LEITURGIA

( λειτουργία , from λεῖτον , Ion. λήϊτον , i.e. δημόσιον , or, according to others, πρυτανεῖον ), a liturgy, is the name of certain personal services which, at Athens, every citizen who po e ed a certain amount of property had to perform towards the state. These personal services, which in all cases were connected with considerable expenses, were at first a natural consequence of the greater political privileges enjoyed by the wealthy, who, in return, had also to perform heavier duties towards the republic; but when the A then i an democracy was at its height the original character of these liturgies became changed, for, as every citizen now enjoyed the same rights and privileges as the wealthiest, they were simply a tax upon property connected with personal labour and exertion. All liturgies may be divided into two cla es: 1, ordinary or encyclic liturgies ( ἐγκύκλιοι λειτουργίαι ); and 2, extraordinary liturgies. The former were called encyclic, because they recurred every year at certain festive seasons, and comprised the Choregi a , Gymnasiarch i a , Lampad arch i a , Arch i the or i a , and Hest i as is . Every A then i an who po e ed three talents and above was subject to them, and they were undertaken in turns by the members of every tribe who po e ed the property qualification just mentioned, unle some one volunteered to undertake a liturgy for another person. But the law did not allow any one to be compelled to undertake more than one liturgy at a time, and he who had in one year performed a liturgy was free for the next, so that legally a person had to perform a liturgy only every other year. Those whose turn it was to undertake any of the ordinary liturgies were always appointed by their own tribe. The persons who were exempt from all kinds of liturgies were the nine archons, heire es, and orphans until after the commencement of the second year of their coming of age. Sometimes the exemption from liturgies ( ἀτελεία ) was granted to persons for especial merits towards the republic. The only kind of extraordinary liturgy to which the name is properly applied is the trierarch i a ( τριηραρχία ); in the earlier times, however, the service in the armies was in reality no more than an extraordinary liturgy. [See Eisphora and Trierarch i a .] In later times, during and after the Peloponnesian war, when the expenses of a liturgy were found too heavy for one person, we find that in many instances two persons combined to defray its expenses. Such was the case with the choragi a and the trierarchy.