Ways and Means

Hipponicus, again, had six hundred slaves let out on the same terms and received a rent of a mina a day net. Philemonides had three hundred, and received half a mina. There were others too, owning numbers in proportion, I presume, to their capital.

But why dwell on the past? At this day there are many men in the mines let out in this way.

Were my proposals adopted, the only innovation would be, that just as private individuals have built up a permanent income by becoming slave owners, so the state would become possessed of public slaves, until there were three for every citizen.

Whether my plan is workable, let anyone who chooses judge for himself by examining it in detail.

So let us take first the cost of the men. Clearly the treasury is in a better position to provide the money than private individuals. Moreover the Council can easily issue a notice inviting all and sundry to bring slaves, and can buy those that are brought to it.

When once they are purchased, why should there be more hesitation about hiring from the treasury than from a private person, the terms offered being the same? At any rate men hire consecrated lands[*](The MSS. add καὶ ἱερά, and temples, for which καὶ ἱερεῖα (victims for sacrifice) has been conjectured. But (1) μισθοῦνται is not contract to supply, and (2) it appears that the sacrifices were, in point of fact, paid for out of the rents received for the τεμένη, and the victims were not supplied by individuals on contract. Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 47, writing of the leases of state property, says nothing about victims.) and houses, and farm taxes under the state.

The treasury can insure the slaves purchased by requiring some of the lessees to become guarantors, as it does in the case of the tax-farmers. In fact a tax-farmer can swindle the state more easily than a lessee of slaves.

For how are you to detect the export of public money? Money looks the same whether it is private property or belongs to the state. But how is a man to steal slaves when they are branded with the public mark and it is a penal offence to sell or export them?

So far, then, it appears to be possible for the state to acquire and to keep men.