IX MONEY AND PROPERTY 227
system. The citizens were, so to speak, entitled to share
personally m the surplus revenues of the State, and the
Athenians had had experience of this before Themistokles.
As pay in the true sense of the word5 however, not as the dis-
tribution of the public surplus^ public payments were first
introduced by Penkles. They quicklr deteriorated into a
weapon of demagogic practice.
The widest form of public payment^ the fee paid for attend-
ing the assembly, was not introduced until the beginning of
the fourth century For a short time it amounted to one obo!5
then it was raised to two and finally., about 3935 to three obols.1
At the time when the payment was one obol, the people pre-
ferred to hang about in the market; after the three obols had
been introduced, there was a veritable rush to the ekklesia**
The fees of the jurors3 instituted by Penkles, as were probably
those of the members of the council^ amounted to two obols at
the outbreak of the war.8 As early as 425 it was raised to three
by Kleon.4 The citizens, instead of sitting through a whole
day? tried to get their money by attending at one lawsuit only?
or Iater5 when lawsuits had become less frequent, to be
registered under more than one 'letter*, thus being certain
of at least one sitting, but there was no further rise of fees.5
Even as it was, the jurymen's pay represented for a long time
the heaviest burden on the State, until later on it lost its special
importance when everybody who sat in the assemblv recehed
the same payment6
Famous, even notorious^ throughout the world was the
diobeha^ but what it was is not definitely known.7 It is, how-
ever, not likely that it indicated the theorikon^ a payment of
two obols introduced by Perikles, which enabled every citizen
to attend the performances of tragedies and comedies.8 Prob-
ably the diobeha was on a much larger scale, and is identical
1 E 1835; cf zgoff, 380^ - £.299!^ PI 171, 329^
2 Members of council cf Wade-Geiy, AJP LIX (1938), 13 iff.
4 K 51, 255, W690, frg 574,PhJTn 63
5K5of.-P!ii66f, cf 972
6 Burden on State F 1466, cf W 66off 7 F.i4.of.
8 Some late sources, followed by some modem scholars (e.g, Haigli, 32g£F)y
take the Oecopucov as the entrance fee to the theatre Although tickets of ad-
mission were used — mainly to av old a rush and secure a fair distribution of seals —•
the theorikon was far more intended to enable a man to leave ks work for the days
of the festival