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JACT Teachers’ Notes
AH 1.2 Delian League to Athenian Empire
1.1 Books and Resources
The best collection of sources is the Athenian Empire LACTOR no. 1 in its fourth
edition, ed. R. Osborne. But it is much more than a collection of sources, as it
includes excellent commentaries and editorial interventions. Note: these notes
frequently refer to Osborne’s LACTOR 14.
The still unsurpassed study of Athenian power in the fifth century BC is R. Meiggs’
Athenian Empire. An excellent introduction to the subject, its sources and the
historical questions surrounding it is P. J. Rhodes (ed.), The Athenian Empire (Greece
and Rome, New Surveys in the Classics no. 17), with addenda (1993).
A recent and wide-ranging collection of articles is Polly Low’s Athenian Empire
(Edinburgh, 2008) in the Edinburgh Readings series – this excellent collection
republishes, updates and translates articles on the origins, development and
chronology of the empire, its methods of control, the costs and benefits of empire for
the Athenians and subjects, its popularity, and the forms of propaganda employed by
the Athenians. The author of these notes has drawn extensively on this collection and
on Low’s introductions.
R. Parker (et al, eds), Interpreting the Athenian Empire (Duckworth, 2008) will
contain useful articles on the chronology of development, historiography, politics,
relations with the east. It draws heavily on the extended possibilities of using
archaeology to write the history of the subject.
Internet resources for the Athenian Empire are limited. If one can locate Athens’ allies
on a map of the ancient world (such as the Barrington atlas), it is occasionally
possible to get an aerial view of sites of those cities through Google earth. It is
possible to do this for the ancient city of Erythrai (look for the modern Turkish town
of Ildir, and move inland slightly, and you will see what was the fourth-century
theatre and acropolis of Erythrai). There is an essay on the Delian League at livius.org
(http://www.livius.org/de-dh/delian_league/delian_league.html), but it is very short
and very basic.
1.2 Introduction to Sources
The central text for the history of the early years of the Delian League is Thucydides’
Pentekontaetia (Thuc. 1.89-117) which, in the course of his description of the growth
of Athenian power, describes the events which saw the Athenians go from being the
leader of a free confederacy to the leaders of a coercive empire. Thucydides did not
set out to write a history of the Athenian empire: his intention was to explain the
origins of the Peloponnesian war. This means that his account is far from
comprehensive, but it is often used as the backbone of accounts of the league. Indeed,
the history of the Delian League and the Athenian empire plays an important part in
Thucydides’ explanation of the war: it was the growth in Athenian power in the
period after the Persian wars that, in his opinion, led to the outbreak of conflict
between Athens and Sparta (1.23). The rest of Thucydides’ work is a history of the
Peloponnesian war, but it gives us Thucydides’ own view on the transformation of the
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nature of Athenian power. In 427, the Athenians were ready to rethink their decision
to brutally massacre the inhabitants of Mytilene (3.26-50: the perpetrators of the
revolt were ultimately the only ones executed), but their rhetoric and activity was
more severe in 416 when the inhabitants of Melos refused to join the league (5.84116). But there are many key events that Thucydides does not mention: he fails to
comment, for instance, on the transfer of the treasury of the empire from Delos to
Athens, a move which symptomised the growing Athenocentricity of the organisation
(see Plutarch Life of Pericles 12); this is thought to have taken place in 454 BC, at
which point the Athenians start to write up on stone the Tribute lists preserving the
amounts of money received by the treasury of Athena from the allies.
The prescribed passages of Thucydides for this option leads us to the question of how
far we take seriously the possibility that Thucydides’ speeches may reflect actual
words spoken in debates at Athens. Famously, in Gomme’s translation, Thucydides
said ‘I have given the speeches roughly as I thought the several individuals or groups
would have said what they had to say, keeping as close as possible to the general
sense of what was actually said. As Polly Low has noted (Athenian Empire, 5-6), this
statement is ambiguous as it contains both a claim to accuracy and an admission that
Thucydides’ own judgement has played a part in the shaping of the speeches. More
recent scholarship tends to be less trusting of the verbatim accuracy of the speeches,
and has viewed then as ‘sites of historical analysis rather than historical reportage’.
There are some other literary sources: Aristophanes, the comic playwright, gives us
some insight into attitudes to empire, making jokes about Athenian interventionism in
Birds 1035-55). Aristophanes’ Birds provides us with evidence for some specific
imperial institutions and implies their resentment by allies. Consideration of these
institutions, of the other evidence for them, and of Aristophanes’ treatment of them
should form one focus. But this is also an opportunity to discuss the project of Birds
more generally—the formation of a new city and one free of the institutions which
mark Athens. It is worth noting that Birds is as much an indictment of state
interference generally as it is an indictment of the running of empire: many of the
institutions which appear in Birds being visited upon the new city were also
institutions familiar in Athens itself—summoners, vexatious litigants, new legislation,
dithyrambic poets, retailers of oracles, and so on; perhaps only the ‘Inspector’ is a
character without parallel in Athens itself.
Tragedy may contain less direct allusions to Athenian power: Tom Harrison (The
Emptiness of Asia) has argued that Aeschylus’ Persians of 472 BC may be read as a
reflection on Athenian power.
[Aristotle]’s Athenaion Politeia (the Constitution of the Athenians) (translated by P.
Rhodes in a Penguin edition and also by J. Moore in Aristotle and Xenophon on
Democracy and Oligarchy) of the 320s BC tells us about its initial organisation
(section 23).Another highlight of the ancient sources is the Old Oligarch (LACTOR
edition revised by Robin Osborne), a political pamphlet of unknown date (usually
thought to be fifth century; but Hornblower has recently suggested an early fourthcentury context) which offers insight into how a nondemocratic Athenian may have
viewed Athenian imperialism. Plutarch’s biographies (written in the late first century
and early second century AD) give us insight into the initial organisation (especially
the life of Aristides) and the later development and expansion (especially the life of
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Pericles) of the organisation. While he often distorts the nature of Athenian
institutions, he certainly gives us some extra nuggets of information about areas of
expansion not touched on by other sources.
Inscriptions:
Fifth-century imperialism is also well-attested in the inscriptional record; the
significance of these documents for the history of the Athenian empire justifies some
discussion of the ways in which they can be read. In the mid 450s, the Athenians
started publishing decrees of their assembly on stone (it is unlikely that the
publication was comprehensive however), and many of these documents concerned
the administration of the empire. To say that the Athenians used inscriptions as a tool
of control in their administration of empire would be an oversimplification. From
454/3 BC onwards, the Athenians recorded the amount of tribute (1/60th of the total)
dedicated to the treasury of the goddess Athena on stone slabs set up on their
acropolis (see LACTOR 14 pp. 86-97). These documents were about piety and power,
but they also reflected a very Athenian infatuation with accountability. It was at this
time that the Athenians started to write up documents which imposed regulations
upon their allied states. At first such documents affected only individual cases (such
as those relating to Phaselis, Erythrai, and Chalcis), but by the 420s, the Athenians
were erecting inscriptions containing decrees which concerned the regulation of the
empire as a whole: the Standards (Coinage) decree was to be set up ‘in the agora of
each city, in front of the mint’ (LACTOR 14 no. 198). Athenian inscriptions offer a
great deal to the historian of the fifth-century Aegean Greek world: they tell us about
the ways in which the Athenians attempted to control their allies and they offer us
insight into the rhetoric that the Athenians employed in the negotiation of power.
Deciphering the messages of ancient Greek inscriptions is often a tricky business, and
requires several layers of reconstruction. For one thing, the stones are often worn or
broken, and it can be physically hard to make sense of the letters. Once the words
have been deciphered, we often find ourselves reading about institutions or practices
about which we know little or nothing, and we have to rely on parallels and
extrapolation to understand the documents. Furthermore, the meaning of inscriptions
is often made more enigmatic by the potential gap between the tone of the things said
(that is, the stated intention) and the deep-seated intentions of the writer or producer
of the inscription. A document may be written with the intention of softening the blow
of an absolutist political imposition, in which case the language of the document
would be more mild than the imposition of power. Stated intention may not be
different from, or over-simplify the real intention, though sometimes it may
overshadow it. But whatever is going on underneath, the actual words of the
inscription are interesting too because they offer us a view into the codes and
representations that the producer of the inscription chose in order to encapsulate, or
veil, his motives. Osborne’s Athenian Empire LACTOR 14 translates many of the
inscriptions. More detailed commentaries and Greek texts of the prescribed
inscriptions can be found in Meiggs and Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical
Inscriptions. This is referred to here as ML. It will be replaced at some point in the
next few years by a revised edition edited by R. Osborne and P. Rhodes, which will
include translations and commentaries.
Inscriptions prevent another problem to the historian. While some Athenian decrees of
the fifth century include mention of the archon in office, enabling us to secure the
archon year in which they were passed, many decrees either omit this formula or the
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stone upon which the archon was mentioned is worn, or broken. Historians have
attempted to date Athenian fifth-century documents both by historical context and by
letter form. Historical context is often ambiguous, however; and until the early 1960s,
it was commonly held that particular letters (namely the tailed rho and the threebarred sigma) never occur after 445 BC. This led to the dating of some key documents
(including three on the prescribed sources for this option; the Standards decree ML 45
=LACTOR 14 198 and the Cleinias Decree ML 46 = LACTOR 14 190 and the Chalcis
decree ML 52 = LACTOR 14 78) to the 440s, as they included the old letter forms.
However, largely owing to the almost certain redating of the Segesta decree (ML 37)
to 418/7 BC, the orthodoxy has now been dismissed. Accordingly, it may well be the
case that ML 45, 46 and 52 can be dated to the 420s. Forthcoming work by the
historian P. Rhodes will bring together the implications of the down-dating of many
of the inscriptions important for the study of this subject. Broadly speaking, it means
that there is less evidence for extreme Athenian intervention in the affairs of their
allies in the 440s, and more in the 420s.
To give an example of one decree on the prescription which gives insight into the
workings of the Athenian empire, we might take the Chalcis decree (compare also the
arrangements for Histiaia, LACTOR 14 76). It raises the following issues:
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why are the Athenians so concerned with court procedure? —courts as a
political weapon;
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the haphazard nature of Athenian legislation: note the particular detail about
tax payments by foreigners resident at Chalcis (lines 53-6);
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the value of amendments for showing what those in the Assembly were
worried about;
•
Athenian concern about religion (lines 64-9);
•
all-purpose executive role of Athenian generals;
•
Athenian concern to establish democratic procedures among allies (lines 70ff.)
•
the (in)significance of phraseology: the oath here which ignores Athens’ allies
is earlier in date than the oath in LACTOR 14 91 which includes the Athenian allies:
decrees were not produced by a civil service and their wording depends upon the
individual who proposes them.
The question of what the archaeological evidence from the states of the Athenian
empire (in particular those of Ionia) can tell us about Athenian intervention is
broached by R. Osborne, in ‘Archaeology and the Athenian Empire’, chapter 10 in P.
Low, The Athenian Empire (Edinburgh, 2008). He suggests that the absence of
archaeological evidence from the cities of the empire should not necessarily be read
as evidence of Athenian oppression. A very useful and concise survey of the material
is provided in Note H (pp. 125-8) of LACTOR 14
1.3 Background Information
The immediate background to this subject is covered in section 2 on the origins and
development of the Delian League. The title of this option suggests a transformation:
from Delian League to Athenian Empire: this reflects a fixation in the scholarship of
the history of Athenian power with the question of when exactly the alliance that was
the Delian League became an Athenian Empire. There are several problems with this
approach: the extent to which the Athenians were always the ‘leaders’ of the alliance
has been debated, and there is also a problem with the terminology. Both the terms are
modern inventions; and neither are neutral terms: ‘Delian League’ suggests a
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mutually beneficial alliance; ‘Athenian Empire’ suggests an organisation geared
towards the interests of the Athenians. It should be stressed that there were Athenian
imperialistic tendencies from the outset: the throwing of lumps of iron into the sea to
symbolize an irrevocable oath to hold the ‘same friends and enemies’, for instance
(Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians, 23). The progressively more extreme
measures that the Athenians took to retain the membership of their alliance are
documented in Thucydides (1.89-117); the evidence of inscriptions might also be read
as to suggest a growing level of intervention in the affairs of the allies (compare the
regulations for Erythrai of 453/2 BC – LACTOR 14 216A) with those for Chalcis
(probably 446/5 or 424/3 BC – LACTOR 14 78), the latter imposing a cleruchy (a
group of Athenian citizens who were allocated a portion of land in a conquered
territory while retaining their native citizenship) of Athenian settlers on that city.
The study of the Delian League/Athenian Empire can beneficially be placed within
the broader context of Greek inter-state relations. One essential point to understand is
that, in the classical period, the most significant form of political association was the
city-state (polis). City-states possessed their own identities, political and judicial
system, coinage and physical space. But city-states came together in a number of
senses. The Ionian city-states of the west coast of Asia Minor came together to form
the Ionian League, an organisation which drew on shared religious and ethnic identity.
But associations could combine political and cultural interests. The Delian League is
one example of this: on one level it was a political alliance of states under the sway
of Athens, but on another the Athenians liked to stress the Ionian ethnic identity of the
league; the Athenians appear to have promoted shared religious interests too (see
below section 4). Bilateral alliances (the Greek word for which was summachia) are
common in the Greek world; multilateral arrangements, such as the Hellenic League
(formed by the Greek states to fight the Persians) and the Peloponnesian League (an
organisation formed by the Spartans in the mid-sixth century as a way of controlling
her Peloponnesian neighbours) were common too.
What made the Athenian alliance distinctive was its reliance on sea power; this may
have been realised by Thucydides, who opened his history of the Peloponnesian war
with a history of sea power in the Greek world (Thuc. 1.4-16); the essential nature of
sea power to Athens was also realised by the Old Oligarch: ‘It is right that the poor
and the ordinary people in Athens should have more power than the noble and the rich,
because it is the ordinary people who man the fleet and bring the city her power; they
provide the helmsmen, the boatswains, the junior officers, the look-outs and the
shipwrights; it is these people who make the city powerful much more than the
hoplites and the noble and respectable citizens’ (1.2). He also felt that sea power gave
the Athenian empire a particular kind of resilience, for, he suggested, it is easier for a
sea power to wipe out an allied rebellion, and it is easier for a sea-power to expand its
empire (2.2-7).
An interpretation of Athenian power may also be helpfully placed within the wider
context of imperialism in the ancient Greek world. There is some debate about the
applicability of the idea of imperialism to the ancient situation: E. S. Gruen, The
Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (California, 1984) p. 7 has warned that
‘The concept of ‘imperialism’ arose in political circumstances and was appropriated
for scholarly debate. Its manipulation has not necessarily brought us closer to the truth.
The negative ring of the term can prejudice rather than facilitate understanding.’
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However, as Moses Finley has suggested ‘To suggest, for example, that we should
abandon empire as a category in Greek history and speak only of ‘hegemony’ does
not seem to me helpful or useful. It would have been small consolation to the Melians,
as the Athenian soldiers and sailors fell upon them, to be informed that they were
about to become the victims of a hegemonial, not an imperial measure’. In ‘The fifthcentury Athenian empire: a balance sheet’ (reprinted in Low, The Athenian Empire,
chapter 1). But the empire of Athens was distinctive: unlike the empire of Alexander,
or that of the Romans, the Athenian empire does not appear to have been based on a
programmatic or focussed idea of conquest; indeed, it is almost impossible to trace the
geographical expansion of the Athenian empire.
Nevertheless, the Athenian empire does display some aspects of ancient imperialist
behaviour. Moses Finley (in the article cited above) devised what he modestly called
a ‘crude typology’ of the ways in which ancient states exercised power over others for
their own benefit, and imperialism in its Athenian form fulfils all of these roles:
1. restriction of freedom of action in inter-state relations;
2. political, administrative and/or judicial interference in local affairs;
3. compulsory military and/or naval service;
4. the payment of ‘tribute’ in some form, whether in the narrow sense of a
regular lump sum or as a land tax in some other way;
5. confiscation of land, with or without subsequent emigration of settlers from
the imperial state
6. other forms of economic subordination or exploitation, ranging from control
of the seas and Navigation Acts to compulsory delivery of goods at prices
below the prevailing market price and the like.
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NOTES ON THE SPECIFICATION BULLET POINTS:
2 Origins and Development
Key questions about the origins of Athenian imperialism are posed by Osborne in
Note A to LACTOR 14: he opens the possibility that it has its origins in the era before
the establishment of the Delian League when the Athenians established interests
elsewhere in Greece and Ionia. Perhaps Herodotus described the Athenian decision to
participate in the Ionian revolt as the ‘beginning (arche – a word which can also mean
‘empire’) of troubles for both Greeks and barbarians’ (Hdt 5.97).
The Greek defeat of the Persians at Plataea in 479 was based in an alliance of Greek
states known as the Hellenic League with Sparta and Athens at its head. The history
of the Delian League begins in 478, when Athens emerged as sole leader of the new
alliance. There is debate about the process by which the Athenians emerged as the
leader: [Aristotle’s] account is ambiguous: ‘the Athenians took the leadership of the
sea, the Spartans being unwilling’ (Constitution of the Athenians 23). Herodotus (8.3)
suggests that the Athenians seized command; Thucydides 1.95 suggests that the
Spartans were happy to pass the control to the Athenians; Plutarch (Aristides 23)
supports Thucydides’ claim that the Spartans didn’t mind handing leadership to the
Athenians. It appears to be the case that Spartan interests were undermined by their
leaders: Pausanias, the Spartan regent had begun to annoy the Greeks with his
arrogance (Thuc. 1.95; cf. 1.130); Plutarch (Aristides 23) suggests that Athenian
leaders were models of tact compared to the Spartans. The other advantage that the
Athenians had was that they could claim ethnic identification with many of the
potential members of the organisation: the Ionian states of Asia Minor, newly
liberated from the Persians, identified the Athenians as their Ionian kin and vice versa.
It may have been the case that some in Sparta may have had ambitions to maintain a
strong Spartan interest in the war against the Persians. But the reasons against Spartan
outside interests were many: the Spartans had problems closer to home in the
Peloponnese, especially from the Argives, the Tegeans and the helots; moreover, they
would have needed to assemble a permanent navy, which would have been expensive
(more on this see Hornblower, The Greek World 479-323, third edition, 11-2).
The sources for the formation of the Delian League and its initial organisation are
collected by Osborne in LACTOR 14 pages 9-20. This collection highlights
disagreement between the Athenians and Spartans about the continuing the struggle
against Persia into Ionia and the Hellespont, the increasing tension between Sparta
and Athens (perhaps exacerbated by the interventions of Themistocles and the
behaviour of Pausanias). It also demonstrates an ambiguity of purpose: Thucydides is
clear on the original pretext (proschema) of the league: this was to ‘take revenge for
their (i.e. those of the Greeks) losses by devastating the Persian King’s territory)’
(1.96.1). What does this mean? According to one interpretation, it might refer to a
‘booty raid’, a specially-designed programme of banditry designed to raise finances
through looting the territory of the Great King; another interpretation suggest that the
Athenians might have been equally interested in destruction for the sake of taking
revenge. Moreover, the use of the term proschema suggests that Thucydides wants us
to think that the original purpose was something different. A Mytilenean speaker in
428, protesting about the Athenians’ behaviour, claims that the object of the alliance,
which was to liberate the Greeks from the Persians, had been transformed into the
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subjugation of the allies to the Athenians. Variations on the ‘purpose’ theme can be
found at LACTOR 14 pp 15-6: a later speaker, Hermocrates, to the Kamarinians of
Sicily in 416 BC, warns them against Athenian ambitiousness: ‘the Athenians did not
resist the Persians because they were concerned about the freedom of the Greeks, nor
did the Greeks resist because they were concerned about their own freedom; the
Athenians wanted the Greeks enslaved to themselves rather than to the Persians, and
the Greeks wanted a new master, who proved not less astute but astute for ill’ (Thuc.
6.76). The Athenian reply to this charge, given at the same assembly meeting,
acknowledged the existence of empire owing to the fact that the Athenians had
‘provided the Greeks with the largest fleet and unhesitating enthusiasm’ (Thuc. 6.82).
How was the Delian League organised? Aristides (Plutarch, Aristides 5) made the
Greeks swear to maintain an oath against the Persians, and this seems to have been the
founding solemnity with which the alliance began. [Aristotle] (Athenian Constitution
23) says that Aristides made the Ionians swear to have ‘the same friends and enemies’
as Athens, but this is a common phrase which appears in alliance in the fifth century.
Thucydides suggests strongly that the allies were independent and that there were
Common League meetings (Thuc. 1.97), about which we know little. Hornblower’s
analysis of the set-up is worth quoting (The Greek World, third edition, p. 14): ‘There
was a single league assembly in which Athens had only one vote – though small states
could be relied on to follow the leader. A single assembly is clearly implied by the
phrase in an allied speech in 428: ‘the Athenians led us on an equal footing at first’
(Thuc. 3.10.4). The same speech calls the allies ‘equal in votes’, isopsephoi, and
though this word can mean ‘equal decision making influence’, that cannot be true
here because the word polupsephia, ‘multiplicity of votes’, occurs a few lines earlier,
so the suffix ought to mean the same thing in both words. The allies, then, were ‘equal
in votes’ to each other and to Athens’.
In 477 the Athenians established the Hellenotamiai (treasurers of the Greeks), who
were officials who received the tribute, and the first assessment totalled 460 Talents.
The fact that these officers were drawn from the Athenians appears to have caused
resentment among the allies. There appear to have been two categories of membership:
one set of members contributed money; the other gave ships. This may well have
been designed to respond to the fact that some members may have been too small and
poor to contribute ships. There is dispute about the mechanics of the first assessment:
[Aristotle] (Constitution of the Athenians 23.5) suggests that Aristides assessed all the
states for the confederacy in one year; Plutarch (Aristides 24) might be read as
suggesting that Aristides did this on the basis of a close survey of the economic
capabilities of the states – which process may have taken longer than one year.
The sources for the growth, development and changing nature of the league down to
the late 460s can be found in LACTOR 14 pp 20-24. The emphasis in these early years
seems to be on undermining Persian interests in the Greek states of the east. But there
are signs of unhappiness from the outset: forcing the Naxians to join the league (Thuc.
1.98.4), revolts and coercion (1.99.1). Plutarch Cimon 11 (=LACTOR 14 no 33) is a
moralistic turn on the transformation of the league: he suggested that allied states,
reluctant to go to war, started to make their contributions through coined money rather
than manning ships on behalf of the league: ‘as a result, the allies became accustomed
to fearing and flattering the men who were maintained and trained, and were always
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sailing and handling arms; they failed to realise that they were turning themselves into
subjects and slaves’.
It is important to remember that Thucydides may have created an account of the early
years of the Delian League without the intention of being comprehensive: the
examples of Eion, Scyros, Carystos and Naxos may be examples of the different
forms of warfare carried out by the Delian League (Thuc. 1.98). As Simon
Hornblower points out, Thucydides was often in his narrative (for expansion of this
point, see S. Hornblower, Thucydides (London, 1987), chapter 2. But it appears to be
the case from these expeditions that the Athenians appear to have been concentrating
on consolidating the league in the north Aegean area; Eion, Scyros, (and, later)
Thasos are all examples of this. An additional source for the work of the Athenians at
Eion is Plutarch (Life of Cimon 7): he emphasises the role of Cimon in sailing to
Thrace (his family may have had interests there; as had the family of Thucydides the
historian), driving back the Thracian tribes and besieging the Persian garrison. The
Athenian victory at Eion was commemorated in three stone statues of Hermes which
bore verses emphasising the role of the people in general in this venture. Plutarch
(Life of Cimon 8) also adds to our understanding of the motivations for the Athenian
expedition to Scyros: the Athenians may have been attempting a propaganda coup by
responding to an appeal of the Amphictyonic Congress (the organisation which
oversaw the administration of the shrine and oracle at Delphi). Certain Athenians,
Cimon among them were also keen to stress that the story allowed the return of the
bones of the legendary Athenian king Theseus to Athens. Thucydides, true to form,
underplays the religious element to this episode. It may have been this period that
Aristophanes (Wasps 1097-8) was referring to when he talked of the Athenians
‘taking many cities from the Persians’ (1097-8).
The battle of the river Eurymedon (467 BC) in Pamphylia appears to have been a
landmark victory: it was at this battle that the Athenians destroyed 200 triremes
belonging to the Phoenicians (who provided the Persian navy) (Thuc. 1.100);
Diodorus Siculus implies that the Persians saw Pamphylia as their stand against the
Greeks (Diodorus Siculus 11.60-2). Plutarch Cimon 13 suggests that the victory made
the Athenians rich and also buoyed Athenian morale; he connects this victory with the
Peace of Callias (more commonly dated to 449 BC: see LACTOR 14 50-6 and pp 1323), by which the Persian king swore to stay away the distance of a whole day’s ride
from the Greek seaboard of Asia Minor and not to let a single warship sail west of the
Cyanian or Chleidonian Islands.
The 460s appear to have seen the Athenians consolidate their interests in northern
Greece. But their interests were hampered by the revolt of Thasos, a wealthy island
which had important mining interests in the Thracian coast which it faced to its north
(Thuc. 1.100). The struggle appears to have been brutal, with one later writer
(Polyainios 2.35 and 8.67) reporting that the Thasians proposed the death penalty for
anyone suggesting peace with the Athenians and even using the hair of their women
to make ropes to help in the war-effort. The Thasians appealed to Sparta for aid, and
the Spartans may well have sent aid had it not been for an earthquake and revolt of the
helots (Thuc. 1.101). At the same time, the Athenians attempted to establish a colony
at Amphipolis in Thrace, but this was achieved only 28 years later (Thuc. 4.102): a
good example of Athenian over-reach in this period.
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Thucydides’ account for the years from 465-50 gives us a story of what is sometimes
called The First Peloponnesian War: this entailed the rise and fall of an Athenian land
empire, with the Athenians holding Megara and her port on the Corinthian Gulf Pagai
(Thuc. 1. 103.4) and even becoming masters of Boiotia and Phocis (Thuc 1.108.3,
113.1). But Athenian momentum was dealt a blow by the failure of the Egypian
expedition (1.112.1) and in 447 they evacuated Boiotia (1.113.3). The Athenians may
have made a peace with Persia (the Peace of Callias) in 449, but the evidence is
deeply contentious (LACTOR 14 pp 30-4).
LACTOR 14 pp. 36-8 has an excellent overview of the changes in the nature of
Athenian demands in the period down to c. 450. We are highly reliant on Thucydides
and extrapolation from later practices, as there is little inscriptional evidence from
before the late 450s.
What was the extent of the membership of the Delian League? It is clear that the
islands of the central Aegean and the Cyclades were core members from the start.
Large islands such as Samos, Chios and Lesbos, together with their possessions on the
west coast of Asia Minor were probably members; perhaps Rhodes was an original
member; Cyprus joined probably in the 450s. It is likely that most of coastal Ionia was
in the league from 478, but there have been some dissenting voices: Highby, for
instance, maintained that the Erythraians joined in the 460s and that the Erythrai
decree (ML 40 = LACTOR 14 216A) marked their first entry into the league. On top
of this, cities of the Chalkidike (long a sphere of Athenian interests ) were in the
league in 478 and Thrace as far as the Eion was an area of expanding influence over
the course of the 470s. A list of members of the Delian League (and Athenian empire)
can be found in M. Hansen and T. H. Nielsen (Ees.) An Inventory of Archaic and
Classical Poleis (Oxford, 2004), 1356-60. Cities are listed under the following
headings: Lakonia (1), Saronic Gulf (2), Euboia (11), The Aegean Sea (48),
Macedonia (2), Mygdonia (1), Bisaltia (2), Chalkidike (54), Thrace (12), Thracian
Chersonese (7), Propontic Thrace (8), Pontos: West Coast (7), Pontos: Scythia (2),
Pontic Asia Minor (2), Propontic Coast of Asia Minor (26), Troad (27), Lesbos (1),
Aiolia (8), Ionia (25), Karia (61), Lycia (4), Rhodes (7), Pamphylia (3), Cilicia (2),
plus a number of other unlocated settlements. It is clear from this list that the strength
of membership lay in the islands of the Aegean sea and in the west coast of Asia
Minor.
3 Growth of Athenian imperialism
3.1 General
From the end of the 450s, it is very clear that the Delian League has been replaced
with the machinery of an Athenian empire and the Athenians’ attempts to impose her
power upon willing and unwilling groups. The emerging methods of control and the
evolution of the tribute system will be dealt with below (section 4).
The question of when Athens became a ‘nasty imperialist’ has been behind many
modern scholarly treatments of the Athenian Empire. What chiefly divides those who
adopt the traditional early dating for such inscriptions as the Athenian (coinage)
decree (ML 45 = LACTOR 14 198), Cleinias’ decree (ML 46 = LACTOR 14 190) and
the Chalcis decree (ML 52 = LACTOR 14 78) from those, led by Mattingly, who want
to put all those documents into the 420s, is whether they can imagine Periclean
Athens being over-bearingly imperialist, or whether they think that such behaviour is
11
only thinkable in an Athens dominated by Cleon (for the imperialist rhetoric of Cleon,
see, for instance Thuc. 3.37-40). But the debate is pointless: the grounds for deciding
whether the Chalcis decree belongs to either the 440s or the 420s are ultimately both
of them unconvincing. Ultimately, the Erythrai decree, which shows Athens already
prepared to impose obligations on an ally, seems to belong to the end of the 450s
(LACTOR 14 216), and in any case the requirement that allies exclude Megarians
from their harbours (97-8) because of what was essentially a border dispute between
Athens and Megara is as high-handed as any of the other measures in question, and
there can be no doubt that it antedates the Peloponnesian War.
It is clear that as time went on, the Athenians became less focussed on using
the Confederacy’s resources to organise resistance to the Persians and became more
interested in maintaining their own power. Thucydides’ claims that the transition from
alliance to empire was accelerated by the allies’ willingness to make financial rather
than military contributions to the confederacy (Thuc. 1.99). What remains true is that
the experience of being an ally of Athens changed significantly over time. But there
was no single period at which everything changed. Against the traditional view that
the character of Athenian rule was transformed in the immediate wake of the Peace of
Callias (LACTOR 14 50-56) and allied revolts in reaction to that Peace lies the
evidence that the amount of tribute which Athens demanded was more or less
unchanged during the 40s and 30s and only increased in the 420s, and the probability
that the Coinage decree is to be dated to the 420s. Against the down-dating of all
change to the 420s lies the demands imposed on Erythrai, the Megarian decree, and in
all probability the demand for a panoply and a cow at the Panathenaia, for which the
Cleinias decree gives evidence, and the demand for a phallos for the Dionysia which
seems to have been imposed at least on Athenian settlements on the basis of the Brea
decree (LACTOR 14 232).
It makes sense to divide thinking of change into change of different kinds and
to stress their different chronologies:
•
change in tribute over time (with LACTOR 14 138-9);
•
change in tribute-collection methods (with LACTOR 14 136 and 190; note also
162-3 and 181);
•
introduction of obligations imposed on all allies (LACTOR 14 97-8, 198;
compare with LACTOR 14 138, 190, 193, 205, cf. 216A);
•
imposition of restrictions on allied trade (LACTOR 14 107, 108, 121-3; cf.
also 180).
3.2 Rebellions
Thucydides frequently mentions attempts of the allies to revolt from Athens. The
cynical view of empire, put into Cleon’s mouth, was that the allies were constantly
seeking opportunities to revolt (Thuc. 3.37). It was such an important theme that
retention of the empire played a central part in the strategy of the Peloponnesian war
advocated by the Athenian general Pericles (Thuc. 2.13, 2.65).
Thucydides’ narrative (1.1128) is useful and it devotes a lot of space to the rebellion
of Samos (see also LACTOR 14 pp 46-8 for very different impressions) but less to the
revolt of Euboia (on which see LACTOR 14 pp. 42-6) and Megara. Thucydides’
account of the 440s and 430s is highly selective. The loss of Boiotia, the revolt of
Euboia and the revolts of Samos and Byzantion are the only events he records outside
the context of the events that lead directly to war (Potidaia, Corcyra, Megara
12
LACTOR 14 nos. 97, 99-102). He neglects not only Athenian internal history
(Acropolis building programme, ostracism of Thucydides son of Melesias; contrast
Plutarch LACTOR 14 nos.65, 66), but the foundation of Amphipolis (recounted only
in book 4, LACTOR 14 nos. 92) and the reaction of other cities in Thrace (see
LACTOR 14 p.94), and, probably, expeditions to the Black Sea (LACTOR 14 nos.94-5)
and to Akarnania LACTOR 14 no. (96).
A key feature to stress is that Athens was neither universally popular nor universally
unpopular in most cities. Being part of the Athenian Empire was a political issue for
every member state, and political divisions within each state tended to polarise
between those who were in favour and those who were opposed to continued
membership [cf. Britain and the EU]. So LACTOR 14 119-20 suggest that different
groups in Kolophon saw their own political interests better supported either by
backing membership of the Empire or by siding with the Persians. The presence of
mercenary troops at Notion suggests that internal political violence could be expected,
as well as reactions from Athens. Note a) that this situation continues to prevail even
after Athens has been weakened by defeat in Sicily (see LACTOR 14 169), and b) that
foreign policy allegiances could play the same part in internal strife even outside the
Empire proper: note Thucydides’ analysis of stasis at Corcyra (LACTOR 14 211, and
Thuc. 3.70ff. more generally).
3.2.1 Samos
Samos, a large island off the west coast of Asia Minor (which had interests on the
coast of the mainland) was famous as a sea-power in its own right during the reign of
the tyrant Polykrates (Hdt. 3.39, 122; Thuc. 1.13); they were powerful enough to
deploy 60 triremes at the battle of Lade in 494 (at the end of the Ionian revolt: Hdt 6.8,
14). At the time of their revolt from the Athenians in 440-39 they also had a
considerable naval force (Thuc. 1.116-7) set against the Athenians. The Samians took
the side of the Persians in 480/79 BC (Hdt. 8.85), but joined the Greeks before 478
(Hdt. 9.90); they were probably among the earliest members of the Delian League
(Hdt. 9.106). Like Lesbos and Chios, the Samians were an autonomous ally of the
Athenians, contributing ships initially to the forces of the league ([Aristotle]
Constitution of the Athenians 24).
The revolt of Samos has a complicated background: it is more than simply resistance
to the empire: the origins of it lie in political rivalries on the island as well as a dispute
with Milesian neighbours on the mainland of Asia Minor. The Samians revolted from
Athens after Athenian interference in their war against Miletus and the installation of
democracy by the Athenians. Revolt meant going over to the Persian satrap of Sardis
Pissouthnes son of Hystaspes (Thuc. 1.115.4). The Samians were forcibly returned to
the alliance and were forced to surrender their fleet, pull down their walls, and were
made to pay the expenses of the war by instalments (Thuc. 1.117). Athens enforced
democracy and exiled the anti-democratic elements of the community (Thuc. 3.32,
4.75). Samos now appears to have been a tribute-paying member of the empure (Thuc.
7.57), and remained so for the rest of the Peloponnesian war despite two attempted
revolts by Samian oligarchs in 412 and 411 (Thuc. 8.21 and 63). Plutarch’s Life of
Pericles 28 quotes the third-century historian Douris of Samos on the aftermath of the
revolt, and provides extra (sensationalist detail): ‘Douris of Samos writes about this in
tragic terms, accusing the Athenians and Pericles of much cruelty not recorded by
Thucydides, Ephoros, or Aristotle. But it seems unlikely to be true that Pericles
13
brought the Samian trierarchs (i.e. trireme captains) and marines to the marketplace in
Miletos, tied them to boards for tend days and when they were already in a bad way
ordered the Milesians to execute them by bludgeoning their heads and then to throw
out the bodies without burial. Even when he has no personal links, Douris does not
usually control his narrative by reference to truth, and he is very likely here to
magnify the misfortunes of his homeland to slander the Athenians’.
LACTOR 14 cites the epigraphical evidence for the Samian expedition: one
inscription (LACTOR 14 90= ML 55) is a stele recording expenditure which tells is
that the expenses for the Samian campaign were just under 1280 Talents (when we
consider that the tribute in 431 was no more than 600 Talents (Thuc. 2.13) we can see
what a huge amount this really was); another document is an oath which the
Athenians composed for the Samians to swear, according to which they promised not
to revolt from Athens (LACTOR 14 91 = ML 56).
It is clear that the revolt of Samos was an absolute emergency for the Athenians:
Thucydides says that they ‘came extremely close to depriving the Athenians of
control over the sea when it fought its war against them (8.76); it appears to have been
the case that the Samians appealed to the Peloponnesians for aid (Thuc. 1.40). For a
possible monument commemorating the Athenian victory, see Hölscher, in Low,
Athenian Empire, p. 316: ‘In the Heraion of Samos the most important votive
monument of the fifth century was a group by Myron, showing Herkles’ introduction
into Olympus. The curved pedestal supported three over-life-size figures: Zeus
standing in the middle, Athena on one side, both turning to Herakles coming from the
other. The group has been interpreted as a monument celebrating Athens’ victory over
the Samian revolt in 440, commissioned probably not by Athens, for it was not usual
to dedicate monuments in the sanctuaries of other cities, but by the pro-Athenian party
of Samos which thereby proclaimed its political allegiance. In this monument the
Samian Hera did not appear at all but the goddess of Athens played a prominent role:
its message was unmistakable’.
3.2.2 Mytilene
Mytilene was a city on the large island of Lesbos, in the northern Aegean. Mytilene
took part in the Ionian Revolt in 499 (Hdt 6.5) and probably contributed the majority
of the seventy ships sent by the Lesbians. After the end of the revolt, the island was
ravaged by the Persians (Hdt. 6.31); the Mytileneans took the Persian side in 480/79
but joined the Greeks in 479 (Hdt. 9.106). The Lesbians, among others, encouraged
the Athenians to take over from Sparta as the leader in the war against the Persians,
and the Mytileneans were founder members of the league (Thuc. 3.10, Plutarch,
Aristides 23). They remained autonomous until their revolt in 428: instead of paying
money, she contributed armed forces. They provided forces for the Athenians in the
war against Samos in 440/39 (Thuc 1.116, 117) and also against the Spartans in the
Peloponnesian war; this means that they do not get a mention on the tribute lists. In
428 the cities of Lesbos, with the exception of Methymna, revolted against the
Athenians. The revolt was perhaps inspired by a previously-planned plot of the
Mytileneans to bring about a political unification of the whole island under their
leadership: the Athenians were opposed to this. The Athenians sent a fleet to Mytilene,
and blockaded the harbours (Thuc. 3.2-4) The Mytileneans then secured an alliance
with the Peloponnesian League (3.8-15).The Athenians however were able to build a
besieging wall and besieged the city; the Peloponnesians were unable to help, and the
14
Mytileneans were starved into surrender (3.28). Members of the oligarchic faction
were sent to Athens (3.35).
In analysing the situation at Mytilene note how complicated the situation there is, with
rivalries and hostilities between communities on Lesbos and in the neighbourhood,
and within Mytilene itself, as well as with Athens (LACTOR 14 124). Thucydides
tells us that it was not all the Mytileneans who prepared revolt but only the governing
oligarchy (3.27-8): when the rulers issued the people with hoplite equipment, the
people opposed the government and forced the surrender. This contradicts his earlier
statement that the Mytileneans were united in their revolt and that only a few proxenoi
of Athens (i. e. Mytileneans who represented Athenian interests) informed the
Athenians of the revolt (3.2.3). One factor behind the decision to revolt from Athens
seems to have been a dispute about succession to property (Aristotle, Politics 1304a410 = LACTOR 14 125). Issues of ethnic affiliation arise here (the ‘Boiotian kinsmen’
of the Lesbians; cf. Melos as a Spartan settlement (LACTOR 14 156)) as well as the
Athenian insistence on keeping communities divided (cf. the cities of Kea, LACTOR
14 p.96). For popular preference for corn over ‘freedom’ at Mytilene see LACTOR 14
128. Note that the story of the revolt at Mytilene properly includes subsequent actions
by exiles: LACTOR 14 143-4.
Thucydides records indecision in Athens about how to treat the Mytilenean revolt,
and he gives us an account of the debates that took place in Athens about how to treat
revolting allies (3.36-50). The arguments are put into the mouths of Cleon (who
advocated the severe andrapodismos (to kill the men and enslave the women and
children)) and Diodotus: note that even Diodotus, who advocates leniency towards the
Mytileneans, makes a case on the grounds primarily of Athenian self-interest. The
Athenians initially resolved to carry out the andrapodismos, but, encouraged by
Diodotus, changed their minds the next day (3.49). The peace included the following
terms: the 1000 oligarchs held responsible for the revolt were executed; the
Mytileneans were forced to pull down their walls, to surrender their fleet, to surrender
their possessions on the mainland of Asia Minor to the Athenians. The land of their
city was divided into 3000 kleroi (portions). 300 of these were designated sacred
property and the other 2700 were given to Athenian settlers (cleruchs). A subsequent
Athenian regulation of these plots, inscribed on stone (LACTOR 14 134), suggests
that the Athenians’ involvement was ongoing, and confirming that portions of land
belonged to Athenian settlers, but at the same time granting them the right to sell it
back if they so wished.
The Athenians stepped back from absolute harshness in the case of Mytilene; but they
did not make this a policy: in the summer of 421 BC they killed the men of military
age and enslaved the women and children of Scione, which had revolted from them
(Thuc. 5.32.1).
3.2.3 Melos
Melos was an island in the Cycladic archipelago. Despite fighting against the Persians
(they are recorded on the serpent column (ML 27)), they did not join the Delian
League and are recorded as contributing to the Spartan war fund at the early stages of
the Peloponnesian war (ML 67). The Athenian treatment of Melos (LACTOR 14 pp.
72-3) has been held up as an example of Athenian cruelty. Nikias led an unsuccessful
expedition against the island in 426 (Thuc. 3.91.1-5), ravaging the island, and soon
15
after the Athenians added the Melians to their assessment of tribute for 435/4: it is
less clear that the Melians actually paid. But in summer 416 the Athenians made
another attempt. The Melians resisted, but the town was betrayed (perhaps attesting to
an ongoing civil strife between pro- and anti-Athenian parties); the Athenians sent
ambassadors to negotiate with the Melians. Interestingly, the Melians did not bring
the ambassadors before the people but told them to make their points before their
magistrates and the ‘few’ (oligoi). It is possible that there was a reason behind this:
the Athenian amabassadors claimed that this was because the Melians thought that the
people would, in all likelihood, be persuaded by the Athenians’ arguments (5.85). In
defence of the Athenian slaughter of the Melians (5.118), G. E. M. de Ste Croix, a
scholar who (in an article first published in Historia 3 (1953/4) and reprinted in Low,
The Athenian Empire) defended the popularity of the Athenian empire, suggesting
that the benefits of membership outweighed the costs, argued that the Melians were
not neutral but were at a state of war with the Athenians: he cited the inscribed list of
contributions to the Spartan war fund, which records the Melians giving 20 mnai to
the Spartans (ML 67 = Fornara 132). De Ste Croix also noted that few acts of such
extreme brutality are known: those at Melos and Scione (Thuc 5.32) were rare. But
Thucydides is selective when it comes to recounting events like this, and it might be
possible that the Melian example is paradigmatic rather than exceptional.
The other interesting aspect of Thucydides’ account of Melos is the Melian dialogue,
the conversation which he alleges took place between the Melians and the Athenians
(5.85-113). This is the most extreme Athenian pronouncement of an aggressive
imperialistic ideology by the Athenians: at 5.105 the Athenians declare: ‘our opinions
of the gods and our knowledge of men lead us to conclude that it is a general and
necessary law of nature to rule wherever one can’. Of course, these are almost
certainly not the words spoken by the Athenian ambassadors, but Thucydides’ own
reflections on the nature of empire.
The memory of the Athenian slaughters of the people of Melos and Scione lasted for a
long time: Isocrates, a fourth-century orator, claimed that the affairs muddied the
Athenian reputation (see LACTOR 14 204).
3.2.4 Sicily
The Sicilian Expedition (an excellent account is that of Hornblower, The Greek World,
fourth edition, pp. 163-172 brings into a focus another aspect of Athenian imperialism:
Athenian interests outside Greece. The Athenians had constant interests right across
the Greek world, attempting to establish a colony in Thrace in the 460s (Thuc 1.100.2)
and succeeding 28 years later (Thuc. 4.102); they also intervened in Egypt and Cyprus
(Thuc 1.109-112). But they also had an growing interest in the Western Greek world
(there is now, however, less reason to believe that the Athenian alliance with Segesta
(ML 37) belongs to the 450s; it is now placed in the archon year 418/7 BC). Sicily
and South Italy offered the prospect of supplies of grain, timber and booty, as well as
the prospect of the unknown. Thuc. 3.86.3 claimed that the Athenians were willing to
intervene at Leontini as they wanted to prevent the Peloponnesians importing grain
from Sicily.
In 444 BC. Pericles had established an Athenian colony at Thurii. Athens had shown a
marked interest in Sicily during the Archidamian War. Alliances between Athens and
Rhegion and Leontini are dated to the 430s (ML 63 and 64). The Athenians, as
16
Thucydides suggests, had their eyes on the west, for they realised that Corcyra was
well-placed for communications between Greece and Sicily. She had had a sizeable
force there in 427–4 (Thuc. 3.86). In 422 BC, the Athenians had sent ambassadors
under Phaeax, to Syracuse. Thucydides explains this (Thuc. 5.4): ‘Phaeax set sail with
two colleagues as ambassador from Athens to Italy and Sicily. The Leontines, upon
the departure of the Athenians after the pacification, had placed a number of new
citizens upon the roll, and the commons had a design for redividing the land; but the
upper classes, aware of their intention, called in the Syracusans, abandoned and laid
waste their city, and went and lived at Syracuse, where they were made citizens.
Afterwards, some of them were dissatisfied, and leaving Syracuse occupied Phocaiai,
a quarter of the town of Leontini, and Bricinniai, a strong place in the Leontine
country, and being there joined by most of the exiled commons carried on war from
the fortifications. The Athenians hearing this, sent Phaeax to see if they could not by
some means so convince their allies there and the rest of the Sicilians of the ambitious
designs of Syracuse, so as to induce them to form a general coalition against her, and
thus save the commons of Leontini. Arrived in Sicily, Phaeax succeeded at Camarina
and Agrigentum, but meeting with a repulse at Gela did not go on to the rest, as he
saw that he could not succeed with them, but returned through the country of the
Sicels to Catana, and after visiting Bricinniai as he passed, and encouraging its
inhabitants, sailed back to Athens’ (Thuc. 5.4). Phaeax, on his return journey, made
allies with some cities in Italy: in Sicily and South Italy, therefore, it appears to have
been the case that the Athenians viewed political upheaval a virtual invitation to
intervene. The dividedness of Sicily between Syracusan and anti-Syracusan
communities seems to have been something the Athenians attempted to exploit when
they returned to Sicily some years later. In the winter of 416/5 an opportunity arose
for a return visit, aimed at conquering the island, and the Athenians believed that this
expedition would provide an excellent source of finances.
For the background to the expedition, see the description of the dispute between
Segesta and Selinus (Thuc. 6.6), the Segestans’ trickery of the Athenian envoys (Thuc.
6.8), and the account of the war-fever that spread through Athens (Thuc. 6.24-32).
Thucydides’ account of the Sicilian expedition is long and spreads over books 6 and 7.
Vitally important moments were the Athenians’ first victory over Syracuse (6.70-7);
but this was followed by a number of setbacks, including the Spartan establishment
of a fortification close to Athens (at Decelea: Thuc. 7.27-9) and the arrival of the
talented Peloponnesian commander Gylippus to help the Syracusans (Thuc. 7.21)
But the expedition was one that essentially over-stretched the Athenians and its
destruction was a major blow to their efforts in the Peloponnesian war. So drained
were the resources of Athenians during that expedition, that unable to force their allies
to pay tribute, they replaced tribute with a 5% tax on seaborne trade instead of tribute
(Thuc. 7.28).
Ultimately, the revolt was one of the factors that led to Athens defeat in the
Peloponnesian war: the multiple revolts of 412 BC, described by Thucydides at 8.5
and following were disastrous for Athenian policy. For the revolts of Euboia, Lesbos,
Chios and Erythrai, see LACTOR 14 164-74.
Why did revolts take place? For more on allied views of empire, see below, section
6.2. There may have been some truth in the words of Phrynichos, an Athenian
oligarch: ‘what the allies wanted was not to be subjects having an oligarchy or
17
democracy, but to be free with whatever constitution they happened to have’ (Thuc.
8.48).
4 Results of Empire
4.1 For Athens:
The idea of ‘balance sheet’ is a very useful one for measuring the results of empire for
Athens. This term was used in discussions of the profitability of empire for Britain
and has been introduced to modern scholarship through the work of Meiggs and
Finley.
4.1.1 Democracy
The Old Oligarch made a firm case for connecting democracy with imperialism: at 1.2
he linked democracy with the rule of the sea: the masses row and by virtue of this
they were entitled to insist on political power (1.2). Central to Athenian democracy
was the payment of certain political officers and the citizens who served on the juries.
Payment was introduced to Athens in the 450s, around the time of the transfer of the
treasury from Delos to Athens: does this mean that empire financed democracy? The
collection of tribute is often seen as the phenomenon that had the clearest financial
benefits for Athens.
4.1.2 Finances and Tribute
In Aristophanes’ Wasps, performed in 422 BC at the Lenaia, Philocleon claimed that
imperial income allowed the jurors to be paid for their service (605-6; cf. 655ff).
Moses Finley, in ‘The Fifth-Century Athenian Empire: A Balance Sheet’ also
suggested that the material benefit of the Athenian empire helped the Athenians
maintain their democratic system. But the existence of democracy in the fourth
century suggests the fallacy of this argument; as Lisa Kallet-Marx suggested, the
connection between imperial revenue and democracy was a rhetorical theme rather
than a historical reality (the essays cited here are collected in P. Low (ed.), The
Athenian Empire). Both Giovannini (article reprinted at chapter 8 in P. Low (ed.) The
Athenian Empire) and Kallet-Marx dispute the connection between the imperial
income and the Athenian building programme (during which period the Parthenon,
Propylaia, Erechtheion and other constructions adorned the Akropolis). This is the
assumption behind the debate at Plutarch, Pericles 12, where Pericles is attached by
his rivals for squandering the contributions of the allies on the beautification of
Athens. Indeed, there is no evidence to suggest that tribute money was ever used to
fund democratic institutions or the financing of the building programme, but it is
likely that the Athenian council would have had say about how the tribute was used
from year to year (LACTOR 14 191). There is some evidence to suggest that money
for the building of the Parthenon, Propylaia and the Athenian water supply was drawn
from Athena’s 1/60th of the tribute, but it this was a small proportion of both the
tribute and the funds for these public works. It certainly is the case however that the
empire would have meant that the Athenians would have had access to the best or
most famous products: cypress-wood, for the Parthenon from Karpathos, for instance
(LACTOR 14 22). Otherwise, on the importance of wood supplies to the Athenian
navy, see R. Meiggs, ‘Forests and Fleets’, Omnibus no. 4.
Better evidence for the use of tribute comes from Thucydides (2.13), who enumerates
Athenian financial reserves at the outset of the Peloponnesian war, and suggests that
the Athenians would use the tribute for fighting the war against the Spartans.
18
For the amount, burden, and development of tribute over the course of the fifthcentury BC, see LACTOR 14, 86-94, 101-4. Highly important also is the reassessment
of tribute of 425/4. The amount of tribute demanded by Athens annually was reassessed every four years; the 425/4 assessment appears to have been enacted through
the decree of Thoudippos (LACTOR 14 138) (perhaps the same Thoudippos who
married Cleon’s daughter) records this reassessment, and the total demanded is
something between 1400 to 1500 Talents (compare this to the 600 Talents of Thuc.
2.13 in 431 BC). This document has been used, alongside Plutarch Aristides 24, to
support the idea that it was the demagogic successors of Pericles who were
responsible for the raising of the tribute. Plutarch claims that ‘they did this not so
much because of the length and the fortunes of war, but because they enticed the
people into distributions of money, payment for public shows, and the construction of
cult statues and temples’. The reverse is likely to be true. Why doesn’t Thucydides
mention this reassessment? surely it would have fitted his condemnation of Pericles’
successors? Perhaps, however, it was the case that he felt that such a reassessment
exposed the fact that Pericles’ calculations and strategy for fighting the war (cf. 2.13)
understated the seriousness of the situation.
But the imperial income also provided a ceremonial reminder of Athens power;
tribute was brought in at the festival of Dionysia when the theatre was full, as a
display of the value of the property that was brought in by their subjects: see
LACTOR 14 192-4.
The Athenian Tribute lists, erected on the Akropolis, would also have been a
monumental reminder of the religious significance of the confederacy: they recorded
the 1/60th share of the tribute passed to the treasury of Athena. Key issues are:
•
fact that the lists are of the portion of tribute dedicated to Athena;
•
the very uneven distribution of the burden of tribute, with a few states paying
very large amounts but most states paying small amounts;
•
the lack of correlation between geographical area or population level and
amount paid, and the probable link between payment and resources: Thasos and
Aegina paid 30 Talents each in 440s and 430s; Imbros paid only 3300 drachmai (0.55
of a Talent)) means that it is possible to tell something about the wealth of a particular
contributor according to the amount of its contribution: Thasos pays a lot because of
its mines; Aigina pays a lot because it was an important entrepôt.
•
the methods cities had of raising money (general direct taxes (= poll taxes)
rare, indirect taxes normal, especially on imports and exports); possibility that move
from ships to money had changed where the burden fell;
•
importance of possession of sequence of lists to enable conclusions to be
drawn about any one list, and of use of statistical methods to assess the likelihood that
the absence of a city from more than one list is accidental;
•
political interpretation of late payment/non-payment reinforced by relatively
low tribute burden;
•
measures taken in the Cleinias decree (LACTOR 14 190) suggesting some
cities tried to pretend tribute was lost rather than openly declaring themselves to be in
revolt;
•
lists show surprising presences as well as surprising absences (esp. the
‘unassessed cities’).
19
A sample from the first list of 454/3, set up after summer 453 BC looks like this:
[These quotas, each separately (and) all in to]tal from the Hell[enot]amiai for
whom ....[was Secretary] were the first to be audited [by the] thirty (Logistai) [for the
Goddess (Athena) from the allied tribute] when Ariston was Archon for the Athenians,
a mna from [each Talent]
Column III
Pedasians 200 dr
Astyrenian[s 8dr 2 ob]
Byzantines [1500 dr]
[K]amirians [90 dr]
Thermaians
[in] Ikaro[s 50 dr.]
[D]aunioteichit[ians 16 dr.] 4 ob.
Samothra[cians] 600 dr
Astypal[aians] 200 dr.
Mendai[ans 80]0 dr
Selymbr[ians] 900 dr.
Aigant[ians 3]3 dr 2 ob.
Neopo [---]
Mile [---]
Akr [---] 300 dr
Co[lophon]ians 300dr.
This kind of document can be very useful in historical reconstruction. For instance, in
the first year’s list of 453 BC the ‘Milesians in Leros’ pay 3T and the ‘Milesians in
Teichioussa’ are listed next to them paying an unknown amount, They are not
thereafter recorded separately; Miletus did not appear on that list. Therefore it might
be possible to infer, with Meiggs, that Miletus had not paid her tribute on her own
behalf but instead that it had been paid by Milesian loyalists who had fled at Leros
and Teichioussa. The small off-shore island of Leros was well suited to a base in
action. But in 451 there is an entry for Miletus and we can infer that she has been
brought under control by Athens.
How was tribute collected?
An important document for this question is the Cleinias decree (ML 46 = LACTOR 14
190, with image on p. 103). This document, once dated to the 440s, can probably now
be down-dated to the 420s. It was proposed by Cleinias the father of Alcibiades
(members of an important aristocratic family). The decree was a response to the
unreliability of the Athenian allies in producing their tribute. The following
comments are taken from ML’s commentary: ‘this decree is an attempt to improve
discipline, and the measures approved by the assembly are to be the responsibility of
the boule, with the co-operation of Athenian officials overseas – inspectors (episkopoi)
and resident officials (archontes):
1. Identification-seals are to be agreed with each city so that the couriers shall
have no opportunity to defraud. The amount of tribute is to be recorded on a
sealed tablet before dispatch, so that the money actually handed over by the
carrier may be checked against the record. We infer that previously some
20
cities, credited with only partial payments, had protested that the balance must
have been lost in transit.
2. An assembly is to be convened after the Dionysia (when the tribute was due)
to hear a report from the Hellenotamiai on the response by the cities.
3. The assembly with then each year elect four men to travel in pairs and give
receipts to the cities that have paid, and demand their tribute from the
defaulters.
4. Offenders against this decree, Athenian or ally, may be prosecuted by any
Athenian or ally. (…)
5. A digression: if anyone commits an offence in regard to the bringing to Athens
of the cow and Panoply to the Great Panathenaia, there is to follow a similar
punishment.’
The decree carries on but the indistinct letters prevent certainty about the content. The
document can also be related to a decree proposed by Kleonymos (ML 68 =
LACTOR 14 136) which provided for the appointment of tribute collectors in the
cities and ordered the Hellenotamiai to write up on a board the names of the cities
which did not bring enough tribute. A nice touch on this document was the addition of
a relief representing pots and bulging bags of tribute (see LACTOR 14 p. 64). Decrees
such as this suggest the Athenian scrupulousness in overseeing the collection of
tribute and the growing complexity and bureaucracy of the tribute-collection.
4.1.3 Bureaucracy of empire:
The bureaucratic burden of empire had a huge effect upon both Athens and the allies.
Discussion best begins from LACTOR 14 222, the number of Athenians involved in
running the Empire (for all that, not all of the figures given there can be trusted). It
should proceed not simply by reviewing the various different imperial officials and
the evidence for their activities (Hellespontophylakes LACTOR 14 121,
Commissioners LACTOR 14 136, Assessors LACTOR 14 138, Inspectors LACTOR
14 190, 216A, 224-5, Garrison commanders LACTOR 14 216A), but also with
consideration of a) the high proportion of surviving Athenian decrees from this period
that are directly or indirectly the consequence of empire; b) the substantial
enlargement of the role of the Council in order to have it oversee imperial business
(so LACTOR 14 78, 138, 190, 191) and c) the transformation in the role of the
Athenian courts consequent upon their having to consider both offences against
imperial rules and alleged offences committed in allied states which called for a
capital penalty (LACTOR 14 78, 136, 138, 190, 198, 200-204, 212, 218, 220;
compare LACTOR 14 234). Routine military action (to collect money, LACTOR 14
117-8; garrison duty, 226-8) and the wide-ranging role of generals (LACTOR 14 78,
138, 198) should be included in this discussion. To the experiences which running the
empire gave to Athenians should be added the various opportunities which it gave to
them, particularly opportunities to acquire land abroad, either as settlers or in
individual transactions (perhaps as a result of lending money) (LACTOR 14 229-33,
239-43). It is also worth noting that one opportunity which empire did not give to
Athenians was the opportunity to acquire a wife: Pericles’ Citizenship Law
(LACTOR 14 48-9) may indeed have been specifically designed to exclude that
possibility. It may be helpful to use fourth-century retrospectives (LACTOR 14 245,
246) as a way of bringing out the features of Athenian rule over their allies that
remained salient in the memories of the next generation.
21
4.1.4 Cult
It is important that discussion of religion in the empire be put into the context of the
working of a polytheistic system in which cults are not exclusive. Actions such as the
Athenian establishment of a cult of Delian Apollo (LACTOR 14 207), an action which
need have no imperialist overtones, need to be contrasted with the Athenian take-over
of control of Delos itself (LACTOR 14 210), where Athens has taken a cult which
‘belonged’ to one set of communities and excluded those communities from the cult
administration completely (uprooting the people in the case of Delos itself, LACTOR
14 137B).
In the case of Athens’ own festivals, in which allies are invited to participate
(LACTOR 14 138, 190, 192-4, 205) what is to be noted is that their inclusion in such
festivals as the Panathenaia and Dionysia (Eleusis is slightly different since always
open to all Greeks, and even to non-Greeks and slaves) suggests that they are
incorporated into the Athenian state, but they acquire none of the political privileges
that go with Athenian citizenship (and are even excluded from marrying Athenians
(LACTOR 14 48-9)). The allies are, in fact, much like metics, non-Athenians resident
at Athens: metics were obliged to pay a poll-tax (the metoikion) and had a place in the
Panathenaic procession, but they had no political rights. The Athenians commanded
the allies to bring the tribute to the Dionysia, they ordered them to come to the Great
Panathenaia (which took place at Athens every four years), requesting that they bring
a cow and a full set of armour; allied states were also expected to bring the first fruits
of their grain to Athens.
The presence of land of Athena in allied states is probably not itself to be seen
as an act of imperialism, but rather is the pious accompaniment of imperialism: when
Athenians confiscate allied land they satisfy their religious obligations by granting
some of it to Athena (land which is then rented out and the income given to Athena in
Athens) (see LACTOR 14 77, 133 and note on p.110 of LACTOR 14).
It is clear at the same time that the Athenians made an attempt to draw the
cults of the island of Delos closer to themselves. In 426 BC (Thuc. 3.104), they
purified the island and re-established the festival there: ‘The same winter the
Athenians purified Delos, in compliance, it seems, with a certain oracle. It had been
purified before by Pisistratus the tyrant; not indeed the whole island, but as much of it
as could be seen from the temple. All of it was, however, now purified in the
following way. All of the sepulchres of those that had died in Delos were taken up,
and for the future it was commanded that no-one should be allowed either to die or to
give birth to a child in the island; they were to be carried over to Rhenea, which is so
near to Delos that Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, having added Rhenea to his other
island conquests during his period of naval ascendancy, dedicated it to Delian Apollo
by binding it to Delos with a chain. The Athenians after the purification, celebrated
for the first time the quinquennial festival of the Delian games. Once upon a time,
there was a great assemblage of the Ionians and the neighbouring islanders at Delos,
who used to come to the festival, as the Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and
athletic and poetical contests took place there, and the cities brought choirs of
dancers…. Homer thus attests that there was anciently a great assembly and festival at
Delos. In later times, although the islanders and the Athenians continued to send the
choirs of dancers with sacrifices, the contests and most of the ceremonies were
abolished, probably through adversity, until the Athenians celebrated the games upon
this occasion with the novelty of horse-races.’ This provides an extreme example of
Athenian interference in religious affairs outside Athens: in so doing they would have
demonstrated their power to get involved in the affairs of the gods beyond the
22
conventional reaches of their city state. Similarly, forcing the allies to participate in
Athenian festivals and to make offerings to Athenian cults was also a demonstration
of power. For more on this subject, see Parker, chapter 7 in P. Low (ed.), The
Athenian Empire.
4.1.5 Other Resources
The Athenian city-state of the fifth-century BC was heavily reliant on imported grain.
In the 430s they were making use of grain from the Black sea area: this may well be
why Pericles launched an expedition to the Sinope, sending 600 Athenians as
colonists to take over the property of the deposed tyrant Timesileus (Plutarch Life of
Pericles 20). The OO claimed that Athens was able to control trade in the Aegean
(2.11), as did Pericles (Thuc. 2.38). The empire of Athens helped the Athenians
secure their grain supply. In the fifth century, islands like Lesbos and Euboia were
particularly important for the Athenian grain supply, and it is no surprise that the
Athenians were quick to return rebellious communities on these islands to the fold as
soon as possible. Euboia and Lesbos were also secured by Athenian settlers (cleruchs).
In the fifth century the Athenians sent out a number of settlements to allied territories.
These may be divided between colonies and cleruchies. Athenian cleruchs appear to
have maintained Athenian citizenship, and, for the most part, were imposed upon
allies recently returned to the empire; colonies appear to have been founded on virgin
territory. The benefits of these settlements for the Athenians were manifold: the areas
settled, given the permanent Athenian presence, would be less likely to revolt;
moreover, Athenian citizens (perhaps the landless) were given land upon which to
work. For more details, see LACTOR 14 pp. 118-10. There is one example of state
exploitation of confiscated property: silver and gold mines were taken from Thasos
after she was returned to the league (Thuc. 1.101).
The concern that the Athenians had for the safeguarding of the grain supply is
revealed on the inscription containing a dossier of four decrees (dating to 430/29, 426
and 424/3) concerning her relations with Methone and Macedon (ML 65 = LACTOR
14 121) . Methone appears to have joined the Athenian alliance in the late 430s, when
the Athenians were once again expanding in the northern Aegean. This brought
Athens into conflict with Perdiccas, the king of Macedon, and the Methoneans appear
to have used her position to bargain for exceptional treatment. They had debts written
off; the Athenians made pledges about their tribute; the Athenians promised to
intervene in their relations with the Macedonians. The document suggests the strength
of Athenian power in this part of the northern Greek world at a time when trouble was
brewing. But the mention of Athenian Hellespontophylakes (Guardians of the
Hellespont) tells us that there were Athenian officials stationed at the Hellespont. The
Athenians in this decree lay down regulations for the amount of grain that the
Methoneans may import: this suggests that the Athenians attempted to regulate the
amount of grain being sent to Greek states through these straits, a sure sign that they
were using their imperial power to secure their food supply.
That Athenian empire benefitted from the exposure that it gave to the Athenians of
products is suggested by the OO (2.7-8), perhaps in a tongue-in-cheek passage: ‘It is
through ruling the sea that the Athenians discovered various cuisines, mixing with
different people in different place. Because they rule the sea, they have gathered into
one place whatever is sweet in Sicily and Italy and Cyprus and Egypt and Lydia and
the Black Sea and the Peloponnese and everywhere else. Also they hear every dialect
23
and can select one feature from one and another feature from another. The Greeks all
have individual dialects and lifestyles and clothing; but the Athenians mix up what
they get from all Greeks and foreigners’.
4.1.6 Benefits for individual Athenians
It is clear that the Athenian empire made certain individual Athenians wealthy:
epigraphical evidence (see LACTOR 14 239-43) tells us that some Athenians owned
agricultural land in Euboia: the obvious source of this was land confiscated from
revolting allies. A fourth-century decree (LACTOR 14 246), which laid out the
regulations for Athens’ fourth-century confederacy, pledged that Athenians would
surrender land held publicly or privately in other states: the implication of this is that
Athenians were attempting to banish the memory of fifth-century exploitation. The
implication of this decree was that the Athenians would not impose on their fourthcentury allies settlements of Athenians (cleruchies), as they did in the fifth century
(see LACTOR 14 229-33). Athenians may have benefitted from postings abroad:
[Aristotle]’s Constitution of the Athenians 24 mentions that there were 700 Athenian
officials abroad. However, the figure ‘700’ is less than secure for textual reasons.
4.2 Benefits for allied states
What were the benefits for their allies? In their accounts of the origins of the
confederacy, some of the sources set out Athenian leadership as a pleasant alternative
to that of the Spartans. Thucydides tells of Pausanias’ (the Spartan regent) arrogant
behaviour to the other Greek states (Thuc. 1.95, 130); the Athenians are presented by
Plutarch as a benevolent alternative to Spartan leadership (Plutarch Cimon 6, Aristides
23). But it is not clear how long Athenian benevolence lasted; nor is it clear that
Athenian intervention would have been politically neutral. In the fifth century BC,
the Athenians appear to have encouraged the development of democratic institutions
in states which were members of the Delian League. A now-lost inscription from
Athens, dating to 453/2 BC, recorded by an eighteenth-century traveller, established
arrangements for a council of 120 men selected by lot to be imposed on the city of
Erythrai (LACTOR 14 216a). The Athenians, therefore were not the only fifth-century
Athenian community to have a democratic constitution, and it appears to be the case
that they encouraged the establishment of democratic institutions outside Athens. The
Athenians liked to think of themselves as unique or at least as an example to others.
Pericles, in the eulogy of Athenian democracy that was the funeral speech at the end
of the first year of the Peloponnesian war, declared that ‘Our constitution is not
modelled on the laws of our neighbours; rather, we are an example to others’ and that
Athens was ‘an example to Greece’(Th.2.37.1; 2.41.1; see Liz Potter’s article ‘“The
education of Greece”: reading Pericles’ funeral speech’ in Omnibus 49). Pericles’
words evoke a time when the Athenians may have been able to impose democracy
even on stubborn communities. It may well have been the case that the demos in some
states would have preferred democracy backed by the Athenians to oligarchy in an
autonomous state: this is Moses Finley’s view; but the Athenian oligarch Phrynichus
thought differently: see Thuc. 8.48. Athenian political interventions were not always
benevolent: the Old Oligarch gives us a clue as to why the Athenians may have done
this: he claimed that the Athenians supported the ‘lowest element’ in each city as it
was well-disposed to them. He suggested that when they tried to support the
aristocrats in Boeotia and Miletus, those factions soon revolted from them and
massacred the common people (Old Oligarch 3.10-11). Moreover, the evidence for
interference from other cities suggests that Athenian intervention was often more
24
concerned with control than the introduction of democratic institutions. An inscription
from Athens dating probably to either 446/5 or 424/3 BC imposes regulations on the
Athenians (LACTOR 14 78 = ML 52), introduces an oath for the Chalkidians and
imposes judicial arrangements on them: in matters concerning exile, execution or loss
of civic rights, Chalcidians are to be tried at Athens in the court of the thesmothetai.
But some historians, such as the nineteenth-century liberal George Grote, claimed that
Athenian intentions were all good: he suggested that the Athenians, by introducing
their allies to their courts, were offering them a lesson in public administration and the
fostering of liberty.
It is quite possible that there were other benefits of the Athenian empire, some of
which may have gone some way in compensating the virtual loss of political
independence inflicted by the Athenian hegemony. The gradual, and, by 449, total,
elimination of the threat of the Persians would have been welcomed by many Greeks;
the fact that Athenian hegemony may have reduced the prevalence of piracy may have
been welcomed by many: trade lanes, particularly those leading to Athens, may have
been more secure. Some cities may have welcomed the opportunity to export their
goods to the Athenian market: one can imagine that the Thasians, famous for their
wine, may have exported a good deal of their products to the Athenians. This view
holds if we take the view of fifth-century Athens as a prosperous consumer-city.
Cities which were in a good position to represent Athenian interests would have
enjoyed benefits: the Methonians are the best case of this ((ML 65 = LACTOR 14 121),
while later the Athenians rewarded her supporters at Neapolis in Thrace (LACTOR 14
179). At some time in the second half of the fifth century the Athenians rewarded the
Karpathians who supplied them with cypress wood for the Parthenon. There were
benefits for certain individual citizens of the allied states too: the Athenians appointed
particular individuals proxenoi of their city: this meant that they were chosen (often
on the basis of being a member of a particular family with a tradition of links to
Athens) to represent Athenian interests in their home city. Proxenoi would have been
granted particular privileges: for details, see LACTOR 14 235-8.
5 Methods of control
5.1 Political
In Aristophanes’ Birds, a Decree-seller lands in Cloudcuckooland and starts to read
out a decree from a scroll. The content of the parodic document (see Birds 1025ff.;
LACTOR 14 199) appears to resemble in some senses the Athenian decree about
Standards (ML 45 = LACTOR 14 198), and has even been used to provide a dating for
the inscribed version. But the passage has implications even if we don’t take the
opinion that the Standards decree is being invoked here. One method that the
Athenians used in their attempts to control their allies was by the decree: the assembly
was the body which passed decrees; we are uncertain about the exact methods used to
compose these decrees in the fifth century BC, but in the fourth, they were composed
by a collaboration of proposer and members of the Athenian Council. Decrees
affecting particular allies would be read out by Athenian heralds in the affected citystate(s) (the example of Mytilene is an exciting one: Thuc. 3.49); the documents were
sometimes written up on stone (these were sometimes set up on the Athenian
Acropolis; at other times they were set up, as the decree on Athenian Standards, in the
city-states themselves (ML 45= LACTOR 14 198). But the fact that the allies
wouldn’t always obey meant that further political, judicial, and military methods had
25
to be introduced. The Athenians knew this well: in the late 450s or early 440s Pericles
may have issued a ‘Congress Decree’ inviting all the allies to come to Athens to
discuss reasons for the continued existence of the Delian League; none of the allies
responded. Plutarch provides the only evidence for it (and so the possibility that it is
a later invention – perhaps of the fourth century must not be ruled out): ‘When the
Spartans began to be vexed by the growing power of Athens, Pericles, by way of
encouraging the people to cherish even higher ambitions and making them believe
themselves capable of great achievements, introduced a proposal that all Greeks,
whether living in Europe or Asia, in small cities or large cities alike, should be invited
to send delegates to a congress at Athens. The subjects to be discussed were the Greek
sanctuaries which had been burned down by the Persians; the sacrifices owed to the
gods on behalf of Hellas to fulfil the vows made when they were fighting the Persians;
and the security of the seas, so that all ships could sail them without fear and keep the
peace. Twenty men were chosen from the citizens above fifty years of age to convey
this invitation… however, nothing was achieved, and the delegates never assembled
because of the overt opposition of the Spartans.’ (Plutarch, Pericles 17).
The proposers of some decrees attempted to make them more authoritative by laying
down fines or threats against those who broke the regulations introduced: the Cleinias
decree (ML 46 = LACTOR 14 190) mentions a fine of 1000 drachmas; the Standards
decree (ML 45 = LACTOR 14 198) mentions the death penalty; the Chalcis decree
mentions disenfranchisement and confiscation.
The most extreme form of political intervention was the imposition of a constitution:
this appears to have been the way that the Athenians treated the Erythraians
(LACTOR 14 216A); conversely, it may well have been the case that democrats in the
cities actually wanted the Athenians to intervene as they thought that the Athenians
would champion their interests (Thuc. 3.82; OO 1.14-5). The Athenians also appear to
have experimented, unsuccessfully, with siding with oligarchs: as the OO writes: ‘On
all the occasions when they tried to side with the best people, things turned out badly;
in only a short time the people in Boiotia were enslaved. And when they sided with
the best of the Milesians, in a short time they revolted and massacred the people.’
(3.10).
The Athenians often appear to have introduced oaths for their allies in which they
promised not to revolt, to counsel for the best and for the justice of the Athenian
people and the people of their city: see LACTOR 14 91, 216 A, 216 B, 218, 219. At
Chalcis the Athenian council and the Chalcidians exchanged oaths. The Athenians
swore not to exile Chalcidians unfairly, nor to deprive them of rights, nor to execute,
confiscate from them or treat them unfairly; the Chalcidians swore not to revolt from
Athens, to pay tribute, and to obey them (ML 52= LACTOR 14 78). The importance
of oaths to Athenian means of control is demonstrated by their decision to have this
inscription written up at both Athens and Chalcis (albeit on the expense of the
Chalcidians!) and the urgency with which the Athenians expressed the desire to
choose 5 men to go to Chalcis to exact the oaths.; moreover, if any Chalcidian of
military age or above refused to swear, he was to be ‘deprived of his civic rights and
his property is to be confiscated and a tithe of it dedicated to Olympian Zeus’.
At other points the Athenians introduced their own officials to allied city states.
‘Archontes’ or magistrates are mentioned in Miletos, Samos, Mytilene, Neapolis and
26
Skiathos (See LACTOR 14 R 1 p. 117); ‘inspectors (episkopoi) are mentioned in
Aristophanes Birds 1021 ff., Erythrai (LACTOR 14 216) and the Cleinias decree on
tribute (ML 46 = LACTOR 14 190); a definition of them in a later lexicon is given as
‘men who were frequently sent out to the subject cities who inspected their affairs’
(LACTOR 14 225).
In addition to these, we might consider Athenian cleruchies as a form of control
imposed upon their allies (see above section 4.1.5; LACTOR 14 pp. 119-20).
5.2 Proxenoi
The Athenian use of this longstanding feature of Athenian inter-state relations has
already been mentioned (see above section 4.2). The potential value of a reliable
proxenos is demonstrated in the Mytilene episode, where it was the Athenian
proxenoi who informed the Athenians that the Mytileneans were revolting (Thuc. 3.2).
5.3 Judicial means
The Athenians appear to have intervened in the judiciary systems of their allies. A
mid fifth-century decree for the city of Phaselis arranges for disputes between the
Athenians, and Phaselians ‘as they are for the Chians’ to be tried at the court of the
polemarch at Athens; the Athenians also made judicial agreements with Mytilene,
Selymbria and Samos (See LACTOR 14 134, 182, 183). The Chalcis decree (ML 52
= LACTOR 14 78) mentions that cases related to exile, execution or
disenfranchisement should be tried at Athens, in the court of the thesmothetai; other
(minor) cases could be tried at Chalcis. The Cleinias decree on the collection of
tribute lays down regulations for trials in Athens for allies who disputed the amount of
tribute owed to Athens. It did, additionally, state that Athenians who committed
offences over the tribute could be indicted by allies in Athens. Athenian intervention
in the judicial systems of allied states is also commented on by the Old Oligarch, and
his view is that this is done in the interests of the Athenians: ‘The people of Athens …
compel the allies to sail for Athens for court cases. They argue that the people of
Athens get many advantages from this: first, that they get pay throughout the year
through court fees; secondly, that it enables them to administer the allied cities while
staying at home, without sailing off on ships, and that they use the courts to protect
some members of the people and condemn those who oppose democracy, and if all
the allies dealt with cases at home, then because they are fed up with the Athenians,
they would condemn precisely those who are the friends of the people of Athens. In
addition to this the people of Athens benefit in the following ways from hearing allied
court cases at Athens. First, it increases the city’s income from the one per cent tax at
the Piraeus. Secondly anyone who has rooms to let does better out of them. Third,
anyone who has a carriage or a slave to hire does better out of them. Fourth, heralds
do better because of the allies’ visits’ (Old Oligarch 1.16).
5.4 Military
When political means failed, the Athenians turned to military means to control their
allies. The sieges of Thasos (Thuc. 1.101), Potidaia (Thuc 1.56-65) Samos (Thuc.
1.115-7) and Mytilene (3.1-50) are good examples of the lengths to which the
Athenians sometimes went to maintain control or to return cities to the organisation.
Siege warfare appears to have been particularly useful to the Athenians in their
attempts to put down revolts: Diodorus Siculus claimed that Pericles was the first man
to use siege engines, employing an engineer of Klazomenai (see LACTOR 14 88). The
27
Athenians also installed military garrisons on the territory of Samos (LACTOR 14 85),
Erythrai (LACTOR 14 216A), Miletus (LACTOR 14 218), and Karpathos (LACTOR
14 220); see also LACTOR 14 226-8.
5.5 Economic
There is a great deal of debate in modern scholarship about the effectiveness of
ancient attempts to develop the economic interests of their cities. These debates are
reproduced in modern interpretations of the Standards Decree (ML 45 = LACTOR 14
198; sometimes also known as the Coinage Decree). The text derives not from a
single inscription but from a number of fragments discovered in various places
(Aphytis, Kos, Hamaxitos, Odessa, Siphnos, Smyrna, Syme). The dating of the
document is controversial, as the Cos fragment uses the more traditional three-barred
sigma, which has often been taken to indicate a date before 440 BC; however, as this
old orthodoxy has fallen away, so has the certainty that it dates to the 440s.
A summary of the decree: put simply, it requires all members of the Athenian alliance
to use Athenian weights, measures, and silver coins. Independent silver coinages are
banned and local mints closed; issues on other materials are not mentioned – e.g.
electrum or other ores. The masters of the mint at Athens are to convert local
currencies, belonging to states or individuals, into Attic coin and a minting fee is
probably charged. Every city is to set up a copy of the decree in its Agora; at Athens a
copy is to be set up at the mint. The importance attached to the decree is shown by the
heavy penalties threatened against the executive if they fail to carry out the
instructions, and the specification of summary arrest and death for anyone who
proposes to repeal the decree. Note also the fact that every member of the Athenian
council must bind himself by oath to take action against and punish any offenders
against the decree. Note that this is certainly not a decree introducing a single
currency; it is likely that Chios, Lesbos and Samos were exempt. Why did the
Athenians pass such a bill? Some have suggested economic motives: perhaps the
Athenians aimed to stimulate general economic trade by creating an area within which
there would be fewer problems with exchange of currency or incompatible measuring
systems: this would have made easier the taxation of Thasian wine, the measurement
of grain from Byzantium and raw materials for the construction of the navy, for
instance. Perhaps Athens would have profited herself from the gain in reminting a
multitude of strange currencies into her own, and the reminting fee.
On the other hand, the intention behind imposing Athenian weights and measures on
the empire was not economic but rather was related to showing her political
dominance and undermining the independence of the city-states by asserting Athenian
coins, weights and measures across the empire: this decree demonstrates the power of
the Athenians to intervene in the affairs of their allies. For further commentary on the
decree, see LACTOR 14 p. 106 and the notes in ML.
6 Views of Empire
6.1 Athenian views
According to Thucydides, the Athenian view of their empire was predominantly one
of realism: that it was brutal but necessary for the prosperity of their city-state.
Thucydides put these words into Pericles’ mouth: ‘Your empire is now like a tyranny:
it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go’ (2.63); Cleon’s
tone was harsher: ‘your empire is a tyranny exercised over subjects who do not like it
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and who are always plotting against you… your leadership depends on superior
strength and not on any goodwill of theirs (3.37). The Mytilenean debate contains
conflicting views of the methods of control that the Athenians should use in their
imperial administration. Cleon took the view that the empire required the Athenians to
supply strong leadership; that extreme punishment was a good deterrent; and that
revolt amounted to an act of calculated aggression designed to initiate the destruction
of the Athenians: the Mytileneans deserved execution. Diodotus’ view was that the
death penalty would not, for psychological reasons, act as a deterrent against revolt,
but that the threat of revolt would actually make Athens’ allies hold on even more
firmly when faced with the prospect of extreme punishment; he stressed the idea that
the Athenians should emphasise careful administration, not extreme punishment, in
their regulation of empire. Note that Diodotus’ challenge to Cleon is one of
pragmatism: he doesn’t go as far as to suggest that it would be unjust to execute the
Mytileneans, but maintains that severity is less likely to be in the interests of the
Athenians. The view that emerges is a cynical view of empire, and the idea that the
Athenians should do anything in order to maintain their alliance. But we have to
remember that while these views might be representative of Athenian views of how to
control empire, they are, at the very least, processed by Thucydides.
The Melian dialogue (Thuc. 5.84-116) puts into the mouth of the Athenians an amoral
view of inter-state relations, and that profit comes above justice (Thuc. 5.89). The
Athenians dismiss the idea that they have a right to empire on the basis of having
liberated the Greek states from the Persians (5.89). The opinions put forward by the
Athenians generally advocate the view that ‘might is right’: these may well have been
those of some in Athens who dismissed the value of traditional morality. But the fact
that the Melian dialogue contains the most extreme form of imperial analysis must be
balanced with the fact that the dialogue is almost certainly a composition of
Thucydides, and at that a composition posed in behind-closed doors setting: the
exchange went on between Athenian ambassadors and the ‘Melian governing body
and the few’ (Thuc. 5.84). Perhaps Thucydides envisaged that such a context would
have meant that the Athenians were ready to speak honestly without pulling any
punches.
It is worth saying that we don’t know of any Athenians who actually opposed the
maintenance of empire (Plutarch Pericles 12 may be evidence for reservations about
the use of the tribute, but not reservation about the maintenance of empire). The Old
Oligarch, though a critic of the Athenian demos, recognised that its imperialism
brings profits for the city. Pericles, when he acknowledges that the Athenians ‘may
have been wrong to take it’ (Thuc. 2.63) suggests some moral reservations, but these
are left unsubstantiated, and elsewhere Pericles is represented as seeing nothing
wrong in Athenian imperialism (Thuc. 1.144, 2.13, 2.36). Aristophanes’ Knights
characterised the Athenian empire as a tyranny (1110-20), but his comments on the
practice of imperialism, as far as we know, were not part of a political manifesto. It
was probably the case that the perception that empire was profitable for the Athenians
was so strong that it would have been politically impossible to stand up and advocate
the view that the empire was immoral. In Aristophanes’ Wasps we encounter the view
(perhaps a popular one at Athens) that money derived from the allies subsidises the
jurors’ payment (though much of it, he claims, lines the pockets of vexatious
prosecutors and other undesirables: lines 655-712); for the OO, the Athenian empire
was run for the advantage of the common people (OO 1.14-18). There were, on the
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other hand, varying views about the form that Athenian imperialism should take: it is
likely that in Athens there was debate about the degree to which expansionism would
be a beneficial policy for the Athenians (see Thuc. 2.65; Thuc. 6.9-32). Ultimately, it
proved impossible for the Athenians to stave off the temptation of expansion and this
was a significant factor in their downfall.
6.2 Allied views
How do we start to understand the allies’ view of empire? One way is to attempt to
use Thucydides to try to work them out. His work contains many passages that
suggest that the empire was universally and justifiably reviled in the Greek world
outside Athens. He demonstrates, at Mytilene and Melos, the brutality of Athenian
power; he put the allegation into the mouth of the Mytileneans that they betrayed their
initial promises to save the Greeks from Persia, instead enslaving Greece to
themselves. The Melian Dialogue (Thuc. 5.84-116) suggests that the Athenians
recognised that the burdens of empire may have made it unpopular (Thuc. 5.99). G. E.
M. de Ste Croix (see Low, Athenian Empire, chapter 11) took the view that the
Athenian empire was welcomed by the majority of the population in the allied states:
he pursued the argument that the majority of the population in the cities would have
welcomed the Athenians as they helped to secure democratic forms of government.
De Ste Croix took the line that Thucydides over-emphasised negative views of the
empire as part of his anti-democratic programme; this, de Ste Croix suggested, was
Thucydides own view, which he put forward in his judgements and speeches.
However, de Ste Croix maintained that the narrative of Thucydides furnishes enough
evidence to counter his expressed view that the empire was unpopular: in particular he
pointed to 3.27 where the mutiny of the Mytilenean demos was held as a sign of
where their sympathies lay. He suggested that ‘very few acts of brutality’ were
recorded against the Athenians (the only serious ones being that at Melos and Scione).
It is indeed the case that Thucydides’ account is far from consistent: Thucydides tells
us that it was not all the Mytileneans who prepared revolt but only the governing
oligarchy (3.27-8). This contradicts his earlier statement that the Mytileneans were
united in their revolt and that only a few proxenoi of Athens (i. e. Mytileneans who
represented Athenian interests) informed the Athenians of the revolt (3.2.3). De Ste
Croix’s argument is, however, far from water-tight: even in his speeches, Thucydides
gives contradictory opinions: Cleon took the view that all the Mytileneans attacked
the Athenians; Diodotus said that the demos was well-disposed to the Athenians in
every city (Thuc. 3.39; cf. 3.47). Moreover, as George Cawkwell argued, the
Mytilenean demos’ decision to side with the Athenians may be a sign as the pangs of
hunger that they suffered rather than where their sympathies lay: G. Cawkwell,
Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (London 1997), p. 97. Cawkwell, unlike de
Croix, is not a Marxist!
We might also turn to other literary sources: Aristophanes’ comedy The Birds, first
performed in Athens in 414 BC, suggests the view that there was resentment at
Athenian intervention. In that play, two Athenians decide to found a city,
Cloudcuckooland, which will be beyond the reach of Athenian administration, where
they might live quietly among the birds. But they find that their settlement is not at all
outside the reach of Athenian power, and they are visited by Athenian officials who
introduce fines, rules, and summon the inhabitants of the city to courts in Athens.
Aristophanes’ parody of the situation has one speaker recalling a time when an
inscription (we envisage one bearing a decree containing Athenian regulations) was
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used as a urinal (line 1054). For the Old Oligarch, the allies’ view of the empire was
polarised according to class divisions, owing to the fact that the Athenian people
support the interests of the people in the allied cities too (OO 3.10-11). Indeed, it may
well have been the case that the burden of paying tribute would have fallen
particularly heavily on the richer citizens, while the opportunity of rowing in the
Athenian navy would have offered employment opportunities to the landless poor. On
the other hand, the burden of military obligation on the allies was probably not very
oppressive: of the 5100 hoplites sent out in the Sicilian expedition, only 2850 came
from allied states (Thuc. 6.43). But, in the words of one twentieth-century historian,
this does not mean that the allies would not have lacked the political desire for
independence: ‘British India was, in many ways, admirably governed and
administered and Gandhi had no expectation that with freedom things would be good,
but he demanded ‘Give us chaos’’ (G. Cawkwell, Thucydides and the Peloponnesian
War (London 1997), p. 93: Cawkwell’s choice of comparandum and his view of it are,
of course, his own!). We are reminded once again of Phrynichus’ words: what the
allies wanted was not to be subjects having an oligarchy or democracy, but to be free
with whatever constitution they happened to have’ (Thuc. 8.48).
Another way of considering allied views of the Athenian empire is to look at the
history of revolts, and to consider the frequency of allied secessions and to consider
the determination with which they were maintained (see above, section 3). But even
as Athens collapsed after the Sicilian expedition, it is important to realise that the
sources for revolts from 412 onwards (Thuc. 8 and Xenophon A History of Greece
book 1) mention rather few allied cities outside Asia Minor (just Euboia (except
Hestiaia) and Thasos), and even in the Ionian theatre of war Samos is only the most
prominent of loyal states. As far as we know, the vast majority of Aegean islands
remained loyal throughout the history of the confederacy. However, the history of
revolts cannot tell us everything: for one thing the state of our knowledge of revolts is
very far from complete; for another, factors other than the popularity (resources,
military capabilities, fear of the unknown, fear of the Persians or Spartans) would
have provided deterrents to revolt.
6.3 Fourth-century views of empire
There was no unified fourth-century view of empire: compare the misty-eyed view of
the orator Lysias, talking to an Athenian audience at a public funeral, seeing the
Athenians as the ‘champions of the Greeks and leaders of cities (LACTOR 14 244).
Isocrates, a political pamphleteer praised particular aspects of the empire, and in
particular for prizing concord among the allies as important, championing democracy
at the expense of tyranny, and resisting the temptations of the appropriation of land
(LACTOR 14 245). A very different view is implied in the decree setting out
arrangements for the fourth-century Athenian confederacy, in which the Athenians
promised to ‘give up all landed property that the Athenian state or an Athenian
privately holds’, and prohibiting Athenians from gaining, by purchase or security,
landed possessions in the territory of the allies. It is possible that the Athenians
composed this with an audience of allies in mind, who would be keen to rule out the
possibility of Athenian heavy-handedness in their fourth-century confederacy.
Discussion of later views of empire cannot be carried out without some reference to
what replaced empire: for many former allies Spartan overlordship replaced Athenian
rule, and that meant for some the imposition of narrow oligarchies and garrisons, and
more generally the obligation to pay sums of money to Sparta similar to those
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previously paid to Athens. Allies did regain their own territory (Athenian cleruchs
were sent home by Sparta, see Xenophon Memorabilia), and the degree of economic
control was almost certainly reduced. But the degree of civil strife in the cities was
certainly not reduced and may have increased, and the possibility of Persian
interference also increased, with Spartan resistance to Persian demands for control of
Asia compromised by the agreements successively made with the satraps and with the
Persian king. Liberty remained scarce, and this may have meant that later views of the
Athenian empire were not all bad.
Peter Liddel, building upon material from previous notes by Robin Osborne and
Paul Russell.