EICO´STE
EICO´STE (
εἰκοστή), a
custom duty of one-twentieth (five per cent.) upon all commodities exported
or imported by sea in the states of the allies subject to Athens. This tax
was first imposed Ol. 91, 4, B.C. 413-2, in the place of the direct tribute
(
φόρος) which had up to this time been
paid by the subject allies; and the change was made with the hope of raising
a greater revenue (
Thuc. 7.28). The date 415,
given by Boeckh in his first edition from which Lewis' translation is taken,
was subsequently corrected by him; it was after the occupation of Decelea in
the spring of 413. This tax, like so many others, was farmed, and the
farmers of it were called
εἰκοστολόγοι. It
must have been more difficult to collect than the
φόρος, and this at a time when the hold of Athens over the
payers was much enfeebled; and there is good reason to think with Grote (ch.
61
init., 5.312) that the change was never
fully carried out. It is certain that some states continued to pay
φόρος after 413 (
Xen.
Hell. 1.3, § 9;
C. I. A. 4.51). The text
of Thucydides contains the unusual expression
τὴν
εἰκοστὴν ἐποίησαν, for which Badham conjectures
ἐπέθεσαν, and Classen with more probability
ἐπέταξαν: and
Müller-Strübing regards the passage as an interpolation
(
Thukyd. Forschungen, p. 30 ff., quoted by Gilbert and
Fränkel). The
εἰκοστή however,
does not rest upon the evidence of Thucydides alone (Bekk.
Anecd. 185, 21:
δεκάτη καὶ εἰκοστή:
οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐκ τῶν νησιωτῶν ταῦτα ἐλάμβανον); and
the probable conclusion is that the new arrangement took effect in some of
the subject states and not in others. The
εἰκοστολόγος at Aegina mentioned by Aristophanes (
Aristoph. Frogs 363) was, in Boeckh's
later view, the collector of some special tax and not of the
εἰκοστὴ in lieu of
φόρος (
Sthh.3 1.396, 2.351):
Fränkel further points out, in confirmation of this, that the
island had been occupied by Athenian
cleruchi from
the beginning of the war, and could not therefore have paid
φόρος at all. With the fall of Athens both forms
of taxation of course came to an end; but both were afterwards revived, the
φόρος under the less invidious name of
σύνταξις [
SYNTAXIS]. Within a few years of the battle of
Cnidus Athenian commanders were again levying the
δεκάτη on the Hellespont (
Xen.
Hell. 4.8, § 27;
Diod.
13.64), and, as we know from inscriptions very recently discovered,
the
εἰκοστὴ among their subject allies (e.
g. Clazomenae,
Mittheilungen d. archäol. Institutes,
7.174 ff.; Thasos, ib. 313 ff.). On an
εἰκοστὴ attributed to the sons of Pisistratus, see
DECUMAE p. 603
a. (Boeckh,
P. E. pp. 325, 401 =
Sthh.3 1.395 ff., 475;
Fränkel, n. 537; Gilbert,
Staatsalterth. 1.332.)
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