On Revenues | Page 8

themselves to expensive apparel and ornaments of
gold. Or when states are sick,[7] either through barrenness of corn and
other fruits, or through war, the demand for current coin is even more
imperative (whilst the ground lies unproductive), to pay for necessaries
or military aid.
[1] Or, "on a sound basis."
[2] "Exploited."
[3] Or, "at the date when the maximum of hands was employed."
[4] Reading {epikataskeuazumenois}, or, if {episkeuazomenoi}, transl.
"at the rehabilitation of old works."
[5] Cf. "Oecon." xvii. 12.
[6] "The thousand and one embellishments of civil life."
[7] "When a state is struck down with barrenness," etc. See "Mem." II.
vii.
And if it be asserted that gold is after all just as useful as silver, without
gainsaying the proposition I may note this fact[8] about gold, that, with
a sudden influx of this metal, it is the gold itself which is depreciated
whilst causing at the same time a rise in the value of silver.
[8] Lit. "I know, however."
The above facts are, I think, conclusive. They encourage us not only to
introduce as much human labour as possible into the mines, but to
extend the scale of operations within, by increase of plant, etc., in full
assurance that there is no danger either of the ore itself being exhausted
or of silver becoming depreciated. And in advancing these views I am
merely following a precedent set me by the state herself. So it seems to
me, since the state permits any foreigner who desires it to undertake
mining operations on a footing of equality[9] with her own citizens.
[9] Or, "at an equal rent with that which she imposes on her own

citizens." See Boeckh, "P. E. A." IV. x. (p. 540, Eng. tr.)
But, to make my meaning clearer on the question of maintenance, I will
at this point explain in detail how the silver mines may be furnished
and extended so as to render them much more useful to the state. Only I
would premise that I claim no sort of admiration for anything which I
am about to say, as though I had hit upon some recondite discovery.
Since half of what I have to say is at the present moment still patent to
the eyes of all of us, and as to what belongs to past history, if we are to
believe the testimony of our fathers,[10] things were then much of a
piece with what is going on now. No, what is really marvellous is that
the state, with the fact of so many private persons growing wealthy at
her expense, and under her very eyes, should have failed to imitate
them. It is an old story, trite enough to those of us who have cared to
attend to it, how once on a time Nicias, the son of Niceratus, owned a
thousand men in the silver mines,[11] whom he let out to Sosias, a
Thracian, on the following terms. Sosias was to pay him a net obol a
day, without charge or deduction, for every slave of the thousand, and
be[12] responsible for keeping up the number perpetually at that figure.
So again Hipponicus[13] had six hundred slaves let out on the same
principle, which brought him in a net mina[14] a day without charge or
deduction. Then there was Philemonides, with three hundred, bringing
him in half a mina, and others, I make no doubt there were, making
profits in proportion to their respective resources and capital.[15] But
there is no need to revert to ancient history. At the present moment
there are hundreds of human beings in the mines let out on the same
principle.[16] And given that my proposal were carried into effect, the
only novelty in it is that, just as the individual in acquiring the
ownership of a gang of slaves finds himself at once provided with a
permanent source of income, so the state, in like fashion, should
possess herself of a body of public slaves, to the number, say, of three
for every Athenian citizen.[17] As to the feasability of our proposals, I
challenge any one whom it may concern to test the scheme point by
point, and to give his verdict.
[10] Reading {para ton pateron}, with Zurborg, after Wilamowitz-
Mollendorf.
[11] See "Mem." II. v. 2; Plut. "Nicias," 4; "Athen." vi. 272. See an
important criticism of Boeckh's view by Cornewall Lewis, translation

of "P. E. A." p. 675 foll.
[12] Reading {parekhein}, or if {pareikhen}, transl. "whilst he himself
kept up the number." See H. hagen in "Journ. Philol." x. 19, pp. 34-36;
also Zurborg, "Comm." p. 28.
[13] Son of Callias.
[14] = L4:1:3 = 600 ob.
[15] Or, "whose incomes would vary in proportion to their working
capital."
[16] See Jebb, "Theophr." xxvi. 21.
[17] According