Note 1014 — Chapter XC · FROM THE PEACE OF 346 B. C., TO THE BATTLE OF CHÆRONEIA AND THE DEATH OF PHILIP.

There is a point in the earlier oration of Demosthenes De Symmoriis, illustrating the grievance which he now reformed. That grievance consisted, for one main portion, in the fact, that the richest citizen in a trierarchic partnership paid a sum no greater (sometimes even less) than the poorest. Now it is remarkable that this unfair apportionment of charge might have occurred, and is noway guarded against, in the symmories as proposed by Demosthenes himself. His symmories, each comprising sixty persons or one-twentieth of the total active twelve hundred, are directed to divide themselves into five fractions of twelve persons each, or a hundredth of the twelve hundred. Each group of twelve is to comprise the richest alongside of the poorest members of the sixty (ἀνταναπληροῦντας πρὸς τὸν εὐπορώτατον ἀεὶ τοὺς ἀπορωτάτους, p. 182), so that each group would contain individuals very unequal in wealth, though the aggregate wealth of one group would be nearly equal to that of another. These twelve persons were to defray collectively the cost of trierarchy for one ship, two ships, or three ships, according to the number of ships which the state might require (p. 183). But Demosthenes nowhere points out in what proportions they were to share the expense among them; whether the richest citizens among the twelve were to pay only an equal sum with the poorest, or a sum greater in proportion to their wealth. There is nothing in his project to prevent the richer members from insisting that all should pay equally. This is the very abuse that he denounced afterwards (in 340 B. C.), as actually realized—and corrected by a new law. The oration of Demosthenes De Symmoriis, omitting as it does all positive determination as to proportions of payment, helps us to understand how the abuse grew up.