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Account for the development of the Athenian empire to 440 BC.
The Delian League began as a mutual defence pact between Athens and the other
maritime states of Greece. However, by 440 it had been transformed into a powerful
empire, with Athens at its centre. Athens had achieved this by wresting control of the
League’s political, economic, military and judicial levers. In the process, the other states
were reduced to mere tributaries.
When the Delian League was formed in 478 it was intended to be an alliance of equals. All
the Ionian states joined, as did the cities of Thrace, Euboea, Thessaly and Propontis. Each
sent a deputy to the island of Delos, where meetings were held and where the treasury was
based. These deputies had equal voting rights, though Athens exercised greater influence
given its size and prestige.
Member states contributed to the League’s finances according to their capacity to pay,
with the larger states supplying ships, and the smaller ones contributing money. Plutarch
tells us that the contributions were determined with “scrupulous integrity and justice”, and
that the member states “felt they had been appropriately and satisfactorily treated.”
In its early years, the League devoted itself to its mandate – liberating the Ionian states,
driving the Persians from the Aegean and plundering their territories. However, as the
Persian threat receded during the 470s, member states became resentful of the annual
tribute they had to pay. This became an increasing problem for Athens following the Battle
of Eurymedon in 468, when the Persian navy was decisively beaten and Xerxes forced to
sign a humiliating treaty. The Delian League had now fulfilled its original purpose, so why did
it need to exist? At the very least, why did the tributes have to remain so steep?
That same year, the island of Naxos decided to leave. The Athenians argued that this was
illegal, as each member state had sworn an oath of loyalty which bound them in perpetuity.
(Aristotle tells us they had thrown lumps of iron into the sea to symbolise an alliance that
would last until the metal floated.) The fleet commander, Cimon, used the League’s forces
to besiege Naxos and force it to rejoin. Naxos was then obliged to pay tribute rather than
provide ships.
Thucydides points to this as a turning point in the transformation of the Delian League into
the Athenian empire. Increasingly, member states either preferred, or were required, to
contribute money, which Athens used to build ships that were manned by its own citizens.
Those ships, in practice, were under Athenian rather than League control, and could be used
to enforce Athenian authority.
That authority was used again by Cimon in 465, when Thasos seceded from the League.
Thasos was the richest island in the northern Aegean, and objected to Athenian demands
for a share of its mining operations in Thrace. The Athenian fleet laid siege to Thasos, and
defeated it in 463. As punishment, it was forced to hand over its ships and mining interests
to Athens, demolish its city walls, and pay tribute rather than provide ships. This was the
first time Athens had used the League’s fleet to settle a dispute between itself and another
member. It was a promise of things to come, and the first sign that the League was, in
practice, becoming an Athenian empire.
Up until 461 Athens had maintained friendly relations with Sparta. Cimon was happy to
cede military leadership to Sparta if it ceded naval leadership to Athens. However, this
changed following an earthquake and slave revolt in Sparta in 464. Cimon sent soldiers to
help the Spartans crush the revolt, but the Spartans ordered them home, fearing they might
spread ideas about democracy to the slave population. Cimon was publicly humiliated and
his chief political rival, Ephialtes, had him ostracised in 461.
Ephialtes and Pericles now put an end to Cimon’s policy of cooperation with Sparta, and
embarked on a program of conflict with the Peloponnesian League.
Over the next twenty years, Athens attempted to establish a land empire for itself by
weakening the Peloponnesian League. It forged an alliance with Sparta’s enemies Argos and
Megara, made war on Aegina and forced it to join the Delian League, and sent troops to
Egypt to support a revolt against Persian rule. In the process, it tightened its grip on the
Delian League, using political, economic, military and judicial means to exercise control over
its allies.
Politically, Athens took control of the League’s foreign policy, as evidenced by the fact that
the council ceased to meet after 460. Athens also installed democratic governments in
member states previously ruled by tyrants or oligarchs – a move that was popular with the
lower classes, and which kept them loyal to their hegemon. In addition, Athens made
members states swear an oath of loyalty to itself rather than to the League – something it
could then use to justify punishing them if they opposed its leadership.
Economically, Athens took control of the League’s finances, moving the treasury from
Delos to Athens itself. Increasingly, the money was used to fortify and beautify the city as
well as to maintain the fleet. Athens also enforced a uniform currency on its allies, with all
coins minted by itself. This made trade easier, but stripped the allies of much of their
independence.
Judicially, Athens insisted that the legal affairs of its allies be heard in its own courts,
where the outcomes could be manipulated in its favour.
Finally, Athens used League’s fleet to punish any states which attempted to secede. These
included Megara and Euboea in 447-46 and Samos in 440. It also stationed its own troops
inside the walls of states which it suspected of disloyalty, and established cleruchies on their
land.
Hence by 440, the Delian League had been transformed from an alliance of equals to an
empire under the control of Athens. According to Thucydides, Pericles conceded that the
empire he had helped to create now resembled a tyranny. “It may have been wrong of
Athens to take it,” Pericles reasoned, but “it was certainly dangerous to let it go.”