RO 26 Law on grain tax from Lemnos, Imbros and Skyros, 374/3 BC

Law on grain tax from Lemnos, Imbros and Skyros, 374/3 BC

RO 26 Date: 374/3 BC

Painted panel Gods. In the archonship of Sokratides (374/3). Law about the one twelfth (dōdekatēs) of the grain (sitou) of the islands.^[1] (5) Agyrrhios^[2] proposed: so that the People may have grain available in common (en tōi koinōi), to sell the one-twelfth in Lemnos and Imbros and Skyros^[3] and the one-fiftieth,^[4] in grain. Each portion (meris) shall be five hundred medimnoi, one hundred (10) of wheat and four hundred of barley.^[5] The buyer shall convey the grain at his own risk to the Piraeus and shall convey the grain up to the city at his own expense and shall heap up the grain in the Aiakeion.^[6] (15) The city shall make available the Aiakeion roofed and doored, and the buyer shall weigh out the grain for the city within thirty days from when he has conveyed it up to the city, at his own expense. When he conveys it (20) up to the city, the city shall not exact rent from the buyers. The buyer shall weigh out the wheat at a weight of five-sixths (of a medimnos) to the talent, and the barley at a weight of a medimnos to the talent, dry and (25) free from darnel, setting the weight on the balance (zōnēi) (?) as the other merchants (emporoi) do.^[7] The buyer shall not make an advance payment (prokatabolēn), but shall pay sales taxes (epōnia) and auction fees (kērukeia) of twenty drachmas for each portion (merida). The buyer shall appoint (30) two credit-worthy guarantors (egguētas) for each portion (merida), whom the Council shall approve (dokimasēi). A partnership (summoria) of six men shall have a portion of three thousand medimnoi; the polis shall exact the grain for a partnership (summorian) from each and all (35) of those in the partnership (summoriai), until it has received its entitlement.^[8] Let the People choose ten men from all Athenians, in the Assembly, when it chooses the generals (stratēgous),^[9] to manage (epimelēsontai) the grain. (40) Let these have the grain weighed in accordance with what has been written, and sell it in the Agora, whenever the People decides; but it shall not be permitted to put to the vote a proposal to sell it before the month Anthesterion.^[10] Let the People set the (45) price of the wheat and the barley at which those who are chosen are to sell it.^[11] Let the buyers of the one-twelfth convey the grain before the month Maimakterion.^[12] Let those chosen by the People manage (epimelousthōn) (50) that the grain is conveyed at the time stated. When those who have been chosen sell the grain, let them render accounts (logisasthōn) before the People, and let them come before the People bringing the money, and let the proceeds (55) from the grain be stratiotic.^[13] The advance payment (prokatabolēn) from the islands the receivers (apodektas) shall apportion (merisai), and of the one-fiftieth as much as was obtained last year from the two-tenths; and for now this shall be for the general administration (dioikēsin); (60) and in future the two-tenths shall not be deducted from the monies deposited.^[14]

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Greek text

References:

RO 26 (Translated text) (AIO)

SEG 48.96

SEG 60.137

SEG 66.114

Stroud, Grain Tax Law 1998

Translation by: Stephen Lambert, P. J. Rhodes, Robin Osborne

Images: Agora Excavations - (1)

Monument type: Stele

Inscription type: Law

Findspot: Agora (Great Drain) (Ag. I 7557)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This is not a decree of the Council/Assembly, but a law of the nomothetai, the second surviving inscribed law of the 4th-century democracy, after RO 25 of the previous year (see further the notes thereto). Like that law it makes adjustments to an existing legal framework and assumes knowledge of the previous law which we do not possess, making it difficult to understand some of the detail. The "twelfth", attested only here, was a tax levied at 8⅓%. The main point of the law seems to have been to provide for the collection in kind of the tax on grain produced in Lemnos, Imbros and Skyros, and for release of the proceeds onto the Athenian grain market at times when the supply was running low. Ll. 55-61 and perhaps ll. 5-8 seem to imply that the tax was previously levied in money. The law, which had clear precedents in the longstanding arrangements for collection, storage and sale of first-fruits of grain paid to Eleusis (OR 141 with n. 8), vividly illustrates the economic and administrative sophistication of Athens’ intervention in the grain market and manipulation of the taxation system to secure its grain supply. Of the voluminous publications on this law since RO was published in 2003, the most substantial is A. Magnetto, D. Erdas and C. Carusi eds., Nuove ricerche sulla legge granaria ateniese del 374/3 a.C. (2010); see especially R. Stroud’s review of work on the law to that date, 11-25, and suggested directions for future research, 235-42 (SEG 60.137, cf. 62.57). See also Stroud's further update, in C. Tiersch ed., Die Athenische Demokratie im 4. Jhdt (2016), 185-93 (SEG 66.114). É. Jakab, Symposion 2005 (2007), 105-21, and M. H. Hansen, in L. Mitchell and L. Rubinstein eds., Greek History and Epigraphy. Essays ... P. J. Rhodes (2009), 145-54, suggest that what is at issue is not the collection of the grain tax, but the right to transport it to Athens. This, however, entails an implausible interpretation of the Greek of ll. 6-8, which ought to refer to the purchase of the tax as a whole, i.e. including its collection; if only transport was meant this introductory clause would have been differently formulated (cf. Stroud, in Nuove richerche, 21-23, who also notes other difficulties). There is no later evidence for the operation of this law and it is unclear for how long it endured. [2] Agyrrhios was a major politician, active since the later years of the 5th-century democracy, known above all for his successful proposal to introduce pay for attendance at the Assembly and later to raise it to 3 obols a meeting (Ath. Pol. 41.3). He had a reputation as a populist (satirised by Aristophanes, e.g. Assemblywomen, Wealth 176) and two other events of his career are especially relevant in the context of this law: in 402/1 he farmed the 2% tax on imports and exports, Andok. 1.133-34; and after serving as general ca. 389 he was imprisoned for a long time for illegal possession of public money (perhaps 388-374), Dem. 24.134-35. This law is the only evidence for his political activity after release from prison. Cf. U. Fantasia, in Nuove richerche, 67-97. [3] Lemnos, Imbros and Skyros are islands in the Aegean which, except for a short period following Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War (404-393), had long been Athenian possessions, occupied by Athenian cleruchs. They were strategically important, including as staging posts for grain ships travelling to Athens from the Black Sea, but also, as this law confirms, as significant contributors to the Athenian grain supply in their own right. (The suggestion made by some scholars that the tax of this law applies to grain in transit through the islands rather than grain produced in them is not persuasive, among other things because inconsistent with the wording of ll. 3-4, cf. RO pp. 123-24). Apart from the 8⅓% of grain production of the islands subject to this law, the rest of their production, insofar as not needed for local consumption, will also probably have been intended for the Athenian market. In ca. 330s we hear of laws requiring any Athenian citizen or metic trader in grain (and by extension anyone at Athens lending money for the purchase of grain cargoes) to bring any grain traded to Athens, with a limit on re-export of a third (Dem. 34.47, 35.51, Lyk. 1.27, Ath. Pol. 51.3), though we do not know whether these laws were in force in 374. For a comparable concern by Athens to corner the supply of a commodity from overseas, albeit a less crucial one, cf. RO 40, enforcing a monopoly on the supply of ochre from Keos, though, significantly perhaps, and characteristically of the early years of the Second Athenian League, our law places no obligations on Athens’ allies. Figures for production of grain by these three islands in 329/8 can be extrapolated from the accounts of first-fruits sent to Eleusis, e.g. for Lemnos 56,750 medimnoi of wheat and 248,525 medimnoi of barley (IG II² 1672 = I Eleusis 177 ll. 403-408, 426-27). In a year in which the harvests were at this level, this would imply an annual yield from this tax of ca. 31,000 medimnoi of grain, which is consistent with the dimensions of the Aiakeion, where it was stored (see n. 6). This could have fed ca. 6,000 people for a year (though the barley may have been used in practice partly for animal feed) and was not far off the 15 talents of grain said to have been donated by Leukon, ruler of the Bosporan kingdom in 357 (Dem. 20.31-33) and the 30,000-40,000 medimnoi by Psammetichos in 445/4 (cf. A. Bresson, La cité marchande, 2000, 207-208; Stroud, in Nuove richerche, 15-16). It represents ca. 8% of the 400,000 medimnoi said to have been exported to Athens from the city's most important supplier of grain at this period, the Bosporan kingdom on the north shore of the Black Sea, Dem. 20.32, cf. IG II³ 1, 298. [4] It is also possible to construe "in grain" with "one-fiftieth", i.e. "the one-fiftieth (tax) on grain". At Athens and elsewhere there was a 2% tax on imports and exports (cf. RO 40 with n. 4) and we also hear of a specific 2% tax on grain (presumably imports and exports) in 368, paid in money ([Dem.] 59.27). The 2% tax referred to here was perhaps the same tax as the latter, the point being that, insofar as it related to shipments from the islands (all such shipments, or only the grain shipped to Athens under the new arrangements for collecting the twelfth tax?), it is now, like the tax on grain produced in the islands, to be paid in kind. It has also been suggested, however, that the 2% tax continued to be paid in cash after this law was passed. Cf. Stroud, in Athenische Demokratie, 186. [5] The "portion", meris, seems to be the unit in terms of which those competing for the right to collect the tax are to bid. In other words a successful bidder would be required to deliver not specific quantities of barley and wheat, but a certain number of “portions” in which the ratio of wheat to barley was fixed. It has been suggested that this “portion” (meris) represents the production of a specific plot or sector of land on the islands (by M. Faraguna, first in Dike 2, 1999, 63-97, also in Nuove richerche, 129-48, and in M. R. Cataudella, A. Greco, G. Mariotta eds., Strumenti e techniche della riscossione dei tributi nel mondo antico: Atti del Convegno Nazionale. Firenze 6-7 dicembre 2007, 2010, 13-34, cf. SEG 60.137). Insofar as that implies that farmers were obliged to produce specific, unvariable, proportions of wheat and barley on each plot, it has been found implausible (cf. Stroud, in Nuove richerche, 12-13; Athenische Demokratie, 186-88). However, understanding how apparently abstract "portions" related to actual production in the three islands is a puzzle. It was perhaps implicit, in a manner obscure to us, in the existing arrangements for this tax. [6] The Aiakeion has been identified as the large rectangular structure which has been excavated in the south-west corner of the Athenian Agora. It is also a candidate for the original location of the law. There was a tendency for 4th-century laws to be erected at locations relevant to their provisions, cf. RO 25 with n. 10. However, unusually, there is no clause in this law providing for its inscription. Possible explanations include: (a) the clause was simply omitted from the inscribed version of the law (as possibly was some other material, helping to explain why its provisions are rather opaque, cf. C. Carusi, in Nuove richerche, 213-33); (b) the law was inscribed at private initiative and expense, as with some decrees from which the inscribing clause is omitted, cf. IG II³ 1, 337 n. 1. Alternatively the law might have been erected in the Royal Stoa (close to which it was found), perhaps alongside relevant previous law(s) inscribed there under the late-5th century revision of Athenian law, cf. IG I³ 104. Cf. Stroud, in Athenische Demokratie, 190-91 [7] Talents are a measure of weight, medimnoi of capacity. This passage seems to mean that the grain is to be weighed and the weights deemed to be equivalent to a given number of medimnoi. There is some evidence that a medimnos would in fact weigh more than implied here (see RO pp. 124-25) and this may have been designed to help the tax farmers to make a profit. [8] These “symmories” seem not (as in the case of the property tax, eisphora) to be groups of tax payers, but groups of tax collectors (cf. Stroud, in Nuove richerche, 14, Athenische Demokratie, 188-89). In other words the provision is designed to cover the case that the tax collectors wish to club together: they may do so, but only in groups of six and they are to bid in units of 3,000 medimnoi (i.e. logically enough, 6 times the 500 medimnos units applicable to single tax-collectors). [9] The generals for the following year were elected in the seventh prytany, i. e. ca. two-thirds of the way through the year, the precise date depending upon securing good omens (Ath. Pol. 44.4). The provision to elect these new grain officials rather than appoint them by lot, as was more usual, implies that, like generals, specific expertise was expected of them. [10] The eighth month, i.e. ca. two-thirds of the way through the year, at the end of winter, the point in the year when supplies of grain harvested the previous year might be expected to be running short. [11] This would ensure that a political balance would be struck between the price most Athenians were willing to pay and the broader interest of the city in maximising revenues for the stratiotic fund. [12] Fifth month of the year, i.e. late autumn. [13] I.e. paid into the stratiotic fund, the earliest surviving reference to this, one of Athens’ major spending accounts. Although the account is later attested being used for other purposes, its name indicates that its original purpose was military expenditure. [14] We do not know enough about Athenian financial systems or the arrangements in place before this law to be certain of the sense of ll. 55-61. Since there is to be no advance payment under the new system (27) it seems that what is at issue is the advance payment (implicitly in cash) due for the current year under the previous system. The two tenths is probably the 20% of the sum for which the tax-collector purchased the right to collect the tax which he was normally required to pay to the city in advance (cf. RO 36 l. 36). It is not clear exactly how and why the arrangements for the 8⅓% tax and the 2% tax differ in this regard, or why, for the 2% tax, the previous and not the current year’s pre-payment is the amount specified. It may be that the mechanisms in force prior to this law for purchase of the 2% tax on grain traded were significantly different from the 8⅓% tax on grain produced. The net effect of ll. 55-59, however, seems to be that advance payments made under the current system are to be allocated not to a specific spending fund (such as the stratiotic fund, 54-55), but counted as general revenue, capable of being deployed for any purpose. Ll. 60-61 specify that there is to be no advance payment in future, confirming, it seems, the provisions of ll. 27 ff.. Cf. E. M. Harris, ZPE 128 (1999), 269-72; Stroud, in Athenische Demokratie, 190.

Added: 29 Jul 2014
Updated: 7 Jan 2024
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