19
When these preliminaries are settled, I propose that your wealth also should be organized, and that as the ratable value of the country is six thousand talents, this sum should be divided into a hundred parts of sixty talents each, and that then five of these parts should be allotted to each of the twenty full boards, and that the board itself should assign one part, consisting of sixty talents,i.e. by a tax on this fraction, one hundredth, of the whole ratable value. The actual cost of a trierarchy was from 40 minae to one talent. The value of a mina (=100 drachmae) is usually put at £4 and that of a talent at £240: but the actual value must have been much greater, as a drachma was the average wage of an artisan. to each of its own five groups.
20
Thus, if you want a hundred war-galleys the cost of each will be covered by the sixty talents and there will be twelve trierarchs for each; if you want two hundred, there will be thirty talents to cover the cost and six persons to serve as trierarchs; if you want three hundred, there will be twenty talents for the cost and four persons to serve.
21
In the same way I propose, men of Athens, that all ships’ gear now on loan should be valued and divided according to the inventory into twenty parts, and then that one part of the debtors liable for it should be allotted to each of the full boards, and that each board should assign an equal share to each of its own groups; and that the twelve members of the group should exact the same from the debtors, and so provide, fully equipped, as many galleys as they are severally responsible for.
