Abstract

The speech Against Euergos and Mnesiboulos describes a dispute over some naval gear. The dispute occurred early in the year 357/6 b.c. π' γαθοκλους ρχοντος, Dem. 47.44), when the speaker was a trierarch and supervisor of his symmory , and he refers to ‘the law of Periandros, by which the symmories were organized’ . There is no other specific reference to the law of Periandros. If 357/6 was the first year of its operation, it was probably passed in 358/7, but that is not known for certain. The identity of the man is likewise uncertain, though it has plausibly been suggested that he was Periandros son of Polyaratos and that he was the Periandros who proposed an alliance between Athens and Arkadia in 362/1 . However, his identity is of no importance for the present article. Here I am concerned only to try to reconstruct what the law said about the symmories. Despite a great deal of modern discussion this question has still not been satisfactorily solved. The word συμμορα means ‘group’ or ‘division’ and does not necessarily have a technical or legal sense. But most of the Attic instances do have the special sense of a group of persons formed for the purpose of making payments of a compulsory tax or levy: either the property tax called εσορ, which was imposed at irregular intervals, or payments towards the maintenance of ships in the Athenian navy, which were required every year. A fragment of Philokhoros says that Athenians were divided κατ συμμορας for the first time in 378/7, and it is generally agreed that this means that symmories were first formed in 378 for the payment of eisphora. For the navy, however, there is no trace of symmories before the 350s, and everyone agrees that it was the law of Periandros which introduced the use of symmories for maintaining ships, which had previously been the sole responsibility of one trierarch or a pair of syntrierarchs for each ship