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The Guidelines of the Delian Alliance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

A. French
A. French*
Affiliation:
The University of Adelaide
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Extract

Thucydides’ best known digression (1.89-118), constructed as a selective sequence of incidents illustrating the growth of tension between Athens and Sparta, was itself prefaced by a summary of how Athens came to be in a position to threaten Spartan power; the Athenians had converted an alliance into an empire. Why, and how, she did so was incidental to the main subject of the digression, and so with admirable brevity Thucydides covers this phase in just four chapters (1.96-99), mentioning just a few incidents to document the change; the four chapters cover a time span of ten years. The first of these chapters contains a sketch of the administrative arrangements made by the allies for continuing the war under Athenian leadership after the Spartans and their allies had withdrawn from further operations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 22 , 1988 , pp. 12 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1988

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References

1 The word ‘goods’, ‘property’ — or their value equivalent as ‘money’ — is generally translated in this context as ‘cash’. I have preferred to translate it as ‘supply’ because (a) this preserves the ambiguity which exists in Greek, and (b) it seems to me unlikely that in planning the organisation of a campaign naval officers would think in terms of monetary equivalent instead of the actual goods and services necessary to support a system for war making. The idea seems in any case anachronistic, implying that all the supply bases operated in 478 on a money economy; and impractical, for in the confusion of the immediate post-war situation, the price of scarce goods could not be predicted, and would vary from place to place; in some cases they could be beyond price. Presumably the translation here of as ‘money’ has been influenced by the mention of the figure of 460 talents as the total assessment. This much discussed figure makes sense, I think, only as an idea of what the Ionian states could be made to pay, if necessary, in view of the pre-war Persianassessment. The Persians did, of course, use a rough monetary evaluation for the purpose of comparing various types of tribute, ranging from horses to eunuchs. See Murray, O., ‘O APXAIOƩ ΔAƩMOƩ’, Historia 15 (1966), 142.Google Scholar

2 The Delphic Serpent column in Istanbul records the names of the allied states which fought against the Persian invaders in 480–479 B.C. (ATL 3.96): for references to the allied Greek contingents Thucydides 1.89.2, A.W. Gomme, HCT 1.257.

3 Both Melos and Aegina took part in the 480–479 fighting, and as naval powers may be presumed to have participated in the 478 campaign led by Pausanias. If so, they pulled out of the war together with the Peloponnesian states when Athens took over the leadership.

4 Hdt. 9.106.9.

5 The views of modern scholars about the size of the original alliance vary greatly; in what follows my debt to the thought-provoking paper of Robertson, N.D., ‘The True Nature of the “Delian League” 478–461 B.C.’, AJAH 5 (1980), 64–96, and 110–33, will be obvious.Google Scholar

6 Plutarch, Aristeides 24, mentions such a pooling of resources under Spartan leadership.

7 Hdt. 8.110–12; 121; Plutarch, Themistocles 21.

8 For a summary of the discussion about the figure of 460 talents see Rhodes, P.J., The Athenian Empire (Oxford 1985), 7–8,Google Scholar including references to recent literature on the subject. See also French, A., The Athenian Hay-Century (Sydney 1971), Appendix 1, “The Tribute”.Google Scholar

9 The Athenian Tribute Lists (Princeton 1939–53), vols 1–4.

10 Hammond, N.G.L., ‘The Origins and the Nature of the Athenian Alliance of 478/7 B.C.’ JHS 87 (1967), reprinted in Studies in Greek History (Oxford 1973), 326–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 The belief that a formal covenant of the Delian league was sworn out by a gathering of allies’ representatives at a ceremony in 478-7 is so orthodox that one hesitates to raise doubt about it. But Thucydides never refers explicitly to the existence of such a document, although references to it have been read into his words: e.g. in 1.98.4 ‘Naxos was enslaved contrary to the covenant’: but the phrase surely means here ‘contrary to established normsof conduct’. It is assumed by scholars that a copy of the document must have been available for reference in every allied state; but no trace of such a covenant has yet been noted in the epigraphic record. The argument that a general and permanent covenant was accepted in 478–7 rests ultimately on the evidence of Aristotle AP 23.4, followed by Plutarch; but the interpretation is rather slippery; apart from the doubt raised by Aristotle’s specific mention of the lonians, the formula for a full defensive and offensive alliance is, in the circumstances, surprising.

12 Discussion about the timetable of the first assessment is summarised by Meiggs, R.The Athenian Empire (Oxford 1972), 58–60.Google Scholar

13 For the argument see N.D. Robertson, 69–73.

14 In the Festschrift for Ehrenberg, V., Ancient Society and Institutions (Oxford 1966), 233–55,Google Scholar B.R.I. Sealey made out rather a good case for plunder as the motivating principle of the original alliance; other scholars, while rejecting his viewpoint, have failed to present convincing alternatives. There were, however, very serious reasons for not continuing the wan food production was the basis of every Greek state’s economy, and apart from physical damage done by enemy action, production must have been severely affected by the prolonged absence on active serviceby men in the prime of life. The only capital available for the job of restoring agricultural production was manpower, and unless states were to be forced into the position of importing slaves, as Athens was, the sooner manpower was returned from unproductive warfare to the land, the better. This factor emerges in Thucydides’ comment about the motives which impelled states to choose to pay tribute rather than send their men on active service (1.99.3).

15 Hdt. 5.18.5.

16 The capture of Eion is dated to the archonship of Phaedon (476–5) by the scholiast on Aeschines 2.34.

17 Hdt. 7.107.