The Athenian Empire resulted from Sparta’s unwillingness or inability to extend her power, influence, and responsibility to the Aegean and its borders after the Greek victories at Plataea and Mycale in 479. Those victories had not ended the war against Persia, for the Persians could come again. Even if this were ruled out, the agreements made by the Greeks at the congress of 481 called for continued joint activities against the Persian Empire. That congress created a confederation of Greek states that greatly influenced the formation of the Delian League, which became the Athenian Empire, and we must examine its history.1
In 481, Xerxes, Great King of the Persian Empire, began his expedition, ostensibly to attack and punish Athens for her successful defiance of Persia at Marathon. The Greeks, however, had long known that his real purpose was the conquest of all Hellas,2 so those of them who were not willing to submit met to consider what they should do.3 The result was the formation of an offensive and defensive alliance, with Sparta at its head, made up of states bound together by a common danger and by solemn oaths. This was the organization that met again at the Isthmus of Corinth in the spring of 480 to plan the strategy that led to victory at Salamis and later to the decisive victories at Plataea and Mycale. Although Sparta was the leader, and most of the members of the Spartan alliance were also members of the new confederation, this was not merely an extension of the Peloponnesian League.4 The new group included cities such as Athens, Plataea, Thespiae, and cities of the Aegean islands, which were not members of the Peloponnesian League previously. More important, the Spartans were given command of all the military forces only after a discussion whose nature was contrary to the very essence of the Spartan alliance.5 The confederation against Persia had no official title, and its members are referred to variously as “the Greeks,” “the Greeks who undertook the war against the barbarians,” etc.6
At their first congress, the Greeks swore an oath whose exact nature we do not know. It is, of course, clear that they promised to fight the Persians “for the common freedom.” 7 It is more than likely that they all swore to have the same friends and enemies, and this implied the cessation of quarrels among the allied states.8 Athens and Aegina, in fact, put aside the conflict that had occupied them for some time. That the promise to fight for the common freedom included an obligation to free the Greek cities of the Aegean and its littoral is made clear by the admission of the Samians, Chians, and Lesbians into the league in 4799 and by the league’s operations in the Hellespont under Pausanias. The question remains whether or not the alliance was meant to be perpetual. Our sources provide no positive statement that it was, but there is a good deal of evidence that in fact, and in the minds of the members, it persisted even into the Peloponnesian War. Almost twenty years after the formation of the league against Persia, when the Spartans were threatened with a helot rebellion, they called upon their allies for help. Among those who came were the Plataeans10 and the Athenians.11 When the Spartans became suspicious of the Athenians and sent them home, the Athenians “abandoned the alliance that they had made with them against the Mede.”12 As late as 427 the Spartans could justify their attack on Plataea by alleging that the Plataeans were in violation of the old treaty against the Persians in siding with the Athenians, who, they further argued, were enslaving Greeks. “Assert your own autonomy,” the Spartans urged. “Help liberate the others who shared the dangers with you at that time [during the Persian Wars], swore the same oaths with you, and are now under Athenian rule.”13
It is clear, then, that during the war against Persia the Greeks formed an alliance of unlimited duration for the purpose of defeating the enemy and winning and maintaining Greek freedom. The allies seem to have been bound to stay at peace with one another and to come to the assistance of a state under attack or in danger of losing its freedom. Unlike the Peloponnesian League, the Hellenic alliance was not based on a series of separate treaties between the states and a hegemonal power. Instead, it was the product of a general covenant which was freely accepted but which did not permit secession. Sparta was chosen to be the hegemonal power, but her hegemony was of a different sort from that which she exercised in the Peloponnesian alliance. Although a Spartan was always commander in chief of any expedition, he needed the consent of the generals from the allied states to carry out his policy. On several occasions the Spartans were compelled to yield and carry out a policy that they did not approve. The covenant made no provision for regular meetings or for financial support. The league was a revolutionary innovation in the relations between the Greek states, made less shocking by the Persian emergency and certain similarities to the familiar Spartan alliance. Its goals and organization, however, were far vaguer than those of that alliance. Only experience would make clear what the true nature of the new league would be.14
Immediately after the Greek naval victory at Mycale, the Hellenic League was put to the test. The Ionian cities revolted from Persian rule and appealed to the league for support.15 The challenge could not be avoided, for it was clear that the Greek force could not guard the rebels forever, yet if the Greeks departed, the Ionians would be left to face the vengeance of Persia. As early as this moment we can discern the disagreement among the Greeks that would soon split them into two hostile camps. The Peloponnesians argued that the Ionians should abandon their homelands and settle on land confiscated from Greeks who had sided with Persia. Even had this been possible, it could scarcely have appealed to the Ionians, who found a champion in the Athenians. The Athenians had an interest in the decision, for they had colonies in the area under discussion and were not eager to abandon them. They argued strongly against withdrawal and won their point. The rebellious islanders were sworn into the Hellenic League, and the Greeks set off for the Hellespont to destroy the bridges that Xerxes had built to connect Asia with Europe.16 When the Greeks arrived they found that the Persians had broken the bridges. The Spartan king Leotychidas wasted no time in abandoning the campaign and returning to Greece. The Athenians, however, commanded by Xanthippus, remained to lay siege to the city of Sestus on the Chersonese.17 It is at this point that Thucydides began his account of the growth of that Athenian power that he believed frightened Sparta into war. Sparta was still hegemon of the Hellenic League, but at the first test her traditional conservatism led her to abandon her responsibility. The new element was the demonstrated willingness of Athens to undertake the burden. The fall of Sestus within a few months proved her ability to do so successfully; Sparta was not the only state capable of providing leadership.18
Events in Athens now widened the schism. After the departure of the Persians, the Athenians brought back their families from Salamis, Aegina, and Troezen, where they had taken refuge, and began to rebuild their walls.19 This was a perfectly reasonable action, for the destruction of their homes and temples would make any people eager to safeguard their city against a future attack. The Peloponnesians, moreover, had been reluctant to defend any cities north of the Isthmus and gave little reason for confidence in a system of collective security based on unfortified cities. The Athenians had built walls round their city in the past without raising any complaints. The events of the Persian War, however, and particularly of the last winter, had changed the climate of Greek opinion. The Spartans, of course, generally preferred to see the Greek towns unwalled and thus more open to coercion by the threat of the Spartan phalanx.20
In their eagerness to put the war behind them and to return to normal conditions, the Spartans would probably have ignored the fortification of Athens, but their allies urged them to take action. The allies (Thucydides does not specify, but we may imagine they included Aegina and Megara, old enemies of Athens, and possibly Corinth as well) sent the Spartans to Athens to request that the Athenians should not rebuild their walls but should join them in a policy of razing all walls outside the Peloponnese. They gave the rather implausible grounds that this would deprive the Persians of fortified bases if they should undertake another expedition against Greece.21 The real reason for the request was that the allies were afraid “of the size of the Athenian fleet, which had not previously been great, and of the daring that the Athenians had shown in the Persian War.”22
The Athenians ignored the Spartan request and, thanks to the cleverness of Themistocles, were able to build their wall to a defensible height before anything could be done to hinder them. When word came that Athens was safely defended by her wall, Themistocles announced the fact to the Spartans and took the opportunity to apprise them of the new realities in the Hellenic world. Athens was now a walled city and able to protect its inhabitants. “If the Spartans or their allies wish to send embassies to us from now on, they must come with the understanding that we know very well what is in our own interest and in the general interest.”23 The wall was, in the judgment of Athens, advantageous to the Athenians and to all the allies, “for it is impossible to have an equal or similar weight in the common council except on the basis of equal military power.”24 This amounted to a declaration of independence from Spartan leadership and an assertion of equality in the conduct of the affairs of the Hellenic League. It opened the way for the foundation of the Delian League, but it also was the beginning of the suspicion and fear that would one day lead Sparta to make war on Athens. Up to that point the Spartans were very well disposed to Athens because of its role in the war against Persia. After the speech of Themistocles they showed no resentment and went home without making a formal complaint, “but they were secretly embittered.”25
The assertiveness of Themistocles seems to have strengthened the influence of the Spartan faction, which favored continued Spartan leadership of the Hellenic campaign against Persia. In the withdrawal of Leotychidas after Mycale we may see the activity of the conservative faction, which was eager to give up extra-Peloponnesian adventures. No doubt they imagined that the Spartan withdrawal would mean the abandonment of the campaign and the return to tranquillity, whatever the cost to the Greek cities still under Persian rule. The Athenian assumption of command, the successful siege of Sestus, the fortification of Athens, and the bold declaration of equality by Themistocles must have damaged their cause among the people of Sparta. It must have been on a wave of anger and disillusionment that the war party came to power, reversed the policy that had recalled Leotychidas, and sent King Pausanias into the Aegean to reassert Spartan hegemony.26 The immediate results were very pleasing. Spartan leadership was accepted by the Athenians without question, for among Pausanias’ fleet were thirty ships from Athens. Pausanias attacked Cyprus, conquered most of it, and then took Byzantium from the Persians.27
At this point the influence of transcendent historical forces, whatever their weight at other times, yielded to the peculiarities of the individual. There is some reason to believe that the Spartans might have led the fight for freedom against Persia and maintained their undivided hegemony for some time had Pausanias’ character been different. In fact, he was arrogant, tyrannical, and venal: “The commanders of the allies were treated with anger and harshness, while he punished the soldiers with whippings or by compelling them to stand all day carrying an iron anchor. No one could get bedding or food, or go down to the spring for water before the Spartans; their servants armed with whips drove away anyone who tried.”28 Small wonder that the Greeks from outside the Peloponnese, unaccustomed to Spartan arrogance, brought charges against Pausanias ranging from tyranny to treason. The Spartans were compelled to recall him and to put him on trial. For the Spartans this must have been more than merely an inquest into the alleged misconduct of a king. It could not avoid becoming a struggle over policy between the two factions. The war party was still strong enough to win an acquittal on the charge of treason and to have Dorcis sent out to replace Pausanias.29 Their victory was less than complete, for Pausanias was held to account for the personal wrongs he had committed and, more important, the force sent with Dorcis was very small.30
The policy of the war party collapsed totally when the allies refused to accept Dorcis as their leader. He and his subordinates returned to Sparta, and the Spartans sent no substitute. Thucydides tells us that the Spartans feared a repetition of the Pausanias affair: “They also wanted to be rid of the Persian war and believed that the Athenians were competent to lead and were at the present time well disposed to the Spartans.”31 These must be the reasons offered by the peace party for the reversal of Spartan policy that they had brought about.
The Ionians and islanders who had been so affronted by Pausanias wasted no time in seeking a new leader. To understand the early history of the Delian League, we must remember that the initiative for its foundation came not from Athens but from those cities she would one day dominate. On the grounds of common Ionian kinship, they pleaded with the Athenians to take the hegemony and defend them against Pausanias should the need arise.32 Thucydides tells us plainly that Athens assumed the leadership by the will of the allies (ἑκόντων τῶν ξυμμάχων), and the evidence supports him.33 It is clear that the Athenians required some degree of persuasion; leading the allies against Persia without Peloponnesian support, possibly in the face of Peloponnesian resentment, had some dangers. The Athenians could not know if the Ionians and islanders would prove loyal and willing to face the hardships and costs of the campaign. They were also wary lest the allies merely use them as a threat with which to persuade the Spartans to take a more vigorous role in the Aegean.
Such considerations must have shaped Aristides’ reply to the Chians, Samians, Lesbians, and other allied captains who came to persuade the Athenians to accept the hegemony. He saw the need and the justice of their proposals, but insisted upon some action that would give the Athenians confidence in them and make it impossible for them to change sides again. Uliades of Samos and Antagoras of Chios immediately insulted Pausanias and drove him from Byzantium.34 The die was cast, and the allies had proven their eagerness for Athenian leadership.
Their appeals did not fall on deaf ears. The Athenians were, in fact, glad to assume a leading role. It is plain that the tact and gentleness of the Athenian commanders, Aristides and Cimon, was calculated to exploit Pausanias’ unpopularity to the advantage of Athens.35 Herodotus spoke the simple truth when he said that the Athenians “offered the hyhris of Pausanias as a pretext” when they took away the Spartan hegemony.36 Their eagerness is not difficult to understand. The Aegean and its borders were outside the normal sphere of Sparta’s interest, and involvement in that region was as dangerous to Sparta as it was inviting. For Athens the situation was quite different. Recent events had shown that in case of Persian attack Athens was vulnerable. The Athenian economy was increasingly dependent upon trade, a large part of it in the Aegean and in the Hellespontine region. A significant part of the grain eaten by the Athenians came from the Ukraine through the Hellespont and the Aegean. It was in large part for these reasons that Athens had planted colonies on the Chersonese in the sixth century. She could not allow the Hellespont and northern Aegean to remain in Persian hands or under threat of Persian control.37 Athens, moreover, felt an emotional attachment to the Ionians, and their abandonment to Persian rule would have been difficult for Athenian politicians to justify.38 Finally, coming on the heels of Marathon, Salamis could not fail to instill in the Athenians a new pride, confidence, and ambition, all of which are reflected in the speech of Themistocles to the Spartans. The needs of the allies, the conservative victory at Sparta, and the interests and ambitions of the Athenians all led to the formation of a new organization to fight Persia.
In the winter of 478/7 the allies met at Delos at what we might call a constitutional convention; Aristides the Athenian was probably chairman.39 The assembly was probably made up of the commanders of the several allied contingents. The purposes of the new league were very much the same as those of the Hellenic League: to avenge Greek suffering by ravaging Persian territory40 and to liberate those Greeks still under Persian rule.41 But these were not the only goals, for the members swore to have the same friends and enemies.42 The permanence of the alliance was symbolized by the dropping of iron weights into the sea: the alliance was to last until the weights rose up again.43
It is important to notice that although the purposes of the Delian League were almost identical with those of the Hellenic League, the two leagues were not identical in membership, nor was the Delian League competent to act for the Hellenic League without Spartan consent.44 The membership alone makes the difference very clear. The Hellenic League was composed of Peloponnesians, states from central Greece, and only later of states from the islands and Asia Minor. The Delian League included approximately twenty members from the islands, thirty-six from Ionia, thirty-five from the Hellespont, twenty-four from the region of Caria, and thirty-three from the region of Thrace.45 It included no Peloponnesian cities but, “in the beginning, was primarily an organization of the Greek cities of the Aegean islands and the coast.”46 In the fourth century Aristotle could look back and see the formation of the Delian League as a “rebellion of the Ionians from the Spartan alliance,” a judgment which was inexact but which indicates forcefully how completely independent the new league was from the old.
The true relation of the Delian League to the Hellenic League may be clearer to our generation than to an earlier one. It seems to have been General Alfred Gruenther who first compared the Delian League to NATO, and it is a useful analogy. As NATO is a regional organization, nominally within the principles of the United Nations Organization but really independent of it, composed of some UN members but very clearly excluding others, so too was the Delian League a regional organization, consisting of states who were also members of the Hellenic League but clearly excluding others. The Delian League no more required Spartan approval for its actions than NATO requires Russian approval for its. The Hellenic League might call on its Delian members for assistance and technically have the right to do so, just as the UN may call on its members for military or financial support. The hegemon of the former could not be confident of the response any more than the Secretary-General can today. After the foundation of the Delian League the Hellenic League had an increasingly shadowy existence and collapsed at the first real test.
The Delian League became increasingly significant because its purposes were essential to its members and because its organization was clearer, simpler, and more effective than either of the two interstate coalitions that had preceded it. The oaths that sealed the constitutional covenant were taken by Aristides for Athens, on the one hand, and by die Ionians, which means the allies,47 on the other. From the beginning Athens was recognized as hegemon. The allies swore to have the same friends and enemies as Athens and also appointed the Athenian Aristides to assess the contributions of each state. They chose Athenians only as the financial officials of the league,48 and Athenian generals commanded all league campaigns.
Hegemony was not domination. In the early period of the league, at least, the Athenians exercised what Thucydides called a “hegemony over autonomous allies who participated in common synods.”49 It is clear that sessions of the synod determined policy in the early history of the league and decided what should be done about recalcitrant or rebellious states. In this synod all members, including Athens, the hegemon, had only one vote.50 In theory Athens was only an equal partner in the synod, no stronger politically than Samos, Lesbos, or even Seriphos. In fact, the system of equal votes, as the Mytileneans were later to point out, worked in Athens’ favor. The greatness of Athenian naval and military power combined with Athens’ enormous prestige guaranteed that the numerous small and powerless states would be under her influence, while the larger states such as Samos, Mytilene, Chios, and Thasos, who might have challenged Athenian domination, were easily outvoted. As the Mytileneans put it, “The allies were unable to unite to defend themselves because of the great number of voters.”51 From the beginning, then, Athens was in the happy position of dominating the Delian League without the appearance of illegality or tyranny.
Whatever the disadvantages of such an arrangement, it had one enormous advantage: the league could act swiftly and decisively. There could be no defection on the brink of a campaign such as the one by Corinth that had halted Cleomenes’ attack on Athens. As Pericles implied, it was different from the Spartan alliance because it had a common political assembly that could quickly collect to take emergency action.52 Athens, moreover, had and used the power to see that league decisions were carried out. The hegemonal power collected the contributions to the league treasury strictly and punished refusal to participate in campaigns.53 The league, unlike its predecessors, even forbade private wars among its members, and Athens punished transgressors.54
The Delian League represented an advance over the Spartan alliance in another important aspect: its financial arrangements. Up to the conflict with Athens the Spartan alliance had little need for money. Campaigns were almost always on land, and the Spartans demanded from their allies only that they send the required military contingents. In the forth century the Spartans sometimes required money payments, but the character of their alliance guaranteed that these were for a special purpose and would not continue after the campaign was over. The Delian League, on the contrary, was chiefly a naval confederation whose purposes required that it maintain a fleet in being for an indefinite period. This was a costly undertaking and demanded a well-organized system for regular payments into the league treasury. Athens was given the responsibility of making the assessment and of collecting the money. Until 454/3 the treasury was at Delos; after that date it was transferred to Athens. From the beginning there was a distinction between those states who provided ships and manned them and those who paid money in lieu of serving themselves. The burden of providing, manning, and maintaining ships varied with necessity but was often heavier on those who did so than on those who merely paid money and received protection. Heaviest of all was the burden borne by Athens, which not only provided leadership but the largest fleet as well, which she manned and maintained. No doubt, booty collected from the Persians was expected to, and did, meet some of the cost, but the expenditure of time, effort, and lives was not insignificant. We can well understand why “most of the allies allowed their assessments to be changed from ships to money because of their reluctance to embark on military campaigns and so that they might not be away from home.”55 Of course, as the allies shrank from responsibility, the Athenians accepted more of it. This centralizing tendency helped make the league more effective against external enemies, but it led to a gradual but decisive change in the nature of the organization.
By the time of the Peloponnesian War, Athenian statesmen were willing to admit that the Delian League had become an empire and that Athens ruled it as a tyrant.56 Although we may agree with Thucydides that “the allies themselves were responsible”57 for the transition to empire, it is important to see how the change took place and by what means the Athenians imposed their will. The first recorded action of the league was the siege of Eion undertaken under the command of Cimon in the autumn of 477.58 In the next year it was taken from the Persians, and its inhabitants were enslaved.59 This action was clearly a legitimate step in the war against Persia and must have caused no problem. In the same year the forces of the league captured the Aegean island of Scyros, which was inhabited by Dolopians. They were enslaved and an Athenian cleruchy was established on the island.60 Although the Athenians profited from this expedition, the allies seem not to have objected, and in fact, they had reason to be pleased. The Dolopians who lived on Scyros were a semibarbarous people who made their living by piracy. When the Athenians expelled them, “they liberated the Aegean.”61 The establishment of an Athenian colony was a good way to guarantee continued freedom from piracy in that quarter of the Aegean.
Some time in the next few years the league launched an expedition against Carystus on the island of Euboea. This city was neither under Persian control like Eion nor a pirate state like Scyros, and, so far as we know, it had committed no action to merit an attack. On the other hand, the Carystians had fought on the Persian side in the recent war and so could expect little sympathy from the allies. The usual assumption is that Carystus had held aloof from the Delian League and that this expedition was undertaken to compel her to join.62 This is supported by Thucydides’ statement that the Carystians were not backed by the other Euboean states and finally capitulated on terms.63 Carystus later appears on the tribute lists as a member making regular money payments. This is the first case of compulsion used to force a state into the league, and it surely had general approval. Apart from the unpopularity of the Medizing Carystians, there were other reasons for the campaign. It would scarcely seem fair that a city should benefit from the league’s war against the Persians and its protection from piracy, while allowing its neighbors to bear the cost. The Athenians acted with the support of the league, but the use of compulsion was ominous.
About 470 the island of Naxos, an original member, rebelled from the league. Thucydides does not tell us the reason for this rebellion, only that after it had been reduced by siege Naxos was “the first allied city to be subjugated [ἐδουλώθη] in violation of the covenant.”64 We are not told precisely what that means, but it seems likely that Naxos was forbidden a navy and thus would thereafter pay tribute instead of supplying ships and men. Perhaps she received a garrison; perhaps she had some land confiscated, as well as her ships; and possibly an Athenian cleruchy was settled on the confiscated land.65 Once again we may be sure that Athens had acted with the approval of the league. Rebellion could not be allowed or the alliance would soon disintegrate. But once more Athens emerged stronger than before, having placed violent hands upon fellow Greeks.
Thucydides uses the attack on Naxos as the occasion for a general account of the change in the nature of the league that makes it clear that Naxos was not the only state in rebellion and that increasingly harsh treatment of rebels was the rule. The rebellions came about when members were unwilling or unable to pay tribute, supply ships, or do military service; the Athenians were strict in the collection of tribute and the exaction of service. The demeanor of the Athenian commanders changed as well. The Athenians had gained the hegemony, we are told, in no small measure because of the mildness and tact of such men as Aristides, Xanthippus, and Cimon. Cimon was still on the scene, but the behavior and manner of the Athenian commanders changed with the new circumstances. “The Athenians were no longer equally pleasant as leaders. They no longer behaved as equals on campaigns, and they found it easy to reduce states that had rebelled.”66 From the allied point of view, the rebellions and reductions produced a vicious circle. As each rebellious state was forced to give up her fleet and to pay tribute, it became weaker and Athens proportionately stronger. “The Athenian fleet was increased by their payments, while whenever they themselves revolted, they set about the war without preparation and without experience.”67
The growing discontent of the allies must have been increased by Cimon’s great victory over the Persians at the Eurymedon River on the Anatolian coast in 469.68 The victory was so decisive, the damage to the Persians so great, the booty collected so considerable, as to lead some to believe that the alliance against Persia, with its burdensome payments and service, might no longer be necessary. The Athenians thought otherwise, and they may have been right, for the Persians had certainly not abandoned the Aegean.69 The allies nevertheless became increasingly restive, and more compulsion became necessary.
In 465 the island of Thasos, a charter member of the league and a rich and powerful naval state, revolted. The causes of this rebellion were quite different from those that seem to have brought on the Naxian uprising. The Thasians broke away because of a disagreement with the Athenians over some trading stations on the Thracian coast opposite Thasos and a mine that the Thasians owned in the same area.70 These holdings were very rich and their control by Athens would be a great blow to Thasos. At the same time the Athenians were establishing a colony of ten thousand Athenians and their allies at Ennea Hodoi, the site of the future Amphipolis, near the Thracian coast across from Thasos. To be sure, this was an undertaking of the league and made good strategic sense as a base against the Macedonians, but it was probably the foundation of this colony, which would extend Athenian influence to the neighborhood of Thasos, that brought on the rebellion.71 The colony was abandoned after the colonists suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the natives, but Thasos underwent a siege that lasted for more than two years. When the Thasians surrendered they were forced to take down their walls, give up their ships, the Thracian coast, and the mine to the Athenians, to pay an immediate indemnity, and thereafter to pay tribute.72 This was the harshest treatment yet imposed; it obviously brought great profit to the Athenians and could not help adding to their unpopularity. It must have been not long after the fall of Thasos that the situation in the alliance began to reach the condition described by Diodorus:
In general, the Athenians were making great gains in power and no longer treated their allies with decency as they had done before; instead they ruled with arrogance and violence. For this reason most of the allies could not bear their harshness and spoke to one another of rebellion; some of them even disdained the league council and acted according to their own wishes.73
The independence and open defiance implied by the last sentence was, of course, impossible so long as Athens was undistracted. By 462, however, the Athenians were embroiled in a struggle with Sparta on the mainland. Throughout fifteen years she would be involved in a war on land and sea, ranging from Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean to the mainland of Greece. In these circumstances some disaffection was inevitable; the “Crisis of Athenian Imperialism”74 was at hand. Under the pressure of war and rebellion the Athenians turned to ever harsher means to assure their control of the league. In the process they converted it into an empire.
1 The best recent discussions of the Hellenic League of 481 are those of P. A. Brunt (Historia, II [1953/4], 135–163); ATL, (III, 95–105; 183–187), J. A. O. Larsen (HSCP, LI [1940], 175–213), R. Sealey (ASI, 233–256), and H. D. Meyer (Historia, XII [1963], 405–446).
2 Hdt. 7. 138.
3 Herodotus does not tell us where the meeting took place. Diodorus (11. 3) places it at the Isthmus of Corinth, while Pausanius (3. 12. 6) says it met at the Hellenion in Sparta. Most scholars accept the version of Diodorus, but as Brunt argues (ibid., 148, n. 2), there is no reason to do so.
4 The authors of ATL believe that it was (95–100), but the contrary arguments of Brunt (loc. cit.) are more persuasive.
5 Herodotus (8. 3) tells us that the Athenians had claimed command of the navy but had yielded to the wishes of the allies. No such argument could be contemplated in the Peloponnesian League.
6 The authors of ATL think its name was the “Lacedaemonians and their allies” (III, 97), which is consistent with their belief that it was merely an extension of the Peloponnesian League. Larsen (op. cit., 177), on the other hand, thinks the new organization was called ἡ συμμαχία τῶν ’Eλλήνων. Brunt’s arguments (ibid., 145–146) seem decisive against both. It is hard not to agree with his statement that since the Serpent Column, which records the names of the members of the league against Persia, and is the only official document of that league that we have, has at its head merely “The following fought the war,” we may conclude that no general name for the league was given, “because there was none to give.” (146)
7 Hdt. 7. 148; Diod. 11. 3. 4, περὶ τῆς κοινῆς ἐλευθερίας.
8 Brunt, op. cit., 157; Hdt. 7. 145 tells that the allies promised to “put an end to all their enmities and wars with each other.”
9 Hdt. 9. 104.
10 3. 54. 5.
11 1. 102.
12 Idem.
13 2. 72. 1. Larsen (CP, XXVIII [1933], 262–265 and HSCP, LI [1940], 175–213) believes that the continuing alliance was organized not in 481 but at Plataea in 479. He believes in the historicity of the Covenant of Plataea reported by Plutarch Arist. 21. 1–2) and lately supported by A. E. Raubitschek (TAPA, XCI [1960], 178–183). The authors of the ATL, (III, 101–104) and Brunt (op. cit, 153–156) regard the covenant described by Plutarch as spurious. For our purposes it is not important whether the continuing character of the Hellenic alliance originated in 481 or 479.
14 For a discussion of the connection between this league and earlier types of organizations, see F. R. Wüst, Historia, III (1954–5), 129–153.
15 Hdt. 9. 104.
16 Hdt. 9. 106.
17 Hdt. 9. 114.
18 The change in leadership in the war against Persia after 478 is seen in quite a different way by H. D. Meyer (Historia, XII [1963], 405–446). In his view it was the result of an Athenian plot carried through in conjunction with Chios, Samos, and Lesbos. There is no space to refute his arguments here, but I find them unconvincing, for they take no note of domestic politics in Sparta and Athens and, most important, ignore the very real possibility that the threat from Persia was not ended and might at any time be realized by a new invasion. Another interesting study, which arrives at different conclusions from the ones offered here, is by R. Sealey ASl, 233–255). In characteristically hardheaded fashion he cautions against an overly idealized view of Greek life. In his judgment, “the League of Delos was founded because of a dispute about booty and its purpose was to get more booty.” Such a view is altogether too simple to fit the complicated motives of human actions. It is enough to point out that at least the Greeks of the Ionian mainland, who had just been freed from the Persians and were in imminent danger of reconquest, however many or few they may have been, were interested in something more than booty.
19 1.89.
20 1. 90. 1.
21 1. 90. 1–2. As Gomme (Hist. Comm., I, 258) puts it, “a poor excuse, for the possession of walled towns such as Thebes and Athens had not determined the strategy of the Persians.”
22 1.90.1.
23 1. 91. 4–5.
24 1. 91. 7.
25 1. 92. 1.
26 1.94. 1.
27 Idem.
28 Prut. Arist. 23. 2–3.
29 1. 95. The argument in ATL, I, 192 that Dorcis was sent out to replace Pausanias immediately on the latter’s recall in the summer of 478 is persuasive.
30 Thuc. 1. 95. 6.
31 1. 95. 7.
32 1.95. 1.
33 1.96. 1. See Appendix A.
34 Plut. Arist. 23. 4–5.
35 Diod. 11. 46. 4–5; Plut. Arist. 23, Cim. 6.
36 Hdt. 8. 3.
37 For a good recent account of Athenian economic developments in this period, see A. French, The Growth of the Athenian Economy (London, 1964), especially Chapter 3.
38 Herodotus (6. 21) tells us that some time after the sack of Miletus by the Persians in 494, which put an end to the Ionian rebellion, Phrynichus presented a play on the subject which troubled the Athenians so much that the whole theatre broke into tears. They later fined the playwright “for reminding them of an evil that touched them so closely” and forbade the further presentation of the play. In the wake of the recent victory over Persia, no one could refuse to support the second Ionian rebellion.
39 The convention (κοινὴ σύνοδος) is mentioned only by Diodorus (11. 47. 1). The discussion of the original constitution of the Delian League that follows depends chiefly on Larsen’s article cited above and ATL, III, 225–233. Other useful accounts may be found in Victor Martin, La vie Internationale, 145–185, and Busolt and Swoboda, GS, II, 1337–1360. Brunt (op. cit.) offers useful critical remarks on the views of Larsen and ATL as well as intelligent suggestions of his own. See also Raphael Sealey, ASI, 233–256.
40 1. 96. 1.
41 3. 10. 3.
42 Arist. Ath. Pol. 23. 5.
43 Arist. Ath. Pol. 23. 5; Plut. Arist. 25. 1. Larsen discusses previous opinion of the meaning of the ceremony in a footnote (op. cit., 187, n. 5). Since Larsen wrote, Martin (op. cit., 152, n. 1) has again doubted that it implied a permanent alliance. His arguments are refuted by Brunt (op. cit., 150, n. 1). In this case the majority of scholars is certainly right in seeing the alliance as permanent.
44 This is the view of Larsen, (op. cit., 184). It is ably refuted in ATL, III, 231.
45 The figures are calculated from the lists given in the ATL, III, 194–224.
46 ATL, III, 224.
47 ATL, III, 227, n. 9.
48 Walker (CAH, V, 46) believes that in the beginning the Hellenotamiae were not Athenian but Delian. For a convincing refutation of this argument, see ATL, III, 230, n. 26.
49 1. 97. 1.
50 This is made clear by the speech of the Mytileneans in Thuc. 3. 10—11. The best discussions of the organization and operation of the synod may be found in Larsen, op. cit., 192–197 and ATL, III, 138–141.
51 3. 10. 5.
52 1.41. 6.
53 1. 99. 1;6. 76. 3.
54 6. 76. 3; Larsen, op. cit., 188–190.
55 1. 99. 3.
56 2. 63. 3.
57 1. 99.
58 1. 98. 1. For the date, see ATL, III, 175–179.
59 1. 98. 1. Since Thucydides uses the word ἠνδραπόδισαν, we may be confident that the citizens of Eion were literally enslaved. He often uses δουλεύειν, which can mean the same thing, but when he applies it to cities rather than individuals, it means political subordination, the absence of autonomy, rather than personal slavery. For a clear explanation of Thucydides’ use of δουλεύειν, see ATL, III, 155–177.
60 Thucydides (1. 98. 2) says merely ῷκισαν αὐτοί, but Diodorus (11. 60. 2) makes it clear that it was a cleruchy, the first that we know to have been established under the League.
61 Plut. Cim. 8. 3–6.
62 ATL, III, 198; Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 281–282.
63 1.98. 3.
64 1. 98. 4. I follow Classen in thinking that τὸ καθεστηκός means the covenant of the league. See also Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 282.
65 ATL, III, 156–157.
66 1. 99. 2.
67 1. 99. 3.
68 1. 100. 1; Plut. Cim. 12–14; Diod. 11. 60–62.
69 Diodorus (11. 62) tells us that right after the battle the Persians, “fearing the growing power of Athens,” set about building a great number of new triremes.
70 1. 100. 2.
71 ATL, III, 258.
72 1. 101. 3.
73 11. 70. 3–4.
74 This apt description is the title of an important article by Russell Meiggs (HSCP, LXVII [1963], 1–36).