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[1348a]
[1]
the people
resolved that debtors should pay their debts into the treasury, and that the
state should meet the creditors' interest out of its revenues until its former
prosperity returned. Mausolus lord of Caria received from the King of Persia1 a demand for tribute. Therefore he summoned the wealthiest men in
his dominion, and told them that the King was asking for the tribute, and he had
not the means of paying it. Men whom he had previously suborned at once came
forward and declared what each was ready to contribute. With this example before
them, they who were wealthier than these, partly in shame and partly in alarm,
promised and paid much larger sums than the others.Being again in lack of funds, Mausolus summoned a public meeting of the people
of Mylassa and told them that the King of Persia was preparing to attack him; and that Mylassa his capital
city was unfortified. He therefore bade the citizens contribute each as
liberally as he could, saying that what they now paid in would afford security
to the rest of their possessions. By these means he obtained large
contributions. But though he kept the money, he declared that heaven, for the
present, forbade the building of the walls. Condalus, who was a
lieutenant-governor under Mausolus, whenever on his progress through the country
he was presented with a sheep,
[20]
a pig,
or a calf, had a record made of the donor's name and of the date. He then bade
the man take the beast home and keep it until he should again pass that way.
After what he considered a sufficient interval, he would demand the beast
together with such profits as he reckoned it had produced. All trees, too, which
projected over the king's highway, or fell thereon, he sold as profits accruing
to the State.When one of his soldiers died, he
charged a drachma for the right of passing the body through the gates. This was
not only a source of revenue, but a check on the commanders, who were thus
prevented from falsifying the date of the man's death.Noticing that the Lycians were fond of wearing their hair long,
Condalus proclaimed that a dispatch had arrived from the King ordering him to
send hair to make forelocks for his horses; and that Mausolus had therefore
instructed him to shave their heads. However, if they would pay him a fixed sum
per head, he would send to Greece for
hair. They were glad to comply with his demand, and a large sum was collected,
the number of those taxed being great. Aristoteles of Rhodes,2 when governor of Phocaea, found himself in need of funds. Noticing that there
were at Phocaea two opposing parties,
he held a secret conference with one of them,
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