Telos
（
τέλος). A tax. The taxes imposed by the Athenians and
collected at home were either ordinary or extraordinary. The former constituted a regular or
permanent source of income; the latter were only raised in time of war or other emergency. The
ordinary taxes were held mostly upon property, and upon citizens indirectly, in the shape of
toll or customs; though the resident aliens paid a poll-tax (called
μετοίκιον) for the liberty of residing at Athens under the protection of the
State. There was a duty of two per cent. (
πεντηκοστή) levied
upon all exports and imports. An excise was paid on all sales in the market (called
ἐπωνία), though it is not known what the amount was. Slave-owners
paid a duty of three oboli for every slave they kept; and slaves who had been emancipated paid
the same. This was for a long time a very productive tax before the fortification of Decelea
by the Lacedaemonians. The justice fees (
πρυτανεῖα,
παράστασις) were a lucrative tax in time of peace. The extraordinary taxes were the
property-tax, and the compulsory services called “liturgies” (
λειτουργίαι). Some of these last were regular, and recurred annually;
the most important, the
trierarchia, was a war-service, and performed
as occasion required. As these services were all performed, wholly or partly, at the expense
of the individual, they may be regarded as a species of tax. (See
Eisphora;
Liturgia;
Trierarchia.) The tribute (
φόρος) paid by the allied States to the Athenians formed, in the flourishing
period of the Republic, a regular and most important source of revenue. In Olymp. 91-2, the
Athenians substituted for the tribute a duty of five per cent. (
εἰκοστή) on all commodities exported or imported by the subject States, thinking
to raise by this means a larger income than by direct taxation. This was terminated by
the issue of the Peloponnesian War, though the tribute was afterwards revived, on more
equitable principles, under the name of
σύνταξις. Other
sources of revenue were derived by the Athenians from their mines (
μέταλλα), and public lands, fines, and confiscations. The public demesne lands,
whether pasture or arable, houses or other buildings, were usually let by auction to private
persons. The conditions of the lease were engraved on stone. The rent was payable by
prytaneias. These various sources of revenue produced, according to Aristophanes, an annual
income of two thousand talents in the most flourishing period of Athenian hegemony. Though
τέλος may signify any payment in the nature of a tax or
duty, it is more commonly used of the ordinary taxes, as customs, etc.
Ἰσοτέλεια signifies the right of being taxed on the same footing and having
other privileges the same as citizens—a right sometimes granted to resident aliens;
ἀτέλεια signifies an exemption from taxes, or other duties
and services—an honour very rarely granted by the Athenians. As to the farming of
taxes, see
Telones. See also Gilbert,
Greek
Constitutional Antiquities, pp. 351 foll., Eng. trans.
(1895).
