Liturgy, Greece and RomeSTERLING GARNETT

LITURGY IN GREECE

The liturgy (leitourgia, “work for the people”)

was an institution of compulsory public ser-

vice in the classical Greek world, best known

from Athens, in which the wealthiest citizens

(and, for certain liturgies, metics) were com-

pelled to shoulder the financial burden of

some project or activity of benefit to the polis

(MacDowell 1978: 161). When used in Athens

in the Early Classical period, the term referred

to a set of specific duties designated by law.

In the fourth century, however, it began to be

used more generally, to designate a service or

obligation performed for any beneficiary; our

modern term “liturgy” comes from its use to

refer to religious obligations in the Septuagint

(Lewis 1960: 181–2). Liturgies, even the minor

ones, were extremely expensive; the cheapest

attested in Athens, at three hundred drachmae,

was almost a year’s wages for a skilled work-

man (Davies 1981: 9). As such, the liturgical

system placed almost the entire burden of

funding the state on a small, wealthy minority,

channeling the potentially disruptive wealth

and power of the rich into socially constructive

forms of competition and ostentatious display

for the benefit of the demos (Christ 1990: 150).

The most prestigious, and expensive, liturgy

in classical Athens was the trierarchy. The tri-

erarch was responsible for outfitting, funding,

and repairing (or replacing, if need be) a ship

in Athens’ navy for the space of a year; he

might captain the ship himself during that

time or hire someone else to do so (MacDowell

1978: 161; see TRIREME). The potential financial

burden is difficult to estimate, but was very

high; the cost of replacing a hull alone was

standardized at five thousand drachmae in

the fourth century (Gabrielsen 1994: 221).

There were about four hundred trierarchies in

the 420s, each held by a single man (Gabrielsen

1987: 7). After 411, however, as Athens’

fortunes (and the wealth of its citizenry)

declined, liturgical burdens were often divided

among two (or more) men: a panel of one

thousand two hundred trierarchs was set up

in 357 to fund Athens’ navy, though the num-

ber of panelists dropped to three hundred in

340 (MacDowell 1978: 161).

Liturgies were also decreed to fund public

religious festivals; indeed, every known civilian

liturgy is found in a festival context (Davies

1967: 33; see FESTIVALS, GREECE AND ROME). The

most prestigious of these duties was the

choregia; a choregos would fund the wages,

training, costumes, etc. of a tragic, comic, or

dithyrambic chorus (see CHOREGIA). An archi-

theoros would support an Athenian “team” of

athletes sent to the Olympic Games or one of

the other panhellenic festivals; a gymnasiarch

would do the same for athletes at a local festi-

val, the hestiatores would fund tribal banquets,

and so on (Davies 1967: 34; MacDowell 1978:

161). About a hundred citizens were appointed

each year to fulfill festival liturgies, increasing

to perhaps 118 during the quadrennial celebra-

tions of the Great Panathenaia (Gabrielsen

1987: 7). There were also various minor liturgies

levied by individual demes. In the fourth century

yet another type of liturgy was introduced, the

proeisphora: when the emergency tax, the

eisphora, was levied, the appointee (a member

of a board of three hundred) was required to

pay, out of his own pocket, the tax due from a

group of Athenians, and then recover the

amount due from the other Athenians on his

own (Christ 1990: 149; MacDowell 1978: 161;

see EISPHORA; SYMMORIA).

Liturgists were appointed by the magistrates

for whom the issue was a concern: the strategoi,

for instance, selected the citizens who would

serve as trierarchs. In theory, the wealthiest

men available would be chosen to fund these

public works; in practice, there were certain

exceptions. Minors were exempt from liturgies

until one year after reaching the age of majority

(see EPHEBE, EPHEBEIA). The nine archons were

immune during their terms of office, as

were (apparently) the disabled and citizens of

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 4119–4121.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah06202

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Athens residing elsewhere (see CLERUCHY). No

one could be required to perform more than

one liturgy every two years, or one trierarchy

every three years (Gabrielsen 1994: 86), though

this no longer applied to the trierarchy after

357. Athenians who thought they were eligible

for one of these exemptions could petition the

magistrate involved, who could accept the

excuse or ask a jury to decide the matter (Mac-

Dowell 1978: 162). Because it was expected

that liturgies were the duty of the wealthiest

in Athens, concealment of one’s true wealth, in

order to avoid being appointed to a liturgy, was

extremely common (Christ 1990: 158–60); if,

however, a person believed that he had been

wrongly selected over a wealthier man, he had

resort to the legal procedure called antidosis,

challenging the wealthier man to either take on

the liturgy or exchange property with the

poorer (see ANTIDOSIS), ensuring that the litur-

gical burden was, by and large, taken on by the

wealthiest Athenians (Davies 1981: 10). There

was also the possibility of a special grant of

immunity (see ATELEIA); these apparently

became common enough that a law was passed

in 356 revoking all such grants, on the grounds

that festival liturgies were being imposed on

the poor due to the immunity of the wealthy

(Christ 1990: 155).

These measures were not always resorted to,

though. A liturgy could be a severe financial

burden, so much so that many Athenians had

to borrow heavily to meet their civic obliga-

tions, and the wealthy are constantly depicted

as complaining about the burden placed on

them by the Athenian government (Christ

1990: 153). At the same time, the successful

performance of a liturgy was often seen as an

expression of wealth, status, and civic pride,

and wealthy Athenians might compete to pro-

vide, for example the most splendid chorus as

choregos. Some liturgists would volunteer even

while technically exempt: one wealthy Athe-

nian, among his many public services, served

as trierarch for seven years in a row, at a cost of

six talents (Lys. 21.2). Claiming a history of

loyal public service was tremendously impor-

tant, especially in jury trials; time and again

Athenians are seen boasting about the liturgies

they had fulfilled in legal speeches, as proof

that they had used their wealth for the benefit

of Athens, and so deserved the consideration

and protection of the court (Gabrielsen 1994:

10–11), a claim that was made whether or not

the liturgy had been taken on voluntarily or by

compulsion (Gabrielsen 1978: 37). The

speaker in Lysias 21, having begun his defense

on a charge of bribery by listing his enormous

public expenditures, states his case to the jury

bluntly: “I do not mind losing my possessions

[if convicted], but I could not stand [. . .] thatwhile I get no gratitude for my expenditures on

your behalf, [those who avoid liturgies]

thought rightly in not giving to you any of

their own property. But if you are persuaded

by me, you will both vote justly and choose

what benefits you” (Lysias 21.12).

Opposition to the liturgical system in Ath-

ens increased during the later fourth century,

as harsher economic (and changing political)

circumstances lessened the advantages of con-

spicuous spending by the wealthy. Demetrios

of Phaleron, ruling Athens from 317 to 307,

abolished the choregia, replacing it with a state-

funded administrator, the agonothetes; he

probably abolished the trierarchies at the

same time (Habicht 1997: 56–7). In the Helle-

nistic era, the fundamentally democratic insti-

tution of the classical liturgy had little place.

LITURGYAT ROME

In a Roman municipium, public services were

divided into honores and munera. Munera

(duties or obligations) were not formal public

offices, but rather duties to the community in

which one lived or to Rome herself (e.g., pay-

ing taxes, hosting travelers on official business,

keeping the local roads in repair), although the

distinction is somewhat blurred; one defini-

tion is simply that honores conferred dignitas

(social status) and munera did not (Millar

1983: 78). These duties could be personal

(i.e., military service) or financial; the latter

munera roughly correspond with the Greek

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liturgy, and indeed, in the Greek east, duties to

the new Roman administration remained

known as leitourgia. Wealthy men, as well as

men who held certain official positions (see

DECURIONS), were required to make financial

contributions – there was a sizable entry fee

for new magistrates and councilmen, for

instance, and decuriones were responsible for

collecting and paying taxes in a manner similar

to the proeisphora (Burton 2004: 315) – which

made up a noticeable portion of municipal

revenues. For this reason, even early in the

empire there was a certain reluctance to enter

the municipal governing class; in the fourth

century CE and on, as such public service

became more and more burdensome, immu-

nity from such liturgical burdens (immunitas)

was highly prized (Stevenson 1939: 176), and,

for that matter, widely distributed; beginning

somewhat earlier, immunitas was granted to

entire classes whose activities were considered

important to the municipium, and philo-

sophers, rhetors, grammarians, and doctors

are listed by Commodus as exempt from local

civic obligations which include gymnasar-

chies, priesthoods, and military service (Millar

1983: 78). Citizens of a municipium who also

held Roman citizenship were not, ipso facto,

granted immunitas, as long as they continued

to live in their former hometown, though

veterans of the Roman army often were (Millar

1983: 85).

In the later Roman Empire, the munera

civilia becamemore andmore the responsibility

of the “middle class,” as those too poor to fulfill

the responsibilities were logically barred, and

those having high enough status, or holding

official positions in the imperial service, pos-

sessed lifelong immunitas (Millar 1983: 79).

Many such positions could be obtained honor-

arily, allowing the recipient to have the privi-

leges of office (including immunity from

liturgies) without assuming any of the burdens

thereof. Eventually, this practice became so

widespread that the emperors were forced to

revoke the immunitas of ex-governors, etc.,

who had obtained that rank honorarily

(CT 12.1.6 of 343 CE); by that point, the

ability of the municipia to perform their gov-

ernmental functions had declined significantly,

due to a lack of sufficient wealth in the hands

of local citizens not possessing immunitas

(Millar 1983: 76).

SEE ALSO: Finance, Greek; Liturgy,

Greco-Roman Egypt.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Burton, G. P. (2004) “The Roman imperial state,

provincial governors and the public finances of

provincial cities.” Historia 53: 311–42.

Christ, M. (1990) “Liturgy avoidance and antidosis

in classical Athens.” Transactions of the

American Philological Association 120: 147–69.

Davies, J. K. (1967) “Demosthenes on liturgies:

a note.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 87: 33–40.

Davies, J. K. (1981) Wealth and the power of

wealth in classical Athens. New York.

Gabrielsen, V. (1987) “The antidosis procedure in

classical Athens.” Classica et mediaevalia

38: 7–38.

Gabrielsen, V. (1994) Financing the Athenian fleet.

Baltimore.

Habicht, C. (1997) Athens from Alexander to

Antony. Cambridge, MA.

Lewis, N. (1960) “Leitourgia and related terms.”

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 3: 175–84.

MacDowell, D. M. (1978) The law in classical

Athens. Ithaca.

Millar, F. (1983) “Empire and city, Augustus to

Julian: obligations, excuses and status.” Journal

of Roman Studies 73: 76–96.

Millett, P. (1998) “The rhetoric of reciprocity in

classical Athens.” In C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite,

and R. Seaford, eds., Reciprocity in ancient Greece:

227–54. New York.

Stevenson, G. H. (1939) Roman provincial

administration till the age of the Antonines.

New York.

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