Demosthenes’ On the Navy Boards (Symmories)

By the mid-4th century, Athens needed speed as much as strength. Demosthenes, better known for speeches than shipwright’s plans, delivered a different kind of oration: a mobilization schema. On the Navy Boards laid out 20 symmories to pool elite resources and obligations to outfit triremes quickly, with explicit per-ship cost shares at three fleet sizes—100, 200, 300 hulls [10].

The numbers turned anxiety into action. If 100 ships were needed, 60 talents per ship; if 200, 30; if 300, 20. The sliding scale recognized reality: more hulls demanded broader participation and lower per-capita burdens. In the Agora, such arithmetic meant lists and summons; in the Piraeus, it meant hammers on strakes and the creak of oar benches tested for sea [10].

Places framed urgency. The Piraeus still functioned, its sheds at Zea and Mounichia lined with hulls ready to be equipped. The Acropolis no longer held a 6,000-talent cushion, but it still oversaw a legal machinery that could apportion obligations. In the assembly on the Pnyx, the orator made logistics vivid so that crews on the Saronic could make doctrine real [6][10].

This was not empire reborn; it was capability secured. By quantifying shares, Demosthenes attacked delays that had plagued ad hoc arrangements. His tables turned debate into deadlines: the symmories knew their ships and their sums. The black of the tar pot met the black of the inked list; the bronze of the ram met the bronze on a decree’s seal.

The proposal also folded into the broader reorganization of trierarchies. While wealthy trierarchs still bore burdens, the symmories’ pool reduced individual shocks and expanded the class of contributors. Aristotle’s later description of liturgies situates this as normal practice, not emergency improvisation [12][13].

Demosthenes’ plan shows a city adjusting its instruments to a shrunken geopolitical canvas. Macedon loomed; opportunities were fleeting. If a squadron had to sail tomorrow, the Piraeus needed coin today. Symmories made the calendar match the threat [10][12][13].