[32]
See what this amounts to. He exacts a
toll of one-thirtieth from exporters of corn from his country. Now from the
Bosporus there come to Athens about four hundred thousand bushels;
the figures can be checked by the books of the grain commissioners. So for each
three hundred thousand bushels he makes us a present of ten thousand bushels,
and for the remaining hundred thousand a present of roughly three thousand.1
1 To help his audience in this piece of mental arithmetic, Demosthenes divides his 400,000 into two parts, of 300,000 (of which the thirtieth is easily calculated) and of 100,000, the thirtieth of which is 3333 1/3 or roughly 3000. It should be remembered that the medimnus is more strictly about a bushel and a half.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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