578 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



erty." Poll taxes were exacted by tlie Athenian state, but as such 

 taxes were considered ignominious and as implying subjugation, 

 they were only assessed upon slaves or subjugated foreigners ; and 

 failure to pay was regarded in the light of a capital offense. 



The income of Athens from fines appears to have been con- 

 siderable, and to have constituted a singular and permanent 

 feature of the fiscal policy of the state. Its method of assessment 

 may be best illustrated by examples. Thus, if duly authorized 

 ofiicials did not hold certain assemblages, according to rule, or 

 properly conduct the appointed business, they had each to pay 

 a thousand drachmas ($200). If an orator conducted himself 

 indecorously in a public assembly, he could be fined fifty drach- 

 mas (ten dollars) for each offense, which might be raised to a 

 higher sum at the pleasure of the people. A woman conduct- 

 ing herself improperly in the streets paid a similar penalty. If a 

 woman went to Eleusis in a carriage, she subjected herself to a 

 fine of a talent ($1,180). In the case of wealthy or notable per- 

 sons, fines for omissions or commissions in respect to conduct 

 were made much greater, and so more productive of revenue; 

 and there were very few notable or wealthy citizens of Athens 

 who under the rule of demagogues, and through specious accusa- 

 tions of offenses against the state or the gods, escaped the pay- 

 ment of heavy fines ; the experiences of Miltiades, Themistocles, 

 Aristides, Demosthenes, Pericles, Cleon, and Timotheus being cases 

 in point.* Every person who failed to pay a fine owing to the 

 state was reckoned as a public debtor, and was subject to im- 

 prisonment and a practical denial of citizenship ; Miltiades, the 

 victor at Marathon, for example, having been cast into prison 

 (where he afterward died) through an inability to pay a fine 

 assessed against him of fifty talents, f 



* It was probably the coBtemplation of this state of things that led her great philosopher 

 Aristotle to the conclusion, expressed in his essay on Politics, that " the rule of an irrespon- 

 sible majority can be just as despotic as that of a single tyrant." He defines this extreme 

 democracy as that " in which the majority, and not the law, is supreme " in other words, 

 " when decrees of the people, and not the law, govern." By " law " is meant a fixed code of 

 statutes, which can not be changed or repealed by the ordinary legislative power. The 

 latter can pass only decrees in conformity to the fixed code, which thus corresponds to our 

 written constitutions. Such absolute power, he says, makes the people a monarch, and 

 finally a despot refusing to be subject to law ; and " such a democracy is analogous to 

 tyranny." Both have the same character, for " both exercise a slaveholder's rule over the 

 better citizens." In one we have decrees, in the other edicts ; in one demagogues are in 

 authority, in the other flatterers. When a dispute arises, the cry always is, " The people 

 must settle it," and everything is determined by the momentary will of the supreme multi- 

 tude. From this state of things the wisdom of our fathers has saved us, and the Supreme 

 Court of the United States, as a rule, decides questions of constitutional law with far more 

 wisdom and dignity than its predecessor, the popular court of Athens. 



\ Boeckh's Public Economy of Athens. 



