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[1352b]
[1]
and proceeded to demand an excessive sum;
which represented, he said, the difference the change of site would make to him.
They however declared themselves unable to pay it, and were accordingly
removed.On another occasion he sent an agent
to make a certain purchase for him. Learning that the agent had made a good
bargain, but intended to charge him a high price, he proceeded to inform the
man's associates that he had been told he had purchased the goods at an
excessive price, and that therefore he did not intend to recognize the
transaction; denouncing at the same time with feigned anger the fellow's
stupidity. They on hearing this asked him not to believe what was said against
the agent until he himself arrived and rendered his account. On the man's
arrival, his associates told him what Cleomenes had said. He, desirous of
winning their approval as well as that of Cleomenes, debited the latter with the
actual price he had given.At a time when the
price of grain in Egypt was ten
drachmae <a measure> ,1 Cleomenes sent
for the growers and asked them at what price they would contract to supply him
with their produce. On their quoting a price lower than what they were charging
the merchants, he offered them the full price they were accustomed to receive
from others; and taking over the entire supply,
[20]
sold it at a fixed rate of thirty-two drachmae <for the
same measure>.He also sent for the
priests, and told them that the expenditure on the temples was very unevenly
distributed in the country; and that some of these, together with the majority
of the attendant priests, must accordingly be suppressed. The priests, supposing
him to be in earnest, and wishing each to secure the continuance of his own
temple and office, gave him money individually from their private possessions as
well as collectively from the temple funds.2
Antimenes of Rhodes, who was appointed by Alexander superintendent of highways
in the province of Babylon, adopted the
following means of raising funds. An ancient law of the country imposed a tax of
one-tenth on all imports; but this had fallen into total abeyance. Antimenes
kept a watch for all governors and soldiers whose arrival was expected, and upon
the many ambassadors and craftsmen who were invited to the city, but brought
with them others who dwelt there unofficially; and also upon the multitude of
presents that were brought <to these persons> , on which he
exacted the legal tax of a tenth.Another
expedient was this. He invited the owners of any slaves in the camp to register
them at whatever value they desired, undertaking at the same time to pay him
eight drachmae a year. If the slave ran away, the owner was to recover the
registered value.
1 If the measure intended is the Attic medimnos , it is 1 1/2 bushels. The Persian artabe may however be meant, which was equal to 1 medimnos and 1/16th. In either case the price is very high compared with 3 drachmae per medimnos, the price at Athens in 390 B.C. Yet Polybius 9.44 says that at Rome during the war with Hannibal (210) corn was sold for fifteen drachmae per medimnos. As a contrast cf. what the same author says of the fertility of Gallia Cisalpina, where in time of peace this same measure of wheat was sold for four obols, and of barley for two. See note on 25.
2 Cf. 25.
Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 18, translated by G.C. Armstrong. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935.
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