Ships and Silver, Taxes and Tribute: A Fiscal History of Archaic Athens

225 Pages·2013·1.477 MB·English

by  Hans van Wees

Hans van Wees is Grote Professor of Ancient History
at University College London. His books include Greek
Warfare: Myth and realities; The Cambridge History of
Greek and Roman Warfare (two volumes, edited with
Philip Sabin and Michael Whitby); Archaic Greece: New
approaches and new evidence (edited with Nick Fisher);
War and Violence in Ancient Greece and A Companion to
Archaic Greece (edited with Kurt A. Raaflaub).
‘With this important book Hans van Wees is the first historian
systematically to approach ancient Greek economy and society
along the lines of the “new fiscal history”. The results are highly
rewarding, and go far beyond the area of public finance. In
addition to a fresh perspective on key aspects of the archaic
Greek world, the author provides numerous insights into the
elusive process of state formation in Athens and elsewhere.’

Paul Millett, Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Cambridge,
author of Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens

‘Hans van Wees, in this groundbreaking study, demonstrates
that already from the time of Solon at the beginning of the
sixth century bc, Athens was indeed a state and did have public
finances and financial institutions. Themistocles’ navy and the
Delian League with its tribute were not startling novelties but
were built on foundations laid in the previous century. This
is an impressive tour de force of scholarship and imagination
which joins up the dots of our evidence to produce a coherent
and credible picture of Athens’ growing financial needs and
responses to them. It adds an important further dimension to
the accounts of Athens’ development given elsewhere.’

P.J. Rhodes, FBA, Emeritus Professor of Ancient History, University of
Durham, author of A History of the Classical Greek World 478–323bc
ships and
silver, taxes
and tribute
a fiscal history of
archaic athens
hans van wees
Published in 2013 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
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Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
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Copyright © Hans van Wees 2013
The right of Hans van Wees to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part
thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
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recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Library of Classical Studies, vol.5
ISBN 978 1 78076 686 7
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress catalog card: available
Typeset in Minion by Dexter Haven Associates Ltd, London
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations ix
1 A Fiscal History of Archaic Athens: Why and How? 1
Public finance and the legend of Themistocles 3
Public finance and the Athenian state 5
Public finance and the Athenian economy 11
2 Athens in Context: Public Finance in Archaic Greece 17
Before Solon: heroic precedents 17
Beyond Athens: late archaic inscriptions and
oral traditions 23
Outside Greece: the impact of Persian expansion 30
3 Ham-Collectors and other Financial Institutions 39
Treasurers, Ham-Collectors, Sellers and Receivers 39
Naukraroi and naukrariai: the evidence 44
Captains and captaincies: an interpretation 53
4 Ships, Soldiers and Sacrifices: Public Spending 63
Ships 64
Ships’ crews and soldiers 69
Cult, hospitality and other expenses 75
5 Taxes, Tolls and Tribute: Public Revenue 83
The ‘contribution’ (eisphora) under Solon and the tyrants 84
The eisphora after Cleisthenes 91
Hippias’ levies and liturgies 97
Other revenues: trade, silver mines and tribute 101
6 From Oxen to Silver to Coins: Media of
Public Finance 107
Measures of weight and volume before Solon 108
Measures of value before Solon 112
Pheidon, Solon and after: archaic reforms of measures 115
Wappen, Gorgons and Owls: coinage in archaic Athens 124
Coinage, public spending and economic development 128
7 Conclusion: Public Finance and the State
in Archaic Athens 135

Appendix: Persian Naval Expansion and the
Ionian Cities 147
Notes 149
Bibliography 189
Index 205
General Index 205
Select Index of Passages 212
Acknowledgements
In writing the conclusion to my previous book, I found myself arguing
that if archaic Greek warfare seemed restrained by comparison to the
Peloponnesian War, this was not because early Greeks were inhibited
by the chivalrous ideals of an ‘agonal’ culture but because they lacked
the central organization and above all the financial resources to do as
much damage to their enemies as they would have liked. The sketch of
the rise of the State and public finance which I offered in that context
was quite rough, not least because there was rather little scholarly work
to draw on. A logical next step was therefore to investigate the history
of archaic public finance in more detail, which in view of the limited
sources and scholarship on the subject seemed a small project which
might result in a modest academic paper. As it turned out, the ancient
evidence could be made to yield much more information than scholars
had so far been able – or indeed willing – to extract, but only at the
expense of letting what was intended to be at most a long article grow
into a short monograph.
This book has benefited greatly from comments offered by audiences
at lectures, seminars and conferences where I presented related papers.
The advice of Simon Hornblower, Michael Crawford and Riet van
Bremen, my (former) colleagues at UCL, was particularly helpful. The
core of the material was presented as a paper in a seminar series on
‘public finance in antiquity’, hosted and funded by the Institute of Classical
Studies in London, and convened by myself in 2008. Two of the other
speakers in this series, Peter Rhodes and Peter Fawcett, subsequently
read and commented on a complete draft manuscript, as did Peter van
Alfen. Rhodes’ own paper on classical Athenian public finance will
appear in Greece and Rome, and Fawcett’s study of classical Athenian
vii
SHIPS AND SILvER, TAxES AND TRIBUTE
taxation should also be published in the near future. The three Peters
saved me from more errors and oversights than I care to mention and
they stimulated a good deal of further research and re-interpretation.
Finally, Alex Wright and Amy Himsworth of I.B.Tauris were extremely
efficient and encouraging in helping me turn my text into a book at short
notice. To all of the above I am very grateful.
viii
Abbreviations
For the conventional abbreviations of names of ancient authors and
titles of ancient works used in this book, see the list in the Oxford
Classical Dictionary.
BCH Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique
CEG P.A. Hansen, Carmina epigraphica Graeca: saeculorum
VIII-V a.Chr. (Berlin and New York, 1983)
CH Coin Hoards
dr drachma
F/fr. fragment
FGrH F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker
(Berlin and Leiden, 1923–)
FHG K. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum (Paris,
1841–70)
Fornara C.W. Fornara, Archaic Times to the End of the
Peloponnesian War. Second edition (Cambridge, 1983)
GIBM The Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British
Museum (Oxford, 1874–1916)
I.Ephesos H. Wankel et al., Die Inschriften von Ephesos (Bonn,
1979–84)
I.Priene F. Hiller von Gaertringen, Inschriften von Priene
(Berlin, 1906)
IC M. Guarducci, ed., Inscriptiones Creticae (Rome,
1935–50)
ICS O. Masson, Les inscriptions Chypriotes syllabiques
(Paris, 1983)
IG Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, 1873–)
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