22nd USIAS Fellows Seminar - Public Spending in classical democratic Athens

David Pritchard, USIAS Fellow 2015, University of Queensland, Australia

The major public activities of this ancient direct democracy were festivals, politics and wars. There is hot debate about what was spent on these activities. Ancient historians cannot agree whether the dēmos (‘people’) spent more on festivals or wars. They debate how the classical Athenians paid for their democracy.

In classical Athens the dēmos had full control over public spending. In the assembly they authorised the all the public activities of their state. Assemblygoers understood the financial consequences of their decisions. They knew how much a proposal that was put before them would cost. They had a good general knowledge of what the state spent on its major activities. Consequently they could judge whether a proposal cost the same as what was normally spent on such things. This made it possible for the Athenians to change their pattern of spending and so what they spent on one class of activities relative to others. Such votes allowed the dēmos to spend more on what they saw as a priority and less on what was less of a priority. Over time the sums that they spent on different public activities reflected the order of the priorities that they had set for their state. During the seminar, David Pritchard will present whether religion, democracy or war was the Athenian dēmos’s overriding priority.