We continue to fight corruption in the modern world and think our calls for transparency and accountability are a reflection of this modern world. But a recent trip to Sicily following the history of Carthaginians and Greeks showed me this isn’t just a modern day concern.
In a tiny one-room museum at Taormina in Eastern Sicily, which most people include in their tours to see the magnificent Greek theatre, I found on display evidence of financial accountability of both private and public monies.
Dated from the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, 2 stele with financial inscriptions are displayed and described.
The first related to the Gymnasium, sited near the theatre, and dedicated to education, both literary and athletic, and was of importance for dissemination of Greek culture to the citizens and soldiers. These two fragments carried the inscription of the Gymnasiarchs, and lists, for each year, the person (magistrate or priest), who had given his name for the year, and two gymnasiarchs (or annually elected magistrates) who administered the gymnasium.
It listed all the donations and accounts of monies used, and then even the quantities of oil used by athletes plus the number of competitions held, listed out in detail. No doubt these were records to prove efficient use of funding plus a wide range of activity when the elections came around again!
The second group with the inscription of the Strategoi lists year by year, again the magistrate or priest who had given his name for the year, and the names of the two Strategoi, annually elected magistrates, who governed the city. Then followed detailed lists of the city’s accounts – every donation, every tax, every purchase, every piece of city expenditure, every event held, attendance numbers, all carved out in stone tablets and displayed publicly.
The lettering was carved in very small type (small print!), and my Greek is non-existent, but I was thrilled to see such public records of accountability are not a new idea at all, but essential parts of a functioning democracy.
