Athenian Tribute Lists

[Jona Lendering]

In 194 BCE, Lepcis Magna paid one talent of silver per day to its Carthaginian overlords. I am trying to find out whether this was much, and the only comparison that comes to mind is the Athenian Tribute List. However, the libraries are currently closed, and I cannot consult them. Is there someone who knows a member of the Delian League that was supposed to pay about 365 talents/year (and is mentioned for about three talents)?

[Paullus Scipio]

Is this the information you need? Of course, what a Talent would buy in Athenian times and later in 194 BC are two very different things........
Document 1: Tribute List (1)

Inscribed below are the aparchai of the goddess (2); they were received from the Hellanotamiai(3) for whom (name missing) was secretary and were paid to the thirty logistai (4) from the tribute which the cities delivered to Athens in the archonship of Ariston (5) at a rate of one mina per talent. (i.e. the list shows a 'tithe' of 1/60 of the Tribute due ( see note 2)
Column IV

Maroneia: 150 dr.

Lindos: 845 dr.

Oine on Ikaros: 133 dr. 2 obols

Assos: 100 dr.

Neandreia: 33 dr. 2 obols

Lamponeia: 16 dr. 4 obols

Column V

Abdera: 1285 dr. 2 obols

Olynthos: Skabla: Assera: 266 dr. 4 obols

Sermylia: 772 dr.

Mekyberna:

Stolos: Polichne: 231 dr. 2 obols

Column VI

Narisbara: 16 dr. 4 obols

Mydon: 25 dr.

Kios: 16 dr. 4 obols

Artake: 33 dr. 2 obols

Neapolis in Thrace: 16 dr. 4 obols

Berytis under Mt. Ida: 16 dr. 4 obols

[Translator's note: These columns list cities located in the tribute-paying districts of the northern and eastern Aegean, namely Thrace, Caria, Ionia, and the Hellespont. For exact locations of specific cities, consult the end maps in R. Meiggs, The Athenian Empire, Oxford. 1973.]



Document 2: Parthenon Accounts (6)

These are the accounts of the superintendents; Anticles was serving as secretary in this the fourteenth Council (7) (Metagenes being the first to hold the office of secretary of this body), in the archonship of Crates at Athens.

Receipts for the year

1470 dr.: Surplus from the previous year

74 st.: Electrum staters of Lampsacus

27-1/6 st.: Electrum staters of Cyzicus

25,000 dr.: From the treasurers of the goddess Athena, Crates of Lamptrai being secretary.

1372 dr.: Price of gold sold, the weight equaling 98 dr.

1309 dr.: Price of ivory sold, the weight equaling 3 talents, 60 dr.

Expenditures

(?) dr.: Purchases

1926 dr., 2 obols: Contract wages for the laborers at Mt. Pentelikon (9) and for those who hoist the stone onto the carts.

16,392 dr.: Payment for the statue-makers for the pediment sculptures

(1800+?) dr.: Monthly (wages)

Surplus from this year

74 st.: Electrum staters of Lampsacus

27-1/6 st.: Electrum staters of Cyzicus

1. Translated with modifications from the text in R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), no. 39, p. 89.

2. The aparchai of the goddess was the annual "tithe" contributed to Athena from the tribute. As the preamble to the document shows, this "tithe" was calculated at 1/60 of the total tribute. Athenian monetary units cited in this document are the obol, drachma, mina, and talent:

6 obols = 1 drachma

100 drachmas = 1 mina

6000 drachmas or 60 minas = 1 talent

Thus, the tribute lists, inscribed on several large stêlai (stone slabs) and erected on the Athenian acropolis, did not record the actual tribute, but rather 1/60 of that amount; to determine the actual tribute one needs to multiply each amount listed by 60.
3. A board of wealthy Athenians in charge of the tribute of the empire.

4. Public auditors.

5. The Athenian eponymous archon was an annually elected magistrate whose name identified and therefore dated a given year (beginning in July and ending the following June.

6. Translated from the text in R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, op. cit., no. 59, pp. 162-163.

7. I.e., the fourteenth year, measured by the annually elected Council of Five Hundred, since the beginning of the building of the Parthenon and its accounts in447 B.C.

8. An electrum stater was a coin consisting of an alloy of gold and silver. Lampsacus and Cyzicus were cities in the northern Aegean.

9. On the slopes of Mt. Pentelikon, northeast of Athens, is founf the quarry for the magnificant white marble used in all of the major monuments on the Athenian acropolis.

[Jona Lendering]

Is this the information you need?

Thanks - the first is more or less what I was looking for. I also found (in the Neue Pauly) a map of the Delian League, indicating cities that paid more than 5 talents. That is enough to know that 365 talents/year -even if we take inflation into account, was a tremendous amount of money to pay. Lepcis was a very, very wealthy city.

On a related note: Caesar demanded that the Lepcitanians paid 3,000,000 libra of olive oil per year. As one tree produces about one liter of oil, and three libra of oil is about one liter, the Lepcitanians must have had at least one million of olive trees! This is certainly possible (it takes about 10 sq km - cf. that enormous olive forest between Delphi and the sea). But it indicates a very rich city.

[Paullus Scipio]

Jona wrote:-

Lepcis was a very, very wealthy city.

....yes indeed ! Here is a more contemporary 'yardstick' for the same year, 194 B.C., showing Rome's income....


Indemnities Booty in Triumphs Spanish mines TOTAL

200 Talents 410.6 Talents 500 Talents 1,210.6Attic Talents

Is it any wonder Carthage paid off it's war debt to Rome so quickly, to Rome's unease ??
Nor is it any wonder that Lepcis was called "Magna" =Great!

[Paralus]

An amount of 365 talents was stupendous and likely beyond the one city in real terms - at least in Athens' imperial days. Thucydides supplies the figure of 460 talents as the assessed income from the empire in the early part of the Peloponnesian war. That, ostensibly, re-asessed to some 1,000 talents later though concrete (or stone!) evidence for its breakdown is lacking. Much depends on the tax - or "toll" - system Athens introduced to finance the Ionian war after the disaster in Sicily.

I'm uncertain but, if memory serves, that does not include "in kind" payments (ships, men etc).

When one recalls that, by the mid to late 350s, Philip II's new possesions had bumped up the Macedonian state's revenues to some 1,000 or more talents a year, it is hard to imagine - even allowing for "inflation" - any single city paying such.

To put that in perspective, 365 talents per year will have constructed Athens some 200 or so triremes or manned and supplied its average operating fleet of the Archidamnian War (100 triremes) for a period of some six weeks or so.