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The Cost of the Parthenon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

R. S. Stanier
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Extract

The budget of Perikles can be reconstructed only by studying numerous pieces of evidence, of varying importance and varying reliability. Neither the importance nor the reliability of any piece of evidence can beproperly assessed except by a scholar who can carry all the evidence in his head, which I am far from capable of doing, but it is safe to say (a) that the cost of Perikles's building programme forms an important element in the total budget, and (b) that considerable uncertainty exists about the cost of these buildings. When we find Cavaignac estimating the cost of the Propylaea at 400 talents, whereas Kolbe, Wilamowitz, and Busolt put it at over 2000, it is clear that the target area is large; and I hope it may be of some service if a figure for the Parthenon can be arrived at whose margin of error is at any rate less than 400 per cent.

An obvious starting point is the Parthenon building accounts, of which considerable fragments survive. These fragments show various sources of income, the treasury of the Goddess, the Hellenotamiai, the Trieropoioi, the baths, the Xenodikoi, the Teichopoioi, the mines at Laureion, and (towards the end of the work) the sale of surplus materials. But in no case do the actual sums involved survive with sufficient fullness to prove what the total expenditure was, even for one year. The most that can be proved is that in 444/3 the income was at least 38 talents, and that the out-going board handed over to their successors something more than 33 talents in 446 and a similar sum in 441.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 73 , November 1953 , pp. 68 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1953

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References

1 Cavaignac, , L'histoire financière d'Athènes au V6 siècle, p. 103.Google Scholar

2 Kolbe, , Thukydides im Lichte der Urkunden, p. 80Google Scholar; Wilamowitz, , Phil. Unt. I 210Google Scholar; Busolt, , Gr. Gesch. III, 493 ff.Google Scholar

3 IG 2 I, 339 ff.

4 IG 2 342.

5 IG 2 I, 340.

6 IG 2 I, 345.

7 Perikles 13.

8 Herod. II 180.

9 Herod. V 62.

10 See note 2. Judeich Topogr. 79, 80. Ed. Meyer, Forsch. II 99. Wachsmuth, C., Stadt Athen. I, 524Google Scholar; 2, attacking the figure of 2012 talents for the Propylaia, uses the analogy of St. Peter's as a reductio ad absurdum: if 2012 talents were correct for the Propylaia the cost per square foot of floor area would be appreciably higher than that of Peter's, St.. Kirchoff (Abhandl. Berl. Ak. 1976, 56)Google Scholar, defending 2012, argues that costs were higher before the Peloponnesian War than when the Erechtheum was built. Wilamowitz (loc. cit.) points to the expense of clearing the site.

11 F. Gr. Hist., 373 F1.

12 Kolbe, loc. cit.

13 Dinsmoor, , Ἐφ. ἈρΧ 1937 (pt.2), 507–11.Google Scholar

14 IG 2 IV, 102.

15 For the date cf. Dinsmoor, Architecture of Ancient Greece; Foucart, , Bull. Hell. XIV, 594Google Scholar; Wolters-Springer, , Kunst d. Alt. 1923, 316Google Scholar; Fraenkel, , IG IV, 1484.Google Scholar

16 Ancient Greece at Work, pp. 237, 238.

17 Erechtheion, , IG 2 I, 374Google Scholar; Asklepieion, , IG 1 IV, 1484Google Scholar, ll. 9, 32, 54.

18 IG 2 II, 1673. Cf. Noack, , Eleusis, pp. 211 ff.Google Scholar, 269, 125.

19 Figures are based on the estimate of 2¾ tons per cu. m. The exact figure for Pentelic marble is 2·69 tons.

20 Knowles and Son; Mr. William Axtell of Axtell and Perry.

21 Here it may be well to explain an apparent discrepancy between the polishing cost of the cella and that of the colonnade, a discrepancy which might be concealed by my giving a figure per ton for the colonnade, and per square metre for the cella. If we stick to tons we find that at Epidauros the polishing of the cella costs 1·7 dr. per ton, while that of the colonnade costs 2·6, i.e. about 1½ times as much. This might be thought to imply that the polishing of a colonnade was quite a different process from polishing a wall. Actually, however, the difference is no more than could be expected in view of the fact that a colonnade consists largely of columns, and the surface of a column is greater than that of a normal wall of the same volume. At the Asklepieion, for example, a cubic metre of wall has a superficial area of 1·3 sq. m., whereas a cubic metre of column has a superficial area of 2·3 sq. m.

22 Op. cit. pp. 171 ff.

23 Perhaps the most likely source of inaccuracy in my computations is in the estimate of the fall in the value of money between 440 and 380 B.C. This affects only the items based on a comparison with the Asklepieion, which are as follows:

I think it would be safe to assume that the value of money had at any rate not risen in 380, and that therefore the prices paid by the builders of the Asklepieion were, at most, only the same as those of the Parthenon. In that case the 399 talents would have to be multiplied by to allow for the difference between the Aiginetan and the Attic standard. This would give 570 talents for the items listed above, an increase of 171 talents, and the total cost of the Parthenon would become 640 talents.

24 Bourguet, , Admin. Fin. du sanct. pyth. au IVe siècle 1905, p. 105Google Scholar, estimates the total cost at 530 talents.