Sources of Funding

5th Century Athenian Money (clark.edu)

To examine how religion influenced financial decisions, it's important to look at where the money originally came from. How the Athenian "government" (nothing like what we call a government today, I imagine) obtained revenue would obviously affect how the money was spent.

In Empire of the Owl: Athenian Imperial Finance, Samons details many of these sources. A significant portion of Athen's income came directly from its silver mines. Some also came from conquest in war, some from donations by individuals to the gods. There were also numerous forced "tributes" (read: taxes) imposed on people, particularly on foreigners, earmarked for the Athenian gods and stored, naturally, in the temples. At some times there were also property and sales taxes.

We know also from the Attic Stelai (and I would guess from other sources) that property could be confiscated for crimes, particularly for religious crimes.

Many of these tax receipts must surely have obligated the collectors. If a government is collecting religious taxes, surely much of the revenue must go towards, or at least appear to go towards, religious expenditures. Certainly a lot of money was spent on religious functions (I'll save that for a future post), but again I think the flexibility of the religion comes into play. Politicians could argue that whatever they were spending the money on, for example a military campaign, was a proper and therefore pious expenditure. If the gods control everything but leave it up to the Athenians to make certain decisions, then shouldn't they be willing to let some of the tax revenue go towards those decisions?