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So here's an interesting fact about ancient Athens!
Athens, as you would generally expect in a city of its place and time (or perhaps any place and time), had 1) a large amount of economic inequality among its citizens and 2) a whole lot of things to fund, as a city. One way in which it applied #1 to fix #2 was through the use of liturgies. Specifically, every year there'd be a bunch of Things which needed funding, in a specific kind of way, and various rich folks would volunteer to handle given specific expenses that year. Aaaaand if not enough folks volunteered, which was generally the case (though some also volunteered for more than the minimum because it was prestigious and sometimes politically useful), they started handing out assignments.
"You have an awful lot of money, and we're at war. Get a trireme built for the city."
"You have an awful lot of money, but we're not currently at war. You get to provide a chorus for Festival #17 this year. Get on that."
And then the assigned person either makes a fuss and insists that they're not that rich honest and possibly goes to court to prove that someone else who's not handling a liturgy is richer than them and the one who should be responsible, or they go get that trireme built or chorus trained or what not.
Which means that the religious festivals, of which there were a great many--I think I saw an estimate of 60 a year for Athens, somewhere--and some year-long offices/events/jobs and military expenditures and so forth were funded largely by pointing to someone with a great deal of money and saying "You need to give something back to the public."
I am, of course, simplifying greatly, and have probably made an error or three in this explanation. (I'm a scholar of classical literature, not history.) But I find it very interesting to look at the plays I love--and plays were generally given for contests that were tied to these religious festivals, and were quite expensive to put on, since you needed to hire actors and buy props and costumes and pay a director and get a whole damn chorus trained properly in its singing and dancing, plus likely some other things--and realize that the reason we have them today is some rich man in ancient Athens going "Yes, yes, okay, I'm rich, I'll go buy y'all a festival as is my duty." Whether voluntarily or because of being shamed/litigated into it.
Then I go read Demosthenes, who's saying "If we just stopped spending all this money on festivals we could totally beat Phillip!" (which was, according to my professor, pretty dubious anyway, given the manpower and resource differences between Athens and Macedonia at the time), and realize that one of the reasons I'm studying Demosthenes at all is because he's associated with a language and city and time and place that we admire because of...its culture. All its philosophizing and liturgizing and fancy schmancy drama and legal cases between private citizens, which it was doing instead of gearing up for war again like Demosthenes wanted.
Anyway. I think that's interesting.
Athens, as you would generally expect in a city of its place and time (or perhaps any place and time), had 1) a large amount of economic inequality among its citizens and 2) a whole lot of things to fund, as a city. One way in which it applied #1 to fix #2 was through the use of liturgies. Specifically, every year there'd be a bunch of Things which needed funding, in a specific kind of way, and various rich folks would volunteer to handle given specific expenses that year. Aaaaand if not enough folks volunteered, which was generally the case (though some also volunteered for more than the minimum because it was prestigious and sometimes politically useful), they started handing out assignments.
"You have an awful lot of money, and we're at war. Get a trireme built for the city."
"You have an awful lot of money, but we're not currently at war. You get to provide a chorus for Festival #17 this year. Get on that."
And then the assigned person either makes a fuss and insists that they're not that rich honest and possibly goes to court to prove that someone else who's not handling a liturgy is richer than them and the one who should be responsible, or they go get that trireme built or chorus trained or what not.
Which means that the religious festivals, of which there were a great many--I think I saw an estimate of 60 a year for Athens, somewhere--and some year-long offices/events/jobs and military expenditures and so forth were funded largely by pointing to someone with a great deal of money and saying "You need to give something back to the public."
I am, of course, simplifying greatly, and have probably made an error or three in this explanation. (I'm a scholar of classical literature, not history.) But I find it very interesting to look at the plays I love--and plays were generally given for contests that were tied to these religious festivals, and were quite expensive to put on, since you needed to hire actors and buy props and costumes and pay a director and get a whole damn chorus trained properly in its singing and dancing, plus likely some other things--and realize that the reason we have them today is some rich man in ancient Athens going "Yes, yes, okay, I'm rich, I'll go buy y'all a festival as is my duty." Whether voluntarily or because of being shamed/litigated into it.
Then I go read Demosthenes, who's saying "If we just stopped spending all this money on festivals we could totally beat Phillip!" (which was, according to my professor, pretty dubious anyway, given the manpower and resource differences between Athens and Macedonia at the time), and realize that one of the reasons I'm studying Demosthenes at all is because he's associated with a language and city and time and place that we admire because of...its culture. All its philosophizing and liturgizing and fancy schmancy drama and legal cases between private citizens, which it was doing instead of gearing up for war again like Demosthenes wanted.
Anyway. I think that's interesting.