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The Growth of Athenian Imperialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Russell Meiggs
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Extract

By 446/5 the Delian League had become the Athenian empire. Peace had been made with Persia, but Athens had firmly retained her hold over the allies. More important, Sparta recognised the Athenian claim in the Thirty Years' Peace. ‘We will allow the cities their independence,’ Pericles could say on the eve of the Peloponnesian War, ‘if they were independent when we made peace.’ So much is clear, but the chronology and nature of the development of Athenian imperialism are both uncertain. We are coming to know or reasonably to guess considerably more of the decisive transition to empire following the Peace of Callias, but the imperial measures of those crowded years can only be appreciated in true perspective if we have a right understanding of the preceding period. The main purpose of this study is to re-examine the development of Athenian imperialism in the fifties.

In his concise summary of Athens' rise to power, Thucydides emphasises the significance of the reduction of Naxos: to contemporaries Athenian action may have seemed less questionable. The Persian danger was still serious, and history had shown that the largest of the Cyclades might be a menace to the Greek cause, if it got into the wrong hands. Certainly the League was still popular after the collapse of Naxos, as Cimon's Eurymedon campaign clearly shows. From Caria to Pamphylia the Greek cities welcomed freedom from Persia and gladly entered the League: only at Phaselis was the show of pressure needed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 63 , November 1943 , pp. 21 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1943

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References

1 Thuc., I, 144, 2.

2 Meritt, , in The Greek Political Experience, Studies in Honor of William Kelly Prentice (Princeton University Press, 1941), pp. 52–6Google Scholar.

3 Thuc., I, 98, 4.

4 This is a vexed question. Herodotus (VI, 46), describing the wealth of Thasos, says, . … At the beginning of the fifth century Thasos controlled a gold-mining area on the mainland at Skapte Hyle. Thucydides (I, 100, 2) says the quarrel with Athens arose , presumably Skapte Hyle. The colonists sent to Ennea Hodoi were annihilated before the reduction of Thasos, and they died fighting, according to Herodotus (ix. 75), . With their defeat they clearly lost control of this mining area: did it include Skapte Hyle? In spite of Perdrizet's arguments (Klio, X, 1ff.Google Scholar), Thucydides (I, 101, 3) implies that it did not: ἀφέντες. Such terms would be ridiculous if in fact the Thracians had gained control of Skapte Hyle. Two areas should be distinguished, inland and coastal. Stephanus describes Skapte Hyle as ‘.’ It should lie on or near the coast (Casson, , Macedonia, Thrace and Illyria, pp. 68–70)Google Scholar, possibly at Eski Kavala (Davies, , Roman Mines in Europe, p. 235)Google Scholar. At some time between 446 and 443 the tribute of Thasos rises sharply from 3 to 30 talents. As has often been suggested, this may represent the return of the gold mine to Thasos. By the end of the century Thasos is paying her tribute in Skapte Hyle gold (Wade-Gery, , Num. Chron., 1930, p. 10)Google Scholar. The Athenians succeeded in their own immediate objective; the more ambitious scheme, from which the allies also were to benefit, failed.

5 Thuc., I, 105, 1–2.

6 Thuc., I, 107, 5. Paus. V, 10, 4, a dedication set up by Lacedaemonians and allies for victory over Argives, Athenians and Ionians.

7 Thuc., I, 109, 2.

8 Thucydides (I, 104, 2) says that the Athenians received the appeal of Inaros when they happened to be campaigning in Cyprus with 200 ships: they left Cyprus, and sailed into the Nile. He does not expressly say that the whole force went to Egypt and stayed there, but that is his natural implication. Diodorus (XI, 74) and Isocrates (de Pace, 86) make the force 200 strong. Ctesias, however (Persica, 32–36), gives the Athenian total as forty only, and mentions the commander's name, Charitimides. This account receives slight confirmation from an epigram on a statue base recently discovered near the Samian Heraeum (Klio, XXXII, p. 289)Google Scholar. This locates the naval battle [ἐπὶ Νέιλωι ∣ Μέμ]φιος ἀμφ’ ἐρατῆς (cf. Thuc., I, 104, 2: ). 200 ships can hardly have operated in the Nile. Certainly the lower figure is easier to reconcile with Athens' aggressive policy against the Peloponnesians. Further, Adcock points out (Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, 1926 pp. 3–5)Google Scholar that the 50 triremes should be a ‘relief’ or ‘substitute’ squadron, not ‘reinforcements.’ (See also Cary, , Class. Quart., VII, 1913, p. 198)Google Scholar.

9 Plut., , Cimon 13Google Scholar. The victory of the Eurymedon was so decisive that Pericles could sail with fifty ships, Ephialtes with a mere thirty, east of the Chelidonians without meeting opposition. This context, given by Callisthenes, is the natural one for such expeditions: Ephialtes' command at least must fall before the end of 461.

10 IG i2, 929 (Tod, Greek Historical Inscriptions, No. 26) shows that in one year (? 459) men of the Erechtheid tribe died in Cyprus, Egypt, Phoenicia.

11 IG i2, 10 (Tod, No. 29).

12 Highby, L. I., The Erythrae Decree (Klio, beiheft 36, neuefolge 23)Google Scholar.

13 IG i2, 26, 52, 51 (Tod, Nos. 39, 57, 58).

14 Epigraphic arguments are considered more fully in an appendix.

14a Highby, op. cit., p. 34.

15 Reviewing Highby, in AJPh, LVIII, pp. 359–361Google Scholar.

16 Riv. di Fil., 1937, p. 301Google Scholar.

17 IG i2, 1 (Tod, No. 11) and 5.

18 IG i2, 39 (Tod, No. 42). ‘There are indications on the stone that another slab was affixed on the left’ (Tod). L. 49, κατὰ τὰ ἐφσεφισμένα may refer to this second decree.

19 The Athenian Tribute Lists (A.T.L.), Vol. I, p. 487Google Scholar.

20 Hermes, 1938, LXXIII, p. 254Google Scholar.

21 IG i2, 22. Re-edited with new fragment, Oliver, J. H., TAPA, LXVI, 1935, 177Google Scholar.

22 Op. cit., pp. 188–190.

23 Segre, in Clara Rhodos, IX, pp. 151 ffGoogle Scholar. The new fragment from Cos, unlike the other fragments of this decree known, was engraved in Attic on Pentelic marble, and may therefore be compared with a long series of datable inscriptions from Athens. It is dangerous to press arguments from letter forms too hard, but the three-bar sigma of the fragment points to a date before the middle forties. The four-bar sigma appears occasionally in the fifties: it is dominant after 446. In no later surviving decree (and several are preserved from the middle forties) is the archaic form used. The ὃροι from Samos (Schede, , Ath, Mitt., XLIV, p. 7)Google Scholar, which have the three-bar sigma, would be an exception to the rule, if they mark the settlement of 439; but until this date is established beyond dispute (and the letter forms seem strangely archaic for Samian or Attic inscriptions of such a date) the criterion may be used. Segre (pp. 169–171) also finds internal evidence for dating the decree to 449, but his argument, though attractive, is not conclusive. There were certainly exceptions made or taken to the Athenian decree, but Gardner had long ago pointed out a break in the coinages of the islands and most of the cities of western Asia by the middle of the century (JHS, XXXIII, 1913, pp. 147 ff.Google Scholar, especially pp. 150 and 181).

24 Tod, No. 35.

25 The best text in The Athenian Tribute Lists, Vol. I, List I, Col. VI, 19–22Google Scholar.

26 We may compare Hecataeus' advice to Aristagoras in the Ionian revolt to fortify Leros if driven out of Miletus (Her., V, 125).

27 Thuc., III, 34.

28 List 3, Col. II, 28.

29 Wiegand, Th., Sitzb. Berl. Akad. (1901), p. 911Google Scholar.

30 A much later copy (SIG 3, 57) gives the regulations drafted by the Μόλποι at Miletus for the sacred ceremonies under their charge, in the year 450/49. That the date is the year of the Athenian decree is probably not coincidence, but no conclusion can be drawn from the Milesian inscription as to the precise nature of Athenian interference in this year, or the form of government under which the Μόλποι issued their regulations.

31 Pseudo-Xen., , Ath. Pol., 3, 11Google Scholar.

32 The dating of the lists of the second assessment period remains controversial. I accept the conclusions of A.T.L., and consider that Lists 7 and 8 are rightly dated to 448/7 and 447/6, and that no quota list for 449/8 was recorded on the stele.

This dating has been strongly attacked by Accame (Riv. di Fil, XVI (412–3)Google Scholar. Gomme, (Class. Rev., LIV, pp. 65–7)Google Scholar, Dow, (Class. Phil., XXXVII, pp. 371 ff.Google Scholar, and XXXVIII, pp. 20ff.). All these critics prefer to date lists 7 and 8 to 449/8 and 448/7, and consider that in 447/6 either no list was recorded (Accame) or a very short list (Gomme and Dow). They have been answered by Meritt, (Class. Phil., XXXVIII, pp. 223 ff.)Google Scholar and Wade-Gery (in a paper to be published in Hesperia). The two main arguments, in my opinion, for retaining the A.T.L. dating are:

(1) The absence of a numeral, for the first and probably the last time, in the prescript of List 7 suggests irregularity.

(2) If a third list in this period was recorded it should have been inscribed on the lateral face below List 8 where there was ample room for a shortened list. It is clear, however, that the space below List 8 was left blank. It is also probable that the top of the reverse face was left blank in view of the absence of identified inscribed fragments.

I consider that Meritt has pushed the purely epigraphic evidence too far in maintaining that ᅡεβδομες is virtually impossible in the prescript of List 8. But ὄγδοες υ. υ. is a possible reconstruction as Dow admits and Wade-Gery emphasises.

33 IG i2, 32, re-edited, with new fragment, Meritt, , Hesperia V, 360Google Scholar.

34 Cf. IG i2, 23, 36, 56, 82.

35 In the tribute lists of the Archidamian War period tribute paid to overseas officers or forces is listed separately (e.g., List 25, Col. I, 59; Col. III, 66). Such distinctions are not made in the early lists, but it is probable that Athena's quota would be recorded even when the main tribute payment was not made at Athens.

36 Plut., , Cimon, 14Google Scholar.

37 IG i2, 928, ll. 32, 99.

38 Her., I, 147.

39 Head, , Historia Numorum, p. 569Google Scholar.

40 Thuc., III, 34.

41 IG i2, 14/15. A better text in Hondius, , Novae Inscriptiones Atticae, pp. 7 ffGoogle Scholar.

42 The chronology of the Egyptian revolt is not vital to the main thesis of this paper, but it affects some of my individual arguments. The following scheme is adopted. Inaros' first move should come before Artaxerxes has completely stabilised his position: Diodorus' date (XI, 71), 463/2, may be right. The local Persian forces in the Delta were overcome without difficulty: Achaemenes brought reinforcements. He was defeated by Inaros at Papremis (461 or early 460), and the Persians took refuge in Memphis, supported by a small force of Phoenician ships in the Nile. In 460 Inaros appealed to the Athenians in Cyprus for help (in spite of Diodorus' account, Herodotus, Thucydides and Ctesias all imply that the Athenians were not present at Papremis). The Athenians sent c. forty to eighty ships, including a Samian contingent (Klio, XXXII, p. 289)Google Scholar, which defeated the Phoenicians off Memphis in the Nile, and settled down to besiege the Persian force. In 456 Megabyzus and Artabanus brought down strong reinforcements: the Greeks were thrown back on the defensive, and finally capitulated in the early summer of 454.

This chronology is based mainly on Thucydides' account.

(1) It is assumed that the disaster is set by Thuc. (I, 109 and 110) in a chronological setting, after the expedition of Tolmides (455), before the Thessalian expedition and Pericles' raid on Sicyon from Pegae. Following these expeditions there was inactivity for three years—διαλιπόντων ἐτῶν τριῶν—and then the five years' truce with Sparta. This truce was made in 451 after Cimon's return from ostracism (spring), before the end of the summer. Military operations had ended in 454.

(2) (Thuc., I, 110, 1). This should mean that the Greeks were in Egypt six complete years. If the end came in the summer of 454, they will have intervened in summer 460. The offensive against the Peloponnesians began after the first success in Egypt. (3) The first quota list is dated to 454/3. This suggests that the final failure in Egypt, the probable cause of the transference of the treasury from Delos, was in 454.

Wallace, (TAPA, LXVII, 1936, p. 252)Google Scholar has advocated a later date. He believes that Athens intervened late in 459, that Megabyzus relieved Memphis in the summer of 454, that the Greeks capitulated at the end of 453. Thuc., he thinks, fits the failure of the Egyptian revolt into his chronological framework at the point of its climax, the decisive victory of Megabyzus before Memphis. This preceded the Thessalian campaign and Pericles' expedition, but the capitulation came later. For such a practice he compares (following de Sanctis, , Storia della Repubblica Ateniese2, pp. 483 ff.)Google Scholar Thucydides' treatment of Ithome. The comparison, however, is not exact.

Admittedly, if we read δεκάτῳ ἔτει in I, 103, 1 (as I, with Wallace, believe that we should), Thuc. proceeds in 103, 4 to events which come earlier than the fall of Ithome, described in 103, 3. But that was the natural result of describing the siege of Ithome in a single piece. It does not explain why Thuc. chose this particular point to complete the story of the Egyptian expedition. That he did so because it marked the crisis is possible, but not supported by reference to Thucydidean practice. Wallace argues that' the alarm caused by the final, less spectacular defeat of the Athenians eighteen months later, with which the removal of the treasury is usually connected, seems not to provide so good a motive' as the relief of Memphis by Megabyzus. From the narrative of Thuc. it is clear that for the Greeks the final defeat was infinitely more spectacular than the first serious check. : the first blow fell on the Egyptian land forces, the position of the Greeks only became desperate later. The carelessness of the νῆες διαδόχοι suggests that even at the end it was not realised in Athens how desperate it had become.

Wallace uses the Erechtheid casualty list (IG i2, 929, Tod, No. 26) in support. The places are listed chronologically. There was fighting in Cyprus, the fleet left for Egypt, and the greater part then returned, raiding Phoenicia en route: the list covers losses at the end of 459 and in 458. Certainly it is difficult to date this list back to 460; but it need not necessarily mark the first year of the Egyptian expedition. If only part of the fleet from Cyprus (cf. note 8) had gone to Egypt in 460, it would be natural to follow up the offensive in Cyprus and on the coast of Phoenicia in 459. One last argument should be examined. ‘The fact that quite a few Carian cities (including two which do not appear again) paid tribute in 453/2 perhaps suggests that an Athenian fleet was active in the neighbourhood in the summer of 453.’ This is not decisive. The towns in question are mainly in the Ceramic Gulf: Athens might well have sent a small fleet here one or two years after the defeat in Egypt. We may even argue that the rise in the number of States paying from c. 141 in 154/3 to c. 159 in 453/2 would be surprising if this list immediately followed the disaster: for the year's tribute would have normally been paid not in the summer of 453 but at the Dionysia in 452.

43 Harpagianoi, Otlenoi, Sigeum.

44 Isindioi, Pugeles.

45 Acanthus seems absent in the first period. Othorioi and Potidaea appear for the first time certainly in 443/2 and 445/4.

46 Am. Hist. Rev., 1930, pp. 267 ffGoogle Scholar.

47 Thuc. I, 99.

48 Plut., , Cim., 11Google Scholar.

49 Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Delisch-Attischen Symmachie, pp. 11 ff. (Klio, briheft 30, 1933Google Scholar).

50 Op. cit., pp. 120 ff.

51 Wade-Gery, , BSA, XXXIII, pp. 101 ffGoogle Scholar.

53 In 449 (List 5, line 12) χερρονεσῖται pay a quota of 1384 dr. instead of 1800 as in the first period. This presumably represents an incomplete payment. After the settlement of the cleruchy the tribute of the peninsula drops to 2 talents and the towns pay separately.

54 Plut., , Pericles, p. 11Google Scholar.

55 Nesselhauf, op. cit., p. 131.

56 G des A3 (1939). IV, 672Google Scholar.

57 List 5, Col. IV, 35.

58 List 7, Col. II, 2.

59 Her., V, 28.

60 Paus., I, 27, 5.

61 Diod., XI, 88, 3 (a lacuna in the text).

62 List 5, Col. IV, 34.

63 List 8, Col. II, 36.

64 Plut., , Pericles, 23Google Scholar.

65 Hermes, LXXIII, 1938, pp. 252 ffGoogle Scholar.

66 Thuc., III, 10.

67 The Colophonian oath is only partly preserved, but in one clause the allies are certainly not mentioned: 1. 12. ἔργ[οι … They are restored by Hondius (op. cit., p. 9) in l. 11, but Kolbe (op. cit., p. 257) is more probably right in eliminating them here also.

68 Hermes, LXXI, 1936, pp. 129 ffGoogle Scholar.

69 IG i2, 50, l. 23.