Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 20, 2025
Demosthenes, when he came to the head of affairs, introduced some useful reforms in the system of the Trierarchy. A party charged might call upon any other person to take take the office, or exchange estates with him. The forces that we imagine we possess in the mean time, are found, when the crisis comes, utterly insufficient.
The cost of a whole trierarchy was not less than forty minas, nor more than a talent. VIII. Two liturgies could not be demanded simultaneously from any individual, nor was he liable to any one more often than every other year. He who served the trierarchies was exempted from all other contributions.
Personal service was indeed the characteristic of all liturgies, a property-tax, which was not yet invented, alone excepted; and this, though bearing the name, has not the features, of a liturgy. Of the extraordinary liturgies, the trierarchy was the most important. It was of very early origin. Boeckh observes that it was mentioned in the time of Hippias.
Under the former laws all these things used to happen; and the reason was that the obligation rested upon the poor, and in consequence there were many cases of inability to discharge it. I transferred the duties of the trierarchy from the poor to the rich; and therefore every duty was properly fulfilled.
It would be too much, gentlemen of the jury, to go through the accounts point by point; but when with some difficulty I got the accounts from him, in the presence of witnesses I asked Aristodicus, the brother of Alexis, for he had died, if he had any record of the trierarchy.
VII. The expenses incurred for the defence or wants of the state were not regular, but extraordinary liturgies such as the TRIERARCHY, or equipment of ships, which entailed also the obligation of personal service on those by whom the triremes were fitted out.
What the theory designed as the munificence of patriotism, became in practice but a showy engine of corruption; and men vied with each other in the choregia or the trierarchy, not so much for the sake of service done to the state, as in the hope of influence acquired over the people.
Here is the best proof: Demus, the son of Pyrolampes, in command of the trireme for Cyprus, asked me to go to him, saying that he had from the king of Persia a golden bowl, for which he wished to get seventeen minae, which he would spend on his trierarchy; when he came to Cyprus he would redeem it, paying twenty minae; for through this pledge he would have plenty of money and other advantages in Asia Minor. 26.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking