Demosthenes on Liturgies: a Note

Abstract

In 355/4 Demosthenes asserted that there were ‘perhaps sixty or slightly more’ recurrent liturgies performed every year in Athens. Böckh doubted this figure, thinking it a serious underestimate, but neither he nor any later scholar has pressed this doubt to the point of tabulating the relevant evidence in detail. It may therefore be found useful if I do so here, for it will emerge with some clarity that Böckh's doubts were well-founded.Demosthenes' word ‘recurrent’ (ἐγκύκλιοι) achieved some currency in the last century as a quasi-technical term. By it he meant the civilian liturgies—choregia, gymnasiarchy, etc.—in contrast to the military liturgies the imposition of which was irregular and unpredictable; but since every known civilian liturgy in Athens formed part of the celebration of a festival, it may perhaps be clearer to think of them as festival liturgies and to arrange the evidence not according to the category of liturgy but by festival. I begin with the certain cases.