Extract

Greek The liturgy (leitourgia, ‘work for the people’) is an institution known particularly from Athens, but attested elsewhere (*Mytilene, Antiphon 5. 77; *Siphnos, Isoc. 19. 36), by which rich men were required to undertake work for the state at their own expense. It channelled the expenditure and competitiveness of rich individuals into public-spirited directions, and was perhaps felt to be less confiscatory than an equivalent level of taxation.In Athens liturgies were of two kinds: the *trierarchy, which involved responsibility for a ship in the navy for a year; and various liturgies in connection with festivals. The latter included the *chorēgia (‘chorus-leading’: the production of a chorus at the musical and dramatic festivals), the gymnasiarchy (responsibility for a team competing in an athletic festival), hestiasis (‘feasting’: the provision of a banquet), and architheōria (the leadership of a public delegation to a foreign festival). At state level there were at least 97 in a normal year, at least 118 in a year of the Great *Panathenaea, and there were in addition some *deme liturgies.