Evan Vance (American School of Classical Studies at Athens)
Recent scholarship on the archaic Greek polis no longer conceives of a monolithic state forcing elites to comply with its will, but instead portrays polis development as a negotiation between burgeoning institutions and the elites who made up these institutions (e.g., Von Reden 1997; Papakonstantinou 2008; Hawke 2011; Bubelis 2016). This change in perspective has had dramatic repercussions for studies of archaic legal systems, but the economic ramifications have yet to be fully considered. If the archaic period was one in which notions of state and individual authority were actively contested, how did archaic states and decision makers conceive of and regulate communal stores of wealth, such as sacred and public holdings? This paper analyzes the phenomenon of archaic fines assessed in objects and argues that it was a response to the problems of managing different types and categories of wealth, particularly in a pre- and peri-coinage economy.
This paper takes its point of departure from Aristotle’s comment that fines should be consecrated to the gods to prevent demagogues from engaging in overzealous prosecution to fund lavish programs for the public (Pol. 1320a.4-12). Yet the philosopher’s advice only makes partial sense: money consecrated to the gods could still fund festivals and other communal works, and thus would still provide incentives for prosecution. More insight into the management and use of fines is needed.
I work through several instances of fines dedicated as statues, including a new archaic inscription from Olympia (I.Olympia Suppl. no. 1), the sixth-century Papadakis bronze from Lokris (IG IX 12 3, 609), Themistokles’ dedication as water commissioner (Plut. Them. 31), and, beyond the archaic period, the 420s treaty between the Messenians and Naupaktians (SEG 51-642) and the Zanes of Olympia (Paus. 5.21). In each of these examples, dedicating a fine in the form of a statue resolved potentially destabilizing questions about the use of fines in monetary form. The same logic may help explain an unusual provision in the Eleusinian First Fruits decree (c. 435), in which excess cash from the sale of wheat and barley is earmarked for a dedication (IG I3 78, lines 37-44). These patterns suggest that fines were not without controversy and emphasize that we must consider how different physical forms of moveable wealth entailed different problems of storage, management, use, and temptation.
I conclude by revisiting the fraught problem of archaic fines assessed in objects (among others, IC IV 1, 7, 11, 14; SEG 35-991). Scholars have long puzzled over whether fines in cauldrons and the like entail a monetary use of these objects or an early use of weighted bullion (e.g., Schaps 2004, 80-92; Kroll 2008; Van Wees 2013, 112-115). My analysis here suggests a third option: perhaps fines in objects, like fines in statues, provided a mechanism for avoiding conflict around the use of fines, especially in the nascent institutional context of the early polis.