CHAPTER VII

EXPANSION OF THE CITY IN THE FIFTH CENTURY

I

ALIENS AND CITIZENS

THE old conception according to which the stranger ceased to be an enemy (εχθρός) only if he were received as a guest (ξένος) had left many traces in the Greece of classical times.¹ The right of a city to lead foraying expeditions (συλαν)₉ carrying off persons (ayetv) and property (φέρειν) from the territory of another city, remained intact so long as there existed no formal and bilateral convention as obstacle. It was exercised without scruple among the savage tribes of the North-West;² nowhere did peoples hesitate to have recourse to it when a claim deemed legitimate failed to receive a satisfactory answer, especially when they considered that justice called for reprisals and there was justification for the seizing of pledges (ρυσιάζειν). Within each city aliens had only very limited rights, even if their position were established not only by law but also by a treaty, and even if they were permanently domiciled in it as metics. These principles persisted to the end; but their severity was tempered, in international and public law alike, without, however, infringing the sovereignty of the State.³

Customs which were ranked among the “unwritten laws,”⁴ the “common laws of the Hellenes,”⁵ and which consequently were placed under the protection of the gods,6 regulated the right of war. The heralds, who were rendered inviolable by the caduceus, played an important rôle therein :⁷ a war was not legitimate unless it was declared by them,⁸ they alone could pass between the belligerents as truce- bearers, and they gave sacrosanctity to the negotiators sent into the ranks of the enemy.⁹ After the battle the conquerors erected a trophy on which were suspended the arms of the conquered. This trophy usually took the form of a stake or simply the branch of a tree; it was held that it should not be of stone or bronze in order that hatred might not be perpetuated.¹⁰ It was a fine application of the Greek adage: “Treat thine enemy as if he ought to become thy friend.” The conquered as a general rule recognized their defeat by demanding an armistice for the burying of their dead.¹¹ The victors might not refuse that request unless it came from a sacrilegious army,¹² and, when it was not made involuntarily, it was for them to bury the fallen enemy.¹³ When a town surrendered itself, its fate was determined by the terms of the capitulation; but the general rule was that in war the lives of suppliants should be spared.¹⁴ When a city was taken by assault, everything—persons and property— was at the mercy of the conquerors :¹⁵ the men were put to the sword, the women and children were reduced to servitude.¹⁶ As for the prisoners, first of all exchange was effected ;¹⁷ those who were left over were usually bought back by their city or by individuals,¹⁸ but otherwise they were sold as slaves.¹⁹ In the division of booty a tradition dating from Homeric times was followed, while at the same time the deduction of the tithe reserved for the gods was regarded as an absolute duty.²⁰

As one might expect the rules of clemency and moderation were often violated, especially in the case of a people which had been guilty of disloyalty. But, on the other hand, even when the Peloponnesian war was at its height the Athenian and Spartan generals refused, for example, to avail themselves of their right of reducing Greeks to servitude.21 Religion, too, had its influence on the laws of war. The inviolability of temples was recognized, provided they were not used as military bases.²² The “Truce of God” (εκεχειρία) proclaimed by the spondophoroi,²³ protected pilgrims travelling to pan-Hellenic festivals against all acts of hostility, even in a country occupied by a belligerent army. Moreover the Dorians of the Peloponnese agreed never to embark upon a campaign during the sacred month when the Carnea was held. They also refrained from marching against a city in the interval which elapsed between the announcement and the celebration of its festival: a scruple which certain cities sometimes abused by tampering with their calendar in such a way that they were able to demand the remission of hostilities which they feared to meet.²⁴

So much did war seem the natural state of affairs between cities that treaties of peace were only suspensions of arms, and even treaties of alliance did not offer very substantial guarantees.²⁵ A progressive step was taken when definite duration was assigned to treaties, a duration which might, it is true, be only of five years,²⁶ but which was more frequently thirty,²⁷ fifty,²⁸ or even a hundred years.²⁹ It was for the most part a Utopian vision to think of a state of perpetual peace (εις τον άεϊ χρόνον).³⁰

Attempts, however, were made to settle disputes by pacific means. Differences between cities were sometimes submitted to arbitration.³¹ As early as the end of the seventh century or the beginning of the sixth the Athenians and the Mitylenians appealed to Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, to settle their dispute on the subject of Sigeum.³² The Corinthians and the Corcyræans entrusted to Themistocles the task of deciding between their pretensions to Leucas.³³ Conflicting cities usually took as arbiter, not an illustrious individual, but a third city (πόλις éκκλητός) or, in certain cases, the priesthood of Delphi.³⁴ Athens and Megara, who were squabbling over Salamis, called upon Sparta to give a deciding vote; five Spartans pronounced in favour of Athens.³⁵ As a general rule the treaties of peace and armistice concluded in the second half of the fifth century between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians stipulated that in case of disagreement they should have recourse to judicial methods of settlement, they themselves and their allies.³⁶ By the treaty of 418 the Lacedæmonians and the Argives bound themselves to submit all disputes, of any nature whatsoever, to the judgment of a third power.³⁷ Unfortunately, since the arbiter had not any means of constraint at his disposal, the defeated party was not always ready to yield. Thebes, after having appealed to the Corinthians to settle its difference with Athens on the subject of Platæa, rejected the award which went against it.³⁸ We see, too, the Eleans refusing to accept a settlement proposed by Lepreon on a question of debts.³⁹ Facts of this sort explain perhaps why international arbitration disappeared in the fourth century and did not reappear till the Hellenistic epoch.

One must at any rate recognize the permanent efficacy of conventions of a less ambitious nature whose object was to put an end to the vexations of all kinds which harassed traders when they ventured into a strange town without guarantee. Thus, as late as the fifth century, a certain city was obliged to conclude a treaty with a neighbouring city in order to protect the people from it against violence and to assure to them in case of need a right of recourse to the magistrates and tribunals. It was what was called a treaty of asylia. There is extant a document of this kind, in which two towns of Western Locris, Chaleion and Oianthea, in about 450 brought to a close a time-honoured system of reprisals.40 The agreement, instead of being made directly between the two cities concerned, seems to have been due to the intervention of a third city acting as a common capital : it is comparable with the case of Argos reconciling Cnossus and Tylissus.⁴¹ At the beginning of the century, the injunction of a satrap was required to curb the cities of Ionia and to assure to them the benefits of mutual security:⁴² there is perhaps no fact in the whole history of the Greeks which illustrates more strikingly their love of autonomy and the conception which they clung to even under foreign domination.

Through these rudimentary treaties of asylia the Greek cities learnt to conclude veritable treaties of international civil law, symbolai or symbola.43 Great difficulty arose from the fact that the right of judicial action was, in principle, one of the privileges reserved to citizens. Men found themselves faced with this difficulty as soon as strong colonies of metics began to be formed in the commercial cities. Then it had been solved by placing the metics under the jurisdiction of a special magistrate, a kosmos in Crete, the pole- march in Athens. But, if it was impossible to place metics as justiciables on the same footing as citizens, it appeared no more desirable to place foreigners who stayed just long enough to carry through a business transaction, to disembark or embark a cargo, on the same footing as metics who were permanently established in the country. Trading cities realized that they had a common interest in filling that gap.

Hence arose those conventions (σύμβολα) whose essential object was to regulate the procedure applicable in certain specific cases (δíκαι áττnτο συμβόλων), namely: (1) commercial suits arising between subjects of the two contracting parties or rather between one and the citizens of the other; (2) offences which involved as plaintiff and defendant subjects of the two cities. These conventions, of which we have good examples for the fifth century,⁴⁴ treated, therefore, of special matters, one might say of professional matters;⁴⁵ and so the Ecclesia of Athens, although it usually deliberated on foreign affairs, contented itself with considering them only as a matter of form and sent them for close examination to a tribunal of heliasts sitting under the presidency of thesmothetai.⁴⁶ As a general rule the case went before the tribunal of the city to which the defendant belonged. The Athenians of the fifth century were thus often compelled to plead in cities unfavourable to them; but they enacted by ordinary decrees that commercial suits between Athenians and subjects of the empire should henceforth be settled by Athenian tribunals under the presidency of the polemarch, if they arose out of contracts which had been concluded at Athens.⁴⁷ Save for this exception, which is explained by political circumstances and by the supremacy of Athenian commerce and commercial law, it is true to say that the rules in use in the symbola and in the procedure which they instituted reveal a broad-minded and truly international spirit.

Instead of availing themselves of treaties applicable to all the citizens of two cities, aliens might see their position improved by individual and unilateral measures. Each town in fact with more or less liberality conferred on foreigners privileges more or less advantageous. There were decrees as well as conventions of asylia,48 and asylia was supplemented by asphaleia, that is to say inviolability of person by that of property. The right of acquiring immovables, lands or houses ((enktesis),⁴⁹ exemption from taxes and imposts falling specially on aliens (ateleia) or the right of paying imposts and contributions in kind on the same conditions as citizens (isoteleia)⁵⁰ were obtained only as rewards for services rendered. But the greatest honour which could fall to an alien was the proæenia⁵¹ although throughout its whole history it was at the same time a burden. The men of one city individuals or ambassadors, when they were passing through another wanted someone to give them advice and assistance. To this public host, this kind of consul, the city showed its gratitude by bestowing on him the title of proxenos, which it supplemented when the person in question was a great man, by adding that of euergetes or benefactor. Since the title was hereditary, since it was accorded subsequently to a number of citizens of the same town and since its bearer often settled in his second country the proxenia became little more than an honorific distinction. Nevertheless it played an important rôle in international relations, and it never ceased to assure to a few outstanding aliens the highest position which men could have in a Greek city of which they were not citizens. And the proxenoi could become citizens more easily than any others.

What then was the precise boundary which separated aliens of every condition, whether metics or not, from citizens ? How could citizenship be conferred upon those who did not possess it by birth ?

One often sees apparent contradictions in the conduct of the Greeks, and especially of the Athenians, in matters concerning the possession and bestowal of civic rights. In the Homeric epoch, when moreover there were still so many survivals of primitive hostility towards the foreigner, the king and the chiefs had no reason to oppose unions of nationals and aliens, because they themselves eagerly sought matrimonial alliances with noble and rich houses, whatever their origin, and they saw no reason to prevent the common people, deprived of political rights, from marrying as they pleased. The great families for long preserved this tradition, even in democratic cities. Thus it happened that even the most illustrious citizens of Athens were born of foreign mothers (μητρόξενοι,). The law-giver Cleisthenes, son of the Alcmæonid Megacles, bore the name of his maternal grandfather, the tyrant of Sicyon. Pisistratus had two sons by the Argive Timonassa. Cimon, born of a Thracian princess, married most probably an Arcadian. Thucydides had for wife one Hegesipyle who bore the same name and came from the same family as the mother of Cimon. Themistocles’ mother was either a Thracian, an Argive or an Acarnanian, in any case a foreigner. In spite of this propensity towards mixed marriages the oligarchs were, in principle, vigilant guardians of the right of citizenship: since they sought to diminish its value, they were not disposed to extend freely its benefits. After the fall of the Pisistratidæ, the chief of the oligarchic party, Isagoras, expunged from the list of citizens all those whom the tyrants had illegally enrolled.52 Sparta, who was ever ready to expel aliens, practically never granted letters of naturalization; Herodotus only knew of two examples.⁵³ In the fourth century also Ægina, Megara, Lacedæmon and even a small town such as Oreus, adopted in this matter a fiercely uncompromising attitude.⁵⁴ In democratic cities, on the contrary, tradition was favourable to aliens, at least before the middle of the fifth century. Even in his time Solon had attracted craftsmen into Attica by granting citizenship to them;⁵⁵ Pisistratus was no less liberal,⁵⁶ while Cleisthenes included in the list expurgated by his opponents a great number of metics and even of slaves.⁵⁷

Thus it remained until the commercial prosperity of the Piræus and the strength of the empire made the title of citizen very profitable. Then the people found it more expedient to restrict the number of participants. We have seen that Pericles himself passed a law according to which only those whose parents were both Athenians could be citizens. Citizenship became a privilege the concession of which was rendered difficult and hedged in with formalities of the most solemn nature. But even this was not a sufficiently secure safeguard. On great occasions the Ecclesia decreed a general revision (διαψήφισις) of the civic registers in the demes: this was what was done in 445-4 in order to prevent interlopers from participating in a special distribution of corn.58

The people was, therefore, in no way tempted in the fifth century to abuse the right, which was its monopoly, of conferring on foreigners the title of citizen. It bestowed it either on individuals or on classes, but always for good and sufficient reasons. Pericles demanded it for the son whose exclusion he had caused by his own law, the child of Aspasia the Milesian.⁵⁹ Thrasyboulus of Calydon obtained it in 409 in recompense for so meritorious an act as the murder of Phry- nichus, one of the most hated of the Four Hundred.⁶⁰ In 406 all the metics who had taken part as rowers in the victorious expedition to Arginusæ⁶¹ were promoted to the rank of citizens ; and in 401-0 all those who had rushed to Phyle to join forces with the liberators of democracy.⁶²

The bestowal of civic rights on all the members of a foreign community or at least on all those who applied for them was of much greater importance. This occurred, however, only in exceptional circumstances. In the middle of the sixth century the Delphians, in recognition of the magnificent gifts which Crœsus had sent, conferred the right of citizenship on all Lydians who should in the future ask for it;63 this was merely a nominal offer which was to have little result. It was not so when Athens, in the fifth century, from motives of political interest allowed deviations from the law of 451-0 in favour of certain cities. To the Eubœans she granted not citizenship but one of the most essential parts of it, epigamia : she thus recognized the validity of marriages between Athenians and Eubœans, whether of an Athenian man with a Eubœan woman or vice versa, and consequently gave the right of citizenship to the issue of these unions.⁶⁴ During the Peloponnesian war she went still further: she received with open arms the inhabitants of those cities which had suffered for her sake. In 427, after the destruction of their town, the Platæan refugees in Athens received civic privileges : after the judicial authorities had verified their claims in each individual case, they were divided out among the demes and tribes and placed on a footing of equality with the Athenians, save for access to the archonship and the priesthoods.⁶⁵ In 405, after the defeat of Ægospotami, Athens wished to reward Samos for her fidelity: hence the Samians were raised to the rank of Athenians, while at the same time retaining their constitution, their judicial system and their autonomy.⁶⁶ Thus was inaugurated a policy which would have wrought a fundamental transformation in the Athenian confederation and perhaps have changed the course of history, if, instead of being dictated at the last moment by a hopeless situation, it had been adopted earlier and applied more extensively.

But enough has been said of the measures which the Greeks of the fifth century took to mitigate, in international and public and private law, the traditional hatred for the foreigner while at the same time preserving unimpaired the autonomy of the cities. Let us now see how they were able, without fear of encroaching upon that, to group towns hitherto sovereign into durable leagues and federations.

II

THE GREAT LEAGUES (Symmachiai)

In the fifth century two leagues were formed which were serious attempts to put an end to the isolation of the cities. With Lacedæmon and Athens at their head they might have entered upon a great work of unification had not their rivalry brought them into conflict and so perpetuated division.

1. The Lacedaemonian League

The Lacedæmonian league, which played so important a role for two centuries, never had, however, a really strong organization.67 It owed its foundation to Sparta towards the middle of the sixth century, after the conquest of Messenia and the defeat of Argos, and it always retained the essentially military character and oligarchic spirit which it derived from its origins. When it had been extended to Corinth after the fall of the Cypselidæ, to Megara after the fall of Theagenes and perhaps at one point to Athens after the fall of the Pisistratidæ, Sparta gained enormous strength from it, although she did not dare to encroach upon the autonomy of the cities or even to place their contingents under the command of her own officers. At the time of the Persian invasion all the cities which were preparing for resistance turned towards the league, which was thus transformed into a pan-Hellenic league which entrusted supreme command on land and sea to the Spartans.⁶⁸ But this new league, which appeared to unite the greater part of Greece, was even less suited than the old one for centralization. The delegates or probouloi who assembled on the Isthmus,⁶⁹ were only empowered to discuss the questions of contingents to be furnished, embassies to be sent to the colonies,⁷⁰ oaths to be administered⁷¹ and anathemas to be hurled against the cities which were unfaithful to the national cause.⁷² Then they dispersed and the only indications which remained to remind the Greeks that they were acting as a common body were the councils of war at which the strategoi deliberated under the presidency of the Spartan commander-in-chief.⁷³ After the victory the Athenians were able, without violating any obligation, without breaking any promise, and without seceding from the league, to found a rival league.⁷⁴ Shrinking once more without regret within the confines of the Isthmus Sparta desired at least to establish a better control over her Peloponnesians. It was probably about the middle of the fifth century that the reform was accomplished the results of which we see some twenty years later.

Oí Αακεδαιμόνιοί κaí οí σύμμαχοι, “the Lacedæmonians and their allies ” or rather “the Lacedæmonians and their confederates,” such was the official name of the league. It implies a dualist regime and the subordination of the anonymous cities to the directing city ; it implies also the existence of symmachoi who were not only bound to Sparta by a bilateral contract, but were bound to each other by reciprocal bonds. It was not a simple alliance nor was it a federal State, but a league of cities agreed upon the permanent necessity of common action with regard to other cities and recognizing the supremacy, the hegemony, of the most powerful of their number. There was no federal citizenship, nor did the league exercise authority over citizens, but only and then in duly specified cases, over the governments of the contracting cities. Autonomy was guaranteed to these cities;75 they retained their constitution, their laws, their administration, their justice; and further they directed their own foreign policy as towards each other, often a hostile policy. Sparta tried in vain to make the principle of arbitration prevail in the settlement of their difficulties; resort was had to arms,⁷⁶ and hence the league was compelled to forbid any federal city to enter the field against any other member during a federal campaign.⁷⁷ Moreover, although in theory Sparta had no power to interfere in local politics, she was constantly exerting pressure in the direction of oligarchy, whether by her own example, by moral suasion or even by open force.⁷⁸ But the ostensible object of the league was common defence. It can even be said of the Council, its principal organ, that it was never convoked save to confer upon the declaration of a war, a truce or proposals for peace. It had not, therefore, a permanent existence. When circumstances demanded Sparta invited the cities to send their delegates to discuss matters of common concern.⁷⁹

The way in which war was declared against the Athenians in 43280 brings out clearly the respective rights of the Lacedaemonians and the allies. The Corinthians took the initiative and sent their representatives to Sparta to accuse the Athenians of having violated their treaties; but the Council could not be brought into being by this act: it was to an assembly of Spartans that the Corinthians unfolded their grievances, and the Athenian ambassadors came there to reply to them. It was essential that the outsiders should retire before this extraordinary reunion (σύλλογο) could be transformed into a regular assembly (άπέλλα) : the Spartans deliberated among themselves and voted for war. But this decision was only valid for the Lacedæmonians; the concurrence of the allies had still to be obtained. Sparta summoned their delegates, who naturally came with specific instructions. They sat under the presidency of the ephors. Each city, whatever its strength, commanded only one vote,⁸¹ and the small ones inclined, as always, to vote with the controlling power. A large majority voted for war. This time the decision was accepted, and the Council forthwith began to make preparations for mobilization.

Thus the resolutions of the allies could not prevail against those of the Lacedæmonians; but common resolutions had the force of law and were binding upon all the cities. An ancient oath bound them to conform to the decisions of the majority, “unless the gods or heroes stood in the way.”82 As soon as the Council had given its vote its work was finished : there was nothing for it to do save dissolve, nor did it even leave behind an executive committee.

The Lacedæmonians alone were responsible for ensuring the execution of measures which had been agreed upon. They were even authorized in cases of emergency, in order to defend a city against a sudden attack, or to proceed against a disloyal city, to put an army into the field and to summon such contingents as they judged neccssary, without previous consultation with the Council.⁸³ But the case of absolute necessity had to be well established ; for the spirit of autonomy was sensitive, and the obligation to lead out troops at the bidding of an alien chief dangerously resembled the most humiliating of subjections. In normal times the Lacedæmonians sent messengers to announce to each town the number of men it had to furnish and the date when they had to be put into the field ;⁸⁴ everything relating to them was regulated by the Apella and the ephors. During the Persian wars the contingents were placed under the command of leaders named by the cities; but during the Peloponnesian war they had at their head, from the day of their assembly, officers of the Spartan staff, “commanders of the foreigners” (xenagoi)⁸⁵ Since the principle of autonomy was opposed to the institution of a federal tribute, each town provided for the upkeep of its troops and paid, if there were need, only voluntary contributions.⁸⁶

In conclusion, the organism controlled by Sparta was one to which historians are justified in applying sometimes the name Lacedæmonian league, sometimes Peloponnesian league; for the powerful hegemony of Sparta succeeded in imposing itself on the cities in matters diplomatic and military, but in everything else it left them complete independence.

2. The Athenian Confederation

The Athenian confederation, which was formed within the pan-Hellenic league in 478 and only officially· detached from it after 464, offered to the Greeks, much more than did the Lacedæmonian league, an example of what the political unity of a great number of cities under the supremacy of a single city might be.

After the victory of Mycale the islanders who had thrown off the Persian yoke were received into the pan-Hellenic league ; but the Lacedæmonians, weary of the naval war, left the Athenians to provide for the protection of the Ionians of the continent. The contrast between the services rendered by the Athenian fleet to the common cause and the treacherous ambition of the Spartan Pausanias led the strategoi of the towns of the Ægean littoral outside the Peloponnese to offer to the Athenians the hegemony, the chief command, for the duration of the war.87 This alliance of maritime cities was soon converted into a confederation which had for centre the temple of Delian Apollo.⁸⁸ It embraced Euboea, the Cyclades, the islands of the Asiatic coast, the ports of Ionia and Æolis, of the Hellespont and the Propontis, a little later the Greek ports in Thracian land and, later still, those of Caria.

In the beginning the maritime confederation of Athens resembled in many characteristics of its institutions the continental league of the Peloponnese. Its official name, “the Athenians and their allies,”⁸⁹ indicates its dualist nature; it also had no common right of citizenship and exercised its authority over individuals only through the medium of the cities, declared autonomous;⁹⁰ and its chief organ was a Council in which all the delegations had an equal voice.⁹¹ But from the start it had its distinctive mark. Since its object was not war against any aggressor whatsoever, but solely war against the Persians,⁹² and since it was composed only of maritime cities, it required a great fleet. Now though it was easy and advantageous to demand homogeneous squadrons from great towns, it would have been pure folly to require of towns of the second or third rank one or even many ships, because these units would have been too scattered and disparate to be of any use. All the towns, therefore, which did not discharge their federal obligations by furnishing ships had to do so by payment of money. Thus the confederation always had a treasury, supplemented by an annual tribute, the phoros. It was the great work of Aristides, and a very miracle of political wisdom, to make an inventory of the resources at the disposal of this large body of cities, to estimate their ability to pay and to divide out the total of the 460 talents required—all this in such a way as to satisfy everyone.⁹³

But when once the Persians had been expelled from the Ægean sea the confederate cities began to ask why they still continued to fulfil their obligations. Between them and the supreme city divergence of interests was soon rapidly to increase. There were soon to be very few cities to furnish ships, and, in proportion as the naval resources of the confederates were to diminish, Athens was to increase her own.94 The tribute was rarely to rise higher and usually remained lower than the total fixed by Aristides, although it was paid by a greater number of cities; it was none the less protested against. Athens had no desire to intervene in the intestine quarrels of cities, to encroach upon their autonomy. But when they fell into civil war and when the partisans of oligarchy negotiated with Sparta, she had to respond to the appeal of the democrats, and, if hostility went as far as defection, it was essential after the revolt had been repressed to take precautions for the future. When arrears of payment became a subject for scandal she was compelled to use force. It was in this way that the Attico-Delian confederation (συμμαχία) was transformed into an Athenian empire (άρχή).⁹⁵ In the language of diplomacy Athens still continued to talk of allies or confederates (σύμμαχοι), or else she employed the customary and vague term of cities (πόλεις);⁹⁶ but in plain language it was now a question of subjects (υπήκοοι)⁹⁷ and of tributaries (υποτελείς).⁹⁸ The transformation began in 469 when Naxos furnished the first example of disloyalty. It was an accomplished fact in 454 when it was decided that the treasure, until then administered by Athenian officials (the Hellenotamiai) but deposited in the sanctuary of Delian Apollo, should be transferred on to the Acropolis of Athens and placed under the protection of Athena.⁹⁹ This measure was adopted on the proposal of the Samians; it was doubtless the last act of the federal Council, for henceforth nothing more is heard of it.

From being federal all the institutions of the league became imperial. Formerly the position of the cities had been determined by bilateral treaties; general measures had been adopted by resolutions of the Council while the Ecclesia of Athens had probably restricted itself to the ratification and execution of these acts. Henceforth it controlled everything. If a rebellious town were compelled to capitulate, if a town harassed by internal dissensions should furnish the ruling city with an excuse for interfering in its affairs, in short in no matter what circumstances and under no matter what pretext, the Athenians drew up for their allies the articles of their constitutions, regulations for internal administration, terms of compromise between the conflicting parties. We have a whole series of documents showing them legislating for rebel or suspect towns.100 As soon as the central authority had trained the towns to receive its orders, it found it more convenient to group them by districts : in “6-5 it created five of them, the Islands, Caria, Ionia, the Hellespont and Thrace. It had no hesitation then in taking decisions applicable to a whole district.¹⁰¹ It finished by legislating for the whole empire: it promulgated general ordinances on internal administration, on the payment of tribute, on the first-fruits due to the goddesses of Eleusis, on monetary unity.¹⁰²

A characteristic change was introduced into the formula of the oath in which the confederate towns swore to remain loyal: in 465 they bound themselves still to “the Athenians and the allies ”103 after 450 they promised fidelity and obedience to the “Athenian people” (ττεíσομαί τώώώωί δέμώώώωΰ τώώώο Άθεναίωωωων).¹⁰⁴ For the confederate towns it was no longer a case of lending each other support against the Persians; the subject cities were required to have the same friends and the same enemies as the mistress city, to furnish her with contingents for fighting in the Ægean, at Samos, against the Peloponnesians, against Syracuse.¹⁰⁵ It was no longer a case of paying to Delos a contribution to ensure common defence; it was rather a tribute which was sent to Athens. Each town was taxed by the Athenian Boule, according to the estimates of Athenian officials (the taktai), and claims were presented by other Athenian officials (the eisagogeis) before Athenian judges.¹⁰⁶ The allotted sums were brought by the delegates of the towns at the Great Dionysia,¹⁰⁷ placed in the hands of the apodektai, and finally transmitted to the treasurers of the goddess, the ever-watchful guardian who was rewarded for her pains with a first-fruit of a sixtieth part.¹⁰⁸ Remission of payment was a privilege which could only be conceded by the Ecclesia. Unjustified delay in payment involved the addition of a fine to the phoros, an epiphora.¹⁰⁹ In order to receive her due the creditor people sent out bailiffs who acted as tax-collectors (eklogeis);¹¹⁰ if any resistance were anticipated she deputed execution to the strategoi at the head of a squadron.¹¹¹ This compulsion was made intolerable by the fact that the money paid as tribute was no longer used solely for the construction and maintenance of the fleet. Pericles laid down in principle that the sums paid by the cities constituted a contract under which Athens undertook to ensure their defence with her navy: as soon as they were living in complete security she could dispose as she wished of the federal exchequer¹¹²—a theory which was often contested by the parties concerned and by the oligarchs of Athens, but which nevertheless triumphed. The administrators of the phoros, the Hellenotamiai, had to subsidize in part the expenses of monuments erected on the Acropolis. Even though they were never called upon to pay out large sums for this purpose¹¹³ the principle involved in making the cities contribute to the sumptuary expenses of Athenian democracy was still of great moment.

One can imagine what, in these circumstances, became of the autonomy promised to the confederates in the beginning. It no longer existed save in those few cities which were in a position to escape from the phoros by contributing ships.114 To the others Athens allowed it only when compelled by events.¹¹⁵ In the cities where there was no pretext for intervention oligarchic government was able to maintain itself for a long time: Miletus, for example, preserved it until 450.¹¹⁶ But as soon as Athens was called upon to reestablish civil peace, especially after she learnt that concessions to oligarchic cities did not make them any more favourably disposed towards her, she showed herself openly and vigorously the champion of democracy.

Even as early as 465 the Athenians sent to Erythræ, after a revolution, a garrison commanded by a phrourarch and commissioners of surveillance or episkopoi. Without delay they organized the Boule of Erythræ on the model of their own and drew up the formula of the oath which the councillors were to take in promising to exercise their office with a view to the common good of the Erythræans, the Athenians and the confederates. On the first occasion the Boule was to be elected by lot and installed under the direction of the episkopoi and the phrourarch; for the future it was to be elected every year by the phrourarch and the retiring Boule.117 If the cities were controlled to this extent by Athens in the days when they still had obligations to the confederation as a whole, one can imagine how much more stringent that control would be when they were subject to Athens alone. Everywhere there were permanent garrisons with a phrourarch who combined military and political authority.¹¹⁸ The episkopoi who were drawn by lot from the Athenians and remunerated by the cities in which they functioned, were invested with judicial powers, sometimes supplemented by armed force, in order that they might settle on the spot suits arising from the application of the treaties : Aristophanes gives them two urns for insignia.¹¹⁹ In other circumstances Athens intervened by sending officials or extraordinary delegates, such as the eklogeis, whose function we know, or certain commissioners who were entrusted, after a civil war, with the task of holding an enquiry and taking necessary measures.¹²⁰ It ended quite simply by placing at the head of the government in a good number of cities one or more Athenian magistrates, an archon or a college of archons, that is to say a mayor or leading officials representing the central power.¹²¹

Amongst all these marks of subjection, there were few which appeared more infamous, and perhaps not one which was so prejudicial to the material interests of the cities, as the duty of granting landed property to the cleruchs sent from Athens.122 This was a direct attack upon citizenship, since it robbed it of its essential and exclusive privilege of landed property. It was a spoliation the more odious in that the victims continued to live near the land from which they had been ejected or continued to work there while paying dues to the men who were quartered on them and who kept them in submission; for sometimes the cleruchs settled on their estate and cultivated it themselves; sometimes the old proprietors were reduced to the position of tenants and were compelled to pay two hundred drachmas each year to a cleruch who, in virtue of this income, became a zeugites owing hoplite service. Land-owners or rentiers, the cleruchs constituted a section of the Athenian people detached from the main body; they were “the Athenian people dwelling in Scyros,” “the Athenian people of Imbros,” “the Athenians dwelling in Hephæstia,” etc. They had their Ecclesia and their Boule, subordinated for all important decisions to the Ecclesia of Athens. They formed a colony charged with the surveillance of a city, while they made it pay with interest the price for such surveillance.

At the same time the judicial sovereignty of the cities was reduced to a shred.¹²³ At first the Athenian people reserved to itself the right of judging all crimes and delinquencies against the federal pact or against the imperial government— acts of high treason, disloyalty, hostile intrigues, or failure to meet the prescribed obligations. Pleas of this order had to be brought to Athens and sent before special epimeletai. It was this procedure which, in 425, sanctioned the decree for doubling the phoros.124 Then a further step was taken· Since in political cases Athens felt apprehensive of sentences hostile to democracy or the empire being given, she deprived most of the cities of the right of hearing almost all suits which involved capital penalties.¹²⁵ In “6-5, after the submission of Chalcis, a decree of the people laid down rulings for the trial of the guilty : it made no mention of any other competency save that of the Boule and the Heliæa in first resort; it maintained the sovereignty of the Ecclesia for all decrees inflicting loss of civil rights without trial, for all cases of condemnation to banishment, to prison, to death or to loss of property. An amendment of a general order recognized in principle the penal jurisdiction of Chalcis, but with the reservation of obligatory recourse to the popular tribunals of Athens for any condemnation to atimia or death.¹²⁶ Finally, having once embarked on this course, the Athenian people encroached even upon jurisdiction over private affairs within the town of the empire. This usurpation might, it is true, have its good side, as for instance when the litigants were of two different towns, and it was perhaps to this type of private suit (and again only if the value of the suit exceeded a certain limit) that the sacrifice demanded of the towns was confined.¹²⁷ One must recognize, moreover, that when commercial suits were being heard this great firm which was Athens conducted itself with scrupulous fairness· Whether she negotiated with federal cities or with other towns for conventions of private international law (δíκαι άπο συμβόλων), or whether she adhered to traditional relationships, she sought to make the principle of consular law prevail—namely, that the plaintiff should plead in the town to which the defendant belonged.¹²⁸ But, since the Athenians were bad merchants,¹²⁹ they found themselves compelled to restrict the application of this principle, by requiring that the Athenian tribunal alone should be considered competent in cases of contracts concluded at Athens.¹³⁰

Pushing her policy of unification to the extreme limit Athens aspired to impose on the empire her system of weights, measures and coinage. The small towns had ceased, after their entry into the confederation, to strike any other coins than the copper coinage needed for the local market. Many great towns which had been guilty of defection saw themselves deprived of a prerogative pertaining to sovereignty. In fact the “owls” of Laurium were practically the only silver pieces of money which the sailors of the fleet brought into the towns and which the towns sent back in the form of tribute; the Athenian talent and foot were familiar to the merchants of all ports. A decree proposed by a man named Clearchus ordered the exclusive use of Athenian standards in all the cities of the empire and forbade them to strike silver money. It seems that it met with serious resistance, for a second one had to be issued (before 420) to order individuals to exchange foreign money for Attic money.131

Because of its complete contempt for all the attributes of autonomy, the Athenian empire seemed to its subjects a tyranny. The Athenians were the first to recognize it, but they justified their policy either by referring with Pericles to the services they had rendered and were continuing to render, or else by declaring with the brutality of a Cleon that there could be no retracing of the steps which had been taken, but only a marching forward and a crushing of all obstacles. Thus the cities which had united in order to assure their liberty felt themselves enslaved, and an Athenian could indignantly declare that they were treated like slaves at the mill.¹³² They paid tribute for the adornment of Athens and the enrichment of her goddess. They were compelled to send delegates to the Dionysian festivals to deliver their tribute, to the Panathenæa to offer costly victims, to the festivals of Eleusis to consecrate to the goddesses the first-fruits of the yearly harvest.¹³³ They were confined within the strait way of democracy, forced to obedience and fidelity by archers and hoplites encamped on their acropolis, by triremes stationed in their port, by the cleruchs established in thousands on their soil. Discontent smouldered in all parts of the empire. For long it was impotent: for isolated cities, separated by great distances, all collective effort against the mistress of the sea was impossible. At last the Spartans gave the signal for the great struggle against Athens; from the beginning they proclaimed it a war of deliverance. In actual fact the empire was to fall less as a result of the furious attacks launched against it from without than of the work of undermining ceaselessly carried on by its enemies within.

Autonomy avenged itself upon a centralization odious to the Greeks. This autonomy of the small cities was so intractable that it did not admit as easily as one might think international solidarity of parties. Cleon did not realize that among the rebel Mitylenians there was a distinction between democrats and oligarchs : for him they were all equally guilty.134 And when the Athenian people was asked as a measure of public safety to permit the allied towns a change of constitution in favour of oligarchy, Phrynichus opposed the demand. What good could come of it ? “It would be neither a motive of submission for the revolting cities, nor a pledge of fidelity in those who remain with us; for rather than be slaves of either oligarchy or democracy they prefer to be free under no matter which of these governments.”¹³⁵

The imperialism of the Athenians, however, was only premature and not entirely fruitless. The great mistake of Athens—an inevitable mistake at this epoch—was her failure to understand that if she assailed the rights of other cities she must make her own more accessible to them. Under the blow of defeat bolder spirits thought of this, but it was already too late and they were to wait for the coming of overwhelming disasters before making an exceptional and despairing application of an idea which Rome was to make so fruitful.¹³⁶ At all events the experiment of Pericles and his successors had great results, not only for Athens, which would not have left so great a name had she not been the capital of so great an empire, but for the empire itself and for the whole of Greece. It is always the defects of the system which attract attention because the ancients only saw and in their turn the moderns have looked at little else than the political side of events. But from other points of view, and even from that one, the Athenian empire rendered great services by giving birth to precious elements of unity. Through the medium of the confederate cities democracy, in spite of everything, supplied the mass of Greeks with an example which never lost its influence. Thanks to the commercial liberalism which even in the midst of war the Athenians did not abandon save to ensure their subsistence and to procure materials for naval constructions, the basin of the Mediterranean formed a single market the benefits of whose exploitation were not confined to the Piræus.¹³⁷ And, moreover, the allies who came each year to the plays of the Greater Dionysia and the processions of the Panathenæa carried away with them and diffused everywhere a love for great literature and art. Finally, just as the vanquished France of 1815 bequeathed to her conquerors the Code Napoleon, so Athens, before being crushed, spread the principles of her law among the confederates whom she brought before her courts, and this so effectively that many of them permanently adopted not merely her legal technique but her conceptions of personal liberty and personal responsibility.¹³⁸ Thus, as a result of the domination which she exercised for three-quarters of a century, Athens contributed greatly to the political, economic, intellectual and juridical unification of the Greek race.

Ill

THE FEDERATIONS (Sympoliteiai)

As a reaction against the menacing ambition of the leagues with their imperial outlook we see in all parts of Greece neighbouring and kindred cities seeking to give each other mutual guarantees and for that purpose uniting in larger communities. From a similar need were born confederations of the most diverse nature. Two words usually serve to designate them, namely, sympolity and synœcism. They were for long synonymous, and hence the union of Attica around its capital has retained the name of synœcism in history. But after a certain time the Greeks differentiated between the two terms. Union was accomplished in all cases by the adoption of a common constitution, in all cases men continued to apply to it the same name of sympolity; but when it was accomplished by a total or partial transference of the population into the most important of the cities which were uniting or, if they were of equal importance, into a new town, to this concentration, at once geographical and political, the henceforth specialized term of synœcism was attached.

But the sympolities which are known to us present so many forms, so many gradations, that it is often puzzling to know how to define them : not only are there cases in which one hesitates for the appropriate name, but one cannot always see at what point an alliance, a symmachia, substituted for the sovereignty of the contracting cities a superior sovereignty or, on the other hand, at what point it begins to constitute, still under the same name, an authentic confederation.139 In theory the sympolity created a State embracing many groups by depriving them of part of their autonomy. Its conditions were : citizenship, which was, moreover, something more than a formality and belonged implicitly to all the citizens of the individual units; a constitution, which might be merely the assembly of clauses by which the cities were bound one to another; a government provided with a Council and usually with an Assembly; a jurisdiction responsible for the application of the laws relating to the general welfare; an administration allowing of only a few magistracies. Synœcism implied, in addition, local union, suppression of frontiers between a number of districts, and concentration of the inhabitants in a capital which was often founded for that purpose.

Certain parts of the Peloponnese which wished to secede from the Spartan hegemony began to organize themselves in 471. They acted under the influence of Athens and perhaps, in the beginning, upon the advice of Themistocles in person.

The small rural cities of the Eleans had for a long time formed an aristocratic State loosely bound together, when the democrats, having come into power, decided to centralize the country by incorporating the subject cantons. They divided it into ten local tribes, each of which was represented by a Hellanodikas and fifty members of the Council. At the same time they built the town which they needed: Elis became the seat of the plenary Assembly and a large population settled within its walls.¹⁴⁰

About the same time Arcadia madetwo analogous attempts. The shepherds of these plateaux had always lived scattered in hamlets, villages or independent towns (κατά κώμας).141 In certain naturally isolated cantons the inhabitants of these scattered districts did little more than bear a common name and meet together on special occasions: there were, for example, nine villages of Heræans, the same number of Tegeans, five of Mantineans, ten of Mænalians, at least six of Parrhasians and four of Cynurians. Each of these small groups had its own nationality : when an Arcadian was victor in the Olympic games he was proclaimed as a Stymphalian or as a Mænalian.¹⁴² Each one had its own policy: in the fourth century, for instance, the Heræans concluded with the Eleans a truce for a hundred years,¹⁴³ and the Tegeans, as soon as they were at peace on the Lacedaemonian side, fought with the Mantineans. Here and there, sooner or later, however, slightly more important centres arose : in the North Orchomenus was of importance during the wars of Messenia,¹⁴⁴ while in order to be in a better position to resist their enemies the nine komai of Tegeans built the town of Tegea.¹⁴⁵ And besides the memory of their common origin was not forgotten:¹⁴⁶ the Arcadians came to Parrhasia to sacrifice together to a pre-Hellenic Mother-Earth, the Despoina of Lycosoura,¹⁴⁷ and to celebrate the feast of an Achæan godworshipped on Mount Lycæus, Zeus Lyeæus.¹⁴⁸ In the long run this feeling of ethnic solidarity produced its effect.

In the sixth century Tegea struggled single-handed against the Spartans; all the Arcadians suffered its fate and were compelled to recognize the hegemony of the conquerors.149 In 473 practically all of them made common cause and they soon organized themselves in a confederation. The coins, from which we learn of this political union, tell us also of its extension: federal money was struck which bore on the one side the image of Zeus Lycæus and, on the other, the head of Despoina with the legend Ar, Area or Arcadicon; at the same time Heræa, unlike Mantinea and some other refractory cities, ceased to strike money of its own.¹⁵⁰ Twenty years later Tegea, conquered by the Spartans, entered the Lacedæmonian league. This was sufficient to make Mantinea break with the league with which, up to that time, she had allied herself. By a pact of synœcism she annexed the population of four surrounding villages, offering them a safe citadel in which to take refuge in case of invasion.¹⁵¹ From this time the Arcadian confederation ceased to be of importance. When the Peloponnesian war broke out it, too, was forced in its turn to enter the Lacedæmonian league.¹⁵² Compelled as guarantee of its fidelity to give hostages who were massacred,¹⁵³ rent by the supporters of Mantinea and those of Tegea,¹⁵⁴ it faded out of existence, and the cities began once more to strike their own money.¹⁵⁵ As for the synœcism it was only able to maintain itself by virtue of a truce for thirty years which was granted to it by Sparta in 418.

After the confederations whose very birth-right was hostility to the Peloponnesian league, others were formed whose principal or sole raison d’être was resistance to Athenian imperialism.

The first of these confederations was formed on the frontier of Attica, like that of the Arcadians on the frontier of Laconia. The Boeotians gave themselves a soundly constructed constitution, which was the product of a considerable period of time. Since their settlement in the country they had been dispersed in a large number of small towns. They kept alive the memory of their common origin, however, in the annual festival which reunited them at the temple of Poseidon at Onchestus¹⁵⁶ and in the Pambœotia celebrated in honour of Athena Itonia at Coronea.¹⁵⁷ In addition the small independent towns were all similarly governed by oligarchies of land-owners. Moreover one can discern even in the first half of the sixth century the embryo of confederation: local coinage bore a federal emblem, the Boeotian buckler,¹⁵⁸ and the hoplites of the towns formed on occasion a common army under the command of the Bœotarchs.¹⁵⁹ Thebes, the most important centre of the country, was in a fair way to become the capital when its attitude during the second Persian war frustrated its ambitions: after the battle of Platæa the confederation was dissolved upon the orders of Sparta (479).¹⁶⁰ But in 457 Sparta went back on its decision in order to encircle Attica. For ten years the revived confederation was the bone of contention in the struggles to which the Lacedæmonians, the Boeotians and the Athenians surrendered themselves, as in those which brought the oligarchs and democrats of Thebes to blows. In 447 the defeat of Athens at Coronea gave permanency to the federal institution.¹⁶¹

The constitution then drawn up by the Boeotians is not only remarkable in itself; it has besides the supreme interest of being one of the Greek constitutions of which we are most fully informed, since it was described in detail by an historian who saw it at work, the “Anonymous” of Oxyrynchus.162 In contrast with the Lacedæmonian and Athenian leagues the Boeotian confederation determined the rights and the obligations of the constituent cities in proportion to their population and wealth. There was no hegemony as of right; that which Thebes was to exercise was in fact assured to it solely by a common rule, and there was no question of a Theban league but of a Boeotian confederation. Since federal institutions had as their framework districts comprising a variable number of autonomous cities, they were closely connected with the institutions of these cities. At first there was no federal citizenship outside and above local citizenship. Afterwards, the spirit of the confederation* was inevitably that of the cities, since they all alike were ruled by a moderate oligarchy. Consequently the whole ordering of the confederation could be based on the organization of the cities.

In each the necessary qualification for active citizenship was the possession of landed property reaching a legal minimum, probably fixed sufficiently high for service as a hoplite to be possible.163 Commerce was, therefore, derogatory.¹⁶⁴ All the qualified citizens were divided in equal numbers among the four sections of the Council, the foui Boulai. Each of. the four sections in turn exercised the functions of a Council; the four together formed the Assembly. The section in office prepared motions and submitted them to the three others; to have the force of law a decree had to be adopted by all four.

The cities were divided into eleven districts (μέρη), Thebes, after the destruction of Platæa, found herself placed at the head of four districts, of which one was divided into five small cities; Orchomenus and Thespiæ each had two; Tanagra, one; Haliartus, Coronea and Lebadea together had one, as had Acræphia, Copæ and Chæronea. All the districts had the same rights and the same obligations, distributed equitably among the communes. The federal Council was composed of 660 members so that the eleven districts should have equal representation, that in each district all the cities should be represented in proportion to their importance and that in each city the four sections of citizens should have in their turn equal representation. In this way Thebes, with all the districts in its territory, had the right to 240 delegates; Orchomenus to 120, etc.

The Council sat at Thebes and its members received a daily salary out of the federal treasury. As each delegation represented more specially one of the four sections of its city, so the members of the federal Council, in their turn, divided themselves naturally into four sections, into four Boulai.¹⁶⁵ Just as in the cities, each in turn did the work of the Council, and decrees had to be issued by all the sections together in order to have statutory power in all the cities. The judicial power of the confederation was organized in the same way as the legislative power: the High Court, which tried offences against the federal pact, acts of disobedience and perhaps disputes between cities, was composed of judges taken in equal number from the districts and in a proportionate number from the towns. Executive power was in the hands of the Bœotarchs. They were elected by the Boulai of the cities to the number of eleven, one from each district: thus four from Thebes, two from Orchomenus, two from Thespiæ, one from Tanagra and one furnished in turn by each of the three cities of the other two districts. Their principal function was the command of military forces. When all of them were in the field the supreme command was usually exercised by one alone, either in rotation, or at the request of his colleagues, or on the designation of the Council.¹⁶⁶ As leaders of the army they represented the confederation in dealings with foreign States, received or despatched ambassadors, conducted negotiations and then made their report to the Council, which made a decision.¹⁶⁷ The army was composed of contingents furnished by the eleven districts and fixed for each one at a thousand hoplites and a hundred knights. A federal treasure was required for the expenses of war and the payment of councillors: it was supplied by the eisphorai, entrance fees, which were the same for all the districts. The contingent and the contributions were divided among the cities in the district according to the constitutional ratio.

Thus nothing could be done in the confederation save through the agency of the cities, and the importance of each city in the confederation was determined by the number of its active citizens. The influence of Thebes was based solely on the fact that it contained twice, four times, twelve times, twenty times as many landowners possessing the legal minimum as such and such a city, and that, in the same proportions, it had the right to a greater number of representatives in the Council and of Boeotarchs ; but, on the other hand, it was required to furnish more men for the army and to contribute more to the treasury. Officially its superiority was marked only by two signs : the Council sat on the Cadmea, and the federal money which alone had currency bore in addition to the emblem of the buckler the legend Th, The or Theba.168 There was nothing in common between this Boeotian sympolity and the leagues subjected to the hegemony of Sparta or Athens.

Such was the confederation which was formed in a spirit of hostility to Athens during the first Peloponnesian war. At the time of the second the same spirit gave birth to two synœeisms, one on the frontiers of Macedonia, the other on the coast of Asia Minor.

In 432, when the Athenians besieged Potidæa, almost all the Greeks of Chalcidice took its part. On the advice of King Perdiccas the inhabitants of the small maritime towns decided to abandon them, to raze the walls and to take refuge in the interior, in the stronghold of Olynthus. From this synœcism a sympolity was born, with Olynthus for capital.169 The new State soon assumed all the attributes of sovereignty : it treated with foreign powers, sent ambassadors to them, issued decrees of proxenia,¹⁷⁰ and had its own army.¹⁷¹ All the surrounding towns which abandoned the Athenian confederation entered this one.¹⁷² Olynthus rapidly became the most important city of the Thracian coast.¹⁷³

In 408 the Rhodians wishing to put an end to the rivalries which had for long separated their three cities, Ialysus, Camirus and Lindus, built a common capital, Rhodes, a town destined to have so glorious a future. The neighbouring isles of Chalcia and of Syme threw in their lot with the great island; Telus, Carpathus and Casus also joined it at a later date. In spite of the rapid development of the new town the ancient communities, great or small, remained, but as tribes and demes of the city. There was but one Rhodian demos which united in a general Assembly and which was represented by a Boule; but the “Lindians,” the “Cami-rians,” the “Ialysians” continued to issue decrees and to nominate mastroi¹⁷⁴ Here, as formerly in Attica, the synœcism gave birth to a truly unitary State, and the old cities degenerated almost to the position of mere municipalities.

One can see, even in those instances where the passion for autonomy was more or less quelled, how repugnant this repression of local sovereignty was to the spirit of the Greeks. The idea of political concentration might triumph over small areas, when a common danger menaced neighbouring towns or villages incapable of defending themselves; but it never went beyond vaguely federal institutions which one by one succumbed, less often as the result of the attacks of foreign foes than of the ungovernable power of a centrifugal force.