Although often assumed to be obscure functionaries whose tasks were principally financial in nature, the sacred treasurers of archaic and early classical Athens (594/3479/8) played an important role in the religious life of the polis and possessed a significant level of authority and prestige. Within their respective religious cults, the most senior officers (especially the tamiai and hieropoioi) fulfilled tasks that were closely connected with the performance of sacrificial ritual, whether dispensing sacred dining equipment for use in ritual banquets, or marshalling religious processions and providing victims for public sacrifice. As defined by census class, the personal wealth of the officeholder also correlated with the post's relative freedom from burdensome administrative tasks, allocating the most prestigious offices to the wealthiest Athenians and leaving whatever lower ranks there might have been relatively invisible.

Elite Athenians probably competed to serve as sacred treasurers not only for the prestige of performing significant tasks at major sacrifices and festivals but also in order to enjoy certain religious privileges. Sacrificial perquisites, usually centered upon ritual meals, were typically restricted to the highest magistrates of the polis, major benefactors and athletes, and also to the priests and other sacristans who were usually drawn from exclusive lineages (genê). Such benefits were also highly guarded in other ritual contexts, often involving local religious cults as well as genê, rendering access to them a source of legal friction or political conflict.

Solon possibly established the Law on the Tamiai as a means by which to regulate how elite Athenians competed to serve as a sacred treasurer and how they performed their duties in office. The Law required the tamiai of Athena Polias to be selected from only the wealthiest census class (the pentakosiomedimnoi), perhaps by a two-fold procedure that combined tribal election with random sortition. Such a measure would likely legitimate the wealth of those able to compete, while restricting their ability to leverage the social prestige inherent in large-scale electoral patronage. Likewise, the census system may have indemnified treasurers against fines with which the political leadership might seek to assert control over otherwise powerful and wealthy individuals.