Towards the beginning of his history, Thucydides argues by analogy that Agamemnon’s Mycenae, though physically unimpressive, might have been as powerful as Homer implies:
Suppose, for example, that the city of Sparta were to become deserted and that only the temples and the foundations of buildings remained, I think that future generations would find it very difficult to believe that the place had really been as powerful as it was represented to be. . . Since, however, the city is not regularly planned and contains no temples or monuments of great magnificence, but is simply a collection of villages in the ancient Greek way, its appearance would not come up to expectation. If, on the other hand, the same thing were to happen to Athens, one would conjecture from what met the eye that the city had been twice as powerful as in fact it is. (1.10, trans. R. Warner)
Thucydides’ striking prediction of the fate of Sparta has often been noted; less so his observation about Athens, presumably made shortly after the defeat of 404 and loss of empire. The double paradox of power and appearances reflects different choices made about the exaction and deployment of resources. Thucydides later reminds the reader (1.19) that, whereas the Spartans did not demand tribute from their allies, the Athenians certainly did.
This chapter is about changing patterns in the provision of “public goods” - that is, collective goods and services: those aspects of communal life that cannot be divided into units susceptible of support by individual beneficiaries or consumers. Such monolithic wants (the Parthenon with its priests, or Hadrian’s Wall and its garrison) have to be satisfied by public or quasi-public provision. Taxation is therefore at the heart of the process, though in the broadest sense of compulsory (occasionally vol-
A Companion to Ancient History Edited by Andrew Erskine © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-13150-6
Untary) transfer of resources and services of all types to satisfy collective wants: implicit in Thucydides’ contrast of Athenian and Spartan practices is the military manpower required of Sparta’s allies. It is the notorious inevitability of “death and taxes” that makes both potentially valuable to the ancient historian. We are increasingly aware of the significance of “mortuary evidence” as an indicator of socio-cultural change. Public goods also have their story to tell. Their provision is intimately connected with the prevailing political system: members of the Athenian demos being paid for public office; the plebs of Rome receiving free handouts of grain.
Not least informative is changing emphasis on provision through time. From two thousand years of antiquity, a consolidated list of public goods would be formidable. But Thucydides on Athens and Sparta hints at two major and enduring strands in the collective mobilizing of resources: cities and warfare. Both are deeply embedded in the Classicist’s psyche. The heroic materialism of city-building might seem to stand as proxy for the achievement of antiquity; urban decline being conventionally (if controversially) associated with the ending of the classical world (Liebeschuetz 2001). The waging of war was at the heart of the ancient writing of history and arguably of ancient history itself. It is a commonplace that the ability of states to realize policy goals depends on adequate resources. “War needs money,” as Roosevelt warned the joint Congress in January 1942, before introducing the biggest war budget in history ($56 billion); effectively implementing Cicero’s observation that “infinite money is the sinews of war” (Philippics 5.2.5; cf. Thuc. 1.83). Caesar supposedly put it more pragmatically, reflecting the political realities of the late republic: “Money and soldiers: if you are without one, you will at once be without the other” (Dio 42.49).
The redistributive function of public goods serves as a second historical indicator: who benefits and loses from reallocation of resources; critical in the absence of appreciable economic growth (P. Millett 2001: esp. 35-37). This is in turn tied in with power relations: a material manifestation of Lenin’s “Who - Whom?” Plunder won by generals in the later Roman republic was effectively their property to do with as they pleased; under the principate, it was routinely rendered to the emperor. Any Athenian commander thought to have appropriated what was considered the property of the demos would find himself in court facing a capital charge. Several did so (Lysias 28).
World History
