238 MONEY AND PROPERTY IX

versation, the more so as the decision in such matters was
vested in the citizens in council and assembly.1 It was not the
people but a few men of perception who realized in time the
danger to the State of distributing so much of its revenues to
the citizens, with the result that there was no money 'for
triremes and walls'.2

All these passages prove that financial questions came to be
of ever-increasing importance in both public and private life.
This would not have been the case if economics in general had
not taken hold of the minds of almost the whole people and
even influenced ethics and religion Wealth was to be the
reward of the good and pious people, poverty that of the bad
and godless.3 This is the naive and natural interpretation by
unsophisticated people who thought of wealth as a blessing
and of poverty as misery,4 There is a phrase attributed to so
fine and idealistic a politician as Thrasyboulos , 'Lucky is he
who is killed in battle, for no man, however rich, will have so
fair a monument as he '5 To combine the idea of duke et
decorum with the luxurious graves of the rich may be just a
patriotic commonplace, but implicitly it reveals a materialistic
outlook. It is in a similar strain that Eupolis complains that it
is the victor in sports, and not the good citizen who is better
than all the others, who 'gets the washing-basin* 6 The in-
creasing importance of economic facts was in a sense natural,
though it was only after the restoration of democracy, when
all the problems of internal politics seemed to have been more
or less solved, but when the economic strain grew most intense,
that economic questions developed into serious problems.

We may assume that it is not a complete misrepresentation
of the facts when Aristophanes asserts that wealth was mostly
gamed by foul means, while good men were starving.7 A

* Cf W

2 frg 220 The transfer of balances to the fund for the building of ships and
walls was usual, cf the well-known decree of Kallias, IG I2, 91 (SylL* 91, Tod,
51), 30 In peace-time, on the other hand, the TpiT)pOTroioi and Teixo*rroioi
contributed to other public buildings, e g the Parthenon (IG I2, 342, 40; 343,
90).

* Cf also Eur. KykL 3 16, Med 561 , Andr. 1 5 3, El 1 1 3of, He! 41 jG, Phoin
4046 438^/^142,325
* Xen ML II, 4, 17 « Eupolis 1 1 8
7?1 502fF, 7 5 iff,