re of the
Athenian power were the Greek statesmen, that we find it among the
arguments with which the Corinthian some time after supported the
Peloponnesian war, "that the Athenians, if they lost one sea-fight,
would be utterly subdued;"--nor, even without such a mischance, could
the flames of a war be kindled, but what the obvious expedient
[Thucyd., lib. i., c. 121. As the Corinthians indeed suggested,
Thucyd., lib. i., c. 122] of the enemy would be to excite the Athenian
allies to revolt, and the stoppage or diminution of the tribute would
be the necessary consequence.
[284] If the courts of law among the allies were not removed to
Athens till after the truce with Peloponnesus, and indeed till after
the ostracism of Thucydides, the rival of Pericles, the value of the
judicial fees did not, of course, make one of the considerations for
peace; but there would then have been the mightier consideration of
the design of that transfer which peace only could effect.
[285] Plut. in vit. Per.
[286] "As a vain woman decked out with jewels," was the sarcastic
reproach of the allies.--Plut. in vit. Per.
[287] The Propylaea was built under the direction of Mnesicles. It
was begun 437 B. C., in the archonship of Euthymenes, three years
after the Samian war, and completed in five years. Harpocrat. in
propylaia tauta.
[288] Plut. in vit. Per.
[289] See Arnold's Thucydides, ii., 13, note 12.
[290] "Their bodies, too, they employ for the state as if they were
any one's else but their own; but with minds completely their own,
they are ever ready to render it service."--Thucyd., i., 70,
Bloomfield's translation.
[291] With us, Juries as well as judges are paid, and, in ordinary
cases, at as low a rate as the Athenian dicasts (the different value
of money being considered), viz., common jurymen one shilling for each
trial, and, in the sheriffs' court, fourpence. What was so pernicious
in Athens is perfectly harmless in England; it was the large member of
the dicasts which made the mischief, and not the system of payment
itself, as unreflecting writers have so often asserted.
[292] See Book IV., Chapter V. VII. of this volume.
[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
constituti
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