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II. The Foundation of the Delian League

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Thuc. 1.95–97.1 begs many questions. (95) The violent conduct of the Spartan regent Pausanias, continuing the war against Persia in 478, angered ‘the Greeks, especially the Ionians and those who had recently been liberated from the King; they kept approaching the Athenians and asking them to become their leaders’, and the Athenians agreed; Pausanias was recalled, and when the Spartans sent Dorcis in his place the allies would not let him assume the command; the Spartans sent no further commanders, ‘withdrawing from the war against Persia, and reckoning that the Athenians were competent to lead and at that time friendly to them.’ Can we accept that the initiative was taken not by Athens but by the allies, and that Sparta was happy to let Athens take over the leadership? (Contrast, on the first question, Her. 8.3.2, Ath. Pol. 23.4; on the second, Ath. Pol. 23.2 (unemended and taken in its natural sense), Diod. Sic. 11.50, and the story of the rebuilding of Athens’ walls in Thuc. 1.90–2 and elsewhere). (96) ‘In this way the Athenians took over the leadership, the allies being willing because of their hatred of Pausanias’: what was the alliance of which Athens became the leader, and what became of the anti-Persian alliance of 481–478, led by Sparta, which Athens renounced in 462/1 (1.102.4)? ‘They determined which of the cities should provide money against the barbarian and which ships’: was this decision, at the foundation of the League, made simply by Athens? ‘For the pretext was to obtain revenge for their sufferings by ravaging the King’s land’: why pretext (proschema), and was this the only declared objective of the League? ‘This was when the office of Greek treasurers (hellenotamiai) was first instituted among the Athenians, to collect the tribute (phoros) (that was the name given to the cash payments); the first assessment of tribute was 460 talents’: were the hellenotamiai Athenian officials from the start, and is it credible that the original assessment of tribute payable in cash (which is what Thucydides seems to mean) was as much as 460 talents? ‘Delos was their treasury, and their councils met in the sanctuary there’: the treasury was moved to Athens in 454/3 (cf. pp. 15, 23), but did the councils move too or were they abolished? (97) ‘The Athenians were leaders of allies who were autonomous at first and who deliberated in common councils’: how much freedom does ‘autonomous’ denote, and was it guaranteed? What part did Athens and her allies play in the councils?

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 17: The Athenian Empire , 1985 , pp. 5 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 Giovannini, A. and Gottlieb, G., Thukydides und die Anfänge der athenischen Arche (Sitzungsberichte Heidelberg (1980), no. 7)Google Scholar. The similarities between the alliance of 481 and the Delian League are discussed by Brunt, P. A., Historia 2 (1953-4), 149-53Google Scholar. Such texts as IG i3 14, 11.21-4, indicate that the members became allies not only of Athens but also of one another.

2 JHS 79 (1959), 149-152. Andoc. 3. De Pace 38 (cited not by him but by Smart, J. D., Phoenix 31 (1977), 247)CrossRefGoogle Scholar is not incompatible with Thucydides.

3 E. M. Walker, C.A.H., v1. 40-1; Hammond, N. G. L., JHS 87 (1967), 41–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar = Studies in Greek History (Oxford, 1973), pp. 311-45; de Ste Croix, pp. 298-307.

4 Glotz, G. with Cohen, R., Histoire grecque, ii (Paris, 1929), 115 Google Scholar; Larsen, J. A.O., HSCP 51 (1940), 175–213 Google Scholar; A.T.L., iii. 227; Meiggs, pp. 460-2 (rejecting this form of organization for the Peloponnesian League too); Culham, P., AJAH 3 (1978), 27–31 Google Scholar.

5 Rawlings, H. R., III, Phoenix 31 (1977), 1–8 Google Scholar. Brunt (n. 1, above), 150-1, contrasted the proschema with the full offensive and defensive alliance; French, A., Phoenix 33 (1979), 134-41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, denies that Thucydides intended any contrast, but I think he is wrong about Thucydides, though not about Athens’ actual intentions at the foundation of the League.

6 Sealey, B.R.I., Ancient Society and Institutions... V. Ehrenberg (Oxford, 1966), pp. 233-55Google Scholar.

7 Jackson, A. H., Historia 18 (1969), 12–16 Google Scholar.

8 Raaflaub, K., Chiron 19 (1979), 1-22Google Scholar; see also Meiggs, pp. 462-4.

9 Walker, C.A.H., v1 42-4; Highby, L. I., Klio Beiheft 31 (1936), 39–57 Google Scholar.

10 Gomme, H.C.T., i. 289-95; A.T.L., iii. 194-224.

11 Meiggs, pp. 50-8, believes in a fairly large League.

12 Meiggs, pp. 62-3 (454), 527 (431).

13 Walker, C.A.H., v1. 44-6; Chambers, M. H., CP 53 (1958), 26–32 Google Scholar.

14 A.T.L., iii. 236-43; Eddy, S. K., CP 63 (1968), 184-95 (suggesting one ship as the equivalent of 1 talent)Google Scholar.

15 Gomme, H.C.T., i. 273-9; French, A., Historia 21 (1972), 1-20Google Scholar.

16 Meiggs, pp. 58-67. Finley, M. I., Imperialism in the Ancient World (ed. Garnsey, P. D. A. and Whittaker, C. R., Cambridge, 1978), p. 111 Google Scholar = Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (London, 1981), p. 48, protests that the original object of the exercise was to raise not cash but a fleet; but it will hardly have been feasible to assess the smaller members for fractions of a ship. Ruschenbusch, E., ZPE 53 (1983), 125-43Google Scholar, uses the level of tribute to estimate member states’ populations, and ibid., 144-8, argues that 57.5% of the members could not man one trireme for a long campaigning season and another 27.3% could not man more than one or two: even if his estimates are on the low side, this is a salutary warning against misconceptions.

17 Cf. pp. 30-1.

18 E.g. A.T.L., iii. 228.

19 Meiggs, p. 46.

20 Ostwald, M., Autonomia: Its Genesis and Early History ([U.S.A.], 1982)Google Scholar; Karavites, P., RIDA3 29 (1982), 145-62Google Scholar.

21 AJ AH 5 (1980), 64-96, 110-33, on some points developing arguments of Meyer, H. D., Historia 12 (1963), 405-46Google Scholar.

22 Dinsmoor, W. B., Hesperia Supp. 5 (1941), 158 n. 322Google Scholar; Raubitschek, A. E., Gymnasium 72 (1965), 516-8Google Scholar; Meiggs, pp. 504-7. Boersma, J. S., Athenian Building Policy from 561/0 to 405/4 B.C. (Groningen, 1970), pp. 50-1Google Scholar, etc., accepts the clause though collecting several examples of its breach; but Sievrert, P., Der Eid von Plataiai (Vestigia, 16. Munich, 1972)Google Scholar, while championing the authenticity of the inscribed oath, in pp. 102-8 rejects this clause.

23 Larsen, J. A. O., CP 28 (1933), 262-4Google Scholar; Raubitschek, A. E., TAPA 91 (1960), 178-83Google Scholar, Gymnasium 72 (1965), 518-9; Meiggs, pp. 507-8.

24 Detailed points are made in A.T.L., iii. 101-4; see also Brunt (n. 1, above), 153-6; Frost, F. J., C&M 22 (1961), 182-94Google Scholar; Étienne, R. and Piérart, M., BCH 99 (1975), 51–75 (publishing a decree of the third-century assembly)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.