Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Book VLytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
History
Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Book V
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Athens (Greece) -- History
[293] At first the payment of the dicasts was one obolus.--(Aristoph.
Nubes, 861.) Afterward, under Cleon, it seems to have been increased
to three; it is doubtful whether it was in the interval ever two
obols. Constant mistakes are made between the pay, and even the
constitution, of the ecclesiasts and the dicasts. But the reader must
carefully remember that the former were the popular legislators, the
latter, the popular judges or jurors--their functions were a mixture
of both.
[294] Misthos ekklaesiastikos--the pay of the ecclesiasts, or popular
assembly.
[295] We know not how far the paying of the ecclesiasts was the work
of Pericles: if it were, it must have been at, or after, the time we
now enter upon, as, according to Aristophanes (Eccles., 302), the
people were not paid during the power of Myronides, who flourished,
and must have fallen with Thucydides, the defeated rival of Pericles.
[296] The Athenians could extend their munificence even to
foreigners, as their splendid gift, said to have been conferred on
Herodotus, and the sum of ten thousand drachmas, which Isocrates
declares them to have bestowed on Pindar. [Isoc. de Antidosi.]
[297] The pay of the dicast and the ecclesiast was, as we have just
seen, first one, then three obols; and the money paid to the infirm
was never less than one, nor more than two obols a day. The common
sailors, in time of peace, received four obols a day. Neither an
ecclesiast nor a dicast was, therefore, paid so much as a common
sailor.
[298] Such as the Panathenaea and Hieromeniae.
[299] From klaeroi, lots. The estates and settlements of a cleruchia
were divided among a certain number of citizens by lot.
[300] The state only provided the settlers with arms, and defrayed
the expenses of their journey. See Boeckh, Pol. Econ. of Athens, vol.
ii., p. 170 (translation).
[301] Andoc. Orat. de Pace.
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