon when
bouletic pay, the boule itself, the assembly, and the magistracies, all escape unscathed, may hold
interesting implications for popular attitudes towards jury pay.
Aristophanes provides two key insights into public understandings of the dikastikon based on what
he assumes his audience does, and does not, know. Here we return to Bdelycleon‟s calculation of the
cost of pay (Vesp.655-63), and his conclusion: „Our total income from all this is nearly two thousand
talents. Now set aside the annual payment to the jurors…We get, I reckon, a sum of one hundred and
fifty talents‟. For 150 talents to be correct all 6000 jurors would have to be paid 300 days out of the
354-day civil year. 2000 talents is likewise an overly optimistic for the total revenue of Athens. 84
Domestic revenue was approximately 400 talents in 431 and that from the empire around 600 talents
(Thuc.2.13.3). If tribute revenues rose to around 1000 talents after 425/4,85 then revenue approached
1500 talents at most. A difference of 500 talents is surely too much to be „nearly‟ 2000. The inflation
of the figures in the passage is meant to stress that the cost of pay, while vast in isolation, is still a
relatively small expenditure overall. 86 That Aristophanes enacted this manipulation indicates that most
of the audience did not have a precise idea of just how much revenue Athens enjoyed, let alone how
much was spent on jury pay. If the audience possessed such information, the argument of Bdelycleon
would lose credibility, and there is no reason why Aristophanes would wish that here. Every Athenian
knew that 3 ob was not a princely sum, but Aristophanes‟ desire to put the cost of jury pay in
perspective suggests that what estimates did exist of the relative spending on the dikastikon were
excessive – a misbelief perhaps propagated by Cleon. The amusement of the passage taken as a whole
resides in the way it turns the confident financial rhetoric associated with Cleon against him by
showing how little his recent munificence actually amounted to in real terms. While the figures
Bdelycleon uses to persuade his father are inflated, they are not excessively high. It is because of this
relatively moderate exaggeration that the argument for jury pay being a proportionally small
expenditure seems quite plausible.87 Bdelycleon is right to say that his father (and the audience) have
no need of counting pebbles to check his calculation (Vesp.655-6) – what is really needed is more
information. The plausibility of Bdelycleon at this point in the discussion is in contrast to his
subsequent claims that the other 90% of revenue is being pocketed by political leaders (667 f.) and that
how a play like Wasps won first (possibly second) prize if only the aristocracy found his jokes about
the courts funny (362). For Aristophanes‟ efforts to bridge class divides see Edmunds (1987) 39-49.
84
Sommerstein (1983) 265, hazards a defence of 2000 talents as accurate.
85
ATL.iii 345; Meiggs, AE 332.
86
See Papageorgiou (2004) 527.
87
The accuracy of the final conclusion is always overlooked: Philocleon exclaims that jury pay
„doesn‟t even amount to a tenth of the revenue‟ (664). In the calculations of Bdelycleon, it amounts to
7.5% – a high figure but still within the possible range for the post-425/4 cost of jury pay established
above (3.2-8%, p. 34). Aristophanes may simply have invented the figures of 150 talents and 2000
talents, but it is also possible that he has taken what were actual or estimated figures for jury pay (100
talents) and annual revenue (1500 talents) and increased both by one third. One might go so far as to
say that Aristophanes first tried to calculate what was actually being spent on pay to make his
exaggeration seem as credible as possible.
48
there are 1000 cities in the empire which can support 20 Athenians each in luxury (707). 88 Both of
these statements would immediately be recognised as fabrications by anyone who knew Athens was at
war and by anyone who had attended the Dionysia and seen the allies present their tribute. Here,
Aristophanes seems to have aimed for the most plausible exaggeration possible. The reason seems to be
that even if a spectator remained sceptical of Bdelycleon‟s argument, he would at least be given a
demonstration of how financial rhetoric, like that concerning the dikastikon, can be brought to bear on
both sides of an issue.89
On the question of how pay is funded Aristophanes does not shape popular understandings but
reflects them. Once more, these understandings appear indistinct and politically influenced. PseudoXenophon (Ath.pol.1.16), probably writing before Aristophanes, cites „the Athenians‟ as saying that the
jurors are completely paid out of legal deposits (prytaneia).90 Revenue from deposits alone would have
been too small for this to be possible: 3 dr were required for a case involving 100-1000 dr and 30 dr for
a case over 1000 dr. The deposit was also payable by the defendant in the event of conviction
(Poll.8.38, cf. Isoc.18.3; Dem.47.64).91 The notion of judicial self-sufficiency based on deposits can be
dismissed as democratic apologia, perhaps aimed at countering the objections of the allies, and it is
doubtful that the additional income from fines and confiscated property (for which prosecutors might
urge conviction, Ar. Eq.1359-60) was enough to make up the shortfall. This notion of self-sufficiency
is virtually absent from Aristophanes. When Cleon declares that he caters for the jurors by initiating
prosecutions (Eq.256, 800, 1018-9) he means he provides jurors with opportunities to receive pay by
increasing their workload. An apparent reference to the idea that the courts paid for themselves is,
however, found in the first parabasis of Wasps. Here the jurors first brag that „we‟re resourceful in
making a living, too: we sting everybody and so provide our daily pay‟ (πάληα γὰρ θεληοῦκελ ἄλδρα
θἀθπορίδοκελ βίολ) (1112-3). This implies the revenue of defendants‟ legal deposits, and the fines and
confiscations which could attend conviction. The jurors then appear to contradict themselves when they
link pay with tribute in a way that seems to exclude any other source of funding:
There are drones sitting among us who have no stingers, who stay at home and feed off the fruits
of the tribute without toiling for it. And we‟re nettled if some draft dodger gulps down our pay,
when in defence of this country he‟s never raised an oar, a lance, or a blister. No, I think that from
now on any citizen, bar none, who doesn‟t have a stinger should not be paid three obols. 92 (111421 cf. drones in Hes. Theog.596-600)
88
cf. Ath.Pol.24.3 „more than twenty thousand men were supported from the tribute, the taxes, and the
allies‟ (p. 11) – hinting, perhaps, that Aristophanes served as a source for this passage.
89
A similar purpose is served by the specious rhetoric in the subsequent mock-trial (907-96). Reckford
(1987) 278-81 points out how honest Wasps is in revealing the trickery of Bdelycleon and not just that
of Cleon. The comedy as result is not manipulative or coercive but didactic.
90
cf. Ar. Vesp.659; Thuc.6.91.7; Poll.8.38; Phot. s.v. prytaneia; L.S. 192.17-8, 291.15-6.
91
On any reckoning, the combination of variables required to generate the minimum 45 talents in
deposits needed for pay after 425/4 mandates a highly unlikely scenario – for example, 45 talents
would be raised if the whole jury pool (6000 men) sat 100 days a year and in 15 juries of 400 to hear
around 4 suits a day contesting at least 1000 dr (cf. Ath.Pol.53.3) with a 50% conviction rate.
Andreades (1933) 368 more reasonably suggests that the revenue from legal deposits was reserved to
contribute towards jury pay.
92
ἀιιὰ γὰρ θεθῆλες ἡκῖλ εἰζηλ ἐγθαζήκελοη οὐθ ἔτοληες θέληρολ, οἳ κέλοληες ἡκῶλ ηοῦ θόροσ
ηὸλ γόλολ θαηεζζίοσζηλ οὐ ηαιαηπωρούκελοη. ηοῦηο δ´ἔζη´ἄιγηζηολ ἡκῖλ, ἤλ ηης ἀζηράηεσηος ὢλ
ἐθροθῇ ηὸλ κηζζὸλ ἡκῶλ, ηῆζδε ηῆς τώρας ὕπερ κήηε θώπελ κήηε ιόγτελ κήηε θιύθηαηλαλ ιαβώλ.
ἀιιά κοη δοθεῖ ηὸ ιοηπὸλ ηῶλ ποιηηῶλ ἔκβρατσ ὅζηης ἂλ κὴ ‟τῃ ηὸ θέληρολ κὴ θέρεηλ ηρηώβοιολ.
49
The apparent contradiction here cannot be resolved by stretching ἐθπορίδω (1113) to mean „earn‟
rather than „provide‟ because jurors were paid whether they convicted or not, and lines 114-21 prove
the jurors know that the supply of pay is a matter of tribute being paid, not defendants being
condemned. The confusion is heightened by the sting initially appearing as an attribute of all jurors but
then only of those jurors who have fought for Athens. 93 It might be possible to reconcile the two
passages on the basis that the extension of Athenian legal jurisdiction over the empire meant that
subject allies had to bring some of their legal business to Athens, but the attribution of pay to „the fruits
of the tribute‟ and not „the fruits of the empire‟ seems to exclude this interpretation as well. It may
simply be that the image of wasps stinging for their supper was so attractive that Aristophanes ignored
the difficulty.94 That such inconsistency is possible within a few lines indicates that alternative
explanations for the funding of pay co-existed.
The parabasis shows that the belief reported by Pseudo-Xenophon had not entirely disappeared by
the 420s, but there is otherwise little doubt that the majority of audiences believed that tribute partially
or completely funded jury pay.95 Tribute contributes to jury pay in Bdelycleon‟s calculation (Vesp.65563). When set against the controversy aroused by spending the tribute on public buildings in Athens in
the 440s (Plut. Per.12, 14), Aristophanes indicates that within 20 years Athenians had come to accept
as perfectly legitimate the expenditure of tribute on domestic needs. Pericles had allegedly defended
the use of tribute for the Acropolis in the 440s by claiming that the allies contributed nothing but
money and left Athens to do all the fighting (Plut. Per.12.3).96 Pseudo-Xenophon comments (again,
with exaggeration) that „the rabble thinks it more advantageous for each one of the Athenians to
possess the resources of the allies and the allies themselves to possess only enough for survival‟
(Ath.pol.1.15). Aristophanes confirms that the logic of financial domination had indeed progressed to
its logical conclusion; Athenians have a right to use the tribute however they saw fit by virtue of their
military accomplishments and toil in preserving the empire (cf. Thuc.1.73-8, 6.82.4-83.2). The
dikastikon itself was „rowed and battled and sieged‟ into existence (Vesp.684-5, cf. 700-1, 707-11,
1091-100). Aristophanes bears witness to a new stage in Athenian thinking about wealth; one in which
power, empire, and democracy were intimately connected in a single ideological construct through the
flow of money. A plentiful supply of money was necessary both for the maintenance of Athenian
power and Athenian democracy. It was therefore in the material interest of the demos not just to keep
Athens strong but to maintain the empire at all costs.97
The new development also changed the symbolism of the dikastikon itself. The emergence of
tyrannies and the preservation of tyrannic power were closely associated with money in the Greek
imagination – without plentiful funds tyrants could not pay their bodyguards, distract the people with
93
MacDowell (1971) 275 notes the contradiction without explanation.
The way in which wasps can be seen packed tight into their nests like jurors sitting on bleachers
(Vesp.1111), and perhaps the perceived greater aggressiveness of wasps, explains Aristophanes‟
characterisation of jurors as wasps rather than bees (cf. Pl. Phd.82a10-b8).
95
Vesp.684-5, 1098-100, cf. Eq.797-9; Thuc.6.24.3.
96
In the Chalcis decree of 446 (IG I3 39.26=ML 52) the tribute is already described as Athenian
property.
97
Kallet-Marx (1994). As Kallet (2001) 200-3, she notes instances of Athens separating political
control from the payment of tribute (Thuc.4.57.4, 5.18.5), and suggests that by the Peloponnesian War
Athens primarily conceived of the empire as a source of wealth.
94
50
wars, and enjoy a life of extravagant indulgence.98 The vast power and wealth of the demos sees its rule
likened to a tyranny.99 The observation of von Reden that the tyrannical use of money is typically
„introverted‟ in the sense that tyrannies re-invest wealth to stabilise their power (Thuc.1.13.1, 17),
immediately recalls the use the demos has made of civic pay and suggests that the dikastikon itself
added to the image of demos tyrannos.100 Pay meant that trials themselves acted out the imperial
domination of the demos over its subject allies: Psuedo-Xenophon talks of allied litigants debasing
themselves and flattering the demos in the same way that the elite of Athens fawn over Philocleon in
Wasps ([Xen.] Ath.pol.1.18; Ar. Vesp.552-4). The dikastikon continued to distinguish citizen from noncitizen and reiterate the equal membership in the polis of its recipients, but via Aristophanes we find it
acquiring a new level of cultural significance as proof that Athenian citizens were now rulers of other
poleis with an entitlement to enjoy the wealth of their subjects. This symbolism was also of practical
value: the dikastikon was not just a symbolic „share‟ of the polis, but the dividend of Athens‟ imperial
enterprise, the distribution of which fostered cohesion and the outward projection of power. 101
The intriguing aspect of the axiomatic connection between pay and empire is its lack of basis in
reality. The dikastikon was the responsibility of the kolakretai (Ar. Vesp.695, 724, Av.1541 with
scholia),102 who paid jurors out of the public treasury (demosion) with domestic revenue and not out of
the tribute managed by the Hellenotamiai. The more plausible argument is never found that tribute
indirectly provides pay by freeing up domestic spending. Kallet ascribes the artificial association and
the final conceptual shift in Athenian attitudes towards tribute to the efforts of political leaders like
Cleon and Hyperbolus. The reputation of both men as war-mongers and aggressive imperialists is on
show in Aristophanes, and like all else about their comic personalities, may ultimately be inspired by
their own public rhetoric.103 Cleon in particular may have disseminated the idea that the empire footed
the bill for the dikastikon because this claim would work to maintain consensus and support for the
aggressive prosecution of the war against an enemy who wished to „liberate‟ the allies from Athens
(Thuc.2.8.4).104 The spectacular promises of Paphlagon (a thinly disguised caricature of Cleon) suggest
98
Plut. Sol.14; Soph. Ant.1056; Hdt.1.61, 3.125.2; Thuc.1.13.1; Isoc.2.4, L. 7.1, 6; Xen. Hier.4.11,
Cyr.1.2.13, Mem.4.2.38, Symp.4.36-7, 6; Pl. Grg.466c, Resp.344a-c, 8.566, 9.574d; Ath.Pol.15.2, 16.24, 9; Arist. Pols.1311a2-12; Ephorus FGrH 70 F115 and F176; Poll.9.83. For Aristotle, successful
tyrants are sound financial managers (Pols.1314a30-b18; 1315a1-10). Andrewes (1963) 108-9
suggested Pisistratus as Aristotle‟s inspiration in these chapters, but the material is more likely to be the
product of Aristotle‟s own theorising and general observations drawn from history and so could not
have influenced contemporary perceptions of Pericles. On tyrants, especially the Pisistratids, and
money, see Andreades (1933) 110-24; Andrewes (1963) 100-15.
99
Thuc.2.63.2, 3.37.2; Ar. Eq.1111-4, 1330, 1333; Arist. Pols.1291b30-1292a38, cf. 1319b26-33. See
Kallet (2003).
100
von Reden (1997) 172, cf. Aristotle (Eth.Nic.1119b20-1124a15) where the liberal man is positively
identified as someone who does not spend money for his own benefit.
101
Finley (1973b) 48.
102
Treasurers responsible for all domestic expenditures. On the kolakretai, see also Suda s.v.
kolakretai; L.S. 190.15, 275.22-4. They served for one prytany under the auspices of the boule
(Poll.8.97), which exercised general supervision over Athenian finance. For the history and etymology
of kolakretes („ham-collector‟) see Andreades (1933) 370 n. 4; ATL.iii 360-4; Rhodes, CAAP 139-40.
For examples of their other expenditures, Rhodes (1972a) 102 n. 5.
103
Cleon: Eq.792-6 (cf. Thuc.4.21.3, 22.2), 1089, 1388-95, Pax 262 cf. Thuc.5.16.1. Hyperbolus: Ar.
Eq. 300-15 cf. 174, Pax 918-21 cf. Thuc.6.34.2. Cleon first appears in the sources abusing Pericles for
not being tough enough towards Sparta (Hermippus KA47). On the possible advocacy of the conquest
of Sicily as early as 427, see Thuc.3.86.4-5, cf. 4.60.1, 65.3.
104
Kallet-Marx (1994) 247-8. There is no evidence that this close linkage between civic pay and the
empire soured elite attitudes towards the latter cf. Phrynichus, Thuc.8.48.4-7 with Hornblower, CT.iii
895-901.
51
this propaganda also had a positive aspect: that just as defeat or revolt would threaten pay, so victory
and conquest will eventually see the demos judge cases in Arcadia on 5 ob a day (Eq.798-9, cf. 1089).
This was doubtless the lesson Cleon sought to impart by announcing in the wake of Pylos that jury pay
would rise by 1 ob. This act now appears to be more than the opportunistic conflation of financial and
military policy seen earlier in this chapter; it was in reality a fortuitous illustration of the hitherto purely
abstract link between military success and the provision of pay. 105 The extent of the misinformation on
the precise funding of pay is but one illustration of the inherent power wielded by leaders who
articulated policy under the guise of credible financial skill. Aristophanes himself takes the link
between tribute and pay for granted, not the least because it was difficult to disprove. The reality that
tribute revenues had preceded the introduction of pay left open the question (answered in the fourth
century) of whether Athens could afford to pay jurors without the empire. By yoking pay and empire
together via tribute, Cleon managed to exploit the tangible stake the dikastikon gave Athenians in the
financial strength of their city and to deploy pay as a political weapon in furtherance of the war.
Aristophanes focuses most of his creative energies on highlighting the abuse of the dikastikon as a
tool of domestic political control.106 Since the wealth of the polis and the empire belonged by right to
the demos, both the Sausage Seller in Knights and Bdelycleon in Wasps claim that the demos, distracted
by pathetic rewards like the dikastikon, is being cheated by leaders who reap the real rewards of
empire. The allies know the demagogues are in charge, rather than the half-starved and dim-witted
demos, and so ply the former with luxuries (Vesp.665-79). In Knights the same idea is related via a
domestic allegory in which the fawning Paphlagon, servant to Demos, keeps his old master ignorant of
his rampant pilfering with fawning behaviour and meager handouts (Eq.47-53, 215-6, 716-8, 789,
1218-1223, cf. Vesp.666). The final bidding war between Paphlagon and the Sausage Seller for the
affections of Demos all too easily brings to mind the recent increase in pay (Eq.788-9). Cleon is
accused of using pay like a drug to keep the demos – stricken with fear and held captive in the city
because of the war – not only poor, but dependent and obedient. 107 In exchange for civic pay, the demos
has effectively surrendered sovereignty to its de facto paymaster. The idea reappears in a number of
plays:
…and how Demos can be made blind to your crimes amid the fog of war, while mooning at you
from necessity, deprivation, and jury pay. But if Demos ever returns to his peaceful life on the
farm, and regains his spirit by eating porridge and chewing the fat with some pressed olives, he‟ll
realise the many benefits you beat him out of with your state pay; then he‟ll come after you with a
farmer‟s vengeful temper…You‟re aware of this, so you keep fooling him and rigging up dreams
about yourself. (Eq.802-9)
The same point is made yet more explicitly in Peace:
When the working folk arrived from the countryside, they didn‟t understand that they were being
sold out in the very same way, but because they lacked raisins and were fond of their figs, they
105
Westlake (1960) 401-2 in a similar vein notes that it was only with the success at Pylos that
Athenian public opinion came to share the long-advocated ambition of demagogues for expansion.
106
For Aristophanes‟ handling of jury pay, see Rosenbloom (2002) 323-6.
107
cf. [Arist.] Oec.1344b4 „unless we pay men, we cannot control them; and food is a slave‟s pay‟.
52
looked to the orators for help. The orators, fully aware that the poor were weak and needed bread,
took to driving this goddess [Peace] away with double-pronged bellowings…they started to harass
the rich and substantial among the allies…Then you‟d mangle the man like a pack of puppies,
because the city, pale and crouching with fear, was quite happy to swallow whatever slanders
anyone tossed its way…And the one who did this was a leather seller [Cleon]. (632-47)
The same metaphor of the master and his dogs first occurred in Wasps:
They drip that [pay] into you like droplets of oil from a tuft of wool, always a little at a time, just
enough to keep you alive. Because they want to keep you poor, and I‟ll tell you the reason: so
you‟ll recognise your trainer, and whenever he whistles at you to attack one of his enemies, you‟ll
leap on that man like a savage (701-5)
At the heart of the influence Cleon is able to wield over Athens because of the dikastikon is the special
control he exerts over the administration of justice. The very names „Philocleon‟ and „Bdelycleon‟
make plain that these characters‟ respective attitudes to jury service are inseparable from their attitudes
to Cleon. The greater amount of pay and work jurors enjoy, courtesy of Cleon‟s increase in the
dikastikon and his prosecutions (Eq.256, 800, 1018-9), has turned them into Cleon‟s most stalwart
partisans. These he employs against his opponents and, in particular, against the rich:
…like a fig picker you squeeze magistrates under review, looking to see which of them is raw,
which ripe and unripe; yes, and what‟s more, you scan the citizenry for anyone who‟s an innocent
lamb, rich and innocuous and afraid of litigation. And if you hear of anyone who‟s apolitical and
naïve, you drag him back from the Chersonnese, trip him up with your slanders, then twist his
shoulder back and stomp him. (Eq.260-5, cf. Vesp.260-5, 895 f., Pax 635-40)
The hatred of the elite for Cleon is suggested by having the well-to-do members of the cavalry form up
the chorus of Knights, and in Wasps Bdelycleon is clearly one of his wealthier critics. Cleon‟s
perversion of the justice system and its implications for power relations in the democracy are suggested
through the chorus of Wasps. The chorus leader tells his colleagues:
Cleon ordered us to report for duty in good time, with three day‟s rations of rotten rage against that
bloke, to punish him for his crimes. Anyway, let‟s hurry up, old colleagues, before it gets to
daybreak. Let‟s move out, and take care to search in all directions with our lamps in case there‟s a
stone underfoot somewhere waiting to hurt someone. (242-7)
The military allusions are appropriate for a battalion of old soldiers and results in a comic blurring of
roles.108 The passage must, however, be read against the play as whole. It not only highlights the dual
identity of the chorus as soldier-jurors, but connects this aspect of their identity with their status as paid
adherents of Cleon. Aristophanes suggests that Cleon‟s power is tyrant-like. Apart from his typically
tyrannic lust for money, he is actually assimilated to a known tyrant (Antileon of Chalcis, Eq.1044),
108
cf. the double duty of „sting‟ noted above, p. 50.
53
and the Sausage Seller warns the people that if the people ever try to ostracise Cleon he will launch a
Pisistratus-like coup (cf. Hdt.1.59.3-6; Ath.Pol.15.4-5) and seal off the grain market with the help of the
young hawkers who are said to surround him like a bodyguard (Eq.852-4, cf. 445-9).109 The jurors of
Wasps, armed men ready to pick off the enemies of their paymaster, appear as yet another latter-day
incarnation of the tyrannic bodyguard.110 The association makes for particularly biting irony when set
against the jurors‟ recollections of how they preserved the freedom of Athens from the rule of a
barbarian monarch, their denunciations of Bdelycleon as a would-be tyrant (Vesp.417, 464, 470, 474,
487), and Philocleon‟s claim that it is the juror who possesses tyrant-like power and prestige akin to
that of Zeus. Philocleon boasts that the juror can disregard the law, inspire terror in the rich and
influential, and revel in the fawning attentions of suppliants (cf. [Xen.] Ath.pol.1.18) and family
members, all the while being accountable to no one: „our sovereignty is as strong as any king‟s‟
(Vesp.548-630). The characterisation of jurors as hired retainers is an effective means of highlighting
that, far from securing a demos tyrannos, pay has given a single man a strangle-hold over the
process.111
Our understanding of the evidence for the political significance of the dikastikon is complicated by
the exceptionally hostile treatment Cleon receives in all the sources. Understandings of pay reflect the
violently different approaches that history, by and large, has taken to the individuals whose names are
mostly closely connected with it: for Pericles it is an uncharacteristic lapse into populism, for Cleon it
is the cornerstone of his effort to corrupt and dominate the state (cf. Plut. Nic.2.3). Cleon is condemned
by Aristophanes as a contemptible, self-serving character under whose direction the conduct of public
affairs deteriorates dramatically.112 Aristophanes goes so far as to caricature him as vulgar tanner and a
foreigner when in reality Cleon was both native-born and wealthy.113 Such prejudice owes to the
unorthodox trail Cleon blazed and his challenge to the conventions of political leadership. 114 Cleon,
unlike all his predecessors, did not belong to the aristocracy (cf. Ath.Pol.28.1) and did not seek to
accumulate experience and prestige through military commands. Connor stresses Cleon‟s rejection of
traditional networks of political allies (philoi) in favour of direct and exclusive engagement with the
demos,115 which essentially meant the mass of ordinary citizens. With the power of his
unconventionally animated and pugnacious speaking style in the assembly, boule, and courts (Ath.Pol.
28.3, cf. Plut. Nic.8.3), Cleon presented himself not just as the champion but the very „lover‟ of the
demos (Ar. Eq.732, 1340-4) and thereby opened himself up to enemy charges of shameless rabble109
Edmunds (1987) 15 „the new fear of tyranny is already evident, and Aristophanes wishes to direct
that fear toward Cleon‟ overstates the case since there is no question that the ultimate power of Demos
is ever under threat. The accusations of tyranny hurled by the jurors are probably meant to be comic
imitations of Cleon‟s habit and should not suggest widespread fear of tyranny at this point in the war,
MacDowell (1995) 159.
110
Hdt.1.59.6, 64.1; Xen. Hier.5.3, 6.5, 10.1-3; Arist. Pols.1285a25-30; 1311a7-9; Pl. Resp.8.567d-e.
111
cf. Hdt.3.82.4, and Aristotle who observes (Pols.1292a26-8) that in a „radical democracy‟ it is no
longer the demos which rules in practice but the demagogues because „they are sovereign over the
opinion of the people‟.
112
cf. Thuc.3.36.6, 4.21.3-22.2, 28, 5.7, 10.9; Ath.Pol.28.1, 3; Plut. Nic.2.2-3, 8.3-9.1; Diod.12.74.1-2.
For a very positive assessment of Cleon, see Grote (1907) 390-400.
113
For Cleon as tanner, cf. Ar. Eq.44, 47, 136, Nub.581, Vesp.38. Cleon‟s father Cleaenetus was a
choregos in 460/59 (IG ii2 2318.34), though cf. the scepticism of MacDowell (1995) 81. For
Aristophanes‟ most vituperative descriptions of Cleon see Vesp.1031-5 and Pax 649-657, 754-8.
114
Connor (1971) 168-75; Ostwald (1986) 213-7; Rosenbloom (2004a) Personal animus may also
have played a small part: Thucydides was exiled in the same year as Knights (424) and Aristophanes
was prosecuted by Cleon in 426 (see above, p. 46 n. 79).
115
Connor (1971) 91-4.
54
rousing.116 That such a complete devotion to public affairs had already been exhibited by Pericles
demonstrates that the break between him and Cleon stressed by writers and by Connor, is in part an
artificial construct.117 It is possible to be more explicit than Connor 118 and argue that a substantive
difference between Pericles and Cleon which served to further blacken the latter‟s reputation was
Cleon‟s refusal to engage in the old wealth politics of competitive largesse. 119
At this point it is necessary to pause, and consider the extent to which the role of money in
Athenian politics was socially and culturally determined. Coinage can paradoxically be the instigator of
both order and disorder: money offers a universal standard of value and at the same time allows the
rapid transferal and accumulation of wealth, challenges the elite monopoly of precious metals, and
facilitates impersonal exchange – all of which threaten existing pre-monetary power structures.120
Money did not, however, arrive and immediately monopolise exchange in Athens or Greece. Instead,
coinage co-existed with earlier non-monetary forms of exchange and was worked into what Bloch and
Parry describe as co-existent „transactional orders‟; a long-term order or context of exchange that is
embedded within the social and political system and perpetuates it, and a secondary short-term order
concerned with individual acquisition and profit.121 These interdependent but distinct orders account for
the enduring bifurcation of Greek attitudes to money according to the context in which it is used; what
is appropriate in one context may be anathema in another.122 Despite its aberrant potential, money did
not affect the agrarian foundation of political power in Athens until the last quarter of the fifth century.
The popular representations of democratic leaders which emerged at this time highlight that despite the
ubiquity of money and financial issues in imperial Athens, long-standing cultural understandings of the
proper role of money in political life persisted. Old comedy reviles Cleon inter alia as a tanner,
Hyperbolus as a lamp maker (Ar. Eq.739, 1304, 1315, Nub.1065, Pax 690) and the later demagogue
Cleophon as a lyre maker (Andoc.1.146-7; Aeschin.2.76; Ath.Pol.28.3), not because these men were
nouveau riche or manufacturers,123 but because they did not use their wealth in the accepted manner.
Their offence was an unwillingness to overtly lavish their private wealth on the polis, for example in
the form of liturgies, in exchange for gratitude (charis)(cf. Arist. Eth.Nic.1122b20-1123a5). Generosity
in this form was always the mark of the fine, public-spirited citizen – the chrestos (cf. Isoc.16.28;
Andoc.1.146-7; Dem.18.311-13). No liturgies are recorded for Cleon. For this reason it was possible to
assimilate Cleon with the men of the market-place (agoraioi) and particularly the „petty retail traders‟
116
On the new political vocabulary of the period, see Ibid. 96-119.
Thuc. 2.65.6-10; Ath.Pol. 28.1, 3; Isoc. 8.126-7; Plut. Per.39.5. For criticisms of Connor, see
Rhodes (1986) 140.
118
Connor (1971) 171-5.
119
Davies (1981) 116-7.
120
For accounts of the origins of coinage, see von Reden (1995) 176 f., (1997) 156-61; Kurke (1999) 6
ff., 22-3, 46-7 for the threat coinage constituted to elite power; Schaps (2004) 93 f. for a survey of the
various changes brought about by coinage 123 f.
121
Parry (1989) 24 f.
122
There is debate over the precise reaction of elites to the arrival of coinage. Kurke (1999) 13-23, 32-7
argues for a competition between the egalitarian polis and some elites who rejected money as an
illegitimate part of the long-term transactional order. However, her own tendency is to set up an oversimple distinction between an egalitarian polis ideology and resistant aristocracy when aristocrats
themselves led poleis well into the classical era. von Reden (1997) 161-8 posits a more gradual
integration by suggesting that early uses of money by elites in non-commercial contexts actually
contributed to the development of civic institutions involving monetary exchange, like civic pay.
123
Though being directly involved in manufacturing was certainly enough to earn the disdain of some
elite critics. Aristotle (Pols.1273a21-6) notes that the rich are said to rule in Carthage because their
wealth allows them to do „nothing unseemly‟ (κεδὲλ ἀζτεκολεῖλ).
117
55
(kapeloi),124 whose unproductive professions and proverbial money-grubbing dishonesty (since a
retailer aims to take more than he gives) left them no place in respectable society and political life (cf.
Dem.57.30-1, 33-6).125 The prejudice facing such men stemmed from the reality that „the validating
characteristic of a hegemonic class is its perceived transcendence of private economic motives‟. 126
Farming, by contrast, retained a special respectability largely because it gave the citizen a long-term
stake in the polis, beholden to no one, and benefited all citizens by helping to make the community
self-reliant for its food (cf. Hes. Op.41 f., 225-37).127 As far back as Solon political power had been
explicitly linked to productive agricultural capacity (Ath.Pol.7.3-4; Plut. Sol.18.1-2). In Acharnians
(130 f.), the response of Dicaeopolis to the war is to withdraw from the mercantile city and return to
community-centred country life and the pleasures of the rural Dionysia. In his discussion of money,
Aristotle contrasts the oikos with the market, presenting the former as a natural site of production and
consumption in contrast to the limitless and „unnatural‟ acquisition open to businessmen. 128 One
element of the positive characterisation of Pericles and Nicias vis a vis the demagogues is their
avoidance of the agora and their use of private wealth for the public good, rather than the subordination
of public affairs and public wealth to private gain. 129 By the fourth century, nearly all leaders were like
Cleon, that is, affluent but not members of old, aristocratic families. 130 Hence, men like Demosthenes
came to enjoy the cultural approbation which some fifth century politicians were denied. 131 It was not
inexcusable for a leader to acquire wealth, but it was paramount that this wealth furthered the public
interest (Hyper.5.24-5). Thus, there was the persistent belief throughout the classical period that a
leader should not focus on petty profit-making for himself, and this ultimately informed the cultural
opposition between private profit and politics.
It is worth remaining with the concept of transactional orders to see how they further illuminate
Aristophanes‟ presentation of the effects of pay. The conspicuous association between food and pay
suggests the degree to which Cleon has disengaged pay from the long-term order, and enmeshed it in
the short-term order of the „agora‟ for his immediate profit as the „seller‟ and the immediate
gratification of the demos as the „buyer‟ in the same way that he has perverted long-term relationships
based on philia into those of money (Eq.255, 597-8, Vesp.242).132 What little distance there is between
the domestic setting and the political reality being parodied in Knights is regularly allowed to fall away
to make the symbolism explicit: Paphlagon waits on old man Demos, telling him „here‟s something to
124
Aristophanes then suggests that prejudice against retail trade, while particularly associated with
elites, did have a wider currency than Kurke (1999) 72-80 argues. For literature on the term kapelos,
see Kurke 72 n. 16.
125
cf. Ar. Eq.180-94, 213-23. Dover (1974) 40-1; See von Reden (1995) 79-126, 171-94. For the
presentation of men like Cleon and Hyperbolus as agoraioi and poneroi (worthless men) outside the
long-term order see the extensive references of Rosenbloom (2002) 302 f., (2004a) 55-65.
126
Ibid. (2004a), 63.
127
Ibid., 353. This is not to deny of course, that farmers also frequented the agora to sell their produce
– though this was wholesale and not retail trade.
128
Pols.1256b30-8, 1256b40 f., cf. Eth.Nic.1121b31-1122a5.
129
Plut. Per.7.4-5, 16.3-5, Nic.5.1-2, cf. Thuc.2.65.8-9 on Pericles imperviousness to bribery. Isocrates
(7.48) praises the youth of the past for typically avoiding the agora and for otherwise conducting
themselves modestly within it, cf. Ar. Nub.991.
130
See Sinclair (1988) 43-5.
131
See Rosenbloom (2004b) 341-9.
132
Cleon does seem to have organised actual distributions of free or cheap food (cf. Eq.100-6,
Vesp.716-8). On food in Aristophanes in general see Reckford (1987) 114-20; Wilkins (1997).
56
nibble, wolf down, savour: a three obol piece‟ (51, cf. 715-8, 789, 904-5).133 The preference of Cleon to
exploit public money rather than spend his own is reflected by Paphlagon‟s status as a slave in the
household of Demos, thus everything Demos receives from Paphlagon already belongs to him. Not
only does Paphlagon give Demos nothing in addition to what he already possesses, he privately gorges
himself on the choicest treats (280-4, 353-5, 927-40, 1218-20). The relationship is one of negative, that
is, one-sided reciprocity. For his part, Demos insists that he is merely fattening such men up for
slaughter „and then I force them to regurgitate what they‟ve stolen from me, using a verdict tube as a
probe‟ (Eq.1147-50). The Sausage Seller eventually wins Demos over by superior gifts (Eq.864 f.,
1164 f.) because a statesman is expected to behave like Themistocles, who „found our city‟s cup halffull and filled it the rest of the way, and he baked the Piraeus as dessert for her lunch, and added new
seafood dishes to her menu while taking away none of the old‟ (Eq.814-6).134 Cleon has not just taken
more than he has given but has managed to „hook‟ the Athenians on the cheap, inferior substitute of
jury pay. The political consequences of removing pay from the long-term transactional order are most
explicit in the passage of Knights partly quoted above (p. 52) where the Sausage Seller threatens that „if
Demos ever returns to his peaceful life on the farm, and regains his spirit by eating porridge and
chewing the fat with some pressed olives, he‟ll realise the many benefits you beat him out of with your
state pay‟ (805-7, cf. Eccl.305c-310c). Here the imagery of pay as inferior food, almost starvation
rations, is enriched by the symbolism of town and country; the city is an environment dominated by
short-term exchange, by money, and by greed, rather than the bucolic self-sufficiency and plenty of the
rural oikos (Ach.33-6).135 The analogy of food ultimately shows that the demos has become a passive
consumer of pay, one who is all the while unaware that he is being swindled by his favourite hawker.
Crane points out that long-term relationships based on philia are also being subverted. Pay allows
Cleon in Wasps to extend his influence beyond the agora into the private households of Athens in order
to construct new relationships based on money: the jurors in Wasps correspondingly refer to him as
their „protector‟ or „patron‟ (kedemon)(Vesp.242) one who „puts his arm around us and swats away the
flies. You‟ve never done anything of the kind for your own father!‟ (Vesp.597-8) and who is called
forth by the jurors against their enemies (Vesp.197, 409-14).136 The same relationship is implied in
Knights when Paphlagon summons the jurors to his aid in mock fraternal terms as „brethren of the three
obols‟ (255). The subordination of the demos goes so far as to cast it as a baby gumming the prechewed food of civic pay from its nursemaid (Eq.716-8),137 or drinking the milk of the kolakretai
(Vesp.724). Philocleon‟s obsession with judging depicts the end result of this progressive, tyrant-like
extension of autocratic influence over individual households. The court has become Philocleon‟s
ancestral home: he swoons over it like a lover (97-9), wishes to be buried under it (386), and honours
the cult of Lycus near his court as his own (388-9).138 It is through the inversions of power and of
transactional orders that Aristophanes relates the perverse consequences of Cleon‟s exploitation of pay.
133
On this „intrusion‟ and the significance of such disruption in Aristophanic comedy, see Silk (2000)
98-159, esp. 139-144.
134
See Rosenbloom (2002) 312-4.
135
On the inversions of Acharnians as a criticism of the positive Periclean association between
Athenian power and maritime commerce, see von Reden (1995) 132-5.
136
Crane (1997) 208-15.
137
Bennett (1990) 341-5.
138
Crane (1997) 219-21.
57
It was pointed out in the first chapter (p. 29) that the financial ability which would become
obligatory for every Athenian leader (cf. Arist. Rh.1359b8; Xen. Mem.3.6.5-6) appears first with
Pericles and that this was partially inevitable due to the premium the war placed on adroit financial
management. What becomes clearer under Cleon is the extent to which management of public money
could serve as a substantive basis for political leadership. Without access to other sources of political
prestige, Cleon chose to demonstrate his devotion to the demos through the management of public
money rather than by spending his own. Kallet has pointed out how significant power accrued to any
politician who established a reputation for financial knowledge and skill because the demos, in taking
his advice, was correspondingly cast into the role of amateur or student ill-equipped to analyse the
claims being made.139 Aristophanes stresses Cleon‟s fixation with money to such an extent that it
cannot be accidental. In particular, he often subverts what seems to have been Cleon‟s own
characterisation of himself as the „watchdog‟ of the demos.140 It appears that as a member of the boule
in 428/7 Cleon tried to withdraw state subvention from the cavalry and may have been responsible for
the imposition of the eisphora in the same year.141 The two most important financial decrees of the
period, that for the more efficient collection of tribute in 426/5 (IG i3 68=ML 68) and the tribute
reassessment of 425/4, were moved by his supporters. Cleon never actually occupied high financial
office and would have required the cooperation of those who did, but Aristophanes nevertheless
stresses the way Cleon‟s financial clout allowed him to favour his own political constituencies and
foreign friends (Eq.361) at the expense of the Athenian elite (Eq.264-5). Paphlagon declares that no
one was more assiduous in extorting funds to swell the public coffers as a member of the boule
(Eq.773-6), and makes various threats against the Sausage Seller: he will prosecute him for
malfeasance (435-6, 442-3, 710, 828-9), assign him a trierarchy (911-9), and have him assessed at a
higher tax rate (923-6). The equally tenacious Sausage Seller hurls charges of embezzlement, and of
extorting bribes and money from the allies.142 In the world of Aristophanes, Cleon exercises control
over the entire apparatus of state by virtue of his de facto position as Athens‟ chief financial officer (cf.
Eq.74-5, 164-7, 304-12). There is much baseless, even conventional, 143 mud-slinging in the charges
against Cleon and it may also be wondered whether Aristophanes‟ personal history with Cleon meant
he paid him an unusually large amount of attention – but there is no doubting the importance of Cleon‟s
financial knowledge for his political influence. The similarities between Cleon and other, later, popular
politicians like Hyperbolus (cf. Thuc.8.73.3) and Cleophon account for their similarly unflattering
treatment by the sources.144
A figure so alive to the politics of finance in wartime Athens would have little difficulty
appreciating the significance of the dikastikon. Other sources echo elements of Aristophanes‟ treatment
of jury pay. Thucydides for example, agrees that Cleon, who „had by far the greatest influence with the
139
Kallet-Marx (1994) 235-7, cf. the „indispensable experts‟ of Connor (1971) 119-28 and the sceptical
attitude of Rhodes (1986) 141. Thompson (1981) goes further in his doubt but creates an unlikely
separation between the formation of policy and the minutiae of administration.
140
Eq.1017-20, 1030-4, Vesp.970-2, 1031, Pax 313-5, cf. Plato Com. KA236; Eup.KA290-2.
141
See Ostwald (1986) 204-5.
142
Embezzlement: Nub.591, Eq.103-4, 258, 438-9, 443-4, 716-8, 824-7, 1030-1034, Vesp.914-5, 92730, Bribery: Nub.591, Eq.63-70, 402-3, 442-3. Taking money from the allies: Eq.326, 438-9, 802, 8335, 839-40, 931-3, 1034, 1195-8, Vesp.669-71, Pax 644-7.
143
cf. the parallels in the invective against Cleon, Demosthenes, and Aeschines assembled by Heath
(1997) 232-34.
144
On Hyperbolus see the references of Sommerstein (1983) 213, for Cleophon see below, p. 76 n. 40.
58
people‟ (3.36.6) preferred the Athenians to be trapped in the city because of the war, for he „thought
that in a time of peace and quiet people would be more likely to notice his evil doings and less likely to
believe his slander of others‟ (Thuc.5.16.1). The increase of 425/4 probably lies behind the claim of an
unknown poet that Cleon coddled the Athenians „giving them frequent jobs for pay‟ (Plut. Nic.8.3).
The most important of Aristophanes‟ distortions concerning pay are, however, patent. When Knights
was staged the wartime conditions that Aristophanes claims had proved so conducive to Cleon‟s
manipulation of the demos were no longer in place; Cleon‟s Spartan hostages ensured that there would
be no future invasions of Attica and that country folk could return home for the foreseeable future. This
rural repatriation had not seen Cleon called to account by the „farmers‟ vengeful temper‟ as predicted.
At the time of Knights, Cleon was in fact at the height of his political powers. It may be asked whether
the one obol Cleon added (which may have been too little too late to keep pace with inflation), even in
war time, was in itself so great a boon as to win the eternal gratitude of Athens‟ jurors. The provision of
pay was not, after all, dependent on Cleon maintaining his political influence: the 3 ob dikastikon
would no more cease in his absence than did the 2 ob dikastikon with the death of Pericles. The later
career of Pericles, moreover, demonstrates that the quasi-benefaction of pay did not earn the proposer a
lifetime‟s immunity from prosecution.
That said, it would be expected that some of Cleon‟s staunchest supporters would sit on juries. The
favour of jurors was certainly worth cultivating. The adversarial dynamic of a trial was perfectly suited
to Cleon‟s rhetoric of conflict between the demos and alleged „conspirators‟ (Eq.861-3, 1020, Vesp.463
f.) and allowed him to act out his self-proclaimed status as the „watchdog‟ and patron of the people (cf.
Vesp.909). Influence over the institutions responsible for hearing the dokimasia of officials, cases
arising from euthynai, as well eisangelia trials, allowed a politician to co-opt the unfettered coercive
powers of the demos.145 The power of jury courts was sufficiently obvious that they became the preeminent political platform for other popular leaders like Hyperbolus (Ar. Ach.846-7, Eq.1358-63,
Nub.874-6, Vesp.1007). The ostracisms of Cimon and the organisation of conservative elites by
Thucydides son of Melesias prior to his ostracism had marked the start of an intra-elite split over the
direction Ephialtes and Pericles were taking the polis with reforms that would eventually include the
dikastikon (Plut. Per.11.1-2, 14). The resentment felt by the rich over the loss of property and wealth as
a result of the war (Thuc.2.65.2-3) began to undermine the cross-class consensus on which the
democracy rested. Now, after years of trierachies, the prosecution of prominent and often wealthy
personalities like the general Laches by Cleon and his supporters in front of juries dominated by
ordinary Athenians (cf. Vesp.240-5), elite resentment and a sense of victimhood had been kindled. It is
the anger of some elites towards the democratic status-quo which finds expression in PseudoXenophon (cf. 3.9, 12-3). There is some justice to the image of Cleon at the start of Wasps carving up
and weighing portions of „fat‟ – a pun for demos (39-42, cf. Eq.864-7). Pericles might have declared
that a citizen who abstained from public life had no business being a citizen (Thuc.2.40.2), but the
perceived degeneration of public life under Cleon and his successors strengthened the long-held virtue
of non-interference (apragmosyne) among the elite and the vision of a life free from strife and
meddlesomeness.146 It appears that Aristophanes has extended the real friendliness between Cleon and
145
cf. Ar. Ach.703-12, Eq.62-70, 258-65, Vesp.242-4. For Cleon‟s use of the courts, see Ostwald (1986)
208-12; Rosenbloom (2002) 293-4.
146
Edmunds (1987) 17-20, 32-3. See p. 83 below.
59
many jurors, and the active cooperation between them which elites suspected, to provide a lurid vision
of corrupt and dictatorial democracy. 147
It is important to distinguish the attacks Aristophanes makes on the politicisation of the dikastikon
from his treatment of jury pay itself. In the absence of this distinction is has been claimed that
Aristophanes is a trenchant critic of paid jury service. 148 Yet it is also axiomatic in Aristophanic
scholarship that, just he never blames the demos for inherent failings, so Aristophanes never really
attacks the democratic constitution.149 Jury pay was one of the most recent and most democratic
changes to the constitution and so is an ideal test-case of the generally conservative Aristophanes‟
commitment, and that of his audience, to one of the most controversial fixtures of the political system.
Jury pay escapes the direct criticism leveled at pay for ambassadors and generals as excessive and
undeserved (Ach.65-90, 138-9, 598-619, cf. Eq.573-6). On the other hand, at no point does
Aristophanes advocate an expansion of jury pay. This is conspicuous because just such a
recommendation is the logical product of the arguments made by the Sausage Seller and Bdelycleon
that the demos is being short-changed. Aristophanes seems to sabotage Bdelycleon‟s plan (Vesp.706 f.)
to have 20,000 Athenians live in luxury off 1000 cities with his absurd numbers, and he eschews the
most obvious opportunity to call for a pay rise when Philocleon and his colleagues finally realise that
Cleon has duped them (725 f.). They seem to confound expectations by neither seeking vengeance nor
demanding an increase in the pay that Bdelycleon has been at such pains to show is outrageously low.
Instead, they swear off judging completely and, seemingly forgetting they do not have a rich son at
home to support them as Philocleon does, praise Bdelycleon for his advice (Vesp.731-2, 869-73, 88790).150 It is typical of Aristophanes, with the notable exception of Frogs, to spur the demos to action
rather than to provide detailed proposals of his own (cf. Vesp.650-1).151 It nevertheless appears, that
more pay is not the answer.
Jury pay also lacks the kind of endorsement given to military pay. The two forms of pay prove to
be closely linked on those rare occasions when jury pay is discussed in the context of reform. The first
is the parabasis of Wasps, already encountered, in which the chorus calls for jury pay to be restricted to
jurors who have earned it by serving in the armed forces as a sort of war pension, thereby extending the
support Athens had long given to its disabled veterans; „from now on I think anybody who does not
have a stinger should not be paid three obols‟ (1120-1). Such a proposal is at odds with the spirit of
isonomia but would not necessarily slash the numbers of jurors or exclude younger men. All citizens
were expected to fight for the polis and the frequency of military campaigns after 480/79 would allow
many citizens to satisfy this requirement. The maritime nature of most Athenian expeditions, both in
147
Ostwald (1986) 220-4 on Cleon and the wealthy.
de Ste Croix (1972) 357-8 (passages on pay and courts assembled at 362 nn. 8 and 10 respectively);
Edmunds (1987) 36-7; Todd (1990) 154 who sees the juries of Aristophanes as groups of „idle and
vindictive layabouts‟; Rosenbloom (2002) 288.
149
Dover (1972) 33 points out that the constitution was the sacred inheritance of the ancestors, cf.
MacDowell (1995) 150-79 on Wasps. In the depictions of the assembly in Acharnians (54-173) and the
boule in Knights (624-82), the emphasis is on the politicians who manipulate these institutions rather
than the institutions themselves.
150
For interpretations of this plot fissure, see Konstan (1985) 37-9 (endorsement of aristocratic
quietism); Olson (1996) esp.137-8 (call to the demos to demand greater benefits); Crane (1997) 211
(disappointed withdrawal). The jurors‟ withdrawal is incongruous but it may simply be the price of
moving the play into new comic territory (cf. Ach. 626-8, 978-87), see Reckford (1987) 278-81,
though I disagree with Reckford that Wasps „describes the failure of political reform‟ – it is not
Aristophanes‟ habit to offer white papers.
151
Henderson (1990) 307-12.
148
60
the past and the foreseeable future, also means the requirement actually favoured the thetes who rowed
in the fleet and who were most likely to serve on juries anyway. What the jurors propose is not, in
practical terms, a radical assault on the power of the demos. Comparison with the advice of other
choruses nevertheless suggests the advice is not meant to be taken seriously: in Acharnians angry old
men also claim that they are poorly treated by the younger, ungrateful generation and ask that they only
be prosecuted by other old men rather than sharp-witted youths (676-91). The chorus in Birds
discourses on the benefits of worshipping birds over the gods (723-36, 752-68, 785-800).
The isolation of the parabasis in Wasps and the impracticalities of the jurors‟ proposal within it do
not diminish its value as a commentary on the war and the dikastikon.152 The idea of jury pay being tied
to military spending is not limited to Wasps and receives its second and clearer expression in the last
scene of Knights. Here the Sausage Seller, who has triumphed over Paphlagon by proving his superior
devotion and obsequiousness to Demos, rejuvenates his old master and introduces him onto the stage as
the embodiment of the traditional, better Athens of the past. The now young Demos smells „not of
ballot shells but peace accords‟ (1332) and, ashamed of his former conduct, is told that previously „if
two politicians were making proposals, one to build long ships and the other to spend the same sum on
state pay, the pay man would walk over the trireme man‟ (1350-3). It is attractive to see this
hypothetical situation as drawing a comparison between Athens‟ contemporary priorities and the farsighted decision back in 483/2 not to distribute the silver from Laurium but to spend the money on the
fleet.153 The decision in 425/4 to increase pay may even be cited as the implied contemporary
counterpart to the 483/2 decision since the Athenians, engaged in a war that was still being fought at
the time of Wasps, were in need of money but chose to distribute more of its increasingly scarce wealth
rather than spend it on the fleet.154 Demos appropriately declares that paying the sailors what they are
owed in full will be his first order of business (1366-7). The implication is that the demos easily
succumbs to the temptation of voting itself a pay rise when there are more important demands on the
public purse. A question of the Sausage Seller, the very first he asks, implies that jurors will
nevertheless continue to be paid under the new order: „if some tomfool advocate says “there‟s no grain
for you jurymen unless you convict in this case” what will you do to that advocate, eh?‟ (1358-61).155
Here the criticism is of a different kind; not that the demos will freely choose pay over a more
important alternative, but that Athenians accept out of fear and self-interest the „spin‟ pay is subjected
to by political leaders.
It is seemingly the fault of pay alone that the jurors in Aristophanes are excessively harsh, 156
because pay attracts the old and poor. The irritable jurors introduce a bias into a theoretically impartial
process against defendants. Yet the presentation of the jurors works to excuse them and once more
blame the machinations of evil leaders. Philocleon, speaking for his colleagues as well as himself,
explains that the attraction of condemning defendants lies in exercising supreme, tyrant-like power
(Vesp.548-630, cf. Xen. Symp.4.31-2). This is as clear a manifestation of demos tyrannos as will ever
152
A middle way between the credulity of MacDowell (1995) 156-7 and the face-value rejection of
Heath (1987) 19-23 who sees such proposals as inconsequential „comic opportunism‟.
153
See p. 30.
154
Heath (1997) 240 has this as a reference to the upkeep of the fleet, not its expansion, and rejects it
on the grounds that Athens would not have run down the navy for the sake of pay. This, I feel, is to
miss the wider point being made.
155
For similar threats in the fourth century, see p. 93.
156
Ach.375-6; Vesp.106, 999-1002, Pax 513-5, 639-43.
61
be found.157 Although the jurors yearn to go „to the voting urns and cause some pain‟ (Vesp.320-3) they
are not malicious by nature. The foregrounding of their status as very old veterans in Wasps causes the
repeated references to their „anger‟ to take on a sense of „spirit‟ – the defiant, masculine and very
democratic rage of the generation that fought off the Persians. 158 The spirit is manifest in the brazen
cheek of Philocleon (who is, incidentally, still soft enough to cry for a defendant, 982-4) and tales of
youthful skylarking, by which the jurors are endeared to the audience. As witnesses to the passage of
time and the accompanying loss of youth, virility, and influence, such old men are in fact the primary
sources of pathos in Aristophanes‟ drama. 159 The particular affection audiences will hold for
Philocleon, in contrast to his humourless son, distances Aristophanes from the most derogatory remark
made about civic pay found in the plays – that receiving pay makes jurors no better than olive-pickers
(Vesp.712) – because the barb is delivered against Philocleon by the unsympathetic Bdelycleon. 160
Second, that ferocity is shown as being channeled and used to perverse ends by politicians. Attention
has already been drawn to the irony of the tyrant-hating jurors being totally oblivious to the tyrant-like
power Cleon enjoys thanks, in part, to their loyalty. Their spirit and antiquated attitudes appear to have
made them susceptible to the specious rhetoric of demagogues: an unknown comic fragment describes
Cleon‟s behaviour as „leading the old‟ (γεροληαγωγῶλ) (Plut. Nic.2.3 cf. Ar. Eq.1099)161 and the
chorus of Knights ask „Do you see how far he‟ll go to get round us and bamboozle us as if we were
codgers?‟ (269-70).162 The victorious heroes of the past are now ignorant victims. Since they act in
error however, it is possible for them to be put right. The jurors in Wasps quickly see the error of their
ways and even Philocleon is furious with Cleon (Vesp.756-9). In Peace, with Cleon dead and the war at
an end, the chorus declare „you‟ll no longer find me a severe and colicky old juror, nor such a hard case
as I guess I was before‟ (349-50).
The presentation of the court system offers a comparable illustration of Aristophanes‟ careful
criticism. The Athenian preoccupation with litigation is branded an „inveterate sickness endemic to the
city‟ (λόζολ ἀρταίαλ ἐλ ηῇ πόιεη) (cf. Eq.1316-7, 1332, Av.37-41, Eccl.657) of which Philocleon‟s
trialophilia is an acute case. Even in the fifth century, there was little risk in expressing a distaste for
litigiousness. Community attitudes to legal proceedings are characterised by a similar ambivalence; on
the one hand the courts were a fundamental bastion of the power of the demos, but at the same time
laws which encouraged private citizens to seek justice (Plut. Sol.18.5) had given rise to the notorious
scourge of sycophancy (Vesp.1037-42, Pax 190-1). When Bdelycleon successfully persuades
Philocleon to restrict himself to judging disputes at home, the resulting trial of the dog Labes for
cheese-stealing (907-96) parodies not legal procedure but the rhetoric litigants used to obfuscate and
sway the jury with emotive appeals.163 The prosecutor, who as the dog „Cyon of Cydathenaeon‟ clearly
represents Cleon, appeals to the base instincts of the demos (here represented by Philocleon) for power,
whereas Bdelycleon intervenes in defence of Labes and follows the standard strategy of enumerating
157
Rosenbloom (2002) 294-5.
See Allen (2000) 128-33 on the cultural place of anger (orge).
159
See the detailed discussion of Silk (2000) 375-429.
160
For the wider significance of this line, see pp. 87-8.
161
Titchener (1988) 82-5 suggests this fragment is actually Plutarch‟s miscopy of Knights 1099, cf.
Plut. Mor.807b.
162
Konstan (1985) 32-5.
163
The trial may be a parody of the actual euthyna trial of Laches in 427/6 or 426/5, see MacDowell
(1995) 167-8
158
62
the services Labes has performed before tugging at Philocleon‟s heart strings with the presentation of
Labes‟ puppies. By sitting at one remove from the action the audience is allowed to witness their own
deception, but not as an indictment of the court system itself (in reality no one, least of all the presiding
magistrate, could speak on behalf of Labes) but the perversion the process has undergone thanks to the
specious rhetoric of skilled speakers.
Aristophanes was under no more obligation to be consistent in his opinions than his audience, but
his refusal to attack the democratic constitution can be seen to extend to jury pay. Scrutiny of the plays
unearths no explicit claim that jury pay is inherently unwise or illegitimate and should be curtailed or
abolished. This is clearest in the exchange at Knights 1358-61, where jury pay is not explicitly denied a
place in the glorious, idyllic Athens of the past. The issue of jury pay is not pay itself but the way it has
been hijacked by a single man, Cleon, in an unprecedented political and military situation. This is
reiterated by the overt distortion Aristophanes works on the dikastikon by distancing the demos from it
and closely associating it with Cleon as if he were his personal possession, funded out of his private
profits. Using the alternative sense of misthos as „bribe‟, Aristophanes demonstrates that by
surrendering control of this important institution to a base leader the demos has forged a rod for its own
back. The exaggeration of Cleon‟s control of the dikastikon, and over Athens as a result, is a farfetched vision of what might happen and it is unlikely that Aristophanes (who seldom offers concrete
solutions to the problems he identifies) advocates the reduction or even abolition of jury pay using this
largely fictional picture. Neither, however, is it correct to say that Aristophanes has no criticism to offer
of the dikastikon.164 The message, one firmly grounded in reality, is that the demos should give a
greater priority to military pay and military considerations in a time of war. On both these counts the
demos is at fault in the qualified sense that it has failed to live up to its better self embodied in the
Athens of old, because it has given in to private temptation and the fear bred by politicians (Eq.13567).
There were no doubt those who conceded that Athenians had been wrong to increase pay in
wartime, and their ranks had probably increased by the time the chorus in Wasps actually propose
restricting pay. There were many ordinary Athenians in the armed forces too, for whom the prospect of
full and timely pay would be attractive. However commendable an attitude of „soldiers and sailors first‟
might then have been, Aristophanes was still at odds with the preferences of the majority. Such a
situation is not unusual for Aristophanes: well-meaning criticism of the demos and its leaders requires
the questioning of majority decisions.165 It appears that the public discourse on pay could accommodate
heated criticism of the political role of the dikastikon, and while Aristophanes does not explicitly
condemn it, he suggests that jury pay has assumed a political significance out of all proportion to its
actual economic cost to the polis, and has become a source of division between demos and elite due to
its association with Cleon.
The different treatment of the ekklesiastikon in Assemblywomen (c.393-391) suggests that
Aristophanes‟ approach is more sophisticated than simply pointing out the difference between military
and civilian payments to the advantage of the former, but also recognises the different level of popular
164
Ostwald (1986) 233: „there is surprisingly little criticism of the one institutional contribution Cleon
made to the development of popular sovereignty: the increase and perhaps also expansion of state pay
for public service‟.
165
Henderson (1993) 314: „comic plays were thus a kind of safeguard against monopoly of official
discourse‟ (314), cf. (1990) 274.
63
attachment to contemporary types of misthos.166 In the first part of the play, with which we are mainly
concerned, the heroine Praxagora and the women of the chorus enact their plan to save Athens by
„packing‟ the assembly disguised as men and then using their numbers to turn affairs over to women.
As the plot unfolds the familiar remarks about the court system appear: the city is obsessed with
litigation (657), and jurors are fed with malicious prosecutions (563). Agyrrhius, who was responsible
for the introduction of the ekklesiastikon, is attacked for buying the people and the unfailing call is
made for the demos to discard its unworthy leaders (175 f.). In the new Athens run by the women, like
the new Athens of a rejuvenated Demos in Knights, the first priority will be the welfare of Athens‟
servicemen (233-40). The attacks on assembly pay itself prove far harsher and are unlike any statement
made about the dikastikon. Everyone, the chorus claims, recognised that Agyrrhius was a scoundrel,
but they soon changed their tune once he introduced assembly pay; „the people who draw pay praise
him to the skies, while those who draw none say that the people who attend for the pay deserve the
death penalty‟ (187-8). Participation is only seen as a way to make a profit, not to serve the polis (2068). In their greed Athenians have practically extorted money from the polis, for when pay was only 1
ob the citizens preferred to loaf around in the agora (not to work) but once the wage rose to 3 ob they
started to fight one another for seats on the Pnyx. 167 The current situation is in shameful contrast to the
Athens of old:
Never in the good old days, with noble Myronides in charge, would anyone have dared to husband
the city‟s affairs for a handful of money. No, everyone would come bringing his own little bag
lunch, something to drink, some bread, a couple of onions, and three olives. Now what they want
is three obols for doing a public service, like clay carriers (pelophoroyntes). (303-10c)
In this passage we again find the ordinary, rustic diet which the demos unwittingly gave up in Knights
and which, once resumed, would restore its senses and its vigour. The difference is that here there are
no extenuating circumstances: Agyrrhius is not a Cleon-like bogeyman who has taken advantage of the
demos in times of war and scarcity. The demos has of its own will succumbed to greed and selfishness
by instituting and then raising what appears to be a needless payment – 1 ob proved inadequate not
because citizens had to work, but because they preferred to socialise. Where Aristophanes left the fate
of jury pay in the rejuvenated Athens of Knights obscure, assembly pay is here contrasted in no
uncertain terms with ancestral practice. There is an obvious similarity between the complaint of the
women that Athenians are behaving like „clay carriers‟ and Bdelycleon‟s sneer that Philocleon and his
friends are „nothing but a bunch of olive-pickers‟, but most striking is the different force with which
they are delivered. The comment in Wasps might be dismissed as the snobbish prejudice of the sour
Bdelycleon, but the audience has been given no reason to dislike or dissociate themselves from the
chorus in Assemblywomen. It is possible to suggest reasons for what amounts to a condemnation of
assembly pay as a wasteful handout. Unlike the dikastikon, the ekklesiastikon was at most a decade old
166
See further appendix E. Sommerstein (2005) 207 n. 14 views Aristophanes as so hostile to pay that
the lack of an explicit denunciation is of no consequence, but he does not consider why Aristophanes
recoiled from this last step.
167
Athenian men are also upbraided for innovating for the sake of innovation (cf. 220, 455-8, 576b-80,
586-7). The ekklesiastikon is the most conspicuous constitutional innovation in the play, so it may not
being going too far to interpret these comments as reiterating the presentation of the ekklesiastikon as
an ill-conceived expenditure.
64
at the time of Assemblywomen and so lacked the respectability of age. Since there were no special
requirements for assembly attendance and thousands were paid at a time for what was typically half a
day‟s work, assembly pay had something of the character of a mass distribution. These criticisms
suggest that assembly pay, unsurprisingly, had not yet established its place in the democracy and that
direct criticism of the new institution was still possible. A distorted picture has therefore resulted from
the tendency of scholars to treat criticism towards jury pay and assembly pay as interchangeable. There
is little reason to believe that Aristophanes personally supported the principle of pay for public service,
but the different ways in which the two forms of civic pay are treated show that the comic poet was not
violently out of step with his audience.
Conclusion
The domination of fifth century juries by poorer citizens can be attributed to the impact of the
dikastikon. The investment Athens made in jury pay meant that none of its citizens had to choose
between feeding the family and serving the polis as a juror. The costs which remained for those citizens
who had to work to survive were probably not great enough to suppress their participation to the point
that they could not constitute a majority. The strong representation of ordinary Athenians can also be
explained by the attractiveness of jury service for older citizens as an agreeable source of
supplementary income. The lesser costs those living in or near Athens incurred due to their proximity
to the courts meant that some geographic bias persisted in the juror pool. Jury pay therefore addressed
the under-representation of the poor, but could not overcome geography, and it worked its own
distorting influence on the age of the juror pool. In the 420s jury pay assumes a political significance
incommensurate with its actual cost. For the existence of the dikastikon provided political leaders,
beginning with Cleon, with a ready-made means of courting not just their core political constituency
but the most politically active part of that constituency. The paradoxical weakness of a system of
payment which made the demos its own paymaster, independent of private benefaction, thus revealed
itself: political support akin to that of a benefactor could still accrue to a politician who increased the
rate of pay or generated more paid employment. The guarded criticisms of the dikastikon which appear
in Aristophanes suggest it was regarded as an integral part of the democratic machinery and an imperial
entitlement not just by Cleon‟s supporters, but the majority of Athenians. Other Athenians thought
differently, for Aristophanes also reveals the perception that elite Athenians suffered because of a
class-based alliance, cemented by pay, between Cleon and the jurors. The reputations of Cleon‟s
successors suggest that they continued to make use of the courts as political weapons. By facilitating
the careers and divisive politics of those wartime politicians who came after Pericles, the dikastikon
helped bring about a change in the nature of democratic leadership and a concomitant disenchantment
of the old elite with democratic politics that would reach crisis point after the Sicilian Expedition.
65
66
Chapter 3. Revolution and Opposition (415-403)
Sicily and the Desire for Pay
The Peace of Nicias (421-13) was often more theoretical than real, but the lull in open hostilities
allowed Athens to recover some of its financial and military strength. In 415, these accumulated
resources were invested in the audacious attempt to conquer Sicily and Syracuse, the most powerful of
its cities. Pay makes a late but dramatic entrance in Thucydides, our primary source for the expedition,
during the assembly debate over the proposal to invade on the pretext of helping the Egestans.
Thucydides depicts the Athenians as being transported by the promise of easy riches:
And upon all alike there fell an eager desire (eros) to sail – upon the elders, from a belief that they
would either subdue the places they were sailing against, or that at any rate a great force could
suffer no disaster; upon those in the flower of their age, through a longing for far-off sights and
scenes, in good hopes as they were of a safe return; and upon the great mass of people and the
soldiers who hoped not only to get money for the present, but also to acquire additional dominion
which would always be an inexhaustible source of pay. 1 (6.24.3)
Plutarch says that the allure of limitless conquest in itself swayed the assembly and that both old and
young were captivated (Nic.12.1-2, Alc.17.3). Thucydides does nothing less than claim that pay, both
military and civic, was the decisive factor behind the riskiest and ultimately, the most disastrous,
foreign policy decision made by Athens. A debate between Nicias and Alcibiades precedes the vote,
and the speeches of both men subtly corroborate this claim. 2 In particular, Nicias makes what should be
an effective appeal to self-interest by arguing that the wealth accumulated in times of peace should be
spent in Athens and not frittered away on foreigners (12.1, cf. 26.2; Andoc.3.8). He maligns Alcibiades
for his hopes of personal enrichment (12.2) and pleads with the old not „to have a morbid craving for
what is out of reach, knowing that few successes are won by greed‟ (13.1). 3 This attempt to split the
assembly along generational lines serves to highlight the futility of Nicias‟ position when the entire
1
θαὶ ἔξσο ἐλέπεζε ηνῖο πᾶζηλ ὁκνίσο ἐθπιεῦζαη, ηνῖο κὲλ γὰξ πξεζβπηέξνηο ὡο ἢ θαηαζηξεςνκέλνηο
ἐθ´ἂ ἒπιενλ ἢ νὐδὲλ ἂλ ζθαιεῖζαλ κεγάιελ δύλακηλ, ηνῖο δ´ἐλ ηῇ ἡιηθίᾳ ηῆο ηε ἀπνύζεο πόζῳ ὄςεσο
θαὶ ζεσξίαο, θαὶ εὐέιπηδεο ὂληεο ζσζήζεζζαη, ὁ δὲ πνιὺο ὅκηινο θαὶ ζηξαηηώηεο ἔλ ηε ηῷ παξόληη
ἀξγύξηνλ νἴζεηλ θαὶ πξνζθηήζεζζαη δύλακηλ ὅζελ ἀίδηνλ κηζζνθνξὰλ ὑπάξμεηλ.
The translation of the crucial ὁ δὲ πνιὺο ὅκηινο θαὶ ζηξαηηώηεο is debated, see HCT.iv 262-3. The
possibilities are (a) to take ζηξαηηώηεο predicatively with πνιὺο ὅκηινο, „the mass of the people, that is
the soldiers‟ or „including the soldiers‟, (b) to treat it as an attributive „the armed mass‟, or (c) to
translate as a substantive despite the absence of a definite article „the great mass of people and the
soldiers‟. The last is used here and is advocated by Gomme (1920) 83 (cf. Thuc.8.9.3; Pl. Protag.314a).
I read Thucydides here, pace Hornblower, CT.iii 362-3, as describing the enthusiasm of the entire
assembly and not just those who were actually going to sail with the fleet. As such, the dichotomies of
old-young and civilian-military enhance the impression of unanimity.
2
Contra Kagan (1981) 159-91 who sees pay as conspicuously absent from the debate due to
Thucydides‟ reluctance to take what were actually earlier speeches delivered at an assembly not
concerned with invasion (6.8.2-3), and then re-work them into speeches in which the invasion question
takes centre-stage. For bibliography and discussion of this part of the narrative, see Hornblower, CT.iii
319-60.
3
…δπζέξσηαο εἶλαη ηῶλ ἀπόλησλ, γλόληαο ὅηη ἐπηζπκίᾳ κὲλ ἐιάρηζηα θαηνξζνῦληαη…
67
assembly – young and old – vote with Alcibiades at 24.3.4 Alcibiades better reflects the mindset of the
Athenians. He is motivated by the same desire for personal profit (15.2) and responds to Nicias by
stressing the potential benefits of the expedition: „calculating, then, that we shall strengthen our power
here if we go over there, let us make the voyage‟ and potentially win „empire over all Hellas‟ (18.3-4,
cf. 6.90.1-4).5 The use of an accounting metaphor, „calculating‟ (logisamenoi), implies a financial
return.6
Inferences should not be approached with any less caution just because they are made by so
sophisticated an author as Thucydides.7 However, the connections that Thucydides claims were
fundamental to the decision to invade – between empire and wealth, and between new conquests and
correspondingly greater amounts of pay – recall the flattering prophecies peddled by Paphlagon/Cleon
in Knights that Demos will one day judge cases in Arcadia on 5 ob a day (790). Knights does not
mention Sicily but does mention a grandiose scheme to conquer Carthage with a fleet of 100 triremes
(Eq.1303-4 cf. 174; Thuc.6.34.2) and attributes it to Hyperbolus, the man who had briefly succeeded
Cleon as leader of the demos (Pax 681). Thucydides does claim that the Athenians had actively begun
contemplating the conquest of Sicily as early as 427 (3.86.4-5, cf. 1.44.3, 4.60.1, 65.3). Although
Thucydides shares the professed contempt of Aristophanes for Cleon and his successors, the political
significance he attaches to pay seems to confirm the resonance of rhetorical strategies which played to
the interests of the demos by exploiting the dikastikon.8
It is nevertheless surprising that the Athenians should see an everlasting supply of pay as the chief
benefit of invading Sicily. The island would only fund pay if its cities were made tributary (cf.
Diod.13.2.6), and Nicias notes that the distance of the island would make long-term control difficult
(6.11.1). The island did figure in the Athenian imagination as a land of milk and honey, 9 ripe for the
taking, but the prospect of land distributions (Diod.13.2.2) and plentiful grain supplies were a likelier
attraction than pay. Wider analysis of the thematic significance of money in Thucydides suggests that
his pay-based etiology for the expedition serves a narrative purpose. The connection between money
and power recurs throughout Thucydides as an interpretative framework, explicating the course of the
conflict. Whereas Athens had spent money to acquire power in the time of Pericles, Lisa Kallet‟s
thorough study of the Sicilian narrative and its aftermath highlights the way in which this relationship
is shown to be perverted to the point that acquisition has become an end unto itself. The Athenians have
blurred the distinction between acquisition in their own private interests and acquisition in the public
interest.10 In this, the city whose empire had been called a tyranny (Thuc.2.63.2, 3.37.2) is now itself
undeniably tyrant-like in its very character, violently seeking out funds to further endow its own
comfort and power.11 When Thucydides avows that the selfish, tyrant-like rapacity of ordinary
Athenians led the city to overreach in Sicily he is in effect reiterating his explanation for this allimportant shift in the Athenian use of wealth. That explanation is found most clearly in his eulogy of
Pericles (2.65.5 f.). There Thucydides blames the defeat of Athens on demagogues who rejected the
4
Rosenbloom (2004a) 66 dismisses the recent sharp division between the old and young for peace and
war respectively during Hyperbolus‟ ostracism (Plut. Nic.11.3) as an invention based on Thucydides.
5
cf. Plut. Nic. 12.1-2, Alc.17.1-3.
6
Kallet (2001) 40.
7
See the remarks of Rhodes (1972b) 115-6 on fact and interpretation in Thucydides.
8
Dover et al., HCT.iv 230.
9
Green (1970) 21-35; Davidson (1998) 294-5.
10
Kallet (2001) 21-84, esp. 44-5 on 6.24.3, cf. Ober (1998) 104-18.
11
Kallet (2001) 79-82.
68
defensive strategy of Pericles and failed to restrain the baser instincts of a risk-taking polis (1.70.3) out
of their own lust for power. When Thucydides singles out individual pay as firing the enthusiasm of the
Athens over Sicily, the reader cannot help recall the memorable judgment of 2.65.7: „in matters that
apparently had no connection with the war they [the Athenians] were led by private ambition and
private greed to adopt policies which proved injurious both to themselves and their allies‟. 12 The
Melian dialogue which in its irony looks forward to the Sicilian narrative, invokes the same prediction
even nearer to its denouement when the Athenians chastise the Melians for irrationally risking
everything in the hope of success (5.103).
Thucydides searches for the „real‟ forces behind events in the hope of finding lessons in history
(1.22.2). Just as he divined the „truest explanation‟ (ἀιεζεζηάηελ πξόθαζηλ) for the Archidamian War
(1.23.6), so at 6.6.1 (the only other place the phrase appears) the truest explanation of the Sicilian
expedition is the Athenians‟ desire for conquest. At 6.24.3 greed for pay is shown to underpin that
secret desire. To present Athenians as gambling the city in the hope of a few more obols for themselves
is an exaggeration meant to stress the deeper reality: that Athens, without Pericles to restrain its
impulsiveness and to protect it from demagogues (cf. Eur. Supp.412-4), ignored his maxim that victory
required the intelligent use of wealth and hastily embarked on a reckless treasure-quest (2.13.2, cf.
2.40.1).13 The lesson is painfully clear at the very end of the narrative, when 6000 of those Athenians
who had gone to Sicily in the hope of securing limitless pay were forced to surrender all the money
they had left to the enemy (7.82.3).
The defeat of the expedition was a serious blow to Athenian self-confidence. Materially, the city
never fully recovered; the expedition had hemorrhaged money and at least 10,000 Athenians never
returned.14 The cost of wages for the force deployed in the first year, and then only for Athenian
personnel, was at least 1000 talents – close to the total imperial revenue of 1200 talents which
Andocides (3.9) claims Athens received annually during the Peace of Nicias. 15 If it was actually
accumulated, the 7000 talents Andocides also claims was built up during the Peace was probably spent
(Andoc.3.8). The financial pressure was compounded by the establishment of a permanent Spartan
garrison at Decelaea to raid Attica all year round, which precipitated the desertion of 20,000 slaves and
12
νἱ δὲ ηαῦηά ηε πάληα ἐο ηνὐλαληίνλ ἔπξαμαλ θαὶ ἄιια ἔμσ ηνῦ πνιέκνπ δνθνῦληα εἶλαη θαηὰ ηὰο
ἰδίαο θηινηηκίαο θαὶ ἴδηα θέξδε θαθῶο ἔο ηε ζθᾶο αὐηνὺο θαὶ ηνὺο μπκκάρνπο ἐπνιίηεπζαλ. It is better
to identify the Athenians in general as the subject (νἱ…ἔπξαμαλ) rather than Pericles‟ successors. That
Sicily is one of these unnamed matters peripheral to the war which Thucydides goes on to say „proved
detrimental to the state in the conduct of the war‟ seems very likely, pace Hornblower, CT.i 343-4,
despite the succeeding statement at 65.11 that Sicily was not a mistake but failed because of subsequent
failures of leadership back home (2.65.11). Kallet, Money and the Corrosion of Power 97-118, 193-5
defends the judgment of 65.11, but because a great deal of money was poured into Sicily it appears that
Thucydides did fail to revise his explanation of the defeat in light of the actual Sicilian narrative
(HCT.ii 195-6). The reader may also recall from Thucydides‟ account the assembly reported by
Herodotus which, 84 years earlier, had made the fateful decision to aid the Ionian Revolt thanks to
promises of easy plunder (5.97).
13
Hornblower, CT.iii 21-31 notes that the omission of the significant role the boule must have played
here, contributes to this impression of ill-considered mass-decision making. Thucydides‟ claim that the
Athenians lacked information about Sicily (6.1.1) is also dubious (cf. Plut.Nic.12.1, Alc.17.3).
14
Over the course of the campaign, Athens sent 304 talents 2000 dr (Thuc.6.94.4; IG i3 370.73-6),
another 120 talents (7.16.2; cf. Diod.13.8.7; IG i3 371.8), and reinforcements of 73 ships and 5000
troops (Thuc.7.42.1; Plut. Nic.21.1). The decree preserving loans from Athena records 353-355 talents
in 415/4 (IG i3 370.81=ML 77.81) and lines 73-6 might confirm the 300 talents sent to Nicias and
additional money spent on the transport ships. For the number of casualties, see Hansen (1988) 15-6.
15
(60 triremes x 200 sailors) + (40 troop carriers x 60 sailors) + (2,200 troops), each at 1 dr p.d. On
Andocides‟ figure, see ATL.iii 353-5; Meiggs, AE 343.
69
a return to the crowded urban living conditions of the early 420s (Thuc.7.19.1, 27-28.3; Hell.Oxy.17.45).16 The Spartan fleet succeeded in reducing overseas revenue by promoting revolts throughout the
empire. The war would now be a naval conflict, but one fought within Athens‟ sphere and directly
involving the allies from which Athens drew its financial strength.
In response to the Sicilian disaster, Athens aimed to rescue its depleted finances through the
retrenchment of non-military spending (Thuc.8.1.3). To improve imperial revenue, tribute collection
was scrapped in 414 or 413 in favour of a 5% empire-wide harbour tax. A board of 10 probouloi was
set up to „prepare measures with reference to the present situation as there might be occasion‟. 17 The
most dramatic measures were the spending of the 1000 talent-reserve that had been set aside for the
defence of Athens back in 431 (8.15.1, cf. 2.24.1) during the revolt of Chios in 412, and, at about the
same time, the halving of military pay to 3 ob p.d. It is recognised, however, that Thucydides‟ narrative
tends to exaggerate the depth of Athens‟ financial worries and the extent to which fear could dictate
decision making in these years: „in the panic of the moment they were ready, as is the way with a
democracy, to observe discipline in everything‟ (8.1.3-4, cf. Diod.12.75.4). Less was probably being
spent on jury pay than before Sicily due to the impact of revolts and occupation on the influx of judicial
business to Athens (cf. Thuc.6.91.7), but jury pay was by no means a trivial expense: just 180 days of
pay for 2000 jurors could pay the crews of 60 ships for a month. Whatever economic argument there
may have been for the suspension of jury pay in the short term, it did not prevail over the political,
symbolic, and economic value attached to the dikastikon at a time of renewed privation and fear.
The First Abolition (411/10)
Pseudo-Xenophon prophetically observed that meaningful change to any aspect of Athenian
government was impossible unless it came by way of an attack on democracy itself (3.8-9). The refusal
to cut funding to the courts lasted until democracy itself became a grave financial liability. The key
difficulty is to determine when, and with what level of support, the decision to end jury pay was taken,
for it is often stated that in 411/10, unlike 404/3, the Athenians agreed to the abolition of jury pay. By
late 412 Athens‟ financial woes were dire enough for commanders on Samos, with the encouragement
of Alcibiades, to begin a movement for constitutional change in the hope that this would persuade the
Great King that Athens was more deserving of financial support than Sparta (8.47). Even the Athenian
soldiers based on Samos, initially outraged at the proposed alteration of democracy, „none the less kept
quiet because the prospect of pay from the King seemed easy of attainment‟ (8.48.3) – a statement that
ironically recalls the enthusiasm to invade Sicily for pay back in 415 (6.24.3), which according to
Thucydides was the ultimate cause of Athens‟ present financial embarrassment. 18 The reaction was
much the same when the proposal was put to the assembly at Athens in 411. Pisander, a democratic
leader (Andoc.1.36) turned oligarch, had become the spokesman of the movement for reform. 19 With
16
Thucydides does not say by what point so many slaves had deserted, see HCT.v 402-3. For the
ancient evidence on the destruction, see Hardy (1926).
17
There is little indication that these probouloi represented an early step towards oligarchy. The board
was an emergency measure designed to supply seasoned leadership, see HCT.v 6-7; Ostwald (1986)
339-43; Kagan (1987) 4-8.
18
cf. Hornblower, CT.iii 945, who notes the contrast between the silence of the opposition in the face
of popular enthusiasm at 6.24.4 and the silencing of the demos by a minority at 6.66.2-5.
19
On Pisander, see Rhodes, CAAP 407-8; Ostwald (1986) 331-2.
70
either misplaced confidence or deliberate exaggeration (cf. Arist. Pols.1304b7-15), he informed the
Athenians that the city had run out of money and that its survival mandated changing (though not
abolishing) the democracy to gain the trust of Persia. Athens had to „form a wiser government and put
the offices to a greater extent in the hands of a few‟ (Thuc.8.53.3). Pisander had to parry some fierce
objections but eventually fear, and the reassurance that the constitution could always be changed back
after the war, saw the demos agree.20 It would have taken little insight among the members of the
assembly to realise that jury pay could not be part of a democracy amiable to Persia. The in-principle
agreement of the assembly could then be read as tacit agreement that the dikastikon would have to be
suspended. Two features of Thucydides‟ account make such a reading difficult: Pisander‟s studiously
vague language and his emphasis that any change was only temporary suggest that the assembly
remained largely hostile to the idea of change. What we see in Thucydides is less of a victory for
Pisander and more of a stalemate. Both the assembly and the boule dragged their feet and preferred to
wait for the results of the embassy to Tissaphernes (8.54.2). In the end, the assembly had given a nonbinding agreement to consider non-specific, temporary constitutional changes some time in the future.
It is a measure of the importance of the dikastikon and the absence of any public political opposition to
it, that only when the issue at stake was no longer how to save money but how to save Athens from
defeat and destruction that it was agreed – and then only tentatively – to alter the constitution.
Pisander‟s experience in the assembly probably left him believing that most Athenians did not yet
accept the inevitability of change. This is confirmed by his immediate decision to initiate change and
ensure that the demos would not renege on its agreement, by mobilising the sworn political associations
(synomosiai, at 65.2 hetairoi) with the aim of setting up a full-blown oligarchy (8.54.4-5). By the time
he returned months later the associations had terrorised the demos into submission by assassinating
opponents, including the leading popular politician Androcles (8.65.1-2, 6.28.2).21 The climate of
paranoia which took hold allowed oligarchic sympathisers to assume control of the assembly and boule
(8.66). Thucydides‟ account makes plain the difference between appearance and reality: while ordinary
Athenians agreed to relinquish some power in a spirit of self-sacrifice (cf. 8.53.1), the military
commanders on Samos, the associations, and some of the rich who were not committed democrats,
were all working to abolish democracy for its own sake and to secure permanent power for themselves
(8.48.1, 63.4, 91.3).22 The associations in Athens published their own programme of reform in which
the abolition of pay featured prominently:
that no others ought to receive pay except those who were serving in the war, and that not more
than five thousand should share in the government, and they only so far as they were especially
competent to serve the state with both property and person. (Thuc.8.65.3; cf. Ath.Pol.29.5; Xen.
Hell.2.3.48).
Given the little that Thucydides has said about civic pay directly up to this point, its precedence before
the substantive information on how many will constitute the new government is indicative of its actual
20
Thuc.8.53-4; Ath.Pol.29.1; Diod.13.34.1-2, 36.1-4, 38.1; cf. Xen. Hell.2.3.45. The argument that
change would only be temporary seems to have had particular resonance: the Four Hundred would
publicly defend their regime as necessary in a period of crisis (Thuc.53.2-3, 72.1, 86.3).
21
See Ostwald (1986) 331 n. 138 on Androcles‟ comic image.
22
Though individual oligarchs had more complex motivations, see Ibid., 349-54.
71
political profile in 411. The same order is observed in Ath.Pol (29.5) which seems to make use of
documentary sources unavailable to Thucydides. 23 It was a convenient alignment of their hidden and
public objectives that allowed the oligarchs to target civic pay, given that it was now in Athens‟
manifest interest to curb both non-military domestic spending and popular sovereignty. 24 The hoplite
democracy that was effectively being proposed (cf. Thuc.8.97.1; Ath.Pol.33.1) was meant to hark back
to a respectable, older incarnation of democracy known vaguely as the „ancestral constitution‟ (patrios
politeia, cf. Ath.Pol.29.3, 31.1).25 Under such a system, the exercise of citizenship would no longer
entitle individuals to receive pay. Citizenship itself would be the entitlement only of those capable of
making a financial contribution to the state and of offering hoplite service.
Thucydides (8.66.1 cf. Plut. Alc.26.1-2), identifies the programme as „a pretext for the masses‟
(εὐπξεπὲο πξὸο ηνὺο πιείνπο), which presumably means that the oligarchs hoped the programme would
secure the cooperation of the demos (on false pretenses) and make a narrower oligarchy easier to install
later on. In the limited sense that the abolition of pay was as much about political principle than cost
cutting, Thucydides is correct to characterise the programme as a Trojan horse. The way in which the
oligarchs were eager to publicise their intended abolition of civic pay, however, implies that the
oligarchs could expect the agreement of many thetes and zeugitai who stood to lose most from the
stoppage of pay. The programme offered reassurance that the reformists only planned to make what
changes were necessary and to do no more than what Pisander had said. The assembly‟s initial
approval of Pisander‟s argument, however, had been begrudging and Thucydides does not say that the
idea met with any more approval now then it had then. It is, moreover, one thing to agree to a review of
jury pay and another to be presented with its abolition as a fait accompli.26 That said, it has been shown
how Aristophanes advocates prioritising military finance, and the deterioration of Athens‟ fortunes
since the heady days of Pylos must have generated even more respect for this sentiment by 411.
Thucydides does make it clear that the programme was not without some wider support: what most
unnerved loyal democrats was the sheer number of citizens who had never been suspected of oligarchic
sympathies but who were now defecting to the conspirators (cf. 8.66.2-5). These men accepted as
necessary the moderate changes first promulgated by Pisander and were unaware that hopes of
Alcibiades securing Persian support had in the meantime evaporated (Thuc.8.56, 63.4). It was probably
to reassure such moderates that the „future‟ constitution for the Five Thousand was later drawn up, 27
and this never-to-be implemented blueprint maintains the ban on pay (Ath.Pol.30.1).28 Yet Thucydides
makes it clear that this support did not constitute majority sentiment in Athens – he says the defections
23
These include the actual texts of the constitution for „the present‟ and „the future‟, whether original
documents or transmitted by Androtion‟s Atthis. For sources, see HCT.v.246- 51; Rhodes, CAAP 3667.
24
Sealey (1967) 125-6 and (1975) 272-3 argues that the two-point programme of the associations was
adopted purely to save money – but if economy was the only concern, the Athenians could simply have
abolished civic pay and allowed the democracy to adjust.
25
On the patrios politeia, see Ostwald (1986) 367 n. 119.
26
cf. Andrewes et al. HCT.v 162, „this programme represents what the people expected to have
imposed on them when the moment came‟. Andrewes et al. (163) overlooks the extraordinary panic in
which the Five Thousand were voted power (Thuc.8.95-6) when he uses that vote as evidence for broad
support of the oligarchs in 411.
27
The dating scheme of Hignett, AC 360, 373, cf. Andrewes at al. HCT.v 243-6, 250-1.
28
Only members of the boule are explicitly banned from receiving pay, but since the boule plays a
crucial (albeit unclear) role in the selection of all state officials, it would be surprising if they were the
only ones not to be remunerated. The Five Thousand cannot be described as having „a lax payment
policy‟, contra Gabrielsen (1981) 22.
72
made people think that the conspiracy was larger than it actually was and that „the demos‟ (8.66.2, 5)
and „the masses‟ (oi polloi) (66.5) were being kept in a state of fear and submission by „the few‟ (oi
oligoi) (66.5). Thucydides is at pains to stress that, contrary to belief at the time, the demos in Athens
was not divided and that the thetes were not supportive of the programme. Many poorer hoplites stood
to be disenfranchised, like the thetes, if the original programme did indeed call for „not more than five
thousand‟ (later, „at least five thousand‟, Ath.Pol.29.5) to share in government. There would, after all,
be little need for violence if the demos was really supportive of the plan. The contradiction between the
mildness of the public programme and the use of secret violence is a curious aspect of Thucydides‟
account that has gone unnoticed – if the demos could be so easily cowed, why pretend? Though
Thucydides does not say so, it would appear from his account (esp. 8.65) that the associations overestimated popular support for the abolition of jury pay and the restriction of the franchise, and were
then forced to resort to violence. The failure of the programme may be attributed as much to the
proposed abolition of pay as much as disenfranchisement – pay was necessary for the exercise of
sovereignty. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that jury pay had never been of greater economic
importance to Athenians than during these years.
The prospect of receiving better pay in future was certainly enough for the servicemen on Samos to
shelve their objections to a short-term suspension of democracy (8.48.3). A good number of the more
than 20,000 servicemen on Samos were thetes (Thuc.8.29.6), but it seems that citizens with the fleet
were supportive of an end to civic stipends in Athens in the hope of being paid what they were owed on
time. It was on their behalf that Alcibiades later told the envoys of the Four Hundred that the Five
Thousand should be given power and that „if there had been any curtailment with a view to economy,
so that the soldiers in the field might have better maintenance, he quite approved of that‟ (8.86.6).
Thus, while elites and poorer citizens receiving pay in the armed forces were ready to jettison civic pay
in the hope of getting Persian gold, the demos in Athens was not. On this question, even before the
establishment of the Four Hundred, Athens had been split into two demoi.
The precautions taken by the Four Hundred leave no doubt that the idea of a narrow oligarchy
lacked majority support (cf. Plut. Alc.25.2). A desire to discourage both the attendance of thetes and
extended debate explains the decision of the oligarchs in early June 411 (Ath.Pol.32.1) to hold the
assembly that would vote in the Four Hundred at Colonus, rather than on the Pnyx. 29 There, outside the
city walls, the assembly was potentially exposed to Spartan attack (Thuc.8.67.2; Ath.Pol.32.1).30 In an
atmosphere of fear stemming from the assembly‟s physical location and the recent violence used by the
associations, the programme was approved by the assembly and the dikastikon ceased to exist (Thuc.
8.67.3, 69.1 cf. Lys.12.65, 20.16; Isoc.8.108). A few days later, the members of the boule were
dismissed and paid out for their remaining month in office as armed supporters of the Four Hundred
stood at the ready (8.69). Thucydides and Aristotle both provide accounts of the assembly:
29
Rhodes, CAAP 377-8. A high number of hoplites in the Colonus assembly might help resolve the
problem of how Aristotle can claim that 100 anagrapheis were selected from the Five Thousand
(Ath.Pol. 30.1) even though he subsequently says that the Five Thousand were never actually named
(32.3).
30
Notwithstanding the scepticism of Andrewes et al., HCT.v 167 towards this motivation.
73
the proposal was at length offered without concealment that no one should any longer hold office
under the constitution as at present established or receive a salary, and that they should choose five
men as presidents, and these should choose one hundred, [and each of these] choosing others in
addition to himself; then these, being four hundred, should enter the bouleuterion and govern as
they should judge best, being clothed with full powers, and they should convene the Five
Thousand whenever it seemed to them advisable. It was Pisander who proposed this resolution.
(Thuc.8.67.3-68.1)
After this they [the constitutional commissioners] organised the constitution in the following way.
It should not be permitted to spend Athens‟ revenues for any purpose other than the war; and all
officials should serve without stipends for the duration of the war, apart from the nine archons and
whatever prytanes there might be, who shall receive three obols a day. Otherwise the whole control
of the state should be entrusted to the Athenians best able to serve with their persons and wealth,
being not less than five thousand in number, for the duration of the war. (Ath.Pol.29.5)
For our purposes, the key difference between these accounts is the statement of Ath.Pol that archons
and prytanes were exempted from the abolition of pay and would continue to be paid at the reduced
rate of 3 ob p.d., probably by virtue of their ceremonial leadership of the polis.31 It goes without saying
that servicemen will still be paid. The divergence can be explained by Thucydides‟ concern with
political realities rather than constitutional technicalities – it is not true, for instance, that all officeholders were turned out.32 The exemptions of these two classes of magistrate may therefore be
accepted. After approving the abolition of pay, the assembly rubber-stamped the setting up of the Four
Hundred. Thereafter, the jury courts appear to have been redundant (Antiph. F1.2). The Four Hundred,
with carte blanche power (Ath.Pol.31.1), dispensed justice as they saw fit (Thuc.8.70.2, 92.2; Lys.6.27;
Andoc.2.13-5). The regime‟s destruction from infighting after 4 months (Thuc.8.92.4-97.3) was
guaranteed by its refusal even to name the Five Thousand, and its preference for negotiation rather than
continued warfare (8.69, 90.1, cf. 75.2; Ath.Pol. 32.3). In the end, the abolition of payments like the
dikastikon was the one public promise the Four Hundred kept.
It was only during the assembly at which the Four Hundred were formally deposed that we see a
majority of the demos in Athens voting to suspend the dikastikon. Although the fleet was still abroad,
the fact that the assembly met on the Pnyx alone probably made it more representative than the one
held at Colonus. Thucydides confirms that here „the Athenians‟ (8.97) voted to hand power over to the
Five Thousand and to maintain the ban on civic pay, which now seems to have included archons and
the prytanes, because it was also decreed that anyone who might receive pay „for any office‟ (κεδεκηᾶο
31
The other notable disagreements are on the number of commissioners (Thuc.8.67.1; Ath.Pol.29.2),
whether Pisander or the commissioners actually introduced the proposal to end pay, the apparent claim
of Ath.Pol that the Five Thousand set up the Four Hundred (Thuc.8.92.11; cf. Ath.Pol. 32.3), and the
precise manner in which the Four Hundred were chosen (Thuc.13.67; Ath.Pol.31). On these and other
problems see HCT.v 153 f.; Hignett, AC 356-78; Rhodes, CAAP 362-415 for the best treatment of
constitutional problems. For narrative treatments of the Four Hundred, Ostwald (1986) 337-411; Kagan
(1987) 131-57.
32
See Rhodes, CAAP 405.
74
ἀξρῆο) was to be „accounted accursed‟ (ἐπάξαηνλ ἐπνηήζαλην, 8.97.1-2; cf. Ath.Pol. 33.1).33 The courts
were soon reopened and members of the Four Hundred put on trial (Andoc.1.17; [Lys].20.14, 22; Plut.
Mor.833e-f).34 In the absence of any additional information about the regime of the Five Thousand
from Xenophon or Diodorus, it is difficult to determine the precise political entitlement of thetes under
the regime, but the continued absence of pay would have excluded most thetes from serving on juries
even if they were entitled to do so.35 Thucydides gives no further explanation for the harsh penalty of
being „accounted accursed‟, though this presumably meant expulsion from the city. 36 Athenian law and
governance were inseparable from religion: the curse placed on Alcibiades for his alleged desecration
of the Mysteries is well known (Thuc.8.53, Xen. Hell.1.4.18-20; Diod.13.69.2; Plut. Alc.33.3) and the
democracy invoked divine protection at the start of assembly and boule meetings with curses against
those hostile to the city (cf. Ar. Thesm.347-51). The decree of Demophantus in 410/9 pronounces a
curse upon the person and household of whoever breaks their oath to defend the democracy
(Andoc.1.98). The use of a curse outside of an oath to entrench a specific law is, however, unusual for
Athens and can best be explained with reference to the extreme climate of fear prevailing at the time.37
The assembly on the Pnyx had formally removed the Four Hundred, but what had finished the teetering
oligarchy in fact was the unprecedented panic that occurred when Euboea revolted and the fleet Athens
sent to suppress the rising was defeated by the Peloponnesians (Thuc.8.95-6; Ath.Pol.33.1;
Diod.13.34.1-3, 36.3-4). The Athenians would no longer be able to use Euboea as a substitute for the
33
Loomis, WWCI 20 overlooks the curse when he assumes that the ban was not total. The dikastikon
was an expensive democratic institution and politically incompatible with the aims of the Five
Thousand, so the ban on pay for all offices (arche) must be taken to include jurors. Jurors could be
distinguished from „regular‟ officials (Ar. Vesp.557)(on the defining characteristics of archai in the
fourth century, Hansen (1980) 152-4), but the line between juror and magistrate is often blurred (cf.
Lyc. Leocr.79) and sometimes totally eliminated (Ar. Vesp.587, Plut.916-7; Pl. Leg.6.767a-b; Suda s.v.
archein). Aristotle, while initially appearing to distinguish jurors from office holders in his first
definition of the citizen (Pols.1275a23-4), goes on to class jurors and assemblymen as officials of
unlimited tenure as opposed to the non-renewable positions of magistrates (1275b13-6), see further
Johnson (1984) 75-7 with n. 13; Blanshard (2004) 34-6.
34
See HCT.v 174-6 and Jameson (1971) 554-5, 566 f.; Maurer (1995) 38-41 on the difficulties of the
alternative reading at 8.68.2, at which point the longer version of an MS tradition adds κεηέζηε ἡ
δεκνθξαηία θαὶ ἐο ἀγῶλαο θαηέζηε. ἡ δεκνθξαηία is clearly corrupt but the mention of ἀγῶλαο, which
both Jameson and Maurer do not believe to be a late interpolation, suggests prosecutions under the Five
Thousand.
35
de Ste Croix (1956) argues, cf. Sealey (1975), that the thetes were included in the assembly and
courts and that the „Five Thousand‟ were those citizens eligible to hold office. As members of the Five
Thousand were of hoplite status or higher, they would not need pay to hold office. Since the thetes had
always, technically, been excluded from office, the problem with this view of the Five Thousand is that
the regime would have been virtually indistinguishable from full democracy. Rhodes (1972b) 122 f.,
(see also HCT.v. 323-8; Ostwald (1986) 395-411 esp. n. 210.) answers most of Ste Croix‟s points, but
Andrewes et al. HCT.v 326 is right to maintain that there are no real grounds to suppose that the thetes
were, as Rhodes (123-4) believes, formally excluded from the assembly that voted power to the Five
Thousand. It is true that Thucydides earlier applies ekklesia and ekklesiazein to soldiers (8.93.1, 93.394.1), but a broader-based assembly including a minority of thetes seems to be meant by the description
of „the Athenians‟ voting the Four Hundred out. I do incline to the view of Rhodes (121-2) that the Five
Thousand was always envisaged as a sovereign body, not just a pool of office holders, and that this was
still the case after the collapse of the oligarchy is implied from the statement that the assembly voted
„to deliver the management of affairs‟ (ηὰ πξάγκαηα παξαδνῦλαη) to them (Thuc.8.97.1; cf.
Ath.Pol.33.1)
36
See HCT.v 190.
37
For examples of curses attached to laws or decrees, see Rhodes (2007) 21. To his examples may be
added a fifth century law from Eretria (IvEr.i.1) stating that no one can hold the offices of secretary and
treasurer more than once and no one is allowed to hold them concurrently, and that the penalty for
breaking the law is a curse, atimia and 100 staters.
75
Attic countryside (cf. Thuc.2.14.1, 7.28.1, 8.1.3) and now faced the terrifying prospect of the virtually
defenceless Piraeus being taken by the enemy. In such a crisis, the need to make every talent count left
little choice but to continue the suspension of pay and eliminate the previous exceptions. The use of a
curse as punishment against any future recipient of pay had the advantage of being more difficult to
reverse than it was to restore civic rights and property. Since it was clearly impossible for someone to
be guilty of the offence of receiving pay when pay did not exist, the curse envisages a time in the future
when full democracy would be restored and with it, the temptation to start spending money on officials
and jurors rather than the war. The curse was a far-sighted, if futile, effort by the Five Thousand to
reach beyond the life of the regime and provide ammunition for the inevitable confrontation with the
resurgent advocates of pay.38
The Restoration and Second Abolition (410/09-404/3)
The Five Thousand and the continued ban on pay, as predicted, proved only as long-lived as the state of
emergency in which they had been established. Sparta had sought to choke Athens by cutting off its
grain route through the Hellespont, but the Athenian victories at Cynossema (Thuc.8.104-6) and
Abydus (Xen. Hell.1.1.4-7) in late 411 and most spectacularly at Cyzicus (Xen. Hell.1.1.11-23;
Diod.13.49.2-51) before the end of 411/10 (Andoc.1.96-8)39, allowed Athens to re-impose control and
levy a 10% toll on shipping from the Black Sea (Xen. Hell.1.1.22; Diod.13.64.2). The continuous state
of crisis that had prevailed since September 411 thus came to an end and Athenian confidence grew
great enough to reject a Spartan peace offer at the behest of the leading popular figure Cleophon
(Diod.13.53; Philoch. FGrH 328 F139a-b). Little is known about Cleophon before this point but he
comes to receive all the familiar forms of comic abuse, and his spirited rejection of peace suggests that
he continued the tradition of aggressive commitment to the war exemplified by Cleon and Hyperbolus
(cf. Ar. Ran.1532-4).40 It was perhaps the failure of moderates who advocated the peace that explains
why the Five Thousand were removed and why full democracy was restored by July 410
(Ath.Pol.34.1).41 The dikastikon probably shared in the general democratic revival not least because a
truly democratic court system would be difficult to achieve without it. The kolakretai are not attested
after 418/7 (IG i3 84.15-8) and their functions, including the payment of jurors, were probably taken
over in 411 by an enlarged board of 20 Hellenotamiai who now oversaw a combined domestic-imperial
treasury.42 It is only at this point, therefore, that reality aligns with the misconception seen in
Aristophanes of jurors being paid out of tribute. The symbolism of the dikastikon would have been
appreciated by a democratic leadership that now sought to firmly entrench popular power through
legislation against the overthrow of democracy (Andoc.1.95-8; Plut. Mor.834), and to impart a sense of
renewal with the resumption of work on the Erechtheum in 409/08 (IG i2 372-4). A tradition first
38
Both in its thinking and efficacy, the tactic is not unlike Sparta‟s use of the Alcmaeonid curse against
Pericles in 432 (Thuc.1.127.2-3).
39
For chronology see Sealey (1975) 273-7.
40
For Cleophon, see Ostwald (1986) 423-4; Rosenbloom (2004a) 81-2 with nn. 110 and 111. Ath.Pol.
(34.1, cf. schol. Ar. Ran.1532) has Cleophon reject a second peace offer after Arginusae. Cleophon was
probably behind the initial ban on peace discussions (Xen. Hell.2.2.15; Lys.13.8), and his obstinacy
eventually led to his arrest and execution (Lys.13.12, 30.11-3).
41
Kagan (1987) 253. On the precise dating of the democratic restoration, see Rhodes, CAAP 415.
42
There is no evidence for the suggestion of ATL.iii 364 that the kolakretai were revived to pay jurors.
See Rhodes (1972a) 99 n. 4.
76
reported by Ath.Pol. suggests that the re-introduction of the dikastikon was one of the first decisions of
the restored democracy:
[Pericles] devised payment for jurors. Some people allege that it was as a result of this that the
courts deteriorated, since it was always the ordinary people rather than the better sort who were
eager to be picked for jury service. After this judicial corruption began. The way was first shown
by Anytus after he had served as general at Pylos: he was brought to trial for losing Pylos, and
escaped by bribing the jury. (27.4-5)
The trial referred to took place in 410 or 409 (Diod.13.64.5-7). The claim Ath.Pol. makes about Anytus
is suspicious on two counts: although the size of juries made bribery harder (cf. [Xen.] Ath.pol.3.7)
attempts must have surely been made to corrupt juries over the preceding half century, and the
allegation did not stop Anytus from successfully prosecuting Socrates and from becoming one of the
most prominent politicians in the early fourth century democracy (Pl. Ap.23e3-24a, Men.90;
Isoc.18.23).43 The story is probably a slur, but its significance is the implication that the jurors at
Anytus‟ trial were being paid because he supplies the story as evidence that pay made the courts
susceptible to corruption. That the original story also envisaged a paid jury seems likely. The trial may
have been notorious precisely because it was the first high-profile acquittal of a democratic leader by
the restored court system, and therefore ripe for anti-democratic attack as proof that the democracy
quickly resumed its self-interested behaviour.
The first confirmed sighting of jury pay is in Aristophanes‟ Frogs in 405, where Dionysus talks
with Aeschylus in the underworld and challenges him to beat Euripides by offering better advice to his
city. Aeschylus then makes his recommendation:
Aeschylus: When they think of the enemy‟s country as their own, and their own as the enemy‟s,
and the fleet as their wealth, and their wealth as despair.
Dionysus: Good, except that the juryman will gobble that down all by himself! (1463-6).
Aeschylus represents the embodiment of old-fashioned rectitude in contrast to the new-fangled
introspection and experiment of Euripides. Like the Delphic oracle, he tells Athens to trust again in its
fleet and adds that the war should again be taken to the Peloponnesians as it was with the Pylos
campaign. The reply of Dionysus that all the wealth not spent on the fleet is going to jurors is an
obvious distortion of reality, especially because there is no evidence that the dikastikon was increased
above 3 ob. The most straightforward interpretation of the reference is to regard it as a criticism of the
reintroduction of the dikastikon at a time when Athenian survival depended on investing all available
funds in the navy. The previous chapter pointed out that Aristophanes suggested the wisdom of
prioritising military spending over civic pay back in the 420s. The opinion expressed here is then
hardly new, but it is stated with a bluntness better suited to the more anxious situation of the time.
43
See Rhodes, CAAP 341-4.
77
Jury pay was not the only payment being funded in 405. Another early addition to the expenditures
of the new democracy was the diobelia, introduced by Cleophon in 410/9.44 Among the attempts to
identify the purpose of this 2 ob payment was that of Beloch who argued it was none other than the
dikastikon re-introduced at a reduced rate.45 This is based on the scholiast‟s identification of the
dikastikon as the 2 ob mentioned in Frogs:
Heracles: An ancient mariner will ferry you across in a little boat no bigger than this, for a fare of
two obols.
Dionysus: Wow, what power those two obols have everywhere! How did they make their way
down here?
Heracles: Theseus brought them… (Ran.138-41)
Taking pay of two obols: this is not taken literally, but for jury pay, since it was two obols. And at
the same time according to the saying, because they place two obols in the mouth for the dead, and
also because jury pay was two obols. Hence it follows [in Aristophanes], „wow, what power those
two obols have everywhere‟.46 (schol. Ran.140)
The reference to Theseus, the mythical founder of not just the Athenian polis but the democracy, might
suggest that a reference to a 2 ob state payment is being made and not a joke about wartime inflation
doubling Charon‟s usual fee. A reference to the diobelia is more likely.47 Epigraphic evidence survives
for the size and frequency of diobelia payments. Since there appears to be no recent publication listing
all known monies loaned for the diobelia by the Treasurers of Athena, this information is collected in
appendix D. In its inaugural year of 410/9, the only year for which the accounts are nearly complete,
16.79 talents in loans are identified as being for the diobelia (IG i2 304a=IG i3 375=ML 84). Assuming
that the other unidentified sums paid to the two Hellenotamiai Dionysius and Thrason were for the
same purpose, the total increases to just over 32 talents for the year and was probably over 34. The
frequency of the payments suggests that Athena was footing the bill for the diobelia. The accounts for
409/08 and probably for 408/07 are lost. What little survives of the accounts for 407/6-406/5 (IG i2
304b=IG i3 377)48 confirm that the average amount loaned for the diobelia in each prytany was 3-4
talents. It is conceivable that amid the financial austerity of 410/09-404/3 the rate of jury pay was
dropped to 2 ob p.d. If the approximate diobelia total of 32 talents p.a. was in fact for jury pay, this
44
For the diobelia and those associated with it, see Aeschin.2.76; Ath.Pol. 28.3; Arist. Pols.1267b-15 is
probably not about the diobelia; Ety.Mag. s.v. diobelia; Hennion (1952) though now outdated in many
aspects; Buchanan (1962) 35-48; Ostwald (1986) 424-5; CAAP 354-7; Andrewes, CAH2.v 485;
Loomis, WWCI 222-3.
45
Beloch (1884); Hansen (1979b) 13 n. 30. Schulthess (RE.xv.2 2090) believes that jury pay was
introduced after the abolition of the diobelia sometime before Frogs.
46
δύ´ὀβνιὼ κηζζὸλ ιαβώλ · νὐρ ὡο ηνῦην ιακβάλνληνο, ἀιιὰ πξὸο ηὸλ δηθαζηηθὸλ κηζζὸλ, ὅηη δύν
ὀβνιῶλ ἦλ. ἅκα δὲ δηὰ ηὸ ιεγόκελνλ, ὅηη ηνῖο λεθξνῖο ἐπὶ ηνῦ ζηόκαηνο βάιινπζη δύν ὀβνινὺο, θαὶ ὅηη
ηὸ δηθαζηηθὸλ κηζζάξηνλ δύν ὀβνινὶ ἦζαλ. ἐπηθέξεη γνῦλ ὡο κέγα δύλαζζνλ παληαρνῦ ηὼ δύ´ὀβνιώ.
Author‟s translation. Suda s.v. uper ta Kallikratous, also mistakes the diobelia at Ath.Pol.28.3 for jury
pay
47
Dover (1993) 208. It is, however, possible that the 2 ob refers to the fee for theatre attendance, see
Roselli (2009) 24-9.
48
The accounts may also show the diobelia being commuted in four payments made over two
prytanies, thus Meritt (1974) 260-3. The theory is rejected by Pritchett (1977) 45-6, who believes the
one-obol grant was for war orphans. For the dating of the one-obol payments see below, p. 114.
78
would indicate that the courts were operating at about half their theoretical maximum capacity (6000
jurors x 225 days).49 The courts probably never cost Athens as much as they theoretically could have,
and the reduction of litigation as a result of the war could have been severe enough to bring the cost of
jury pay down to about 30 talents. Yet if the diobelia was simply jury pay reincarnated, it is surprising
that no evidence survives linking it to jurors (other than Frogs supra). The impression of Aristotle‟s
statement that Cleophon was „the first man to provide the two-obol grant‟ (Ath.Pol.28.3) is that the
payment itself fwas completely novel, and Beloch‟s subsequent qualification that Ath.Pol here means
to say that Cleophon was the first to reintroduce jury pay is unconvincing.50 Since the literary evidence
strongly suggests that the diobelia was not equivalent to a 2 ob dikastikon, Fritz and Kapp offered a
variant of Beloch‟s view by suggesting that the diobelia was a uniform rate of pay for all citizens
entitled to remuneration for public service.51 Again, the size of the sums involved presents no serious
obstacle to this view, provided jurors were receiving 2 ob; it might even be possible that the caseloads
of the courts had shrunk so much that the boule and archons would also be paid out of the 32 talents,
since members of the boule seem to have been paid per day of attendance.52 The key objection to the
diobelia as a state remuneration fund is the variation in the amounts being loaned, ranging from 2 to
over 8 talents per prytany.53 If jurors as well as boule members were being paid, this would suggest
significant changes in the number of trials and the amount of business for the boule at a time when
judicial activity at least should have been relatively flat or in decline. This observation strengthens the
popular view of Wilamowitz that the diobelia was a welfare payment.54 The higher food prices and
unemployment caused by the loss of the countryside to the enemy and the occasional interruption of
grain imports would have been felt acutely by the poorest citizens. The payments are more consist with
the diobelia being an immediate distribution to whoever qualified for special assistance. 55 Jurors, like
salaried officials, were presumably made ineligible to receive the diobelia.56 Since far greater sums
would have to be spent if the diobelia was a general dole to all citizens, the diobelia should be regarded
as special hardship assistance for citizens in economic distress (cf. Plut.Per.34.2).57 In this respect the
diobelia was less overtly political than the dikastikon with which it appears to have co-existed.
Political influence does seem to have attended those associated with the diobelia. Cleophon was
clearly a leading figure of the restored democracy and the statement of Ath.Pol that Cleophon provided
49
See appendix B.
Beloch (1912) 398 n. 1.
51
Fritz (1950) 172-3; Sealey (1975) 287-90; Ostwald (1986) 424. For a brief overview of the literature
on this question see Pritchett (1977) 41-3.
52
Rhodes (1972a) 13-4. Assuming that at least half the membership of the boule attended at each
meeting (cf. Dem.22.35-7) and that the boule met during the 75 annual festivals (c.260 days, Sinclair
(1988) 225), and that the 50 prytanes were present at each of these meetings (cf. Pl. Leg.6.785b), then
at the pay rates of the 320s (Ath.Pol.62.2), bouletic pay would cost just over 10 talents. The smaller rate
of pay in the fifth century would reduce the total. For the remaining 20 or so talents to suffice for
jurors, an average of only 2000 would be serving.
53
The extreme variation seen within one prytany, the second prytany in the accounts of 407/6-406/5
(IG i2 304b=IG i3 377) probably indicates the rate at which money became available to the treasurers of
Athena rather than variation in the diobelia payments being given to recipients.
54
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1893) 212-6.
55
Aeschines (2.76) attacks Cleophon for corrupting Athenians not through pay per se but monetary
distributions (chremata).
56
Recipients of an invalid pension had to submit to an annual examination by the boule (cf. Lys.24.7,
26).
57
The raid the Spartans made up to the walls of Athens in late 410 (Xen. Mem.1.1.33) may explain the
exceptionally high bill of 8 talents for the diobelia in the fourth prytany (Oct-Nov) of 410/09 (IG i2
304a=IG i3 375.11-2).
50
79
(eporise) the diobelia (28.3) recalls the financial office of poristes recorded between 419 (Antiph.6.49)
and 405 (Ar. Ran.1505).58 Cleophon did not, however, monopolise control of the diobelia: Xenophon
(Hell.1.7.2) says that Archedemus „was the leader of the people in Athens at the time and was in charge
[epimelomenos] of the two-obol fund‟.59 However, the attribution of the diobelia to Cleophon and the
likely return of the dikastikon in the same year, make it tempting to suggest that Cleophon was
responsible for both measures.60 Even if this hypothesis is rejected, the associations between two
popular leaders and these funds suggest that the years after 410/9 bore some similarity to those after
425/4; once more a popular politician sought to bolster support for the war and his own position by
exploiting the potential of public money to serve as a kind of pseudo-benefaction. A passage of Birds
(staged 414), for all its humour, suggests that the connection between the dikastikon and the personal
power on show in Knights and Wasps had not lapsed with the death of Cleon. Prometheus once more
helps humanity by revealing the other sources of Zeus‟ power:
Peisethaerus: Who is this princess?
Prometheus: A most beautiful maiden who looks after Zeus‟ thunder-bolt and everything else too:
good counsel, law and order, decency, shipyards, mudslinging, the kolakretai, threeobol fees.
Peisethaerus: You mean she looks after everything for him?
Prometheus: That‟s right: win her from him and you‟ll have it all (1536-44).
The jury courts were used by the restored democracy against suspected enemies. Former oligarchs were
prosecuted with a vindictiveness that suggests the total absence of the restraint that would be shown
after the far bloodier regime of the Thirty ([Lys.]20.17, 25-6, 33-6), and Ostwald raises the possibility
that court decisions were responsible for inflicting partial atimia on soldiers who remained in Athens
under the Four Hundred (Andoc.1.75).61 Cleophon is to be connected with a prosecution of Alcibiades
and is named as orchestrating the expulsion of Critias (Arist. Rhet.1.15.13; Xen. Mem.1.2.24,
Hell.2.3.15, 36) possibly via a prosecution. The extent to which the democracy had failed to reunite the
polis is suggested by the unparalleled plea in Frogs for Athenians to choose reconciliation rather than
recrimination over events during the Four Hundred (686-705). The play also reprises the chief message
of the anti-Cleon plays of the 420s: the demos must put aside its base, divisive favourites and fall in
behind well-bred, respectable men of the traditional mould (727-37).
The ongoing deterioration in Athenian finances meant that the democracy, and the dikastikon,
would also retrace with even greater speed its trajectory of the previous decade and succumb for a
second time to oligarchy. Even though eisphorai were twice imposed on the rich between 410/09 and
405/4 (Lys.21.3; Diod.13.64.4),62 and though the fleet worked to raise as much of its own funds as
possible,63 Athens still required more money than it was able to source. Sacred dedications were melted
58
Cleophon probably served as poristes, see Buchanan (1962) 38 n. 2; Rhodes, CAAP 356;
Hornblower, CT.iii 898.
59
δησθει(ε)ίαο in MS, emended to δησβειίαο by Dindorf.
60
cf. Ostwald (1986) 242.
61
Ibid., 422.
62
On Athenian finance in this period, see Blamire (2001) 117 f.
63
Thucydides mentions money-collecting ships 3 times (2.69, 3.19, 4.50.1), whereas fund-raising is a
constant preoccupation of the fleet in both Xenophon (Hell.1.1.8, 12, 14, 20, 22, 2.4, 3.3, 3.8, 4.8, 5.20)
80
into a gold coinage (Ar. Ran.720-33 with schol., Eccl.815-6) and probably used to help fund the hastily
assembled fleet of 110 ships on which every available man were embarked – even slaves with the
promise of freedom – prior to Arginusae in early 406/5 (Xen. Hell.1.6.24-5; Hellanicus FGrH 323a
F25; Diod.13.97.1). At the same time a token bronze coinage was minted for domestic circulation to
recover as much silver coinage as possible (Ar. Ran.734-49, Eccl.815-22).64 In such difficult times,
with some Athenians dependent on state distributions to survive, the dikastikon grew yet more valuable
to its recipients and to the many others who benefited from it indirectly, even though the amount being
spent on it declined due to the impact of war on litigation (Thuc.6.91.7). At one point, it was even
necessary to suspend private suits (Lys.17.3). The destruction of Athenian naval power at Aegospotami
in September 405 was followed by a blockade of Athens on land and sea designed to starve the city
into submission. With a defiance partially born from the fear that surrender would bring destruction,
the siege and negotiations continued for months until the inhabitants started to starve (Xen. Hell.2.2.16,
21; Diod.13.107.4; Lys.13.11).65 The abolition of the diobelia, undertaken by Callicrates of Paeania
(Ath.Pol.28.3), probably belongs to this time. Broken by hunger, Athens agreed to Sparta‟s terms. 66
In Xenophon (2.2.20) there is no provision for constitutional arrangements in the peace agreement,
but Diodorus (14.3.2, 3.6, cf. 32.6) and Ath.Pol. (34.3) are right to claim that the Athenians agreed to
live under the „ancestral constitution‟ (patrios politeia).67 The inclusion of the phrase was probably
meant to reassure Sparta that Athenians would operate under a more moderate, more reliable form of
government than the untrammeled democracy. The association of the „ancestral constitution‟ with the
moderate forces under Theramenes in Ath.Pol., as opposed to the democrats or oligarchs, and
Diodorus‟ statement that the majority understood it to be a form of democracy (14.3.3, cf. Thuc.8.76.6),
would suggest that its advocates envisaged a pre-Ephialtic moderate democracy, that is, a democracy
without jury pay.68 Theramenes himself would later confirm his opposition to civic pay during his trial
by the Thirty (Xen. Hell.2.3.48). The state of the dikastikon and of the government of Athens as a
whole during these months is unknown, but there was no real chance of a political outcome in 404
which would include the preservation of pay. Amid opposition from factions, and possible argument
among the moderates as to how far back to take the constitution, Lysander intervened in early 404/3
and compelled the assembly to elect 30 men who would rule Athens and draw up new laws (Xen.
and Diodorus (13.47.7-8, 51.8, 64.4, 66.3-5, 69.4, 5). Plunder that could not easily be converted into
coin seems to have been taken back to Athens (13.68.3). The Athenians had to find the money to reenforce the fleet twice in mid-campaign, with 50 (Xen. Hell.1.1.34) or 30 (Diod.13.64.10) more ships
after Cyzicus and again before Arginusae when 60 ships were scrambled (Xen. Hell.1.6.24-5;
Diod.13.97.1).
64
Thompson (1966).
65
Xenophon is obviously premature at 2.2.11 to say that the food had already had run out, since this
would mean 3 or 4 months of starvation prior to the actual capitulation in March 404. The accounts of
the Treasurers of Athena for 405/4 (IG ii2 1686b=IG i3 379) show payments of money and of grain (IG
i3 379.86-91) to officials, together with a payment of unknown size and type [ἐ]ο ηὸ δηθαζη[ήξηνλ]
(l.101). This is the only epigraphic evidence to survive for the dikastikon in the fifth century, and it
raises the possibility that the dikastikon and the diobelia were partially commuted to grain at this time
as a result of the siege, see Ferguson (1932) 82-4; Woodward (1956) 116-7.
66
Xen. Hell.2.2.20; Andoc.3.11-2, 39; Lys.13.14; Ath.Pol.34.3; Diod.13.107.4, 14.3.2; Plut. Lys.14.4.
67
McCoy (1975) 136-9, 126 n. 22; Krentz (1982) 46-7 with n. 18 follows Ath.Pol., adding that the
author meant the following by the term: „a powerful and respected Areopagus council, property
qualifications for magistracies, and the elimination of pay for magistrates (a return, in short, to the
constitution of Cleisthenes)‟ (47). Ostwald (1986) 469-70 sees the patrios politeia as implying
protection for Athenian government against Spartan interference.
68
Ibid., 471-3.
81
Hell.2.3.11; Ath.Pol.34.3-35.1; Diod.14.3.7-4.2).69 The Thirty appointed a boule and magistrates, and
although little information is available for the fate of the courts under the Thirty, as under the Four
Hundred, they did not escape unscathed:
They took from the Areopagus hill the laws of Ephialtes and Archestratus about the council of the
Areopagus; and they annulled the laws of Solon which provided scope for disagreement, and the
discretionary power (to kyros) which was left to jurors. (Ath.Pol.35.2, cf. 9.1-2)
The laws of Ephialtes in 462/1 appear to have deprived the Areopagus of the power to hear cases
arising from treason (eisangelia) trials, as well as those from the dokimasiai and euthynai of officials,
and to have given it to the demos.70 It is not known if Ephialtes also legislated that the demos would
exercise these new powers through a system of popular jury courts, but the additional information that
the jurors also lost their discretionary power would suggest that the repeal of the Ephialtic reforms did
not automatically entail the abolition of the courts. When viewed in concert with the elimination of
ambiguous laws to reduce the number of appeals,71 the arrest and execution of sycophants (Xen. 2.3.12;
Ath.Pol.35.3; Lys.25.19; Diod.14.4.2), and the passage of a law prohibiting the „the art of words‟ (Xen.
Mem.1.2.31) to be taught, it might be suggested that the initial intention of the Thirty was not to wipe
the slate clean and start again, but to modify the jury courts to the point where they became impotent
and played a marginal role in public life. This was perhaps in the long term. In the short term, the
dikasteria were probably suspended (Isoc.21.7). Demosthenes (24.58) implies that courts of some
description, perhaps courts of arbitration (Andoc.1.87; Lys.25.16), did exist under the Thirty. 72 He also
confirms that these courts were distinct from those of the democracy in that they were not
„composed…of men who have taken the judicial oath‟ (ἐθ ηῶλ ὀκσκνθόησλ πιεξνῦηαη) or in other
words, from ordinary citizen-jurors. Though jury pay is not mentioned, perhaps because it has already
lapsed, a formal ban on jurors ever being remunerated would have been a necessary part of this
programme of enfeeblement. The Thirty, like the Four Hundred before them, acted as their own law
court – this time in conjunction with their hand-picked boule (Xen. Mem.2.3.23 f.; Lys.13.35-8) – and
probably ended up arrogating all judicial business. Whatever the precise state of the court system under
the Thirty, it is clear that the democratic bastion of the popular jury was immediately dispensed with.
When the jurors were turned out, ipso facto the dikastikon ceased to exist for a second time, albeit as
the victim of an oligarchy imposed from the outside.
Anti-Democratic Thought and Jury Pay
The two abolitions of pay in the fifth century coincide with two of the most acute financial crises in
Athenian history. The Four Hundred publicly justified the suspension of pay as a way to save money in
the short term and attract Persian assistance in the long term. The Athenian treasury was so depleted by
69
On the date of the installation of the Thirty, see Krentz (1982) 147-52; Rhodes, CAAP 436-7; Stem
(2003) 18-27. For the source tradition, see Krentz (1982) 131-52; CAH2.vi 33.
70
See pp. 9-10.
71
Bonner (1926) 217 points out that many appeals could be avoided by making the decisions of the
deme justices final and binding on litigants.
72
Ibid., 216 suggests that juries consisted of members of the Three Thousand (Xen. Hell.2.3.18-9;
Ath.Pol.36.2), who are later referred to as trying the Eleusinians (Xen. Hell.2.4.9-10). See also Brock
(1988) 133-4.
82
404/3 (cf. Lys.12.6) that pay might have been difficult to sustain even under a democratic regime; as it
was, the Thirty sold the Piraeus for scrap for 3 talents (Lys.12.99, 13.46; Isoc.7.66; SEG 21.80) and
confiscated property in order to pay the Spartan garrison they had requested (Lys.13.46; Xen.
Hell.2.3.21; Ath.Pol.37.2; Diod.14.4.3).73 However, because domestic revenue and sacred treasuries did
not completely dry up, Athens never found itself utterly bankrupt; the accounts of both the Four
Hundred (IG i3 373) and the Thirty (IG i3 380.5-10, 16-22) indicate that despite their difficulties in
raising cash, expenditures did not cease entirely. 74 While the need for fiscal conservatism no doubt
imperiled jury pay, our earlier account of the oligarchic revolutions in Athens indicates that it was
really anti-democratic ideology which guaranteed its demise. The Four Hundred and Thirty were united
in their belief that the political power of the demos should be restricted. Moderates and extremists
however, disagreed on how just much power to cede to citizens who were not thetes but did not belong
to the upper-classes. The disagreement was the key fissure in both oligarchies and one which
contributed to their undoing (Four Hundred: Thuc.8.89; Ath.Pol.33.2; Thirty: Xen. Hell.2.3.17-9;
Ath.Pol.36.1; Diod.14.4.5). Some favoured a constitution so broad-based as to be a hoplite democracy,
while others preferred rule by a select few. After the exclusion of thetes from government, the abolition
of jury pay was one of the few areas of common ground for all opponents of full democracy. Even for a
political moderate like Thucydides – no lover of undiluted democracy (cf. 2.65.4, 4.28.3, 8.1.4) but
neither of the Four Hundred – the payless regime of the Five Thousand gave Athens exceptionally good
government (8.97.2).75 Exploration of the ideas used by anti-democrats in opposition to jury pay will
provide a counterpoise to the funeral oration of Pericles and the plays of Aristophanes analysed in
earlier chapters.
Far more formal attacks on democracy survive in the sources than formal defences, 76 although the
writings of those who led the revolutions of 411/10 and 404/3 – Antiphon (Thuc.8.68.1-3, 90.1) and
Critias, respectively – survive only in fragments.77 The arguments must then be pieced together, largely
from Pseudo-Xenophon in the fifth century and the works of Plato and Aristotle in the fourth. The
liquidation of civic pay came to be a tenet of anti-democratic thought partly because of its functional
and symbolic importance to the democracy. On the basic level of facilitating participation, all forms of
civic pay contravened the elite ideal of non-involvement (apragmosyne) – an idea strengthened during
the ascendancy of stridently populist politicians in the last quarter of the fifth century. Beyond fulfilling
whatever obligations the polis imposed on a citizen, a respectable individual should attend to their own
affairs and avoid the unseemly, combative, and litigious world of democracy embodied above all in the
court system.78 From an economic perspective, it was the dikastikon which ensured that the most
powerful institutions in the Athenian state were also controlled by non-elites, many of them thetes, and
thus tipped the balance of power in the polis even further in their favour. Aristotle would somewhat
73
For the targeted executions of the wealthy and confiscations, see Lys.12.6 ff., Xen. Hell.2.3.21, 4.21;
Ath.Pol.35.4; Diod.14.2.1, 4.4, 5.5-6.
74
Though Krentz (1979) 60 points out that there are no grounds for Woodcock‟s reconstruction of a
diobelia payment in line 11 of IG i3 380.
75
For Thucydides‟ politics, see HCT.v 335; Hornblower (1987) 16-75.
76
For brief discussions, see Markle (1985) 272; von Reden (1995) 92; Sinclair (1988) 202-11 for
democratic participation in general.
77
Among those of Critias are the lines praising Cimon‟s generosity, and these may be read as indirect
confirmation of his objection to Pericles‟ introduction of jury pay (Plut. Cim.10.5, 16.8).
78
cf. Isoc.15.98-9; Dem.12.141, 40.32, 42.12, 47.82, 54.24. Connor (1971) 175-80; Lateiner (1982);
Carter (1986). For fourth century withdrawal largely being the result of 404/3, see Sinclair (1988) 1913.
83
incongruously claim that pay does not just compensate working men but gives them an advantage visà-vis richer citizens, and not just through weight of numbers;
the aporoi are enabled to be at leisure by receiving pay. Indeed the multitude in this kind of state
has a very great deal of leisure, for they are not hampered at all by the care of their private affairs,
but the rich are, so that often they take no part in the assembly nor in judging lawsuits.
(Pols.1293a6-10).
It was in the courts that popular power was most dramatically and most oppressively felt by many elites
during the trials which were the inevitable concomitant of office-holding in a democracy. The
dikastikon indirectly opened up a gulf between upper-classes litigants and poorer jurors.79 This gulf
could sometimes surface dramatically when prosecutors urged jurors to convict in order to further
endow the supply of pay (Ar. Vesp.1358-61; Lys.27.1, 30.22, 19.11, cf. Arist. Pols.1320a5-12).80 While
there is no simple equivalency between membership of the upper-classes and anti-democratic
sympathies – democratic reforms had long been advanced by well-born and wealthy politicians – most
opponents of democracy did not come from ordinary backgrounds. 81 Pseudo-Xenophon complains that
there is an ingrained class bias in the courts, jurors being „not so much concerned with justice as with
their own advantage‟ (1.13). For Aristotle, democracy is not the rule of the majority, but of the poor
(Pols.1279b20-80a7). In practice this meant acquitting fellow democrats and condemning suspected
enemies and the rich ([Xen.] Ath.pol.1.16). It was civic pay that acted as the catalyst in the
transformation of a moderate democracy into a full one (Arist. Pols.1293a1-11). Full democracy,
volatile and vicious, inverted the natural political order of the polis by giving control to the low-born,
the poor, and the uneducated. In traditional aristocratic thought such men were both practically and by
their essential natures unfit for power (Thgn.429-38; Pind. Nem.3.40-2, Ol.2.86-7; [Xen.] Ath.pol.1.5).
Short of formally restricting the makeup or powers of the chief organs of state, the elimination of pay
was the single most serious blow possible against popular sovereignty.
The dikastikon and later, the ekklesiastikon, drew the ire of oligarchs not only for introducing the
poor into the political process, but for introducing money and its contaminating influence. The second
chapter introduced the concept of long-term and short-term transactional orders (pp. 55-6) and
identified Cleon‟s contravention of the acceptable role of money in the long-term order of public life as
a major source of the hostility towards him in Old Comedy: instead of using private wealth in the
public interest, Cleon and his successors used the public wealth of misthos in their own political
79
In the fourth century, even juries of 200 could impose penalties up to 1000 dr – roughly 8 times the
average annual cost of food for a man (at 2 ob p.d.). The deme justices and arbitration procedures for
matters involving less than 500 dr, ensured that juries were probably not dealing with petty crime.
80
Litigants themselves would, however, hold out the prospect of future enrichment to jurors in the form
of liturgies if they chose to acquit (Andoc.1.144 f., 149 f.; Dem.28.24; Lys.19.61).
81
In a straightforward formulation, most oligarchs were elites but not all elites were oligarchs cf. the
black-and-white view of Pseudo-Xenophon, who posits eternal enmity between the rich and the poor
(1.5), believes each class acts in its own interest (1.4), and who labels as an evil-doer the anti-democrat
who lives in a democratic city (2.20). Ath.Pol.32.3 refers to Pisander, Antiphon, Phyrnichus and
Theramenes as „men who were well born‟ (ἀλδξῶλ θαὶ γεγελεκέλσλ εὖ). We know little about the
family backgrounds of these men and Andrewes et al., HCT.v 237-8 suggests Aristotle‟s meaning is
only that these men were respectable citizens, since their families do not seem to have been aristocratic,
see Rhodes, CAAP 407-9. On the backgrounds of leading members of the Thirty, see Ostwald (1986)
460-68.
84
interest. What Athens always feared, in the fourth no less than in the fifth century, was the subversion
of the public interest by private interest through money – the polis always chose to reward its devotees
with public honours, never money, and bribe-taking in return for political favours is denounced in
fourth century oratory as a betrayal of the polis (i.e. Dem.21.113, 46.26).82 Oligarchic thought not only
maintained the intense connection between legitimate political leadership and the correct economic and
social background but also maintained that money-making sullied politics when practised not just by
prominent men but ordinary citizens as well. It was this concept which informed the rivalry tradition‟s
neat opposition between the splendid feasts of Cimon and the odious bribery of Pericles. Thus, civic
pay was attacked as a form of self-interested profit-making on the part of citizens. In a sense, the
introduction of the dikastikon did ‘commodify‟ civic service. It created a new „market‟ in which
eligible citizens were free to enter into a monetary exchange with the state in return for their civic
labour. Even though, unlike an actual market, there was only one „buyer‟ and every „seller‟ received
the same fixed price, the following evidence suggests that critics saw mass participation in the courts
and on the Pnyx as analogous to the mass buying and selling which took place in the adjacent agora
and which made the agorioi unsuitable for political leadership. The distasteful conflation of selfinterested exchange and politics reflected in the spatial consanguinity of the market and political
buildings in the agora, sees Aristotle advocate two separate agorai: one for public business and one for
commerce.83 The proper place of money in the long-term transactional order was not therefore,
uncontested in Athens. Just as a democrat might enumerate arguments in favour of civic pay with
reference to its benefits for both the polis and the individual citizen, criticisms of civic pay can be seen
as following these same lines.
The first danger of civic pay as a form of commercial exchange was the way it allowed the kind of
acquisitiveness (pleonexia) citizens exhibited in their private exchanges in the agora to enter into the
public, political realm – a sphere traditionally sealed off from private profit. The breach was felt to
have repercussions for the community as a whole on the basis that pay allows citizens to serve who not
only lack political insight but who care less about the conscientious transaction of public business than
about lining their own pockets. Once participation became a paid activity, the chief political concern
became the maximisation of the quantity and availability of pay. All public affairs were subordinated to
the profit motive. Aristotle uses the metaphor of a broken jar for the system of pay (in part influenced
by the theoric distributions), as something into which revenues are poured and poured without end
because the hunger for pay, once established, is insatiable (Pols.1320a30-33, cf. 1267b1-5). In the
postscript to the rivalry tradition as it appears in Ath.Pol, a rationalisation of the impact of jury pay
along these hostile lines is found; „so he [Pericles] devised payment for jurors. Some people allege that
it was as a result of this that the courts deteriorated, since it was always the ordinary people rather than
the better sort who were eager to be picked for jury service‟ (Ath.Pol.27.4). The implication is that
before the advent of jury pay, the poor were not kept away from juries because they could not afford
the time but because they had no positive inducement to serve. A corresponding drop in the number of
richer jurors after the dikastikon was established would come as no surprise to Socrates as he appears in
Plato‟s Republic. For this Socrates, civic pay is incompatible with truly selfless public service; all those
who receive it must do so with an eye for profit because good men (oi agathoi) would refuse to
82
For further references see Harvey (1985) esp. 95, 108-113.
Pols.1331a30-1331b4, cf. Xen. Cyrop.1.2.3; Eubulus KA74; Diog.Laert.1.105. On the blurring of
commercial and political exchange in the agora, see von Reden (1995) 105-23; Crane (1997) 215-6.
83
85
undertake paid civic service, „they do not want to be called hirelings for exacting a cash payment for
the work of government‟ (347b). By contrast, no one is now willing to serve unless they get paid
(345e). The demos itself will only attend assemblies if they are able to draw pay – pay funded by
soaking the rich (565a-b). Isocrates (7.24-5, cf. 12.143-5) upbraids the Athenians for being more
familiar with what the various magistracies pay than with what they earn themselves. Behind the
contempt of Plato and Isocrates is the view that citizenship does not bring with it the entitlement to
receive „shares‟ of public wealth apparent in Aristophanes‟ complaints that the demos is being cheated.
Instead, citizenship incurs an obligation to contribute to the polis – only those „competent to serve the
state with both property and person‟ (Thuc.8.65.3) had been entitled to full citizenship under the regime
of the Five Thousand. The same significance attached to a citizen‟s capacity in „property and person‟ is
apparent even in the fourth century dokimasia of magistrates where a candidate‟s fitness for office was
partly determined by checking whether he had fulfilled his financial and military obligations to the
state (cf. Ath.Pol.55.3-4). It is Theramenes, a moderate member of the Thirty, who affirms as an article
of oligarchic faith the belief that because the poor may care more for what they get from the polis than
what they can contribute, they cannot be trusted to responsibly share in government; „I…am forever at
war with those persons who do not think there can be a good democracy until slaves and those who,
due to poverty, would sell the state for a drachma, share in the government‟ (Xen. Hell.2.3.48). These
statements are prefigured before the end of the fifth century by claims which cite contemporary
Athenian practice for evidence. Pseudo-Xenophon for example, finds proof of the venality of the demos
and its indifference to administrative minutiae and those offices which require serious work, in the
popular clamor to „hold such magistracies as are salaried and domestically profitable‟ (1.3). The
preoccupation of the demos with safeguarding its own power and generating money is written into the
imperial system itself – one reason the allies are required to come to Athens for legal proceedings is
that the additional legal deposits help fund jury pay. However, as Pseudo-Xenophon concedes, this
apparent obsession with profit has not yet led Athens seriously astray. Thucydides can use subsequent
history to show otherwise. His explanation that the Athenians backed the Sicilian Expedition in the
hope of securing limitless pay (6.24.3) turns the whole narrative into an illustration of the potentially
devastating consequences of allowing decision-making to be driven by the desire for personal gain
(6.24.3).84 According to his judgment at 2.65, civic pay must therefore share some of the blame for
Athens‟ eventual defeat; „in matters that apparently had no connection with the war they were led by
private ambition and private greed to adopt policies which proved injurious both to themselves and
their allies‟. The fastidious paying out of the boule by the Four Hundred which he describes in 411 may
have been meant as an pointed gesture of contempt for them as „hirelings‟. 85
The receipt of pay not only involves deleterious side-effects for the emisthos polis but for its
individual citizens as well. Pay may introduce greed as a deciding factor in popular decision-making
but it may also inspire that greed in the first place. 86 Plato goes even further by connecting pay with
broader societal problems:
84
See above pp. 68-9.
Andrewes et al., HCT.v.181.
86
On Greek notions of greed, see Balot (2001) 1-9.
85
86
Socrates: …What I, for my part, hear is that Pericles has made the Athenians idle, cowardly,
talkative, and avaricious, by starting the system of public fees.
Callicles: You hear that from folk with battered ears, Socrates. (Pl. Grg.515e, cf. 517b-18e)
The reference to the Spartan past-time of boxing („folk with battered ears‟), indicates that these
sentiments are associated with elites and in particular with admirers of Sparta, who naturally tended to
be critical of Athenian democracy. Plato is probably one of those Plutarch cites as arguing that Pericles
led Athenians into „allotments of public lands, festival-grants, and distributions of fees for public
services, thereby falling into bad habits, and becoming luxurious and wanton under the influence of his
public measures, instead of frugal and self-sufficing‟ (Plut.Per.9.2). There is more than a hint here of
the topos that military and political power can be eroded if the decadence and indulgence associated
with imperial power is allowed to corrupt a people‟s moral fiber. It is apparent from Plato that civic pay
could be seen in the fourth century as modifying the behaviour of citizens like a harmful drug. Ostwald
observes that it is only in the fourth century, with Plato‟s Gorgias, that the idea of pay as a source of
moral corrosion first appears.87 He rightly attributes it to the perceived power shift that had taken place
in the 420s around the dikastikon: where in Pseudo-Xenophon the demos is supreme, once the
demagogues acquire influence over pay, its capacity to weaken the demos became apparent.
By appealing to the same traditional morality that made Cleon‟s tannery a legitimate political
target, civic pay could also constitute an affront to a citizen‟s status. In Wasps, the wealthy Bdelycleon
brings his argument against his father and the jurors to crescendo by exclaiming that „you have to
queue up for your pay like a bunch of olive-pickers‟ (712). In Assemblywomen, paid ekklesiasts are
called „clay carriers‟ (pelophorountes) (310c). Both similes run deeper than simple visual parallel. In
the words ascribed to Socrates (who never asked for misthos, Pl. Ap.31b f.) in the Republic, quoted
earlier, it is the fear of being labeled a „hireling‟ (misthotos) that turns good men away from civic
service. „Hireling‟ denotes all wage workers such as agricultural labourers (often slaves), mercenaries
(often xenoi) (Hdt.1.61; Thuc.5.6; Pl. Resp.419), hired speechmakers (Dem.51.21-22), or foreign
agents (Dem.18.38, 52, 19.110). Demosthenes himself echoes Bdelycleon, comparing those who take
pay from Macedon with reapers (18.51). Whereas a discrete exchange between a buyer and seller need
not imply any great inequality in status between the participants, the misthotos sells neither goods nor
skills but the labour of his own body. He was not, like a prostitute or slave, selling the body itself, but
such an exchange could still be injurious to a citizen‟s status because it implied the unequal relationship
between an „employer‟ and „employee‟ (Eur. El.201-6; Isae.5.39; Pl. Resp.371c-e).88 The description of
Athens by more than one poet of Old Comedy as a „city of slaves‟ (Cratinus KA223; Eup.KA212)
probably refers to the servile condition of a wage-earning citizenry. One characteristic of Theophrastus‟
„country bumpkin‟ (agroikos) is his boorish treatment of hired labourers as equals by telling them what
went on in the assembly (Char.4.3). To call the jurors „olive-pickers‟ is then to make a deeper point
about the activity in which they are engaged. It is possible to tar paid citizens and wage-labourers with
the same brush in that they provided neither goods nor expertise, but were paid by the polis for a day‟s
attendance. Since attendance involved little or no physical effort, civic pay was liable to the additional
censure of inculcating laziness (cf. Pl. Grg.515e supra) and providing the poor with plenty of free time
87
88
Ostwald (1986) 225.
For misthotos as a term of abuse, see Harvey (1985) 85; von Reden (1997) 168-76.
87
whereas the rich have no escape from their affairs (Arist.Pols.1293 a4-9). The conflict between pay and
a citizen‟s dignity serves as the counter-argument to the democratic position, seen in the second chapter
(pp. 23-6), that pay provides the poor with the leisure necessary for them to participate in public life as
independent, self-sufficient citizens should. Instead, the means of pay contradicts the end of an ideal
polis comprised of independent political actors because citizens are automatically cast in the degrading,
dependent role of misthotoi. Aristotle recommends taking the money spent on pay and using it to help
the poor buy land or set themselves up in a trade (Pols.1320a34-b4). Isocrates (7.54), with some
exaggeration, attacks as shameful the morning spectacle of jurors drawing lots outside the courts „to
determine whether they themselves shall have the necessities of life‟ (cf. 8.129-31).
This duality of understanding is reflected in the two possible interpretations of the word for „pay‟
itself. Misthos always denoted an asymmetrical relationship, and because the potential positive sense of
„reward‟ seems to apply only when the reward was not monetary, Sitta von Reden suggests that a
positive exception was also made for civic pay in democratic thought because it was given not by a
superior individual but by the collective citizenry of the polis, of which the individual recipient was of
course a part. In this way, money was incorporated into the long-term order of public life. The eventual
standardisation and consistency of money endows it with a leveling quality that complimented the
egalitarian basis of the polis. It was precisely the relative status of giver and receiver which was crucial
for the legitimacy of all exchange within the democracy itself: liturgies were in theory gifts given by
one citizen to his fellow citizen-equals. Critics ignore or deny the important roll of civic pay in
empowering individuals and enhancing civic institutions, and instead configure it as degrading form of
wage labour harmful to polis and citizens alike.89
Anti-democratic thought on civic pay broadly falls into two interrelated groupings; there are classbased objections to the empowerment of the unworthy and the abuse of the judicial system against
elites, and there are objections to the involvement of monetary exchange in politics as harming the
polis through greed and, in the fourth century, the individual citizen through humiliation. The greater
quality and quantity of material from the fourth century must be attributed to the proven impossibility
of altering the democracy and the democracy‟s decision to increase monetary distributions via not just
the ekklesiastikon, but the theorikon (originally for theatre seats).90 The distortions of the arguments are
clear; setting aside subjective views on the capacities of ordinary citizens, analysis of jury pay in the
second chapter shows that at best a family was unlikely to get much change from 3 ob. To anticipate
the arguments of the following chapter, it was only when the ekklesiastikon reached 1.5 dr for principal
assemblies sometime in the second half of the fourth century (Ath.Pol.62.2) that pay could conceivably
include a measure of profit for many. That the demos decided all questions out of acquisitiveness and
that there was no substantive difference between paid civic service and undignified wage labour are
likewise distortions. The apparent disconnect between reality and theory in these arguments should be
understood as a reflection of the intense polemics surrounding pay for dissenters. Yet, as we have seen,
jury pay looms large in more than one comedy by Aristophanes and his plays share a good deal of
common ground with avowed opponents of civic pay. In Knights and Wasps jury pay is also depicted
as stoking the greed of the demos and serves as a drug which transforms the sovereign demos into a
claque of weak-willed dependents. The latter image reappears in the Gorgias. Aristophanes appears to
89
90
von Reden (1995) 89-93, 114-16.
See appendix F.
88
draw on contemporary hostile opinion but also undertakes a number of important democratic
modifications, namely, that the pernicious effects of the dikastikon are, like the failures of the demos,
not inherent. Instead, pay has been perverted by politicians who use it to deprive the demos of the
limitless power and comfort it should enjoy by right. An oligarch, by contrast, would deny that such
entitlements exist. Notwithstanding these important distinctions, we should not posit a complete
contrast between anti-democratic and democrat thought on jury pay. Their arguments are often the
same side of the coin: a democratic „dispensation‟ might apply to jury pay by virtue of the
encouragement it provided for broad participation, whereas from a critical perspective the use of pay is
degrading for the individual and threatens the polis with class tension and greed.91 Both broad strains of
thought contest the same cultural ground over the appropriate interrelationships between the citizen,
money, and public life.
Conclusion
Sicily precipitated a period of protracted crisis for the Athenian system of imperial democracy that had
underpinned the city‟s military power and led to civic pay. The loss of so many resources was a blow to
Athenian finance, prestige, and self-confidence. Defeat was not inevitable (cf. Diod.25.13.1-3), but in
what would prove the long twilight of empire Athens fought tenaciously, drawing breath with each
success and almost inexplicably marshalling enough will and wealth for the next sudden-death
encounter at sea. All the while, it appears that the demos resisted abolishing the dikastikon so long as it
was possible to source funds elsewhere. Jurors continued to be paid throughout the cost-cutting
embarked upon after 413 and, despite his apocalyptic predictions, Pisander was not able to persuade the
assembly of the immediate necessity of abolishing civic pay in 411. Most civilian members of the
demos never acquiesced to the planned abolition of jury pay and were subjected to coercion as a result.
The vote to continue the suspension of pay during the establishment of the Five Thousand does not
reflect approval of the earlier abolition but only the necessity of its ongoing suspension in a time of
grave emergency. It is likely that civic pay was quickly reintroduced as soon as full democracy was
restored and that it was not replaced or subsumed by the enigmatic diobelia. The leading candidate to
have moved the restoration of jury pay is Cleophon, and the revived dikastikon could well have served,
once more, as an instrument of both personal and democratic power. Starting from the same basic
cultural and moral attitudes towards the role of money in public life, the attachment of the many to pay
was met by the hostility of the few. Lack of funds and divisive political leadership brought this schism
to crisis point. Nevertheless, in a time of fear and hardship not experienced since the Persian Wars the
normal functioning of the judiciary entailed its own benefits of direct economic assistance to ordinary
citizens and a reassuring sense of continuity. Popular resistance to the abolition of pay ultimately
testifies to its functional and symbolic importance in the democratic order.
91
cf. Rosenbloom (2002) 291 on the relationship between Aristophanic comedy and the political
programme enacted in 411.
89
90
Chapter 4. The Fourth Century (403-323)
The Restoration of Democracy
The fall of the Thirty and the second restoration of democracy in a decade did not take place without
bloodshed and acrimony. The resistance of Thrasybulus escalated into a full-scale civil war pitting the
democrats, concentrated in the Piraeus, against the oligarchs of the upper city – first the Thirty, and
once their supporters lost faith, the Ten. The impasse between the two sides was resolved by a Spartanmediated settlement in October 4031 and, as part of an unprecedented effort of reconciliation, the
Athenians swore not to recall the painful events (Andoc.1.81; Ath.Pol.39-40; Xen. Hell.2.4.43).2 It
proved impossible to forgive or forget completely, but the absence of sweeping recriminations together
with the proven failure of oligarchy, laid the foundations for over 80 years of uninterrupted
democracy.3
The details of the democratic restoration and the revival of jury pay are even murkier for 403/02
than 410/09. A full democratic restoration appears to have taken place fairly quickly. 20 interim
administrators and a boule were chosen by lot and decrees were passed stipulating that the laws of
Athens were once again to be those of the democracy (Andoc.1.82, 87-8; Dem.24.46 cf. 56; Xen.
Hell.2.4.42). Ath.Pol. concludes its description of events by saying that „the people gained control of
affairs and set up the present constitution, in the archonship of Pythodorus‟ (Ath.Pol.41.1).4 The
preserved text of the amnesty of 403 provides more detail on the jury courts. It includes a reference to
the composition of juries for the euthynai of all officials who had held office under the Thirty: „The
examination was to take place, for the governors of the Piraeus, among the men of the Piraeus; for
those who held office in the city, among those possessed of a property qualification‟ (Ath.Pol.39.6, cf.
38.4).5 The property qualification was probably meant to guard against biased juries by excluding
thetes.6 The need for such a stipulation might suggest that the restored democracy had otherwise
imposed no property qualifications for jury service, and that no one was legally excluded from jury
service on the basis of former political loyalties (Lys.12.92, 26.2). Universal eligibility is a logical
precondition of pay and one task of the interim government was probably to re-establish a paid court
system. With the demise of the Hellenotamiai in 404/3, it is not known which authority was responsible
for paying the wages of jurors (and later ekklesiasts), although the apodektai now assume responsibility
for distributing revenue to various spending authorities.
Sometime in the 390s, Athens ended the practice of assigning jurors to panels for a year and jurors
were instead randomly formed into panels each morning. The fourth century selection procedure will
be considered in greater detail below (pp. 96-7). Of present interest is a throw-away reference in
Aristophanes‟ Wealth (staged 388), to jurors getting enrolled in two panels rather than one, thus
1
For these events, see Ath.Pol.37-8; Xen. Hell.2.4.2-43; Diod.14.32-33.
see Rhodes, CAAP 470-1; Krentz (1982) 150-2.
3
For some of the crucial differences between the fifth and fourth century democracy, see Rhodes
(1980); Hansen (1989) esp. 71-2. On the distinction between fifth and fourth century political
leadership, see Rosenbloom (2004b) 344.
4
Pythodorus, archon of 404/3, is probably a mistake for Eucleides, archon of 403/2, see Rhodes, CAAP
481-2.
5
εὐζύλαο δὲ δνῦλαη ηνὺο κὲλ ἐλ Πεηξαηεῖ ἄξμαληαο ἐλ ηνῖο ἐλ Πεηξαηεῖ, ηνὺο δ᾽ ἐλ ηῷ ἄζηεη ἐλ ηνῖο ηὰ
ηηκήκαηα παξερνκέλνηο.
6
Krentz (1982) 106-7.
2
91
increasing their chances of serving and of receiving pay: „no wonder all who serve on juries often
contrive to get enrolled on several lists‟ (νὐθ ἐηὸο ἅπαληεο νἱ δηθάδνληεο ζακὰ ζπεύδνπζηλ ἐλ πνιινῖο
γεγξάθζαη γξάκκαζηλ) (1166-7). It is difficult to decide if this is a ploy to earn more money or a
sanctioned practice to compensate for a lack of jurors.
One benefit of a system of random selection was that it required fewer jurors, though there is no
reason to believe participation had fallen due to post-war political apathy: citizen numbers had halved
as a result of the war, with particularly heavy losses among thetes, leaving perhaps 25,000 citizens or
just enough to make the democracy viable. 7 With a sharp decline in state-sponsored activities like shipbuilding, the period probably saw a net migration out of the city and away from the courts as rural
refugees returned home.8 Those citizens who survived the war were devoting much of their energies to
rebuilding their properties, businesses, and fortunes – and with fewer slaves to help them (cf.
Thuc.7.27.5). To be sure, the countryside would recover fairly quickly, but the mines only returned to
productivity after 350, and the basic impression of Assemblywomen (408-21, 591-4) and of Wealth is
surely correct that Athenians in the 390s and 380s were less well-off and less leisured than before (cf.
Xen. Mem.2.7, 8.1-5; Dem.57.35-6, 40-2, 45). The role the dikastikon played in cushioning the jury
court from the full impact of these forces helps explain why Athens resorted to paying its ekklesiasts
(Ath.Pol.41.3).
The Stability of Jury Pay and the Composition of Juries
The chief problem of jury pay in the fourth century is the growing disparity between it and the rate of
assembly pay. The ekklesiastikon was probably needed to achieve the quorum of 6000 necessary for
certain votes. Ath.Pol. (41.3) reports that it was increased twice, to 3 ob, and the rate was still
unchanged in 388 (Ar. Plut.329-30). By the 330s, it had reached 9 ob for the principle assembly
meeting held once a prytany and 6 ob for the other 3 ordinary meetings (Ath.Pol.62.2). It appears that
this rise was necessary to keep pace with wage inflation and therefore, to maintain the value of pay as
an incentive for attendance. Plays for benefaction by politicians and a desire to distribute wealth should
not be overlooked as secondary factors. The ekklesiastikon was, in fact, more than adequate
compensation for lost earnings for most Athenians because assembly meetings lasted only a few hours
and so left the rest of the day free for work.9
In contrast, there is no evidence that the rate of jury pay ever deviated from the 3 ob rate Ath.Pol.
(62.2) gives for the 330s.10 Satisfactory explanations are available for other rates of pay which
remained fairly static: soldiers probably received 1 dr p.d. as a minimum but had the opportunity of
7
Hansen (1988) 26.
Bonner (1938) 366. For economic conditions in the early fourth century, see Mossé (1973) 12-7;
Strauss (1986) 43-54; Burke (1990); French (1991) 24-34. Burke (1992) 223-4 suggests that assembly
pay was introduced to provide an income for unemployed sailors. He talks of the subsidisation of civic
participation as „a habit that had become embedded over time‟ on the part of the thetes. The activities
of the Corinthian War ensured that sailors were still being paid in the 390s, and Burke in general posits
too strict a division between thetes and hoplites – attributing too much power to the former group in
light of its disproportionately heavy losses in the war.
9
Hansen (1979c).
10
References to the dikastikon as 2, 4 or 6 ob seem to be the product of confusion with other payments
including the diobelia, the theorikon, or military pay For miscellaneous real and mistaken fourth
century references to the dikastikon, see Loomis, WWCI 16 n. 25, 17 n. 28.
8
92
securing additional income through plunder,11 and the ceremonial honour attached to the archonship
was more attractive than the 1 ob rise from 3 to just 4 ob p.d. that had taken place by the 330s
(Ath.Pol.62.2). No explanation for the stagnation of jury pay has yet met with widespread approval. 12
It is evident that 3 ob was enough to attract the requisite number of jurors to keep the courts
running satisfactorily. The regular erasure and re-inscription of the bronze juror tokens (pinakia) issued
after 388 indicates that there was some year-to-year variation in the juror pool and just possibly a
surplus of a citizens applying for service each year. 13 The ongoing effectiveness of the dikastikon was
probably good enough reason in the first half of the century for a cash-strapped Athens not to increase
its value.14 The financial burden of the Corinthian War (395-86) became oppressive once Persian
subsidies were withdrawn after 392: eisphorai were levied (Lys.28.3-4) and it was planned to raise 500
talents with an unspecified 2.5% tax (Ar. Eccl.823-9).15 Whereas politics moved Hyperbolus to
encourage jurors to convict and thereby secure their pay (Ar. Vesp.1358-61), appearances of this tactic
in the fourth century coincide with periods of very real financial stress. 16 According to Philochorus
(FGrH 328 F151), it was the cost of mercenary pay which eventually forced Athens to agree to the
King‟s Peace in 375/4. Lack of money would continue to be an issue for the next half century. Athens
went on to regain some of its former power in the Aegean though the initially more benign instrument
of the Second Athenian Confederacy, but the alliance did not restore a plentiful flow of tribute. The
Social War brought about the dissolution of the alliance and caused revenues to fall to as little as 130
talents. Moratoria were even imposed on certain types of court cases: no private cases were heard
between 371 and 362 (Dem.45.4), and jury pay ceased entirely after the Euboean campaign of 349/8
(Dem.39.17)(cf. Ar. Eccl.982-4; Arist. Pols.1320a23-9). Surplus revenue seems rare during these years,
since even minor increases in expenditure required formal increases in the allocation (merismos) of
revenue. By 340 revenues had started to rise again, reaching 400 talents ([Dem.]10.37-9, cf. Isoc.8.19;
Ephorus FGrH 115 F166). The need for a quorum made the increases in assembly pay over these
sometimes lean years mandatory and because the assembly met less often than the courts, a 1 ob
increase in the ekklesiastikon was always a less expensive prospect than an equivalent rate rise for
jurors.17 The difficulty is that jury pay remained static even when Athens regained much of its wealth
under the administration of Eubulus and Lycurgus in the 330s and 320s. Revenues rose to 1200 talents
p.a. (Plut. Mor.841b-c, 842f) and money was conspicuously spent on infrastructure (Plut. Mor.841c-d)
and the fleet.
Markle claims the stability of prices for grain and basic foodstuffs throughout the fourth century
maintained the real value of jury pay. 18 Markle‟s confidence is misplaced in light of the meager
evidence for grain prices: no price is recorded for grain for the first 70 years of the fourth century and,
11
Ibid., 48-58.
Rhodes (1980) 317 comments candidly „why these [jurors‟ stipends] were not raised I do not know‟,
cf. Rhodes, CAAP 691, Dover, Morality 34-5. Todd (1990) 173 suggests a symbolic dimension for the
increase of assembly pay over jury pay, though this appears to be at odds with the great power of the
courts in the fourth century
13
Kroll (1972) 69-90. Large juries could still be assembled: Dinarchus refers to juries of 1500 (1.107)
and of 2500 (3.52).
14
On fourth century financial administration see Rhodes (1980) 309-15.
15
On this tax, proposed by Heurippides perhaps in his capacity as poristes, see Ussher (1973) 189;
Sommerstein (1998) 210, 225.
16
Lys.19.11 [388/7], 27.1 [Corinthian War], 30.22 [399], cf. Hyper.3.33-6.
17
See Hansen (1996a) 32-33.
18
Markle (1985) 285, 293.
12
93
most importantly, the earliest recorded prices for barley come from the 330s. 19 A general inflation in
grain prices could have been observed in these lost decades and Markle‟s statement runs contrary to the
axiomatic connection between price inflation and wage inflation. 20 If the cost of subsistence had not
risen there would be no pressing need to increase the invalid dole from 1 to 2 ob p.d. (Ath.Pol.49.4, cf.
Lys.24.13.26).21 It is clear that as the dikastikon failed to keep pace with inflation and its real value
declined, Athenians had to forego greater amounts of money to serve on juries. Even in the fifth
century, 3 ob was not enough to free most from financial sacrifice. The dikastikon was no longer even a
subsistence wage, and it follows that as 3 ob bought less and less in the course of the fourth century the
number of self-supporting citizens on juries would also have declined. 22 That Athenians willingly
allowed, at least after 350, juries to become progressively less representative, suggests a change in
attitude towards the dikastikon and the jury courts.
The jury courts did not, however, diminish in status or importance in the fourth century. The last
years of the war, in particular the notorious snap vote at Colonus which had set up the Four Hundred
and the extra-judicial execution of the Arginusae generals in 406/5 (Xen. Hell.1.7.1-35; Diod.13.101103.2), had highlighted the dangers of unlimited popular sovereignty. In response, a transparent
revision of the entire law code was brought to completion under the restored democracy and the final
power of legislation was transferred from the assembly to a board of nomothetai elected by the
assembly from the juror pool (Dem.20.92-4, 99, sometimes with bouleutai cf. Dem.24.20-7). The
assembly could still pass decrees on ad hoc matters, and all proposals for legislation had to meet with
its approval to proceed, but in future nomos overruled psephisma (Andoc.1.87).23 By mid-century the
assembly lost all judicial competence to the courts, including the hearing of eisangelia trials.
Incidentally, these and other changes worked to enhance the attractions of jury service and help explain
how sufficient numbers of citizens were still volunteering. The fourth century juror heard a greater
number of high-profile suits than his fifth century counterpart thanks to the capacity of the courts to
overrule the assembly via the graphe paranomon procedure,24 he could serve as a nomothetes, and
might even enjoy the mystery of not knowing what type of case he would hear. The inverse relationship
between power and pay has been explained on the basis that pay was kept low to increase the affluence
of jurors and in so doing, transform juries into conservative checks on the assembly. 25
Fourth century forensic rhetoric has been mined successively by scholars for indications of the
demographic makeup of the juries. Jones argues that speakers often address jurors in a way that
suggests they are middle, even upper-class: Demosthenes (24.160, 198) implies all the jurors are
19
See appendix C.
Todd (1990) 157; Loomis, WWCI 250.
21
Loomis, WWCI 229-30. It is difficult to know what to make of other references to the cost of living
in the fourth century, since an acceptable standard of living was not an absolute measure (Dem.27.36: 4
ob per person p.d. in the 370s-360s; Ath.Pol.42.3: 4 ob for the epheboi in the 330s-320s).
22
Casson (1976) 32-3 for approximate numbers of citizens in each income bracket in the fourth
century, estimating that approximately half the citizenry, some 15,000, were worth less than 2500 dr.
23
On the early history of the nomothetai, see Ostwald (1986) 405-11, 415-8, and 511-7 for post-404/3;
Hansen (1991) 167 f.
24
On the powers and role of the fourth century court system, see Ibid., 178-224. Juries were less likely
to deal with trivial disputes: the system of public arbitrators introduced in 399 meant that cases
involving more than 10 dr no longer had to go to a jury, and suits involving less than 10 dr were heard
by the 40 deme justices.
25
Brock (1988) 138.
20
94
eisphora payers, and he apologises for introducing a poor witness (21.95).26 Markle reviews the same
evidence and reaches the opposite conclusion.27 He explains the passages Jones cites as fictions meant
to flatter what were predominately poor jurors and to encourage them to sympathise with the plight of
the typically upper-class speaker. Passages in which speakers accuse each other of low birth and of
engaging in manual occupations should not be taken as signs of contempt for ordinary citizens, 28 but
reflections of the idea that those who aspired to leadership ought to be men of respectable parentage,
education, and wealth. Yet little of Markle‟s own evidence for the domination of juries by the poor
definitively points to a preponderance of poorer workers. 29 Sinclair concludes that juries were poorer
than the assembly based on the false inference that because eisphora payers are referred to in assembly
speeches they „constituted a significant element‟ and because they are not referred in courtroom
speeches (but cf. 24.160) they were virtually non-existent (Lys.28.3 cf. 29.8, 13, 14, 19).30 Todd points
out that these approaches share the common flaw of imposing class-based readings on what is really the
evidence of Athenian ideology at work – the values and attitudes associated with the archetypal selfsupporting, respectable, middling citizen (metrios) inherited from the previous century and beyond. 31
The only discernable distinctions are those drawn between the vast majority of citizens and the aberrant
behaviours of the extremely rich minority (cf. Isoc.20.15-21; Dem.21; Aeschin.1.97-100).32 Todd‟s
reading is supported by Ober‟s analysis of the dramatic fictions speakers employ to cultivate solidarity
with the jury against an opponent by appealing to shared values and attitudes – a jury will be fashioned
as poor or rich as it suits the speaker.33 The fact that the makeup of a fourth century jury could not be
known in advance added a practical disincentive to sectional appeals. Court speeches are too
sophisticated to be read as reflections of the audience and, for all their promise, prove to be of little
help. That only 5 out of the 50 individuals whose names are inscribed on pinakia are known to have
been of hoplite class or higher must be set against the very small and chronologically restricted sample
(378/7-350) these tokens represent.34
Despite the absence of direct evidence for the effect of a static pay rate, it is unlikely that fourth
century jurors were typically wealthier than their fifth century counterparts. The factors which operated
in the fifth century to discourage elites from serving on juries – better opportunities for personal
distinction elsewhere, the presence of the very poorest citizens on juries, the distasteful reputation of
26
Jones (1957) 35-7, 50, 124, cf. Dover (1974) 34-5.
Markle (1985) 282-9.
28
cf. [Lys.] 20.11; Dem.18.257-62, 265, 57.30-1, 35-6.
29
Markle treats the terms oi polloi and to plethos (Antiph.5.8; Dem.24.37; Din.3.19) as equivalent to
„ordinary citizens‟ when they may also simply mean „the majority‟. Markle‟s individual passages do
not constitute strong evidence. Dem.18.102: here it is not the rich in general who are attacked but the
trierarchs, the richest of the rich, in comparison to whom everyone else is a penes. Dem.20.2-4, 16, 189: at most the argument suggests that the majority of jurors are not liturgy payers in the same way that
Dem.22.53 suggests that few of the jurors are eisphora payers. Dem.21, esp. 209: Midias is not
attacked for being wealthy but for the selfish use of his wealth and haughtiness. Dem.24.96-7: by this
stage all Athenians and not just the poor recognised the necessity of civic pay for the democracy.
Dem.57.35-6, 40-2: Euxitheus is concerned more with apologising for his poverty than with exploiting
it. Hyper.4.33-6: the praise of jurors for deciding according to justice rather than profit is fitting praise
for rich as well as poor. Finally, the frequent recitation of liturgies by litigants is meant to stress the
civic virtue of the speaker and does not imply that the listening jurors are the poor recipients of his
largesse.
30
Sinclair (1988) 125-7.
31
Todd (1990) 149-58.
32
Ibid., 164-7.
33
Ober (1989a) 191-225, esp. 221-25.
34
Kroll (1972) 9-10, 261-7.
27
95
the lawcourts as dens of sycophants and demagogues – were still in effect, and forensic speeches
indicate that virtuous non-participation in public life (apragmosyne) now had a wide currency.35 Men
of property and leisure no doubt served as jurors, but jury service would remain inherently unattractive
for most and the very poorest citizens would still regard 3 ob as better than nothing. As in the fifth
century, it would be the self-supporting working citizens who would be most disadvantaged by the
declining value of the dikastikon. The image of jurors as a half-starved gaggle drawing lots for their
bread in Isocrates (7.54) must, however, be dismissed as a piece of anti-democratic propaganda. It was
noted in the second chapter (pp. 36-8), that jury service would appeal to farmers living close to Athens
because of the cyclical nature of agriculture provided them with greater opportunities to serve without
any appreciable loss of income. Todd is probably right to suggest that farmers now formed the majority
of non-elites who served on juries.36 A rise in the number of farmers need not, however, have filled all
the places vacated by urban workers, and it is likely that the fifth century over-representation of the
very poor and those unfit for full-time work on grounds of disability or infirmity continued. 37 Few other
groups would be willing to endure the tedious process of selection each morning without a guarantee of
pay.38
Todd tantalisingly adds that jury pay was kept at 3 ob in order to attract farmers. How and why had
Athenians come to believe that farmers were now the ideal jurors and that non-farmers should be
discouraged from serving by what amounted to a de facto reduction of jury pay? An alternative
explanation for the stability of jury pay, one which also illuminates the transfer of greater powers to the
courts during the fourth century, is to be found not with the jurors but the motivation behind the
extraordinary measures which were put in place over time to ensure that the courts would be as
transparent and impartial as possible. The system of dividing jurors into fixed panels and of assigning
these panels to individual courts, which had allowed litigants to identify and even address the jurors
beforehand, was abandoned sometime in the 390s in favour of a system of random selection that made
bribery especially difficult and ensured the equal distribution of work and pay. Jurors were assigned
one of 10 letters (alpha-kappa). Each juror had a personalised token (pinakion) inscribed with one of
these 10 letters. Jurors assembled according to tribe. The tokens of each letter group in that tribe were
collected and randomly slotted into one of the 5 columns of slots in each of the tribe‟s two allotment
machines (kleroteria). Each horizontal row of slots therefore created a random sample of 5 jurors, each
juror coming from a different letter group, and each group was randomly selected (or dimissed) and
35
See p. 83.
Todd (1990) 168-9.
37
Rhodes (1980) 317, cf. Rhodes (1992b) 86. In favour of the presence of the elderly, Blepyrus in
Assemblywomen may indicate the ongoing comic currency of the „old juror‟ stereotype: he appears to
be older than his wife, no mention is made of regular employment, he attends both the assembly and
the courts, and refers to the litigation generated by sycophancy as „my livelihood‟ (ηὸλ βίνλ)(563).
Crichton (1991) attempts to test the reality of Aristophanes‟ old jurors through the use of mainly fourth
century forensic oratory – a problematic aim given the different social and economic conditions
between the periods and above all, the different real value of jury pay. Courtroom speakers do envisage
the presence of old and young on juries (Antiph.5.71; [Lys.]20.36; Isoc.16.4; Isae.7.13). Crichton goes
further and considers how far back litigants ask jurors to remember events (in Antiphon, Lysias,
Isocrates, and Isaeus). The limit seems to be 9 years and he concludes that if there were many old men
on juries, this figure should be higher (164). In addition to Crichton‟s reservations (63), there is the
tendency of court cases to focus on recent events and the desire of every advocate not to assume too
much knowledge on the part of the jury. Ultimately, 9 years is too low a threshold to start excluding
certain age groups – the memory of a young juror, say a 35 year old, could stretch back 20 years or
more.
38
Sinclair (1988) 133.
36
96
assigned to a court to help form the jury (cf. Ar. Eccl.680-6, Plut.1166-7).39 The very seats of jurors
were subject to allotment. By the 370s the process exhibits a fixation with randomisation bordering on
the obsessive (Ath.Pol.63-5).40 Each member of a selected letter group is now individually allotted a
court – every court that morning having been allocated a letter at random. Those responsible for
supervising the paraphernalia of the courts, the water clocks, ballots and pay, are also selected at
random, and magistrates were randomly assigned to their courts. The dikasts were shepherded to their
appropriate court and, after 340, were no longer exposed to litigants thanks to the decision to
concentrate the court venues together (cf. Dem.19.1).
It is not, of course, the threat of jurors being secretly suborned by litigants which troubles
Aristophanes but the overt political manipulation of jury pay by demagogues. The comic depiction of
Cleon‟s influence over the jury courts was discussed at length in the second chapter, and there is to be
sure much distortion; Cleon‟s increase in pay from 2 to 3 ob could not have won him the enduring
loyalty of the jurors to the point that the court system was transformed into his personal political
weapon. What is not in dispute is that Cleon presented himself as the champion of the poor and nonleisured and that he treated the courts as political arenas. The universally hostile source tradition is
largely a reflection of genuine upper-class resentment towards Cleon‟s inflammatory rhetoric and his
allegedly malicious prosecutions of the rich and influential. The dikastikon was thoroughly implicated
in this politicisation of the justice system. Whether by proposing an increase in the rate of pay or
creating work for juries by launching prosecutions, pay not only provided Cleon with ready audiences
dominated by his target constituency of the urban poor, especially thetes, but a means to confer
material benefits on them as a pseudo-benefactor. In the few years that Cleon dominated Athenian
politics he demonstrated that political leaders were free to play on the self-interest of jurors by
proposing pay increases or generating more legal cases, and that the dikastikon could therefore be
subverted into a tool of personal political power. Where Cleon led, later demagogues like Hyperbolus
followed. The intervention of oligarchy in 411, and the temporary abolition of the dikastikon, proved to
be a brief suspension of the active use of the courts as instruments of coercion. In the previous chapter
it was also suggested that the re-introduction of the dikastikon, like the diobelia, should be attributed to
Cleophon. The political capital Cleophon secured as a result of both measures was probably substantial,
and while we should avoid attributing all political activity in these imperfectly understood years to a
single figure, the vindictive use of the court system against former oligarchs suggests the agency of a
politician remembered for his violent advocacy of the democracy and of the war. The last quarter of the
fifth century demonstrated the potential of the dikastikon to alter the balance of power between demos
and leader to the long-term detriment of the democracy. This is duly recognised in fourth century antidemocratic thought, where civic pay is not just utilised by the poor in harming the rich but in fact
harms every citizen of the polis.41
With the example of the courts during the war before them, the decision taken by the Athenians to
cap jury pay at 3 ob can be interpreted as a counterpart to the formal procedures introduced to eliminate
private corruption: just as a litigant would be unable to suborn jurors, so a leader would find it difficult
to exploit the dikastikon in the same way as Cleon and his successors. The repeated pay increases for
39
See Harrison (1971) 240-1; Sommerstein (1998) 199-200.
See Rhodes, CAAP 697-714. For clear overviews of jury selection in the fourth century, see
MacDowell (1978) 36-40, and especially Boegehold (1991) 172-80.
41
See above, pp. 86-8.
40
97
ekklesiasts could not be avoided if a quorum was to be secured, and were all the more reason to shield
the courts from the politics that inevitably surrounded these rises so long as 3 ob still attracted enough
jurors. The selection of the nomothetai from the jurors placed an additional premium on the
incorruptibility of the juror pool. The higher risk of bribery that accompanies a lower rate of pay was
countered by the random selection process. A citizen was still free to exploit pay by urging jurors to
convict rich defendants in the hope of endowing the state, and themselves, with more money. Yet if the
rate of pay would never be more than 3 ob, the effectiveness of such appeals would inevitably decline
in proportion with the purchasing power of pay. Appeals made to convict on the basis that pay might
cease entirely do continue, but are limited to periods of genuine need. The traumatic events of 403/2
inspired an extraordinary self-restraint and a long-term desire to avoid future stasis which is manifest in
forensic oratory. Courtrooms were now stages for the negotiation of civic ideology, rather than the
triumph of the demos over elites, through rhetoric that strives to mediate class conflict.42 If, as it
appears, it is necessary to accept that a „ceiling‟ was placed on jury pay as an additional protection
against subversion, it can be argued that the democracy had come to recognise the paradox at the heart
of civic pay: periodic increases were necessary to ensure that juries remained representative of the
citizenry, but every wage increase was an opportunity for politics to intrude into the court system in the
absence of an independent pay-setting mechanism. Once the recovery of Athenian finances in the
second half of the fourth century made increasing jury pay a real possibility, the choice was essentially
one between representation and impartiality. Athens chose the latter.
Jury Pay and the Democracy
For more than a generation the democracy and the empire had been inseparable: democratisation in the
mid-fifth century had been accelerated by the demand for naval manpower generated by the empire,
and expansionist leaders during the war had disseminated the technically incorrect belief that civic pay
itself was funded by allied tribute. The revival of the dikastikon and the creation of the ekklesiastikon
demonstrated emphatically that democracy as the Athenians had come to understand it in the fifth
century could continue beyond the empire.43 The willingness of Athenians to add to the comparatively
heavier burden of the dikastikon with pay for ekklesiasts, signifies an intense commitment to the
normal functioning of the key institutions of the democracy rather than a „subisidation‟ of decrepit
institutions. This is best illustrated through the discourse on the theorikon. The creation of the theoric
fund, probably in the 350s, was the single most important financial development of the fourth century.
Initially meant to subsidise theatre seats at 2 ob p.d.,44 the fund soon received all surplus money from
the state and became the chief source of discretionary spending. As a result, it was the subject of
political rancor over the priorities of public finance. Demosthenes famously advocated allocating
surpluses to the stratiotic fund for military expenditures (Dem.1.19-20, 3.10-3, 4.35, 13.1-4, 10).45
Demosthenes‟ rhetoric in the Third Olynthiac (341), criticising spending on the theorikon which might
otherwise be used for war, is strikingly similar to Aristophanes‟ criticisms of the dikastikon:46
42
Rosenbloom (2004b) 342-3; Ober (1989a) esp. 332-40.
cf. Jones (1957) 4-7.
44
For references to the rate of the theorikon, see Loomis, WWCI 225-9
45
For the politics of the theorikon, see Buchanan (1962) 53-74; Harris (1996).
46
See further on the similarities, Dover (1974) 23-30; Papageorgiou (2004) 532-5.
43
98
They drip that into you like droplets of oil from a tuft of wool, always a little at a time, just enough
to keep you alive. Because they want to keep you poor, and I‟ll tell you the reason: so you‟ll
recognise your trainer, and whenever he whistles at you to attack one of his enemies, you‟ll leap on
that man like a savage. (Vesp.701-5)
They have mewed you up in the city and entice you with these baits, that they may keep you tame
and subservient to the whip…perhaps you may gain some important and unqualified advantage
and may be quit of these paltry perquisites. Like the diet prescribed by doctors, which neither
restores the strength of the patient nor allows him to succumb, so these doles that you are now
distributing neither suffice to ensure your safety nor allow you to renounce them and try something
else; they only confirm each citizen in his apathy. (Dem.3.31, 33)
The rhetoric of financial manipulation, of the dependence and apathy of a pay-addled demos (Ar. Pax
635-43 cf. [Dem.] 13.31), and of the greedy politician (Ar. Vesp.665-79 cf. Dem.23.209) has not
changed, but the tool in the hands of Athens‟ devious leaders is no longer the dikastikon but the
theorikon. The speaker of On Organisation (c.351), takes care to distinguish his objections to the
management of the theorikon from the provision of pay for public services like those of dikasts and
ekklesiasts. Note too, the qualification with which the speaker begins and which was detected in
Aristophanes – it is not the basic legitimacy of the theorikon but its management which is under
scrutiny:
I myself would neither propose such a distribution of the doles, nor oppose the right to receive
them; but I do urge you to reflect seriously in your own minds that while the sum of money you
are discussing is a trifle, the habit of mind that it fosters is a serious matter. Now if you so organise
the receipt of money that it is associated with the performance of duties, so far from injuring, you
will actually confer on the state and on yourselves the greatest benefit; but if a festival or any other
pretext is good enough to justify a dole, and yet you refuse even to listen to the suggestion that
there is any obligation attached to it, beware lest you end by acknowledging that what you now
consider a proper practice was a grievous error.47 ([Dem].13.2)
Similar sentiments are expressed in the Fourth Olynthiac (37-43), where it is the right of citizens to
receive a share of the public wealth from the polis and not to have their needs neglected. Distributions
like the theorikon or dikastikon are presented as easing class tensions.48 Against Timocrates (c.353),
authored by Demosthenes, attacks the namesake‟s financial proposal on the grounds that its impact on
revenue would be so severe as to eliminate civic pay. Though raising this specter is calculated to instill
fear in the jurors, the provision of civic pay is nevertheless presented as fundamental to the democracy:
47
Demosthenes (Prooimia 52.4) attacks opponents for keeping the people in a state of weakness with
„the drachma, and grain distribution, and the four obols‟. Pseudo-Lucian (Dem.Enc.36) says
Demosthenes awakened the city‟s sense of honour which had been laid low in the quest for the 1 dr and
3 ob. It is difficult to know what payments are meant by these references. Buchanan (1962) 27 n. 1
suggests that the 1 dr and 4 ob could be the going rate for the principle and normal assemblies
respectively in 349 (that is, before the rates rose to those given in Ath.Pol.). Loomis, WWCI 23-4 sees
instead sees a reference to assembly pay and the theorikon over two days.
48
Harris (1996) 70-6.
99
Tell us this, Timocrates: are we never to meet and deliberate? If so, shall we still be living under
popular government? Shall there be no sessions of the courts, civil or criminal? If so, what security
will there be for complainants? Shall the boule not attend at their office to transact their legal
business? If so, what remains but complete disorganisation? You may reply that we shall go on
without payment of fees. Then is it not monstrous (deinon) that the assembly, the boule, and the
law-courts must go unpaid for the sake of a statute which you were paid to introduce? (Dem.24.99)
For Demosthenes, jury pay is not just a functional necessity for the democracy but also an entitlement
of citizens. The parallel rhetoric used by Aristophanes and Demosthenes, albeit in very different
contexts, makes plain the perceptual shift that has taken place in the intervening decades. That the
wealthy Isocrates, pleading before a jury in his antidosis trial of 353, thought it wise not only to
conceal his private dislike of jury pay (7.54, 8.129-31) but to excuse himself for having not drawn civic
pay, suggests that the receipt of payments like the dikastikon constituted normal behaviour for a
democratic citizen (15.152). The fact that most pinakia have been recovered from graves, buried with
their owners as treasured possessions,49 suggests that many jurors were proud to serve in the courts and
that jury service held a value separate to pay. The impression is that, in the 80 years since Wasps, jury
pay has come to be regarded as a wholly uncontroversial and essential element of the democracy by the
vast majority of Athenians. This belief serves to exculpate the Athenians from the charge, influenced
by Demosthenes‟ rhetoric, that their attachment to pay made them unwilling to make the financial
sacrifices necessary to meet the threat of Macedon.50 The experience of 404/3 and the effect of freezing
jury pay, thus keeping it relatively free of political manipulation, may also be adduced as factors
responsible for the unquestioned status of jury pay in the fourth century.
Conclusion
Despite the loss of empire, Athens signaled its commitment to safeguarding democracy by committing
more resources than ever to its dikasts and ekklesiasts. The dikastikon, however, seems strangely
insulated from the inflationary pressure observed in wages and the rate of the ekklesiastikon during the
rest of the century. Forensic oratory sheds little light on the composition of juries, and while jurors
were probably less likely to be urban workers than they were in the fifth, there is no real evidence that
poorer Athenians lost their grip on the jury courts. It is very doubtful that the apparent decision to hold
jury pay at 3 ob was intended to encourage certain groups to serve over others. It must be admitted that
there is no direct evidence for the explanation offered here – indeed, no ancient authority comments on
the contrast between jury and assembly pay – but this explanation finds support in the intense criticism
of the late-fifth century jury courts and the fourth century preoccupation with judicial impartiality and
integrity. Despite a lack of comparable evidence from fifth century oratory, it appears that the
dikastikon was no longer the focus of public debate, and it is reasonable to connect this change with the
evolution of jury pay from a subsistence wage into an honorarium.
49
50
Kroll (1972) 9, 97.
Samons (2000) 22.
100
Conclusions
This study offers the most detailed analysis of the classical dikastikon to date. The introduction of jury
pay is more complex then an instrumental response to an inadequate number of jurors. In light of the
reforms of 462/1, there could be no doubt that the dikastikon would enhance popular sovereignty by
helping to reduce the economic inequalities between nominal political equals. The case offered here for
the later dating of the dikastikon, to c.451/0, raises the possibility that jury pay, like the citizenship law,
was not just meant to enhance unity within the citizen body but to distinguish it more clearly from noncitizens and the non-free. These were years of ongoing debate about the institutions of democracy, and
so the success of the proposal to pay jurors was also a partisan victory that stood Pericles in good stead
as a popular leader. Regardless of the historicity of his struggle with Cimon, Pericles received the
charis due to a benefactor by spending public money and not his own. This reality is of profound
importance for the later history of pay. In the short term however, the use of public money meant that
poorer citizens would not be quite so reliant on elite intermediaries to take time off from work and to
exercise power in one of the two most powerful institutions of the democracy. When viewed as a
redistribution of wealth, two overlooked antecedents emerge for the „unprecedented‟ dikastikon: the
traditional benefactions of the elite and the liturgy system which sought to manage these benefactions
for the benefit of the entire polis, and the even older practice of redistributing surplus wealth to citizens
as shareholders.
The calculations of Markle for the buying power of the post-425/4 dikastikon overestimate its
value, and while a family could survive on 3 ob, it must be stressed that jury pay was probably never
high enough to provide most Athenians with adequate compensation for lost earnings. As the poor still
appear to have dominated juries, the gap between pay and earnings leads to the conclusion some
scholars are too sceptical when they reject the idea that many of these poorer jurors were also older
citizens. The strains of war and the rise of new leaders led to the political manipulation of the
dikastikon. Pericles had deployed pay as a pseudo-benefaction, and despite the sharp contrast between
Pericles and Cleon in the sources, the former‟s recognition of the political importance of public wealth
informed Cleon‟s focus on money as the professed champion of the poor. By increasing the rate of pay
and cultivating the courts as political venues, Cleon could point to the dikastikon as evidence of his
devotion to the demos and deploy it in the service of his expansionist aims. Aristophanes exaggerates
the power Cleon enjoyed through jury pay, but there is no basis to the notion that Aristophanes is a
trenchant critic of jury pay itself and not just its politicisation. The slight, but nonetheless significant,
restraint Aristophanes exhibits towards jury pay is made clear by comparison with the harsh treatment
of the ekklesiastikon in Assemblywomen. In Aristophanes is observed a broad though as yet not
unqualified commitment to civic pay as both instrument and symbol of the power of the imperial
demos, and at the same time the emergence of the dikastikon as a source of class antagonism.
This nascent hostility toward pay in the 420s fully manifests itself in the political upheavals after
Sicily. In 411, members of the elite and oligarchs broadcast their intention to abolish pay as a financial
measure in the hope of winning public support. At no point prior to the loss of Euboea, however, did
the demos in Athens explicitly vote to abandon jury pay. The use of violence prior to the establishment
of the Four Hundred suggests a popular commitment to the dikastikon as intense as that to the
democracy itself, and the reinstitution of jury pay was one of the first acts of the restored democracy.
101
The events of 404/3 not only intensified commitment to the democracy but a desire to establish that
democracy on a basis of greater moderation and consensus. It is in these terms that the history of civic
pay in the fourth century can be understood. There is no cause to believe that jury pay was deliberately
allowed to decline in value in order to increase the representation of the rich on juries. It is suggested
that the apparent decision to cap the rate of the dikastikon was taken to avoid the notorious
politicisation of the late fifth century court system. The clear parallels between the rhetoric of
Demosthenes on the theorikon and Aristophanes on jury pay indicate that the fear of money furthering
private interest and working against the wider interest of the polis persisted in the fourth century, but
also that this fear no longer applied to the dikastikon.
It is possible to offer some answers to the wider questions posed at the beginning of this study.
Civic pay existed at the fault lines of a society dominated by a citizenry of nominal political equals
among whom there were vast inequalities of wealth and status. It is not surprising that democrats and
oligarchs were sharply divided in their attitudes to jury pay, but the extent to which shared moral and
cultural understandings of money in public life underpin both strands of thought warns against a
simplistic contrast. The role of the dikastikon in the democracy was important, complex, and changing.
During the fifth century, jury pay functioned both as a complementary investment in democracy and in
the empire: the dikastikon strengthened the demos and bound the democracy to the empire. Yet at the
same time the material and symbolic relationship jury pay cemented between popular sovereignty and
public money was not an exclusive one. Popular leaders were able to „insert‟ themselves as managers
and conduits for public money and to use the dikastikon as a pseudo-benefaction to enhance their
power and the popular commitment to the war and the empire. Defeat and the loss of empire
precipitated the fourth century re-fashioning of the dikastikon: it no longer served as an investment in
imperial power and, in recognition of the part pay had played in the abuse of the law courts, its real
value as an investment in popular sovereignty was allowed to decline. Jury pay could always be
conceived as a distribution of money to citizen shareholders and it is the symbolic significance of the
dikastikon as an uncontroversial distribution of communal wealth which becomes prominent in the
second half of the fourth century. For better and for worse, jury pay provided ordinary Athenians with a
tangible stake in the well-being of their polis and the continuation of the democratic order. It is stability
and cohesion, rather than stasis, which ultimately characterised Athens to a degree that was remarkable
by Greek standards. While the sources may then stress jury pay as a source of division, this is not the
full picture; by easing economic inequality, educating ordinary citizens in the judicial process, and
helping to create a broad-based justice system, the dikastikon made an important contribution to the
long-term stability of the democratic order.
102
Appendix 1. Cimon‟s Ostracism
There are two possible periods for the dikastikon if the rivalry tradition is taken literally: prior to
Cimon‟s ostracism or between his return to Athens and his departure for Cyprus. The view first
articulated by Beloch is that the earlier of these two periods must also be excluded on the grounds that
Cimon was ostracised before the reforms were passed.51 This argument requires Plutarch‟s vague
statement (Cim.15.1) that Cimon had „sailed away again on military service‟ (πάιηλ ἐπὶ ζηξαηείαλ
ἐμέπιεπζε) at the time of the reforms, to be dismissed as a later assumption and to argue instead that
Cimon was absent because he had already been ostracised. The confused chronology of chapters 15-17
of the Cimon does however, lend support to Plutarch‟s claim that Cimon was on campaign by
suggesting Cimon‟s theatre of operations. Cimon is said to have been attacked for Laconism when he
returned home to oppose the Ephialtic reforms from this unnamed campaign (15.2-3), and that he was
ostracised for Laconism after returning from helping Sparta suppress the helots at Ithome (17.2).
Again, in the Pericles, it is said that he was ostracised for being „a lover of Sparta and a hater of the
people‟ (9.4, cf. Cim.15.2). The close association between Cimon‟s return from Ithome and allegations
of Laconism make it likely that Plutarch‟s unnamed campaign was that in the Peloponnese, mistakenly
assuming it was seaborne on the basis that Athens was a maritime power. This theory makes it far
easier to explain why the Spartans suddenly dismissed the Athenians for revolutionary tendencies and,
short of reconstructing an otherwise unknown and inexplicable expedition between Ithome and the
Ephialtic reforms, it is the only solution which makes Plutarch‟s disjointed narrative intelligible. 52
From this it follows that the Areopagus reforms did take place before and not after Cimon‟s ostracism,
as Plutarch says. Plutarch refers to Cimon trying to roll back the legislation upon his return and it was
this that evidently constituted enough of a threat for his opponents to move an ostracism. The early
dating must then remain a possibility. The chief difficulty is that it allows only a few months for the
dikastikon to be introduced between the reforms and Cimon‟s ostracism in that same year. It also
requires that the assassination of Ephialtes, which also took place in 462/1 (Ath.Pol.25.4, 26.2), occur
immediately after the passage of his reforms and not after Cimon‟s ostracism. This much is required by
a literal reading of the rivalry tradition in which Pericles has evidently succeeded to Ephialtes‟ position
as the main opponent of Cimon.
The later dating is problematised by the uncertainty over when Cimon returned. 53 The key source
is a fragment of Theopompus (FGrH 115 F88) rendered cryptic by the loss of its original context:
51
Beloch (1912) 197-8; Walker (1953b) 467-9; Jacoby, FGrH iiib Supp. 1 369-70 n. 17.
Rhodes (1992b) 69-70. It is possible Plutarch was drawing from two sources. 15.1-3 may be from
Theopompus whose unwillingness to refer to the inglorious dismissal of the Athenians led to the
careless explanation of a „naval expedition‟ to be inserted later. 16.4-17.3 might be from Ephorus, who
did know that the reforms closely followed the Ithome expedition, see Hignett, AC 337-41. Plutarch‟s
confusion extends to sending Cimon off on two trips to the Peloponnese. By way of a parallel,
Diodorus‟ attempt to reconcile his annalistic framework with that of Ephorus similarly sees him
duplicate events that appear once in Thucydides, such the expedition of Pericles around the
Peloponnese (Thuc.1.111.2-3; Diod.11.85, 88.1-2) or the battle of Oenophyta (Thuc.1.108.2-3;
Diod.11.81-3.3).
53
For bibliography on the date of Cimon‟s return, see Stadter (1989) 124-5.
52
103
Theopompus in the tenth book of the Philippika says about Cimon: “When five years had not yet
gone by, a war having broken out with the Lacedaemonians, the people sent for Cimon (νὐδέπσ δὲ
πέληε ἐηῶλ παξειειπζόησλ πνιέκνπ ζπκβάληνο πξὸο Λαθεδαηκνλίνπο ὁ δῆκνο κεηεπέκςαην ηὸλ
Κίκσλα) thinking that by his proxeny he would make the quickest peace. When he arrived at the
city, he ended the war.54
The Greek can either mean that Cimon‟s ostracism lasted for 5 years, as translated here, or if πνιέκνπ
is associated with ἐηῶλ, that the war was less than 5 years old before he was recalled. 55 The first
reading places Cimon‟s recall around the time of Athens‟ defeat by Sparta at Tanagra in 457.56 This
however, leaves years of silence until the Five Years‟ Peace of 451/50 (Thuc. 1.112.1) – unless
Theopompus somewhat inappropriately characterises the 4 month truce of Diodorus (11.80.6) after
Tanagra as an end to the war. The alternate translation saves Theopompus‟ chronology by dating the
recall to 5 years after Tanagra, just short of the natural expiration of the ostracism and right before the
Peace of 451/0. Nepos (Cim.3.2-4) and Plutarch (Per.10.2-3, Cim.17.6-18.1) seem to have used
Theopompus and, based on their accounts of the recall, it seems that the 5 years of Theopompus refer
to the length of the ostracism. Other sources mention the ostracism and recall but give no indication as
to when this took place.57 The Athenians would have been in far greater need of Cimon‟s services after
the losses in Egypt in 45458 than after Tanagra, which Thucydides says (1.108.5) did not prevent them
overcoming the Boeotians at Oenophyta only weeks later. Thucydides‟ failure to mention Cimon‟s
recall and the lack of any action attributable to Cimon between 462/1 and 451/0 can be explained if
Cimon‟s early homecoming was only by a matter of months. 59 It appears that Theopompus has
telescoped the time between Cimon‟s recall and the peace he negotiated with Sparta, perhaps
incorporating a claim of a very early recall found in an oligarchic pamphleteer or Atthidographer. 60 The
case is stronger for Cimon being recalled closer to the actual Five Years Peace, ca. 452/1, but if the
dikastikon is to be associated with Cimon‟s presence in Athens, only the years 460-457 can be
excluded with absolute certainty.
54
Translation of Connor (1968), see 24-30, 103-8.
Also in favour of the latter interpretation is the absence of the definite article in front of ἐηῶλ, as
noted by Jacoby, FGrH, iiib Supp. 1 317.
56
Gomme, HCT.i 325-7.
57
Andoc.3.3-4 calling Cimon „Miltiades‟; Aeschin.2.172; Pl. Grg.516d; Aristid. Or.46.158.13.
58
Meiggs, AE 111, 422-23; Unz (1986) rejects Thucydides date of 451/0 for the Five Years‟ Peace in
favour of 454/3 from Diodorus (11.86.1), which is the year when Cimon‟s 5 years of ostracism ended
and the Egyptian disaster occurred.
59
Badian (1987) 12-3 in arguing for a recall around the time of Tanagra explains the absence of
activity until the Five Years‟ Peace in 451/0 by the extraordinary suggestion that Cimon was allowed to
return so long as he behaved as if he were atimos.
60
Connor (1968) 177 n. 11.
55
104
Appendix 2. The Cost of Jury Pay
The starting point for our calculation must be the figures Bdelycleon uses in Aristophanes‟ Wasps to
show his pay-loving father, Philocleon, that jurors enjoy less than 10% of the state revenues:
First of all, calculate roughly, not with counters but on your fingers, how much tribute we receive
altogether from the allied cities. Then make a separate count of the taxes and the many one
percents, court dues, mines, markets, harbours, receipts, proceeds from confiscations. Our total
income from all this is nearly two thousand talents. Now set aside the annual payment to the jurors,
all six thousand of them, “for never yet have more dwelt in this land.” We get, I reckon, a sum of
one hundred and fifty talents. 1 (Vesp.655-63)
Among the figures provided by Ath.Pol. (24.3) for each of the different categories of Athenians who
received state pay is a figure of 6000 jurors. The 6000 of Ath.Pol may have been lifted from
Bdelycleon‟s arithmetic or the two may reflect a wider commonplace. The only reference to 6000
jurors sitting comes from 415 and the extraordinary proceedings associated with the scandal of the
herms and the Mysteries (Andoc.1.17).2 6000 dikasts corresponds with the 6000 ekklesiasts required
for an ostracism (cf. Philoch. FGrH 328 F30; Andoc.1.87; Dem.41.89; Plut. Arist.7.5). The capacity of
the fifth century Pnyx (c.460) to accommodate up to 6000 people suggests that 6000 voters was
required for certain proposals in the assembly, as was certainly the case during the fourth century, from
the time that the jury courts were established. 3 It does not seem coincidental that 6000 appears as an
important figure in both the assembly and courts. The courts embodied the judicial power of the demos
and jurors could be referred to „heliasts‟ – members of the assembly sitting in a judicial capacity. 4
Bdelycleon makes clear that, just like the fifth century assembly, 6000 was not a „quorum‟ but the
maximum number that could exist at any one time. To have 6000 jurors would satisfy the need to preregister jurors (in other words, to place a cap on their number) and at the same time stress the symbolic
continuity between the demos and the dikasteria.5 Each year there would be the usual crop of juror
withdrawals due to death or illness, but it is unclear what proportion of the jurors were thus affected, if
steps were taken to fill the vacancies, and what if any steps were taken when fewer than 6000
volunteered each year. The possibility that fewer than 6000 jurors enrolled must be considered, for a
juror pool of 6000 would require one in 10 citizens to enroll in 431. The tribute re-assessment of decree
1
ἀθξόαζαί λπλ ὦ παππίδηνλ ραιάζαο ὀιίγνλ ηὸ κέησπνλ· θαὶ πξῶηνλ κὲλ ιόγηζαη θαύισο, κὴ ςήθνηο
ἀιι‟ ἀπὸ ρεηξόο,
ηὸλ θόξνλ ἡκῖλ ἀπὸ ηῶλ πόιεσλ ζπιιήβδελ ηὸλ πξνζηόληα, θἄμσ ηνύηνπ ηὰ ηέιε ρσξὶο θαὶ ηὰο
πνιιὰο ἑθαηνζηάο,
πξπηαλεῖα κέηαιι‟, ἀγνξὰο, ιηκέλαο, κηζζώζεηο, θαὶ δεκηόπξαηα· ηνύησλ πιήξσκα ηάιαλη‟ ἐγγὺο
δηζρίιηα γίγλεηαη ἡκῖλ.
ἀπὸ ηνύηνπ λπλ θαηάζεο κηζζὸλ ηνῖζη δηθαζηαῖο ἐληαπηνῦ ἓμ ρηιηάζηλ – “θνὔπσ πιείνπο ἐλ ηῇ ρώξᾳ
θαηέλαζζελ”.
γίγλεηαη ἡκῖλ ἐθαηὸλ δήπνπ θαὶ πεληήθνληα ηάιαληα.
2
Gomme (1930) 66 saw this 6000 as a special jury of initiates into the Mysteries, but as a graphe
paranomon trial it would have been conducted before sworn jurors. For 6000 jurors, cf. schol. Pl.
Leg.12; Suda s.v. prytaneia.
3
Hansen (1982) 242.
4
On the complex relationship between demos and dikasteria, see p. 10 n. 24.
5
See Bonner (1938) 209-21, 224-6.
105
of 425/4 (IG i3 71), however, stipulates that the „a new court of one thousand dikasts‟ (δηθαζηέξηνλ]
λένλ θα[ζ] ἰζηάληνλ ρ[ηιίνο δηθαζηάο) is to be established to adjudicate disputes arising from the
present assessment and all future assessments (l.16, cf. 12-8, 28, 51-4). The designation of the court as
„new‟ indicates the jurors are not already assigned to courts, and suggests that at least another 1000
jurors could be accommodated on the rolls before the 6000 maximum was reached. 6000 may then be
accepted a reliable figure for the maximum number of jurors, and since registration as a juror cost
nothing and imposed no formal requirement to serve, Athens probably had little difficulty in securing
enough volunteers.
It is always assumed in calculations of spending on the dikastikon that the pay was distributed
evenly among all the jurors. This requires particular attention. Jurors were assigned to particular panels
which were in turn assigned to a specific court. Isocrates (18.54) refers to a fifth century jury of 700.
Isaeus (5.20) gives the strength of another as 500. Emendation of Isocrates is attractive not only
because 500 (properly, 501) would become the standard jury size for public suits (Ath.Pol. 68.1, cf.
Dem.21.22. 24.9; Din.1.52, 107),6 but because we hear of larger juries of 1500 (Plut. Per.32.2) and
2000 (Lys.13.35) in the fifth century which could easily be assembled by amalgamating panels of 500.
One solution for dividing up the 6000 with provision for absenteeism is to assign a jury of 600 to a
court but to only admit the first 500 to arrive each morning. If such a system were in place, the state
would only ever need to pay 5000 jurors despite retaining 6000. The immediate objection is that speed
is an arbitrary method of selecting jurors, and it is clear from Aristophanes that all those who belonged
to the jury were admitted until an unspecified signal was given at dawn and the trial commenced
(Vesp.689-90, 775, 891-2, cf. Thesm.278). It appears that 500 was not the mandated size of juries and
was either the quorum (retaining the notion of a total panel of 600) or an ideal maximum that was not
always reached.7 To refer to a jury as consisting of 500 would then be to employ the same convenient
shorthand seen in references to the entire juror pool as an even 6000. It follows that if all the jurors
arrived in time, whether 600 or 500, the full panel would sit and that Philocleon‟s habit of bivouacking
outside the courts (Vesp.87-93, 102-5) is not meant to guarantee him a place on the jury but to allow
him to spend as much time as possible with his beloved court.
Expenditure on pay was also affected by the relative workloads of the panels. Jurors were paid the
same per diem regardless of whether they heard 1 case or 10 (cf. Ar. Eq.50). Fewer than 10 courts are
known from the fifth century, 8 raising the possibility that not every panel was assigned a court, and
even when a panel was assigned a court it is inevitable that some were busier than others and that some
courts were closed when others were open (Vesp.303-6; Ath.Pol.59.1). Not every juror, therefore, was
being paid every „court‟ day and as a result, the working assumption of 6000 jurors receiving pay each
„court‟ day will greatly exaggerate the cost. Interestingly, there is no record (particularly in
Aristophanes where we would expect to find it) of a juror rejoicing that he has drawn a busy court.
Though we are right to be suspicious of the violently anti-democratic bias of Pseudo-Xenophon, he
does claim that Athenian institutions were chronically over-worked (3.1-2, 6) and thus, that jurors are
not sitting idly. There is little hard evidence that can shed light on the problem, but it is not difficult to
6
Smaller juries were used for private suits: 201 jurors for suits in which less than 1000 dr was in
dispute, 401 for suits over 1000 dr (Ath.Pol. 53.3). We know little about juries for private suits in the
fifth century.
7
The latter is the view of Bonner (1938) 235-44.
8
For the 10 courts, of which only 5 are evidenced at the time of Wasps, see MacDowell (1971) 274-5.
106
suggest strategies for the equalisation of work and pay. Multiple juries could be assigned to highvolume courts and juries might also be rotated between courts. 9 Aristophanes makes it clear that juries
were assigned to courts but not for how long,10 and the movement of juries through courts would
provide an additional obstacle to corruption and familiarise more citizens with the entire judicial
system. A desire to distribute the power and work of jurors evenly must lie behind the requirement that
each tribe provide the same number of jurors (IG i2 84 l. 20=IG i3 82.20; cf. Ath.Pol.63.1). It is possible
the Athenians took these steps to ensure that all jurors received roughly the same amount of work, and
pay, each year. In the absence of any evidence for how often individual courts sat and with what
frequency juries of different sizes were assembled, it is impossible to estimate with any precision the
average number of jurors being paid each day. It is however, likely that the different workloads of the
courts meant that the average was significantly less than 6000.
The evidence for how many days a year the courts sat comes from two extremes. Bdelycleon‟s
figure of 150 talents for jury pay requires jurors to sit 300 days a year. Exaggeration in the opposite
direction is encountered in Psuedo-Xenophon‟s complaint that public business is backed up because the
Athenians take more holidays than anyone else (Ath.pol.3.1-3). Annual religious festivals excluded
about 75 days from the court calendar.11 Philocleon‟s boast (Vesp.594-7) that the assembly does not
pass important legislation without the courts first being adjourned has been taken to mean that both
institutions sat concurrently. MacDowell suggests instead that a speaker might make the popular
gesture of proposing that the courts be closed early, thus providing the jurors with a full day‟s pay for
less than a full day‟s work, and capitalise on his resulting popularity by introducing his proposed
legislation at the very next assembly meeting. This view finds support in Paphlagon‟s advice to old
Demos in Knights to „have your bath as soon as you‟ve tried only one case‟ (Eq.50). Paphlagon here
means for Demos to put his feet up after an early closing, not to trudge over to the assembly for further
work. It seems that by the mid-fourth century 1 principle and 3 ordinary assembly meetings per prytany
was normal.12 The fifth century assembly appears not to have had a stipulated number of meetings
(Thuc.2.22.1) but multiple meetings could be held in the space of a few days (Thuc.3.36.4-6, 6.8.2-3).13
Hansen‟s assumption of 4 meetings per prytany can, as an average, be accepted for the fifth century.14
Hansen excises an additional 15 days from the calendar for homicide trials but arbitrarily discounts
another 25 on the grounds that the thesmothetai could decide which days the courts would sit
(Ath.Pol.59.1). The lower limit is calculated by excluding all 75 monthly festivals. Accepting the
exclusion of homicide trials but not the further 25, the number of court days in a 354-day civic year
numbered between 180 and 225.15 In light of so many variables, the cost of jury pay cannot be reduced
9
Bonner (1938) 244-8.
When Philocleon (Vesp.400) calls upon some men as „all you, who are going to have lawsuits this
year‟ he does not mean, contra Bonner (1938) 234, that Philocleon‟s jury will remain in a particular
court for an entire year but merely that as a juror, Philocleon will be serving in the courts for the rest of
the year. It would be impossible for a court‟s case load to be determined a full year in advance and the
men Philocleon names are probably sycophants.
11
cf. Ar. Nub.620, Vesp.1316-7, schol. Vesp.663; [Xen.] Ath.pol.3.2, 8. Mikalson (1975) 201-3.
12
For the debate over the frequency of fourth century assembly meetings, see below, p. 116 n. 13.
13
Rhodes (1972a) 227 does suggest the assembly started to meet more frequently during the period of
Cleon‟s ascendancy.
14
Hansen (1979a) 244.
15
Ibid. Sinclair (1988) 225, with the same assumptions, favours 150-160 to 200 days.
10
107
to a single figure but must be expressed as likely ranges. A hypothetical minimum of 3000 jurors has
been used,16 with the following results:
16
3000 jurors
6000 jurors
Pre-425/4
180 days
225 days
30 talents
37.5 talents
60 talents
75 talents
Post-425/4
180 days
225 days
45 talents
56.25 talents
90 talents
112.5 talents
Boegehold (1991) 172 assumes an average of 2000 jurors a day. The most common type of trial in a
jury court was presumably a private suit involving less than 1000 dr and, if fourth century practice is
any indication, such trials were heard by smaller juries of 200 (Ath.Pol.53.3). 2000 jurors would allow
many courts to hear cases of this type concurrently, but on many days larger juries would also be
required. A minimum average of 3000, while still somewhat arbitrary, is safer.
108
Appendix 3. How much could 3 obols buy?
Markle‟s calculations, based on the work of Foxhall and Forbes, are as follows. 1 1.2 choinikes of
barley is sufficient for the nutritional needs of an average-sized, moderately active adult (2853 calories
a day – Blepyrus in Assemblywomen (423-6) would be happy with a handout of 3 choinikes for himself
and his wife). Markle assumes an average cost of 3 dr per medimnos of barley with the requirement to
purchase 1.3 medimnoi of barley to get 1 medimnos of alphita due to a 30% reduction in volume.
Markle here is in error; 1 is the result when 1.43 and not 1.3 is reduced by 30%. With 1.3 substituted
for 1.43, a hypothetical miller‟s profit of 0.5 ob per medimnos is then added, giving 26 ob for one
medimnos of barley meal. There are 48 choinikes to 1 medimnos, hence 0.54 ob per choinix and 0.65 ob
for 1.2 choinikes of barley for a man, 0.5 ob for his wife, 0.32 for each child. In total, 1.8 ob (not 1.65)
for a family of 4. Markle‟s estimates for the price of other miscellaneous consumables taken from
Plutarch (Mor.470f), which may or may not be accurate for „the early fourth century‟ (280-1), bring the
final total up to 2.5 ob for a family of 4.
Markle‟s findings must first be revised in light of the Grain Tax Law of 374/3 (GHI 26), which
shows (lines 21-7) that 1 medimnos of barley weighed 1 talent or 27.47kg and was therefore 18.6%
lighter than the 33.7kg medimnos used in Markle‟s calculations (pp. 278-9). Hence, more grain would
have to be purchased to make up the typical adult ration of 1 choinix of barley meal p.d. Mutatis
mutandis, a moderately active adult make would then require 1.5 choinikes of barley meal p.d., not 1.2,
at a cost of 0.82 ob. To feed a wife and two children, the cost would rise to 2.25 ob. The cost rises
further, to 3 ob and to almost 4 once other foodstuffs are purchased, if the average price of barley per
medimnos is lifted from 3 dr to the 4 dr favoured by Pritchett, 2 giving 0.72 ob per choinix. The
distorting effect of overestimating the amount of grain per choinix and underestimating the cost per
choinix is partially offset if another adjustment is made to Markle. Rather than reasoning from the
maximum amount of barley which could be consumed (98% of daily calories), grain should be
calculated as providing 75% of daily calories as Foxhall and Forbes advocate. 3 When Markle‟s
calculations are re-run at the revised ancient weight of barley per medimnos at 4 dr per medimnos, with
1
2
Markle (1985) 277-81, 293-7; Foxhall (1982).
Pritchett (1956) 186.
Prices for wheat and barley at Athens (partial list in Markle, 293-4):
Date
414/3
c.400
340-330
330
330s
329/8
324
282
Source
IG i3 421.137-9
IG 1356.17, 21
IG ii2 408.10-5
(1 phormos* of wheat)
(1 medimnos of wheat)
(1 medimnos of wheat)
(1 medimnos of barley)
[Dem.]34.39
(1 medimnos of wheat)
[Dem.]42.20, 31
(1 medimnos of barley)
IG 1672.286-8
(1 medimnos of wheat)
282-3, 298
(1 medimnos of barley)
IG ii2 360.8-10, 51-6, 66-70 (1 medimnos of wheat)
IG xi ii 158a 38-50
(1 medimnos of wheat)
(1 medimnos of alphita)
Price
6-6.5 dr
6 dr
9 dr
5 dr (restored)
5 dr
6 dr
5-6 dr
3 dr, 3 dr 5 ob
5 dr
7, 6.5, 6, 4.5, 7, 10 dr
(monthly variations)
4 dr then 5 dr
* Probably equivalent to a medimnos, see Pritchett (1956) 194-5.
3
Foxhall (1982) 56.
109
barley providing 75% of daily calories, an active adult would need 0.8 ob worth of barley per day or
2.2 ob for both himself and his family. This figure can only be taken as a rough guide because Athens‟
reliance on imports to supplement domestic grain production introduced significant variability into the
price of grain throughout a year. Markle adds 0.85 ob for the purchase of additional foodstuffs, but this
figure must be increased if Athenian families still preferred to get three-quarters of their sustenance
from grain on those days their breadwinner was serving in the courts. The basic validity of Markle‟s
conclusion that 3 ob was enough to feed a family seems correct, but he exaggerates its buying power. A
family reliant on daily purchases of food could not spend the dikastikon on anything else but
sustenance.
110
Appendix 4. Payments for the Diobelia (410/09, 407/6-406/5)
IG i2 304a = IG i3 375 = ML84 (410/09)1
General Remarks: The following table lists diobelia payments and those without a specified purpose, if
the receiving official also receives diobelia payments elsewhere in the inscription. The principle of
identifying unspecified monies as diobelia funds based on the payee should not, however, be applied to
Pericles. He receives money for the diobelia in lines 13-4 but also receives money for the cavalry (lines
8, 11-2). The purpose of the 4596 dr Pericles receives in lines 18-9 is therefore unclear. ML is right to
suggest that the total for the diobelia for the year was probably over 34 talents (since the tenth prytany
is lost), though the 5 unidentified talents at 39-40 should not be counted on the basis that Dionysius‟
name fits the lacuna there since the normal pattern of Thrason receiving the next payment is not
followed at 40-1. In the accounts for 407/6-406/5 (IG i3 377), Lysitheus appears as a regular payee of
diobelia money, so that other, unspecified, payments to him may also be for the diobelia.
Line
10
11-12
13-14
14-15
15-16
Prytany
III (Oineis)
IV (Akamantis)
V (Kekropis)
VI (Leontis)
21-22
22-23
VII (Antiochis)
Purpose
Diobelia
Diobelia
Diobelia
Unspecified
Unspecified
Talents
2
8
4
Diobelia
Diobelia
1
1
3
Drachmas
Obols
1355
2200
1284
1083
2
Prytany Totals
2 talents
8 talents 1,355 dr
4 talents 2,200 dr
3 talents 2367 dr
1232
3.5
2 talents 1232 dr
3.5 ob
28-29
VIII
(Hippothontis)
29-30
Unspecified
3
4318
1.5
Unspecified
1
3329
3
5 talents 1647 dr
4.5 ob
32-33
33-34
IX (Erechtheis)
Unspecified
[4]
793
3
Unspecified
2
3850
2.5
5 talents 4,643 dr
5.5 ob
Out of approx.
180 talents of
loans, 32 talents
1446 dr 3.5 for the
diobelia
1
See also Meritt (1932) 94-115, 116-27 for 407/06-406/05; Blamire (2001) 117-22
111
IG i2 304b = IG i3 377 ‘Choiseul Marble’ (407/6-406/5 or 408/7-407/6) 1
Note on inscription: The following table lists payments specified as being for the diobelia. There is
disagreement whether the mason working on IG i3 377 began half way down the stone and then moved
to the unused upper part of the stone and inscribed the rest of the accounts for 407/6 and those for the
start of 406/5 (ll.1-27), or whether the stone should be read chronologically from top to bottom –
meaning that the upper section records the end of 408/7 and the start of 407/6. On the alternative
layouts of the stone, see Blamire.2 This uncertainty makes it unclear whether the diobelia was
apparently commuted to 1 ob in the ninth and tenth prytanies of 408/7 or of 407/6 (ll.9-16). It also
throws into doubt the year to which the 2 talents 50 dr paid for the diobelia (ll.7-9) belong, as well as
the undesignated 18 talents 1050 dr of the first prytany – 17 talents of which come as a single payment
(ll.25-7, not shown). The latter amount should not be included in the diobelia total: 17 talents is far
bigger than any other sum recorded for the diobelia.
Line
28-30
30-2
32-4
34-6
36-7
38-9
39-41
41-3
43-4
44-6
46-8
48-50
50-2
Date
Year 407/6
Prytany II Day 13
Day 17
17
18
19
22
23
24
26
30
30
36
36
Talents
Drachmas
Obols
Totals
215
113
986
2+
205
17
162
6
85+
506+
82
28
lost
4
215 dr 4 ob
113 dr
986 dr 1ob
2 dr+
205 dr
17 dr 4 ob
162 dr 2 ob
6 dr 3.5 ob
85 dr+
506 dr+
82 dr
28 dr 1.25 ob
1
4
2
3½
1¼
2409 dr 3.75 ob
7-9
Year 407/6 or
408/7
Prytany IX Day 4
(18th Mounichion,
407/06)
7 (Obolos)
15 (Obolos)
? (Obolos)
2
50
2 talents 50 dr
1900+
1250
lost
1900 dr+
1250 dr
2 talents 3200
dr
24-5
1
2
Prytany X Day 12
(Obolos)
Year 406/5 or
407/6
Prytany I Day 20
(20th
Hekatombaion,
406/5)
1100
3
Based on the improved readings of Pritchett (1977).
Blamire (2001) 120 n. 138.
112
-
1100 dr
-
3 talents+
Appendix 5. The Ekklesiastikon
Ath.Pol. relates the introduction of the ekklesiastikon:
At first they decided not to pay stipends for attendance at the assembly. But when men were
staying away from the assembly, and the prytanes were trying various devices to bring the masses
in to ratify the voting, first Agyrrhius provided for the payment of one obol, after him Heraclides
of Clazomenae, the man known as „king‟, raised it to two obols, and then Agyrrhius again raised it
to three obols.1 (41.3)
Chapter 41 rounds out the first half of Ath.Pol., in which the historical development of the Athenian
constitution is followed, with an account of the democratic restoration and amnesty of 403. The
ekklesiastikon is therefore presented as the last major alteration to the democracy though, like jury pay,
we lack an archon date. Ekklesiasts were already being paid 3 ob by the time of Aristophanes‟
Assemblywomen, dated on internal evidence to 393-390.2 The major renovation the Pnyx underwent at
the end of the fifth century allows the ekklesiastikon to be dated more precisely. The remains of this
second Pnyx are poorly preserved, making it difficult to determine the exact size of the new assembly
area. The excavators tentatively suggest a marginal increase in size from the 2400m2 of the earlier fifth
century to a Pnyx of 2600m,2 an area which could accommodate 6500 people.3 It has been persuasively
argued that the bema of Pnyx II and the baseline of the auditorium should be placed further south than
the excavators suggested, to a point just in front of the surviving late-fourth century bema of Pnyx III.
As a result of this shift, it appears the Pnyx was not just remodeled but significantly enlarged to a size
of some 3200m2 – enough to accommodate 8000.4 It is quite possible that the Thirty initiated changes
to the Pnyx (Plut. Them.19.4), but this massive increase in capacity would indicate the bulk of the
project took place under the restored democracy. 5 The expansion was doubtless necessitated by the
expectation of increased attendance in the future. A rise in migration to Athens cannot account for an
increase of such size,6 for even if post-war Athens experienced a net increase in population, Ath.Pol.
(41.3) makes it clear that disturbingly few citizens were attending the assembly. It therefore appears
that the democracy had already committed to paying ekklesiasts before the end of the fifth century and
made preparations by enlarging the Pnyx. The provision of pay and the need to control the movement
of the ekklesiasts more effectively would also explain why the auditorium of the Pnyx was less
1
κηζζνθόξνλ δ´ἐθθιεζίαλ ηὸ κὲλ πξῶηνλ ἀπέγλσζαλ πνηεῖλ· νὐ ζπιιεγνκέλσλ δ´εἰο ηὴλ ἐθθιεζίαλ,
ἀιιὰ πνιιὰ ζνθηδνκέλσλ ηῶλ πξπηάλεσλ, ὅπσο πξνζηζηῆηαη ηὸ πιῆζνο πξὸο ηὴλ ἐπηθύξσζηλ ηῆο
ρεηξνηνλίαο, πξῶηνλ κὲλ Ἀγύξξηνο ὀβνιὸλ ἐπόξηζελ, κεηὰ δὲ ηνῦηνλ Ἠξαθιείδεο ὁ Κιαδνκέληνο ὁ
βαζηιεὺο ἐπηθαινύκελνο δηώβνινλ, πάιηλ δ´Ἀγύξξηνο ηξηώβνινλ. For attested references to assembly
pay see Loomis, WWCI 20-25 with notes.
2
For the question of date, see Ussher (1973) xx-xxv who argues for 393; Sommerstein (1998) 1-7
makes a stronger case for 391.
3
Kourouniotes (1932) 104 for Pnyx I, 120-1, 126-7 for Pnyx II. Estimates of capacity taken from
Hansen (1976) 131.
4
Dinsmoor (1933); McDonald (1943) 70-6. See also Stanton (1996), who favours 3400m2
accommodating 14,800 people (18). I follow the estimates of Hansen (1996a) 26-29, who accepts the
3200m2 area estimate of Dinsmoor-McDonald, after rejecting it in 1982.
5
Krentz (1984); Moysey (1981).
6
Pace Rhodes, CAAP 491-2.
113
accessible than previously. The renovation of the Pnyx was completed around 400, and so it appears
that the ekklesiastikon can be dated earlier, rather than later, in the period 403-390.7
The administration and cost of assembly pay must be reconstructed from the references in
Assemblywomen. It is clear that not every ekklesiast was paid for attending (186-8, 289-93) and pay is
contingent upon reaching the Pnyx before dawn (282-4, 291a-292c). Gauthier observes that at Iasos all
citizens received assembly pay if they arrived before a water clock ran out. He infers that that the
ekklesiastikon was originally introduced at Athens for the same reason of ensuring the prompt arrival of
enough citizens to ratify business that had arisen from a previous assembly. 8 Hansen notes that the
motivations of filling the assembly and filling it in good time are not mutually exclusive. 9 Moreover, if
only the prompt arrival of ekklesiasts was desired, one wonders why the device of pay was not
employed during the far wealthier fifth century (cf. Ar. Ach.19-26). The expansion of the Pnyx to hold
more than 6000 after 403 would be necessary to accommodate those citizens who came too late to
receive pay but were still willing to attend without remuneration.10
It seems that the principle assembly required a quorum of 6000 for certain proposals to be voted
11
on. It was probably the first 6000 citizens to arrive at the Pnyx before dawn who received a token
(symbolon) that they later exchanged for pay (cf. IG ii2 1749).12 Arrival before dawn was necessary if
one hoped to be paid, but was no guarantee of pay. At least 1 principle (kyria) and 3 ordinary
assemblies were held in each prytany for most of the second half of the fourth century. 13 If the
assembly was already meeting 40 time a year (though it was under no obligation do so) at the time of
Assemblywomen in the late 390s, the cost of assembly pay was 20 talents a year. By the 330s, when
principle assemblies paid 9 ob and other assemblies 6 ob (Ath.Pol.62.2), the cost had risen to 45 talents
– equivalent to 3000 jurors being paid 180 days a year. 14 The yearly revenues of Athens under the
financial administration of Lycurgus in the 320s rose to some 1200 talents, meaning that the Athens of
the late fourth century was spending almost twice as much on civic pay as it had in the fifth. It is not
possible to calculate the cost of assembly pay for the middle of the century since it is not known at
what point it was decided to pay a higher rate for attendance at principle assemblies (perhaps because
these assemblies lasted longer), whether this rate was always 3 ob higher, and when the various
increases which took the ekklesiastikon from 1 to at least 6 ob were enacted. Our lack of information,
moreover, prevents us from properly integrating the history of assembly pay into the politics of the
fourth century.
7
Hansen (1986b), cf. (1996a) 29.
Gauthier (1993).
9
Hansen (1996a) 30-1.
10
Hansen (1982) 243-4 and (1986b) argued that a symbolon was not just a payment token but a ticket
of entry – those who came after 6000 symbola were distributed did not miss out on pay but were barred
from entering. Hansen (1996) 31 n. 51 rightly retracts this earlier argument in light of the criticisms of
Gauthier (1993) 240 n. 19: Chremes, who arrived too late to be paid, would not be able to recount the
proceedings in the Pnyx if he had also been refused entry (Ar. Eccl.375 f.).
11
These included ad hominem legislation (Andoc.1.87) see Meiggs (1964), grants of immunity
(Dem.24.45) and of citizenship ([Dem.] 59.89-90). On the 6000 as the quorum, see Hansen (1976) 124
f.; Sinclair (1988) 118-9.
12
On the possible identification of some symbola, see Hansen (1986b) 93 n. 11.
13
Hansen (1977), and with Fordyce Mitchel (1984), argue that the number of assemblies was limited to
four per prytany, in all but exceptional circumstances, in the second half of the fourth century in order
to save money. In the period 355-46 it is possible there were only 30 meetings a year. See the criticisms
of Harris (1986) with rebuttal in Hansen (1987), and the comments of Powell (2003) 290-1.
14
Podes (1993) 504 estimates the total annual cost for the assembly, boule, courts, officials was just
under 120 talents.
8
114
As a result, scholarship on the ekklesiastikon has focused on the reasons for its introduction. 15
Ath.Pol. presents assembly pay as the solution to the practical problem of poor assembly attendance
without explaining why attendance fell so low that pay became necessary. One view attributes the
ekklesiastikon to a change in Athenian political culture: the bitter experiences of defeat and oligarchy,
and the loss of imperial wealth and dominion, made Athenians less inclined to involve themselves in
the running of the polis. The ekklesiastikon, in turn, is regularly cited as evidence of a fourth century
„crisis‟. It is true that the democratisation of Athenian politics had proceeded hand-in-glove with the
city‟s transformation into an imperial power, meaning that there had never been a time in living
memory when Athenians had not proceeded to the Pnyx as arbiters of the Aegean world. No longer
would subject allies be received, tribute raised and commuted, or great military expeditions dispatched,
or the fate of whole cities and populations decided. In this sense assembly business was less interesting
and less satisfying. Yet the assembly had always been at something of a disadvantage in competing
with the courts for the free time of citizens when issues of great national significance were not being
thrashed out. For all that Cleon‟s notoriously animated oratorical style had done to enliven proceedings,
most assemblies lacked the adversarial dynamic of a trial and were more likely to offer
extemporaneous speaking than practised rhetoric (cf. Thuc.3.38.3-7). The opinion of a single juror,
moreover, was proportionally of greater consequence than an ekklesiast, especially one unaccustomed
to public speaking. The most appealing thing about the job of juror for Philocleon was precisely this
titillating sense of power (Ar. Vesp.548-630). Fourth century oratory presents a largely misleading
image of disconnect between citizens and politics. Litigants will proudly claim that they fulfilled their
obligations to the polis but have otherwise studiously avoided politics in favour of their own private
affairs, lauding non-interference (apragmosyne) as a virtue. The speakers espousing these sentiments
tend to be elites, for whom the rough-and-tumble of democratic politics had always been unsavoury,
but because the purpose of forensic rhetoric was ultimately to win the support of jurors it can only be
assumed that such sentiments enjoyed some mainstream approbation. The important observation is that
speakers direct their attacks against office-holding and participation in lawsuits, which in turn are never
vaunted as proof of civic mindedness, 16 and never criticise ordinary citizens for attending the assembly
or sitting on a jury. In addition, one must question whether all office-holding was popularly held in
contempt given that the continuation of the democracy indicates that hundreds of non-elite citizens
were still willing to serve the state in an official capacity (cf. Dem.24.112).17 The disenchantment of
Athenians seems to have been with high-level office-holding, particularly with offices that offered the
opportunity for peculation and personal gain (cf. Lys.21.18),18 and this underpins a greater cynicism
towards leaders claiming to serve the public interest (cf. Isoc.7.24-7, 12.145-6, 15.145, 150). There is,
then, little evidence that Athenians were willingly turning their backs on the institutions of the
democracy they had fought bitterly to preserve only a few years before.
15
For bibliography see Gauthier (1993) 233-4 n. 6.
Gabrielsen (1981) 119 f. Office-holding is associated with being a recipient, rather than a contributor,
though elected offices (like the generalship) might entail private expenditures by the incumbent and
some allotted offices (like the archonship) enjoyed special status (133-4).
17
Ibid., 109-35.
18
Todd (1990) 162-3 on apragmosune as a shared social value, not a class value, in forensic oratory.
16
115
The demographic and economic impact of the war on Athens remains the likeliest explanation for
the decline in participation.19 Some slight evidence appears before the armistice. Thucydides (8.72.1)
reports that the Four Hundred instructed its envoys to the soldiers on Samos to excuse the failure of the
oligarchy to call the Five Thousand by claiming that „because of their military expeditions and their
activities abroad, the Athenians had never yet come to consult upon any matter so important that five
thousand had assembled‟ (8.72.1).20 It was in the interest of the speakers to minimise the number of
recent ekklesiasts but it was also in their interest not to expose themselves as liars in front of a
potentially hostile crowd of soldiers.21 Still, it was only in the wake of defeat, when the return of
servicemen and cleruchs from abroad failed to lift participation, that the Athenians realised the
seriousness of the problem. Despite so much population loss, 22 Thrasybulus‟ proposal to enfranchise
supporters of the democracy in 403/2 was blocked (Ath.Pol.40.2), Pericles‟ restrictive citizenship law
was reactivated (schol. Andoc.1.39), and the assembly quorum was kept at 6000 – probably a
deliberate effort to prevent elites exercising too much influence over proceedings. 23 The loss of empire
had reduced the volume of business, but not by enough to off-set the fall in citizen numbers. At the
same time, Athens was at the very beginning of what would prove a long march back to the kind of
prosperity it had known in the second half of the previous century. 24
Ath.Pol provides the barest clues as to the politics which surrounded the inception of assembly
pay. The statement that „at first they decided not to pay stipends for attendance‟ suggests the initial
proposal for the ekklesiastikon failed, and there is no hint of what „various devices‟ were employed
short of payment.25 Aristophanes provides us with a little more evidence: he confirms that assembly
pay was the brainchild of Agyrrhius, and adds that the innovation led people to praise this erstwhile
„scoundrel‟ (poneron)(185-7). He is now „top cock in the city‟ (πξάηηεη ηὰ κέγηζη´ἐλ ηῇ πόιεη)(Ar.
Eccl.104, cf. Vesp.176). Demosthenes (24.135), in contrast, describes him as „a good man, democratic,
and an ardent defender of popular rights‟. Aristophanes‟ hostility towards Agyrrhius may be more than
the standard abuse meted out to a popular spokesman, for Agyrrhius may have moved a reduction in
19
Sinclair (1988) 117 notes that a quorum of 6000 was around 25% of the total number of citizens in
400. Given that not all citizens could easily commute to Athens, an even greater proportion of those
living in and around Athens would be required to make up the bulk of the quorum. On this basis it is
not surprising that pay was introduced. See also Hansen (1996a) 32 with n. 58.
20
θαίηνη νὐ πώπνηε Ἀζελαίνπο δηὰ ηὰο ζηξαηείαο θαὶ ηὴλ ὑπεξόξηνλ ἀζρνιίαλ ἐο νὐδὲλ πξᾶγκα νὕησ
κέγα ἐιζεῖλ βνπιεύζνληαο ἐλ ᾧ πεληαθηζρηιίνπο μπλειζεῖλ.
21
The evidence of Aristophanes for poor attendance during the war is, however, not persuasive. The
reference in Acharnians to the use of a dyed rope (miltos), the mark of which made a citizen liable to a
fine, to herd citizens into the agora (21-2 with schol., cf. Eccl.376-82; Poll.8.104) is often cited as
evidence that assembly attendance was an issue in the first years of the war. Powell (2003) 292
suggests that rather than a surprisingly coercive means of trawling the agora for unwilling participants,
it probably served as a „final call‟ for those ekklesiasts who were holding up the start of proceedings by
chatting and loitering. The later comment of Dicaeopolis that a general was elected by „three cuckoos‟
(598) may be a conventional jibe, and at any rate it says nothing about assembly attendance per se.
Hansen (1976) 123-4 interprets this last piece of evidence differently, but concurs.
22
Hansen (1986a) 9-13, 64-9.
23
Sinclair (1988) 134; Ober (1989b) 326.
24
On the early fourth century economy, see above p. 92.
25
By the time of Assemblywomen (378) it appears that the dyed rope was used to bring in stragglers,
though this may have always been its purpose (see n. 21 above). Hansen (1976) 133 nn. 69-70 suggests
that the first 6000 were separated from additional attendees within the Pnyx by a miltos. Alternatively,
because it makes its appearance at the end of proceedings, Sommerstein (1998) 174 suggests it was
used to drive away those ekklesiasts not being paid so as not to crowd the paymasters.
116
playwrights‟ emoluments (schol. Ar. Ran.367; Pl. Com. KA141).26 It appears that Agyrrhius quickly
found favour under the restored democracy, serving as secretary of the boule in 403/2 (IG ii2 l.41-2). In
389 he succeeded Thrasybulus as general (Xen. Hell.4.8.31).27 The foreigner Heracleides, absent from
Aristophanes, was probably the individual honoured with citizenship for his efforts at having peace
confirmed via a treaty with the new Persian King Darius c.423 (IG ii2 8=IG i3 227=ML70= Fornara
138). This Persian connection, rather than Pericles-like supremacy, perhaps explains why he is referred
to as „king‟ in Ath.Pol.28 We should refrain from inferring based on their common interest in assembly
pay that the two were rivals outbidding one another for popular support, and also from drawing
parallels with the dikastikon on this score in the absence of additional evidence. The history of the
dikastikon does however, suggest that the two increases in the rate of the ekklesiastikon could be linked
to a resurgence of Athenian confidence and imperial ambition during the early stages of the Corinthian
War (395-86) in which Athens and other Greek cities sought to check Spartan expansionism. Athens
was forced to come to terms with Sparta in 386, but not before naval cooperation between Athens and
Persia produced victory over the Spartans at Cnidus in 394 (Xen. Hell.4.3.10-13; Philoch. FGrH 328
F144-5). Athens had taken the opportunity to rebuild the Long Walls, 29 and regained Lemnos, Imbros,
and Sycros (Xen. Hell.5.1.31). For a time even the 10% duty was imposed on Hellespontine traffic
(Dem.20.60). Just as the revival or increase of the dikastikon had coincided with periods of success and
optimism, so the contemporary mood might have lent further increases in the rate of pay an additional
attraction. 30
Once in place, it was no doubt politically impossible to abolish the ekklesiastikon. Its continued
growth after the 388 (Ar. Plut.329-30), in unknown increments, 31 appears to correspond with
contemporary wage inflation which saw a labourer‟s pay grow from 1 dr p.d. at the end of the fifth
century to 1.5-2.5 dr at the end of the fourth (IG ii2 1672).32 Since assembly meetings began at dawn
and usually only lasted a few hours, this left citizens free to spend the rest of the day at their usual
professions and made the ekklesiastikon a more than adequate compensation for lost earnings – unlike
the dikastikon.33 The notion that political competition between elites for backing was the main impetus
behind the increases does not explain why the dikastikon was left untouched. If, as it seems, inflation is
the correct explanation, the absence of a price index means that the increases were driven by a
perception of need based on attendance levels. The two increases in the 390s suggest the polis sought to
26
See Buchanan (1962) 24 n. 2, 25 n. 1.
Sometime after 387/6 Agyrrhius was tried and imprisoned for embezzlement (Dem.24.135). He had
rehabilitated himself by 374/3 when he proposed the Grain Tax Law of 374/3 (GHI 26). See also
Rhodes, CAAP 492; Sommerstein (1998) 147-8. One tradition claims he instituted the theorikon in
395/4, see Harp. s.v. theorika; Hsch.d2351, cf. Suda s.v. dragme chalazosa.
28
On Heracleides and the controversy surrounding his identification in the decree, Rhodes, CAAP 4923.
29
IG ii2 1656; Xen. Hell.4.8.10; Philoch. FGrH 328 F146; Diod.14.85.2-3.
30
Other early spending decisions of the restored democracy have a clear symbolic dimension: the
decrees of Theozotides pointedly cut the pay of the cavalry (probably due to their earlier loyalty to the
oligarchs), and provided for 1 ob p.d. to the orphans of citizens slain while fighting for the democracy.
See Ostwald (1986) 506-7; Stroud (1971).
31
Though see next page.
32
For the evidence of this inscription, see Loomis WWCI 111-4, 120. For possible explanations of
fourth century wage inflation, see 245-50.
33
Hansen (1979c).
27
117
determine the lowest rate of pay at which a quorum could be reliably secured. 34 Just as the expansion of
the assembly at the end of the fifth century heralded the introduction of the ekklesiastikon, the second
expansion of the assembly (Pnyx III) to hold some 13,800, possibly in the 340s, might suggest that the
rate was suddenly lifted at this time from 3 ob to the levels found in Ath.Pol.35
The available evidence offers some confirmation of our inference from the multiple increases in
the rate of pay that the ekklesiastikon proved effective in attracting ordinary citizens to the assembly.
Some of the evidence suffers from hostile distortion: Aristotle claims that civic pay is so effective that
the poor are completely freed from all daily cares and can spend plenty of time in the assembly while
the rich are preoccupied (Pols.1293a4-10). There is simply no firm evidence in the corpus of
deliberative oratory on which to base generalisations about the composition of the assembly. 36
Descriptions of the makeup of the assembly are, however, provided by Xenophon and Plato:
Who are they that make you ashamed? The fullers or the cobblers or the builders or the smiths or
the farmers or the merchants, or the traffickers in the market-place who think of nothing but
buying cheap and selling dear? For these are the people who make up the assembly. (Xen.
Mem.3.7.6)
34
Loomis, WWCI 242 n. 14, 248; Todd (1990) 171-3 doubts that inflation was responsible for the
escalating rate of pay and suggests that it instead reflects the belief that surplus revenues should be
distributed, and was intended to be an ideological statement of the supremacy of the assembly over the
courts – one that was certainly less true in the fourth century than the fifth.
35
Ibid., 172-3. Andreades (1933) 254 suggests Callistratus, a relative of Agyrrhius, raised pay 387-362.
36
Contra Markle (1985) 289-92. cf. Sinclair (1988) 119-27 who places too much emphasis on
references to the presence of eisphora payers, entertaining the possibility that they could attend and
constitute a majority. I am inclined to believe, like Markle, in the efficacy of assembly pay, but
Markle‟s argument is undermined by his use of the evidence. Given the extent to which the article has
found favour in the subsequent literature, the following points should be noted:
- p.273: The generalised, theoretical nature of Aristotle‟s description of civic pay in democracies
and his exaggeration of its effects for rich and poor (Pols.1293a4-10), mean that he cannot be
taken as direct evidence for the efficacy of pay in a particular city at a particular time – let alone
for all the years since jury pay was established. See further the comments of Todd (1990) 154-5.
- pp.274-6: Assemblywomen indicates that 3 ob could fill the assembly in the year the play was
produced (393, 392, 391, or 390), but there is no way of knowing how long 3 ob had been the rate
and how long it remained the rate after 388 (Ar. Plut.329-30), and thus there is no basis for
referring to 3 ob as effective for the „early fourth century‟ in general or for suggesting that 3 ob
sufficed to attract working Athenians onto juries as well.
- pp.275-6: The descriptions of the assembly put into the mouth of Socrates by Xenophon and Plato
cannot be used as evidence for the efficacy of pay in the „early fourth century‟, not only because
Socrates was executed in 399, but because it is not certain (though it is likely) that assembly pay
was in place before 399. The passages can be used to show that the pre-war assembly was wellattended without pay, or (more likely) that the assembly was well attested later in the mid fourth
century if Xenophon (Mem.3.7.6) and Plato (Prt.319d) have projected back the conditions of their
own day. Further, if the latter interpretation is followed, then these writers are describing the
effects of an ekklesiastikon worth more than 3 ob and so cannot be used as evidence for the
efficacy of the 3 ob rate.
- p.277: Markle dismisses too readily the possibility that soldiers were paid 6 ob rather than 3 ob
p.d., thus exaggerating the generosity of 3 ob of pay. He is prepared to use the mid-fourth century
evidence of Demosthenes (4.28) that soldiers will receive 2 ob p.d. for bare sustenance, though this
tends to undermine his argument on the efficacy of 3 ob to feed a family of 4.
- p.273 f.: Markle is willing to draw on evidence outside the limits of his period of study, defined by
the presence of the 3 ob rate for both dikasts and ekklesiasts (late fifth century-390). He
transgresses these boundaries at p.280 by making his findings applicable to „fifth and fourth
century Athens‟ and then on the next page for just „the fourth century‟. Such statements naturally
invite discussion of why assembly pay continued to rise beyond 3 ob p.d. if it really was sufficient
for the entire fourth century.
118
But when they have to deliberate on something connected with the administration of the state,
[319d] the man who rises to advise them on this may equally well be a smith, a shoemaker, a
merchant, a sea-captain, a rich man, a poor man, of good family or of none. (Pl. Prt.319c-d)
The dramatic date of each text is prior to the introduction of assembly pay, but it is likely that both
writers have projected back the condition of the assembly in the mid-fourth century. Each is an excerpt
from an imagined conversation with Socrates and in both cases, the heterogeneous nature of the
assembly must be true for the argument to have any weight: in the first, Socrates is trying to encourage
a nervous aristocrat who is about to address the assembly for the first time. In the Protagoras, the
diverse groups in the assembly prove the point that Athenians see politics as something which can be
taught and hence, believe it is an activity in which every citizen is entitled to become involved. We
may also, still mindful of the complexities involved, turn to the evidence of Aristophanes. The chorus
berates the Athenians who frequent the agora for not attending the assembly when the rate of pay was 1
ob and for thronging to the Pnyx now that 3 ob are on offer (Eccl.302a-310c, cf. Plut.329-30). It is
difficult to know whether the contemporary assembly was as full as Aristophanes claims, and he
certainly exaggerates the impact of pay when he claims that no assemblies at all were held prior to its
introduction (183-4). It is, however, a basic premise of the action of the first half of Assemblywomen
that ordinary citizens did fill the assembly en mass: Praxagora and her husband are not wealthy (cf.
391-4, 422-6), Chremes attended the assembly in the hope of getting money for food shopping (382), 37
the Euaeon who addresses the assembly appears desperately poor (408-21), and no surprise is
expressed that both shoemakers (385-6) and farmers (432) should both be in attendance (cf. 280-1, 3001).38
The ekklesiastikon emerged as a response to the aftermath of Athens‟ defeat and loss of empire just
as the dikastikon had, in part, appeared in response to the rising power and wealth of Athens half a
century earlier. The halving of the number of male citizens over the course of the war and the economic
impact of the occupation of Attica meant that there had never been such a great disparity between the
need of the polis for citizens to participate, and the capacity of citizens to volunteer their time. After the
37
Blepyrus (547) claims he could have purchased 1 hekteus (8 choinikes) of wheat with his pay, but the
humour here is that he ridiculously underestimates the cost of 1 medimnos of wheat as 3 dr, half its
typical value (see appendix C).
38
The evidence of the play does not, however, indicate that farmers dominated the assembly. Lines
385-7 do not indicate that it was unusual for craftsmen to attend the assembly, just for so many
„shoemakers‟ to attend, and 431-4 do not suggest that farmers were normally in the majority, contra
Todd (1990). What might be more significant is that the women seek to disguise themselves as men
from the country (280-1, 300-1), suggesting that a large crowd of farmers was perhaps more natural
than one of non-farmers. The assembly had always been an easier form of participation for farmers
than the courts because meetings were announced in advance and were infrequent relative to the courts.
In the fourth century, the prytanes had to give at least four days‟ notice of an assembly (L.S. 296.8).
Markle (1990), appearing in the same year as Todd, likewise argues for the heavy representation of
farmers in the assembly. He too, strains the evidence of Assemblywomen, claiming (p. 155) that fully
half the chorus is from the country (289-310) and that the image of the typical ekklesiast is that of a
farmer (289-92). Similarly, fourth century oratory does suggest that farmers were present (Dem.1.27;
Lys.34.1-5) but Markle‟s interpretation is cavalier: „clearly, the majority of voters in this assembly
were the peasant farmers of Athens and Attica‟ (p. 159). His arguments for the heavy presence of
farmers back in the fifth century are equally problematic. The evidence selected from fifth century
comedy is inconclusive – indicating, like forensic oratory, that farmers were not absent without giving
any firm indication that they were present in „considerable numbers‟. For example, Peace 632-5 seems
to describe the migration of farmers to the city because of the war, not for an assembly meeting, and
the alleged gullibility of these men suggests they are not regular ekklesiasts.
119
events of 403/2, it appears that a quorum of 6000 was insisted upon as a safeguard against antidemocratic subversion. Though the evidence for the composition of the fourth century assembly has
been pressed too far, it seems unlikely that the prytanes still struggled to attract citizens once the
ekklesiastikon was in place.
120
Appendix 6. The Date of the Theorikon
The theoric fund is first firmly attested in 349 (Dem.13.10). Plutarch (Per.11.4), however, claims the
theorikon was Periclean in origin: „At this time, therefore, particularly, Pericles gave the reins to the
people, and made his policy one of appeasing them, ever devising some sort of pageant in the town for
the masses, or a feast, or a procession, “amusing them like children with not uncouth delights”‟ (δηὸ θαὶ
ηόηε κάιηζηα ηῷ δήκῳ ηὰο ἡλίαο ὁ Πεξηθιῆο ἐπνιηηεύεην πξὸο ράξηλ, ἀεὶ κέλ ηηλα ζέαλ παλεγπξηθὴλ ἢ
ἑζηίαζηλ ἢ πνκπὴλ εἶλαη κεραλώκελνο ἐλ ἄζηεη θαὶ “δηαπαηδαγσγῶλ νὐθ ἀκνύζνηο ἡδνλαῖο” ηὴλ
πόιηλ)(cf. Arist.24). The theorikon is also attributed to him by the schol. on Aeschines 3.24 and Ulpian
on Dem.1.1 (Dilts 16.8-13). A fragment of Philochorus (FGrH 328 F33) indicates the origin of the
theorikon was discussed in his third book. Jacoby preferred to amend this to the sixth book, which
would then make this discussion part of his account of Athens under Eubulus. 1 Fornara, by contrast,
suggests Plutarch‟s listing of the theorikon before the dikastikon at Pericles 9.1-3 reflects their
chronological sequence. 2 Festivals do seem to have become especially lavish under Pericles (cf. Thuc.
2.38.1), but Plutarch appears to be describing the games of Rome rather than the annual festivals of
Athens.3 Harpokration s.v. theorika assigns the theorikon to Agyrrhius in 395/4. Hesychius s.v.
drachme chalazosa says the theorikon was increased to 1 dr in 395/4. Buchanan prefers Agyrrhius, 4
but the majority of scholars prefer a dating after 355 and attribute the theoric fund to Eubulus. 5 Roselli
argues that ad hoc payments for theatre payments were in fact instituted by Pericles,6 but it is
significant that theorika are not explicitly mentioned by any fifth century writer. It is easier to read the
2 ob mentioned in Aristophanes‟ Frogs (138-41) as a reference to the diobelia, rather than to theatre
fees or a state subsidy.
1
FGrH iiib Supp. 1, 247-8, 319.
Fornara (1991) 72.
3
See Andrewes (1978) 2-3; Buchanan (1962) 28-34; Ruschenbusch (1979).
4
Buchanan (1962) 48-53.
5
See Rhodes, CAAP 492.
6
Roselli (2009), see 5 n. 1 for bibliography.
2
121
122
Appendix 7. Jury Pay after 323
In the settlement that accompanied Athens‟ defeat in the Lamian War (322/1), a property qualification
for citizenship of 2000 dr was established. This is said by Plutarch to have disenfranchised 12,000
(Plut. Phoc.28.4) and 22,000 according to Diodorus (18.18.4-5). Whatever the numbers, the property
requirement would have disenfranchised the poor and as a result, civic pay became redundant and was
probably abolished.1 Full democracy was restored in 318 but restrictions were again imposed by the
Macedonian regent Cassander from 317. Under the regime of Demetrius of Phalerum, who acted as
governor (epimeletes) of Athens for Macedon until 308/7, most hoplites would have retained their civic
rights thanks to a lowered property qualification of 1000 dr (Diod.18.74.3). There seems to be some
connection between the restriction of the franchise to those worth more than 1000 dr and the census
which Demetrius held (21,000 citizens)(Ctesicles FGrH 245=Ath.6.272c).2 It is probably correct to
believe that, in light of the conservatism of Demetrius‟ regime, that civic pay was not provided: 3 we
hear of 7 nomophylakes „who compelled the magistrates to apply the laws‟ and who sat in the boule
and assembly for the protection of the city (Philoch. FGrH 328 F64a-b; Phot. s.v. nomophylakes),
gynaikonomoi, sumptuary laws, and the abolition of liturgies.4 Duris of Samos (ap.
Athen.542c=Demetr. 43A SOD) says Demetrius spent nothing on administration. There is too little
evidence for any worthwhile speculation on the fate of civic pay after Demetrius. Hellenistic Athens
was no longer the wealthy, populous, powerful polis that had initiated and sustained civic pay in some
form for over a century. As a pawn in the struggles of the Successors, civic pay was an expenditure the
city could ill-afford.
1
Ferguson (1911) 23; Tritle (1988) 135; Hughes (2008) 111-4 suggests that the „dismantling of the jury
courts‟ by Demades referred to in Suda s.v. Demades refers to the abolition of jury pay, though one
suspects that the restriction of the franchise was a heavier blow to the court system in light of the
meager value of 3 ob.
2
On the significance and interpretation of these population figures, see Hansen (1986a) 28-36.
3
See Williams (1997); O'Sullivan (2009) on the constitution of Athens under Demetrius.
4
Contra Williams (1997) 342-3 with n. 47, cf. O'Sullivan (2009) 139 n. 120, 141-4.
123
124
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