1A focus on two historical figures can lead to overlooking, perhaps underestimating, the influence of other contemporaries or predecessors1. While the limitations of the source evidence make the investigation into Cleisthenes’ peers difficult, or at least problematic, it is much easier to consider the other politicians and pressures of fourth century when Lykourgos of Boutadai was operating2. How much, therefore, did Lykourgos owe to those around him, and to his predecessors? It is largely with the predecessors that I am concerned here and the basis question of how much continuity we might see between the Athens after, and the Athens before, the mid-330s. There can be little doubt that something significant changed after Chaironeia. There is no question here that 338 can be seen in some ways as a turning point. But one might also point to other crucial moments. Two years before Chaironeia, Philip II took control of Byzantium and was able therefore to dictate all movement in and out of the Black Sea, a critical moment in the history of Athenian maritime trade and a real turning point in the city’s economic and political policy. Three years after Chaironeia, in 335, Athens was able to avoid surrendering the leading politicians identified by Macedon as hostile and, in addition, probably also recovered the territory of Oropos3. Rather than looking at events, however, this chapter reviews some of the significant underlying trends that were important to Athens both before 338 and after. The chapter therefore considers the nature of the “Lykourgan era” as a “moment phare” and contextualises what might otherwise be seen only as “un moment de rupture4”. By looking at continuities, one can see how far Lykourgos and other Athenian politicians inherited from the thinkers and politicians of the mid-fourth century. Inevitably, the major figure of Euboulos can serve as a useful counterpoint to Lykourgos. Lykourgos’ career has, for many years in my mind, been linked to another individual Euboulos5. Not surprisingly, the aim of this chapter is therefore to demonstrate that it is a mistake to treat Lykourgos separately from other fourth century politicians and earlier developments. I use the term “Lykourgan Athens” not only to describe the 330s and 320s but also to refer to a particular approach that might benefit from a wider perspective6.

2Humphreys identifies three major areas whereby Lykourgos advanced Athens in the 330s and 320s: (1) building programmes; (2) military training; (3) and religious ritual7. More recently, Peter Liddel considered that the “Lykourgan programme” might be identified as the preservation and nurturing of cult tradition, the development of Athenian military power, and the revival of the economy8. I am not going to consider all of these features, but instead focus on the last two, the military and economic spheres (broadly speaking) since I think it is easiest to demonstrate here that Lykourgos, and some of his political contemporaries, were largely continuing the work of their predecessors (so Liddel 2007, p. 100) and offering responses to problems (and new circumstances) that are not particularly surprising given the policies that operated at Athens in the preceding years. It is worth stating, however, that in some areas of Lykourgos’ religious developments, one might find also good precedents in earlier periods. I will conclude with a brief analysis of the retrospective views that Athens presented of Euboulos and Lykourgos after their deaths.

The Lykourgan economic miracle

3It is clear that Lykourgos’ tenure of the magistracy at Athens, ho epi tēi dioikēsei enabled him to control much of the financial operations of the state. Whilst Lykourgos was operating in the 330s and 320s he is said to have found new sources of revenue and this in some way can explain the increase to 1200 talents state income ([Plut.], Mor. 842F)9. But not all of this was due to Lykourgos. The fact that new territory had come under Athenian control and that “new” public land in the Oropia could produce new income was ultimately only possible because of Demades’ successful gambit in recovering Oropos in 335. Economic efficiencies were certainly a major aspect of Lykourgos’ tenure of the office ho epi tēi dioikēsei but the perceived improvement in the economy was neither Lykourgos’ work alone nor did it happen in a vacuum and without considerable anticipation in previous years.

revenues

4Concern for the state of the revenues at Athens was clearly paramount in the mid-fourth century. We know of course that from the 350s onwards, after the Social War, Athenian revenues gradually recovered. Revenues increased. In 355 we are told that Athens benefited from revenues of 130 talents. Within a decade, by 346 BC, the city’s revenues had increased dramatically to 400 talents (Dem. 10.37). The subsequent increase that is ascribed to the Lykourgan period is also remarkable: by the 320s, Athenian revenues have reached 1400 talents. The three-fold (plus) increase in revenues is maintained over three decades. The continuing rise in the “Lykourgan period” is at the same rate as for the period 355-346. The economic success of Athens in the second half of the fourth century was not simply the result of policies introduced by Lykourgos or the product of his tenure of the principal financial magistracy ho epi tēi dioikēsei. As E. M. Burke has argued, Lykourgos “in many ways... followed the fiscal precedent set by Euboulos10 ”. Over a longer period of time the relative significance of the increase in revenues attributed to “Lykourgan Athens” shows the same growth that Athens had witnessed between c. 355 and 346. Indeed it should be noted that in 346 the revenues of the city were at a height that had not been seen at any point in the fourth century, and were last bettered only under the Empire in the fifth century11.

5What had changed in the 350s and 340s? These years saw an important and widespread discussion about the Athenian economy: the concern to increase revenues is seen most clearly in Xenophon's Poroi. As a treatise on the Greek economy this very important text has been much neglected. One reason for this, indirectly, is Gauthier's important and influential commentary published in the 1970s. Gauthier’s commentary adopted the popular Finleyan approach to the economy that prevailed in the mid-1970s: so he suggested that for the Poroi “le but n’était pas la renaissance économique ni l’augmentation des forces productives de l’Attique. Le but était d’ordre politique, les moyens étaient d’ordre fiscal12 ”. It would be surprising, I think, if scholars today maintained this kind of view without considerable justification about their methodology. If we adjust our assessment of Poroi and re-establish the text as one more example of the ongoing economic discourse in the later 350s about reviving the Athenian economy per se we have rich evidence of the attention being given to nurturing the tender shoots of economic recovery. It is worth remembering that nearly forty years ago Cawkwell had concluded that there are many examples in the Poroi where “what Xenophon proposed, Euboulos enacted13”.

financial offices

6Among the proposals made by Xenophon is the idea that peace brought about better conditions in which to attract people to the city and so promote commerce. He even proposed an institution, eirēnophulakēs, who might create such a favourable environment (Xen., Poroi 5.1). Cawkwell associated this position with what ultimately became an officer of the theoric fund (on the grounds of the use of the term by Aesch. 3.159)14. Euboulos is associated with theoric fund15. Cawkwell wonders indeed whether Euboulos was responsible for its creation on the grounds that his name was so closely identified with the fund16. Of course, it is significant that the theoric fund seems initially to have been overseen by a single treasurer and only later supervised by a board. The fund enhanced popular participation in religious festivals, a good example of the attention that was already being given to the religious life of the citizens before Lykourgos. Aeschines (3.25) identified Euboulos with the fund and with several other areas suggesting that it was an office from which Euboulos was able to have wider influence on the economy. If this were the case, then in a way, Euboulos' influence on the economy via his control of the theoric fund anticipated the kind of role that Lykourgos is seen to have enjoyed while ho epi tēi dioikēsei. It is ironic that the reform of Hegemon that seems to have been designed to reduce the power of the treasurer of the theoric fund, did not prevent an individual (Lykourgos) being later so closely associated with personally controlling civic monies via the office ho epi tēi dioikēsei. Nevertheless the theoric fund privileged Athenian participation in festivals because the fund received monies left over from the stratiotic fund rather than allowing such surplus to be designated for military activity.

economic stimuli

7Among Xenophon's concerns was the desirability of making the city more attractive to outsiders: foreigners and metics alike, i.e. longer-term residents and short-term visitors. This ideal was a longstanding one. There was clearly a policy to make the city more attractive to foreigners in the mid-fourth century that preceded the one that Lykourgos also supported. Evidence for the existence of such concerns in the mid-fourth century includes for example the growth in the grants of enktēsis awarded to Athenians17. Whether or not what we see in fact is an increase in the epigraphical display of such awards, the crucial point is that the greater prominence of such awards by virtue of the increasing frequency of the publication of such honours on inscribed stēlai underlines the suggestion the polis was concerned to show that non-Athenians serving the city could be rewarded with the kind of privileges that might reinforce their ties to the polis. Xenophon's Poroi had made such grants of property to foreigners (Poroi 2.7) a central feature of his scheme to make the city more attractive still to outsiders (2.1-7). Nor was Xenophon alone in these concerns. For Isokrates (On the Peace 8.21) had expressed a similar wish that foreigners should come into the city. Later we see the people of Kitieis granted enktēsis on Lykourgos’ proposal so that they can establish a cult: the development in the 330s (333/2; Rhodes & Osborne 2007, p. 91, et Brun 2005b, n^o 134) must be seen as part of a longer trend18. In addition to making Athens attractive to foreigners, Xenophon also advocated a regeneration of silver mining: the archaeological evidence suggests the 340s saw a peak in activity. Underlying both the Poroi and the De pace is the general idea that peace and wealth would go hand-in-hand (even if for Isokrates, peace was desired so that all the Greeks could then unite and fight Persia). Euboulos too is known to have weighed up the financial benefits of peace (with Philip II, in 346; Dem. 19.291).

multiple personalities

8It would be wrong however to think that Euboulos was alone in being concerned about reviving Athenian economic growth. And similarly it would be wrong to assume that Lykourgos was alone in the 330s and 320s. Consider the important Athenian figure of Androtion, near contemporary to Euboulos. In c. 357/6 Androtion is honoured by the people of Arcesine (Rhodes & Osborne 2007, n^o 51; Brun 2005b, n^o 65): he has lent money to the city in a crisis and took no interest on the loan; when city was in difficulty over the pay that they owed to the garrison installed in their city, Androtion advanced money from his own resources and charged no interest when the money was paid back at the end of the year. In doing so he seems to have saved the people of Arkesine 1 200 drachmai and so must have loaned more than a talent. His actions reduced the expenditure that the city had to make and, in addition, he helped ransom back prisoners from the enemy. In return he was crowned, was made a proxenos and a benefactor, and was awarded ateleia on all things. Androtion was an influential figure in Athens in the mid-fourth century. He served on the council on two occasions. He also had financial expertise that he no doubt was able to use when serving on the board that dealt with the treasures of Athena or again collecting arrears of eisphora payments (356/5: Develin 1981, p. 280). He was also interested in Athenian traditions, Lykourgos was not alone in this respect: Androtion wrote an Atthis whilst on in exile.

9In their commentary on the honours award to Androtion, Rhodes and Osborne ask why Androtion might have performed the services that he did for the people of Arkesine. I would reply that there was considerable interest on Androtion’s part in enjoying ateleia from the polis. Indeed ten years later, we find Androtion again playing a major role in honours associated with economic activity. In 346, Androtion proposed the decree that reasserts honours for the Spartokids (Rhodes & Osborne 2007, n^o 64; Brun 2005b n^o 74). The decree reaffirms the honours that the Athenians had awarded to Spartokos and Paerisades' father Leukon, and their grandfather Satyros. On this occasion the Athenians owe money to the Bosporan Kings and the Athenians agree, it seems, to pay back what is owed to avoid any complaint. There is no indication of what this debt is. The decree reaffirms the association of the Athenians with the Bosporan Kingdom and presumably saw the continued operation of the financial privileges that the Athenians enjoyed when purchasing grain from the Black Sea Kingdom19. Once again we see Androtion at the heart of an honorific decree that illustrates the great importance economically of special taxation privileges.

10Alongside Euboulos were other important figures. Androtion was one. The same observation can and should be made of “the Lykourgan period”. It would be a mistake to focus on Lykourgos without considering the many other Athenians who played an important role in promoting the health and wealth of the city. In the 330s and 320s there were very many prominent individuals who, in particular, helped to reinforce the economy of the polis. Aristonicus of Marathon is said to have proposed legislation regulating the market20. Many other Athenians not only proposed significant reforms and decrees in the 330s and 320s but also occupied positions of considerable importance. Humphreys has said that “[a]lthough we tend to speak of the period as ‘the Lykourgan age’, its reforms were carried through by the energetic cooperation of an appreciable segment of the upper class21 ”. Euboulos, like Lykourgos, was certainly surrounded by other Athenians who were also responsible for steering the economy of the city in the right direction. But just how many of Lykourgos’ contemporaries should be viewed as co-operating with him? This is a real question and requires us to examine the particularly agonistic nature of Athenian politics in the 330s and 320s.

Military structures

11There are aspects of the military improvements in “Lykourgan Athens” that can also be seen in terms of longer processes, some of which can be traced back to the first quarter of the fourth century (e.g. naval power). The changes that are identified in the third quarter of the fourth century must be closely understood by considering earlier trends. That the defeat at Chaironeia provoked change, or better accelerated change, is not in question. The concern here is to demonstrate the underlying continuities that link the 330s and 320s with previous decades22.

military strength

12A great deal has been made of ephebic (re-)organisation under Lykourgos (on the basis of the law of Epikrates)23. Few would deny that the development of military training in Athens that incorporated the territory of Attica predates the 330s. Reforms to such a youth training programme seem to have arrived in the mid-330s (the ephebeia on this view was not therefore a complete innovation)24. It is useful to reflect on contemporary reflections in the 320s about military advances in the last few decades. We might, for example, consider that under Euboulos, some Athenians felt that there had been a considerable strengthening of the city’s military power25. Dinarchus contrasts Demosthenes with Euboulos and asks “How many triremes were fitted out for the city because of Demosthenes, compared to Euboulos? What sort of docks came into being under him? When did he either by decree or by law increase the cavalry (fund)?26” The rhetorical and legal context clearly give rise to some dismissal of change in recent years, but crucially an audience was thought to be comfortable in associating military developments (or their absence) with Demosthenes. Moreover, there was clearly a sense that one might naturally think of the 350s and 340s (when Euboulos flourished) as a time of military preparedness, even expansion. Let us look at the two aspects that seem to be ascribed to Euboulos, improvements in the cavalry and navy.

13It is likely that the Athenians after the Social war (357-355 BC) had some difficulties in maintaining a strong cavalry force27. When Xenophon (Hipparch. 9.3 f.) says it was difficult to find 1000 cavalrymen, it is possible that we should associate this to the demise of state support for the cavalry service that is addressed in the Poroi (Xen., Poroi 6.1). Xenophon advocated recruiting two hundred foreign cavalrymen to make up the required 1000 strong mounted force in the Poroi28. This change does not seem to have been followed through but there is clearly some point here in thinking that changes to the organisation or administration of the cavalry could be associated to Euboulos. It is tempting to link the enhanced katastasis (state guarantees to cavalrymen) to this period29.

14Cavalry service can be compared to the liturgical obligations of other areas of civic life (chorēgiai, trierarchies, gumnasiarchiai). Considerable attention was paid in the fourth century to the performance of liturgies. Such burdens were particularly difficult and liturgy service is a topic that recurs frequently in mid-fourth century discourse (Liddel 2007, p. 85, 94 ff.). One notable proposal was that of Leptines who suggested that those foreigners in receipt of honours should cease to enjoy the exemption from liturgy performance, one of the privileges that seemed explicitly associated with ateleia. One reform that affected such liturgy service was Periandros’ law introducing symmories in order to ease the financial burden of performing trierarchies. This saw a wider distribution of the costs among the 1200 Athenians considered to be the richest and who were allocated to the trierarchic symmories ([Dem.] 47.21; Dem. 14.16-17). Further improvements were suggested by Demosthenes and although we can not associate any of these changes directly with Euboulos, we can see clearly that steps were being taken to ease the burdens of maintaining the fleet and thereby secure its finances. Certainly it can not be denied that in the 330s and 320s the visible signs of administering the navy flourished. The fleet also increased in size. We are familiar with the figures: by 330/329 there seem to 392 triremes and 20 “fours” (quadriremes). But this increase can be traced back through the fourth century.

Growth of the Athenian fleet in the fourth century

15The development of Athenian naval strength indicates a significant burst in the production of ships in the 350s and expansion that dates back to the 370s30. When Dinarchus (1.96) claimed that triremes were constructed under Euboulos, the figures from the inscribed naval lists support this. They show in fact that naval power was steadily increasing in the fourth century, with bursts that can be identified (largely because of the evidence) in the 370s, the 350, and the 330s. Under Euboulos great impetus was given to expanding the fleet. Indeed such were the resources developed then that in the “Lykourgan period” the naval lists still refer to timber for ship building left over from that period.

military infrastructure

16Developments also took place in the administration and physical infrastructure on which the Athenian army and navy depended. The revision of citizen lists in the demes facilitated many aspects of civic organisation, not only the collection of eisphora but also military service31. But the most striking advances in the 350s and 340s addressed the physical infrastructure for the Athenian war machine. From 347, a 10-talent eisphora fund was introduced into which metics paid money. The funds probably financed docks and skeuothēkai (IG II² 505 l. 12 f.). The advances in military infrastructure also saw improvements to fortifications: IG II² 244 (337/6) outlines the improvements to the city walls but the text also refers to an earlier law (l. 13) that probably dates the late 350s or early 340s. One might wish to attach the law to the notice at the end of 347/6 when a decision was made to move women and children in from countryside along with improvements to the fortifications32. Finally, improved naval efficiency was the objective with the construction of the Arsenal of Philo, the skeuothēkē, and the shipsheds in Piraeus. The Arsenal of Philo was only completed in the “Lykourgan period” and, indeed, was one of several building projects that Lykourgos was said, explicitly, to have finished off. Just how much of the arsenal had been completed before the Battle of Chaironeia is not clear. Likewise work on the shipsheds was resumed in the “Lykourgan era”. The build up to Chaironeia saw an interruption to the work on the arsenal and the harbour installations as Demosthenes proposed that funding for these projects should be re-directed to the direct needs of the Athenian army33. Nevertheless it is clear that work for all these undertakings probably predates the 330s.

military finance

17Linked to such developments is the association between the theoric fund, building, and military funding in general. Attempts had been made by Demosthenes to use theoric money for military purposes in the 340s: first in 349 having seen in 351 that there was very little public money, then two years later he asked for theoric fund to finance the Olynthian campaign. It is likely that by 339/8 a law on the use of the theoric fund had been passed to allow the fund to be put to military use and that Demosthenes proposed the law. Demosthenes' intervention indicates again the change in the resources of Athens: in 351 when insufficient funds existed with which to exploit the military campaigns, there was a perception that the theoric fund would be large enough to finance such operations; then in 346 we hear of annual revenues of 400 talents! These figures indicate the improving fortunes of the Athenian economy from the late 350s to early 340s.

Origins of change: Euboulos and Lykourgos in retrospect

18We have reaffirmed the arguments found elsewhere (e.g. Cawkwell 1963), that among Lykourgos’ predecessors, considerable importance should be attached to Euboulos. This chapter has suggested that Lykourgos was one of several major figures in the 330s and 320s; that his predecessors in the 350s and 340s anticipated many of the policies that came to be associated with him; that Euboulos was perhaps one of the principal Athenian forerunners to Lykourgos: both Euboulos and later Lykourgos exercised influence over, inter alia, public finance through the tenure of magistracise. The chapter therefore claims that significant developments in mid-fourth century had already started to address issues that were still important in the 330s and 320s. Links can be found that establish some important continuities34.

19Political and especially geo-political changes had a massive impact on Athens: there were clearly changes that forced Athenians to confront different forms of problems that had pre-existed the “Lykourgan era”. The grain supply was a contentious issue both before and after the 330s. Events changed the particular form of the pressures here. Certainly the loss of the Hellespont and then the defeat at Chaironeia was somewhat mollified by the arrangements made by Macedon as Alexander the Great turned attention to Persia in 335. But the loss of Athenian control of the Hellespont is not to be underestimated. Difficulties in the Hellespontine area saw in 343/2 Diopeithes lead cleruchs to the Chersonese (to 340/39); and Phocion and Kephisophon served as generals in the Hellespont in 340/39 (when Demosthenes was epistatēs of the navy). Such ventures became impossible after the Macedonian occupation of Byzantium and Athenian reliance on Black Sea grain from c. 340 seems to end (for the time being). Greater attention to the diversification of grain sources ultimately led to overseas operations far from Macedonian realms of influence: the Athenians sought to quell piratical activity in the upper Adriatic and remove the threat to commerce (Rhodes & Osborne 2007, n^o 100, l. 165 ff. and 217-232). The presence of a fleet and therefore ambitions of naval power remained an important feature of Athenian political identity in the fourth century and a tool of some important in the “Lykourgan era”. Although Lykourgos is prominent in the 330s and 320s, there is never a time when the city really exploits its military strength. The irony is that it is only after the deaths of Lykourgos and Alexander the Great that the city exercises its (fading) military resources. The experiment ends in failure, and defeat in the Lamian war introduced the biggest internal revolution in Athenian politics since the last decade of the fifth century. There is no doubt that the “Lykourgan era” confronted specific problems but some of the re-telling of this period can only be understood in its aftermath, and significantly in the years that followed Lykourgos’ death.

20The post-mortem histories of, and the civic recognition paid to, Euboulos and Lykourgos in the last three decades of the fourth century highlight the differences between the two figures. Lykourgos became one of the ten canonical Athenian orators: information about his life is preserved in the Lives of the Ten Orators ([Plut.], Mor. 841B-844A) and in the version of the text found in Photius’ Bibliotheca (Cod. 268, 496b). But at the end of the Ps. -Plutarch Lives we find three documents, the third of which contains an honorific decree making posthumous awards to Lykourgos35. The decree may well reflect the one passed in the Assembly36. A stone inscription (in two fragments) records partially what looks like a public version of this text inscribed on a monument that saw Stratokles awarding the highest honours (megistai timai) to Lykourgos a little less than twenty years after his death37. Lykourgos is said to have made an account of all his achievements before he died, and it is thought he had a copy inscribed in front of the palaestra38. In addition to this autobiographical description of his achievements (Lykourgos’ res gestae as it were), a biographical tradition also existed: we are told that a certain Philiskos of Miletos wrote a Life on Lykourgos. A rich auto- and biographical tradition seems to have developed around Lykourgos39. But what of Euboulos? We know that Euboulos was proposed honours after his death. We know little about them. Lykourgos received the megistai timai but did Euboulos? Perhaps. It appears that Hyperides opposed the honours given to Euboulos40. Is it not therefore likely that among the honours proposed for the late Euboulos were some of the highest honours?

21Lykourgos, unlike Euboulos, benefited from the subsequent developments of Athenian history and the success of his descendants. It is likely that the (hi)story of Lykourgos was preserved by his descendants who were important to Athens in the late second and early first centuries. How much impact that had on maintaining and fomenting the memory of Lykourgos remains to be seen. Political opposition to Lykourgos, on the other hand, did not need to end in oblivion. When Plutarch wrote his Lives of Phocion and Cato in the early second century A.D., the house in Melite identified as that of Phocion was decorated with bronze tablets suggesting that the memory of the prolific general had not been so tarnished by the closing years of his career41. Elsewhere Pausanias described the statues of Lykourgos and Demosthenes that graced the Agora, close to the statue of Peace holding Wealth. But Euboulos was not completely forgotten: Pausanias takes time to point out his burial and shows that the memory of Euboulos lived on too42. What of Lykourgos? The man himself and those, both ancient and modern, interested in him, have made sure that his achievements are not forgotten. But we should not neglect his contemporary politicians, friend and foe alike, nor those that preceded him. With Lykourgos we continue to look back and to look forward43.