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Untitled - 24grammata.com

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136 ANCIENT GREECE.[CHAP. x ,it subsequently became necessary to pay for the performance of them, though it had not been done at an earlierperiod.To this class belongs the duty of attending in thecourts ;and the investigation of the Attic state will proveto us, that the number of those who were to be paid, causedthis expense to be one of the heaviest.But as the states increased in power, the greatest expenditures were occasioned by the military and naval establishments. These expenditures were, for the most part,extraordinary since the state in times of ; peace had nostanding army, and no mariners to pay. But even in timesof peace, large appropriations were needed for the supportof the magazines and the ships and; unfortunately forGreece, the <strong>com</strong>mon condition of the more powerful statescame at last to be that of war rather than of peace.under any circumstances areIf warscostly,two causes contributedto make them especiallyso in Greece. The first was the custom which arose of employing hired troops. As long aswars were carried on by the militia of the country, whichrequired no pay, the costs of them were not very considerable, as each one served at his own expense. But when hiredtroops began to be used, every thing was changed. Weshall take another opportunity of showing how this custom,by which the whole political condition of Greece was mostdeeply and incurably disordered, continued to gain groundfrom the first moment of its introduction. Hence proceededthe pecuniary embarrassment of so many Grecian citiesduring the Peloponnesian war. The second leading causeis to be found in the progress of naval forces, and their increasing importance to the ruling states. The building,support, and fitting out of squadrons, which are always soexpensive, must have been doubly so to the Greeks, whowere obliged to import their timber and many other articlesfrom a distance. The expense became still greater, when thecities began to outbid each other in the pay of their mariners ; which they did, as soon as the Spartans were enabledby the Persian supplies to cope in this matter with theirrivals. 1Need we be astonished, then, at finding under suchThis is known to have been done during the Peloponnesian war as wellhy the Corinthians, Thucyd. i. 31, as hy Sparta, which state received ofthe Persians more than 5000 talents (nearly five million dollars) for thatpurpose. Isocrat de Pace, Op. p. 179.

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