In reference to the engagement taken by Philomelus, that he would exhibit and verify, before any general Hellenic examiners, all the valuable property in the Delphian temple, by weight and number of articles—the reader will find interesting matter of comparison in the Attic Inscriptions. No. 137-142, vol. i. of Boeckh’s Corpus Inscriptt. Græcarum—with Boeckh’s valuable commentary. These are the records of the numerous gold and silver donatives, preserved in the Parthenon, handed over by the treasurers of the goddess annually appointed, to their successors at the end of the year, from one Panathenaic festival to the next. The weight of each article is formally recorded, and the new articles received each year (ἐπέτεια) are specified. Where an article is transferred without being weighed (ἄσταθμον), the fact is noticed. That the precious donatives in the Delphian temple also, were carefully weighed, we may judge by the statement of Herodotus, that the golden lion dedicated by Krœsus had lost a fraction of its weight in the conflagration of the building (Herodot. i. 50).
Pausanias (x. 2, 1) does not advert to the difference between the first and the second part of the proceedings of Philomelus; first, the seizure of the temple, without any spoliation of the treasure, but simply upon the plea that the Phokians had the best right to administer its affairs; next, the seizure of the treasure and donatives of the temple—which he came to afterwards, when he found it necessary for defence.
[523] Diodor. xvi. 25, 26, 27.
[524] Diodor. xvi. 25.
[525] Diodor. xvi. 28.
[526] Diodor. xvi. 28. ψηφισαμένων δὲ τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων τὸν πρὸς Φωκεῖς πόλεμον, πολλὴ ταραχὴ καὶ διάστασις ἦν καθ᾽ ὅλην τὴν Ἑλλάδα. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἔκριναν βοηθεῖν τῷ θεῷ, καὶ τοὺς Φωκεῖς, ὡς ἱεροσύλους, κολάζειν· οἱ δὲ πρὸς τὴν τῶν Φωκέων βοήθειαν ἀπέκλιναν.
[527] Diodor. xvi. 32. about Onomarchus—πολλαῖς γὰρ καὶ μεγάλαις δίκαις ὑπὸ τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων ἦν καταδεδικασμένος ὁμοίως τοῖς ἄλλοις, etc.
Onomarchus is denominated the colleague of Philomelus, cap. 31, and his brother, cap. 61.
[528] Even in 374 B. C., three years before the battle of Leuktra, the Phokians had been unable to defend themselves against Thebes without aid from Sparta (Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 1).
[529] Diodor. xvi. 30. ἠναγκάζετο (Philomelus) τοῖς ἱεροῖς ἀναθήμασιν ἐπιβαλεῖν τὰς χεῖρας καὶ συλᾷν τὸ μαντεῖον. A similar proposition had been started by the Corinthian envoys in the congress at Sparta, shortly before the Peloponnesian war; they suggested as one of their ways and means the borrowing from the treasures of Delphi and Olympia, to be afterwards repaid (Thucyd. i. 121). Perikles made the like proposition in the Athenian assembly; “for purposes of security,” the property of the temples might be employed to defray the cost of war, subject to the obligation of replacing the whole afterwards (χρησαμένους τε ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ ἔφη χρῆναι μὴ ἐλάσσω ἀντικαταστῆσαι πάλιν, Thucyd. ii. 13). After the disaster before Syracuse, and during the years of struggle intervening before the close of the war, the Athenians were driven by financial distress to appropriate to public purposes many of the rich donatives in the Parthenon, which they were never afterwards able to replace. Of this abstraction, proof is found in the Inscriptions published by Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 137-142, which contain the official records of the successive Boards of Treasurers of Athênê. It is stated in an instructive recent Dissertation, by J. L. Ussing (De Parthenone ejusque partibus Disputatio, p. 3. Copenhagen, 1849), “Multæ in arce Athenarum inventæ sunt tabulæ Quæstorum Minervæ, in quibus quotannis inscribebant, quænam vasa aurea aliæque res pretiosæ in æde Minervæ dedicata extarent. Harum longe maxima pars ante Euclidem archontem scripta est...: Nec tamen una tabula templi dona continebat universa, sed separatim quæ in Pronao, quæ in Hecatompedo, quæ in Parthenone (the part of the temple specially so called), servabantur, separatim suis quæque lapidibus consignata erant. Singulari quadam fortuna contigit, ut inde ab anno 434 B. C., ad 407 B. C., tam multa fragmenta tabularum servata sint, ut hos donorum catalogos aliquatenus restituere possimus. In quo etiam ad historiam illius temporis pertinet, quod florentibus Athenarum rebus opes Deæ semper augeri, fractis autem bello Siculo, inde ab anno 412 B. C., eas paulatim deminui videmus.... Urgente pecuniæ inopia Athenienses ad Deam confugiebant, et jam ante annum 406 B. C., pleraque Pronai dona ablata esse videmus. Proximis annis sine dubio nec Hecatompedo nec Parthenoni pepercerunt; nec mirum est, post bellum Peloponnesiacum ex antiquis illis donis fere nulla comparere.”