Reserve fund

• "The Parthenon also had a function as treasury of the Delian League and a reserve fund. For example, every tributary town was supposed to send an ambassador to the Panathenaea and offer a cow and a panoply. This was again similar to the Persian example, because one of Persepolis' main functions was that of treasury. Both buildings, Apadana and Parthenon, were an empire's focus points of politics, religion, and finance, and it is possible that Athenian artists had learned from their older Ionian colleagues how the great king had invited his subjects to be his collaborators." Persian Influence on Greek architecture, Architecture: Parthenon frieze, All content copyright © 1995–2018 Livius.org. created in 2002; last modified on 25 November 2018.

"The list of treasures which, from the time of Perikles to the downfall of Athenian supremacy, was stored in the Parthenon and the other temples on the Akropolis, are among the most complete and curious documents which have been handed down to us on Greek marble. The treasures in the Parthenon itself, which was deposited there immediately after completion (B.C. 438), and which was called the treasure sacred to Athena, was composed of various precious objects dedicated by States or individuals, the tenth of the spoils of war, the money accruing from sacred lands, and lastly the balance of the income of the State not required for current expenses, and which was kept as a reserve fund only to be drawn upon for some special necessity. A board of ten treasures, appointed by lot yearly from the wealthiest class, took charge of this sacred deposit; and it was their duty on going out of office every year to take stock of the treasure, and to hand it to their successors as pe inventory. Every fifth year at the great Panathenaic festival, the registers of the four preceding years were inscribed on marble stelae, the series of which is nearly complete from B.C, 434 to the downfall of Athens, B.C. 404. The inventories specify a great variety of precious objects, adding the weight in every case where it could be ascertained. As we read through this list of statues, crowns, cups, lamps, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and other ornaments, all of gold or silver and many of them, doubtless, exquisitely fashioned, and..." "The silver mines of Laurium furnished one of the principal sources of Athenian revenue. These were leased by the State to individuals on certain conditions defined in documents...." The Contemporary Review, Volume 29, page 81 On Greek inscriptions, by A. Strahan, 1877 - Literature

• See also Athenian Finance and the Treasury of Athena, Loren J. Samons II, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 42, H. 2 (1993), pp. 129-138, Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4436281

• Thucydides and the Decrees of Kallias, Benjamin D. Meritt, Hesperia Supplements, Vol. 19, Studies in Attic Epigraphy, History and Topography. Presented to Eugene Vanderpool (1982), pp. 112-121, Published by: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, DOI: 10.2307/1353977, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1353977

The Contemporary Review, Volume 29, A. Strahan, 1877 - Literature

• The Archidamian War By Donald Kagan, Cornell University Press, 1990 - History - 392 pages. Writes in 1990 about "the great statue of Athena on the Acropolis" being melted down as a "reserve fund" to make coin to support the military efforts.
• This is repeated in 2013 book A New History of the Peloponnesian War By Donald Kagan, Cornell University Press, Jan 14, 2013 - History - 455 pages,