Speeches by orators are our main source of information about specific people's attempts to avoid paying taxes and undertaking 'liturgies'. It does seems that such persons frequently trumpeted forth the importance of achieving self-respect and notability. One example is Isocrates, famous for his 'Panathenaikos' speech, a hymn to Athenian patriotism. He was wont to pat himself on the back publicly for undertaking 'liturgies' and bringing them to a conclusion better even than the legal requirement. Naturally he omitted to mention that he had previously tried to convince the state that he was not one of those well-to-do that had to pay taxes, and failed. Another thing he didn't mention was that he had failed to get the responsibility for taking on 'liturgies' shifted on to other fellow-citizens by means of the antidosis procedure. |
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Demosthenes' father systematically kept his estate invisible, thus avoiding taking on 'liturgies'. The son seems to have followed his father's practice: he managed to increase the family estate by keeping the bulk of it invisible. This did not stop him prosecuting a fellow-citizen called Meidias on a charge of avoiding taking on the choregia and the trierarchy. Nor did Demosthenes scruple to stress that he himself was voluntarily putting his estate (or what of it was not concealed!) at Athena's disposal - a bit of a fib. Demosthenes' own deme had done its best to persuade its richest inhabitants to undertake 'liturgies', but nobody had come forward. So eventually it was forced to undertake them itself.
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