Week 10 - The Athenian Empire

Readings : Dunstan, chapter 9.

Athens after Salamis: the Long Walls

• The Athenians now free to restore their ruined city and their walls.
• Opposition from the Spartans.
• Spartans’ main argument: a walled Athens would be a useful base for an invading army.
• The Athenians did not want to be at the mercy of the Peloponnesians.
• Themistocles distracted and delayed the Spartans until the walls were high enough.

End of Spartan leadership

• After Mycale, the Greeks were saved—for the moment.
• The eastern Greeks still felt vulnerable and appealed to Sparta.
• The Spartans had lost interest, but sent Pausanias back to command the League's military to prevent Athenian leadership.
• 478, Pausanias led a Greek expeditionary force to Byzantium.
• Accused of collaborating with the enemy: he was recalled.
• The Athenian Aristides took over the command of the Greek army.

The Delian League

• The Spartans now decided to remain outside the war against Persia.
• The Athenians felt related to the Ionians.
• They continued the struggle and founded the Delian League in 477 BC.
• An offensive and defensive alliance against Persia (confederacy of cities).
• Principal cities: Athens, Chios, Samos, and Lesbos.
• Many of the principal islands and Ionian cities joined the league.
• Athenian leadership.
• But elements of rivalry with Sparta : mutual assistance against all possible enemies (including Sparta?).

Organization of the Delian League at the beginning

• A fairly loose coalition of states, each one independent and sharing a common interest with the others.
• Chios, Lesbos, Plataea, Acarnania, Ionia, the Hellespont, Thrace, most of the Cyclades, Aegina, Euboean cities.
• Oaths were sworn at Delos (sanctuary of Apollo), which was to be the treasury.
• Athens was the metropolis.
• The allies:
  • were to have the same enemies,
  • were to refrain from violence against each other,
  • took a seat in the League's council,
  • and had to take a share in the common wars.
• The strongest allies provided ships; the others, money.

The Athenians inspired by the Persians?

• System of financial tribute designed by king Darius I.
• The crews of the galleys of the Persian navy were from various parts of the empire.
• Appointment of an overseer, the Greek episcopus and the Persian spasaka (“seer”).
• Division of the League into five fiscal districts: Thrace, the Hellespont, Ionia, Caria and the island.
• They are not self-defined areas but correspond with five units that were distinguished by the Persian government.

The first years of the League

• Athens the leader, but member states had an equal vote in the ruling council.
• Under the command of the Athenian Cimon, Eion on the Thracian coast captured in 476 BC.
• In 473 BC, group of Dolopian pirates crushed in the central Aegean.
• In 468 BC the Persian fleet annihilated on the river Eurymedon in southern Turkey.
• In the 460s, Cimon liberated the Southern Aegean and Caria from Persian control.
• Those were decisive victories against the Persians, but still, the Delian League continued to exist….

• Meanwhile, Sparta was in trouble.
• Two of the states in the Peloponnesian League became democratic.
• Argos revolted against her leadership.
• Devastating earthquake.
• Helot revolt.
• Sparta appealed to Athens for help.
• Athenians finally asked to withdraw.

From a league to an empire

• Cimon succeeded in convincing more states to join the league.
• But some cities were forced to join: Phaselis.
• Andros forced to pay a sum to the league.
• Carystus conquered after having declined membership of the Delian League.
• Athenian's actions still partially justifiable.
• But Naxos’  and Erythrai’s attempted secessions, after the decline of the Persian threat were punished too.

The revolt of Thasos

• By now the Persian threat was very diminished and the league had achieved its purpose.
• But the Athenians chose to enforce the league's oath and force all members to remain in it.
• Thasos, which controlled parts of nearby Thrace, threatened to withdraw from the league (465).
• The league laid seige to Thasos: it capitulated in 462 and lost her fleet, gold mines and city walls.
• Gold mine and valuable settlements annexed by the Athenians.

Athens under the leadership of Cimon

• Athenian statesman and general, son of Miltiades (Marathon).
• Brilliant general.
• A pro-Spartan who believed in dual hegemony.
• Oligarch, like Aristides.
• He believed in the growth of Athenian power through expansion in the Aegean.
• He expelled the Persian presence from the Aegean.
• His policies led to the Athenian Empire.
• Unpopular after his decision of helping Sparta: ostracized.
• Pericles will take the leadership.

Pericles

• The democratic party first lead by Ephialtes.
• He diminished the power of the Areopagus (beginning of "radical democracy").
• Ephialtes died in 461 and Pericles became the new leader.
• He became the unchallengeable ruler of Athens.
• He lead an aggressive new policy against Sparta and her allies.

Aggressive new foreign policy against Sparta and her allies

• About 460, aggressive new foreign policy against Sparta.
• Athens allied with Argos (Sparta's traditional antagonist) and Megara (access to the gulf of Corinth).
• Vast operations on both land and sea.
• 457 BC Athens controls of the whole of central Greece.
• In 455: capture of Naupactus (control of the Golf of Corinth).

Expedition to Egypt (460-454)

• Athens' eagerness to build an empire may be explained partly by its democratic system (often rash).
• Example: the great and disastrous expedition to Egypt to help the revolt against Persia.
• Rebellion defeated by Megabyzus, who captured the greater part of the Athenian forces.
• This expedition served little practical purpose (economic motive for Athens?).
• But the defeat made Athens ready for a truce with Sparta (negociated by a rehabilitated Cimon in 451).
• To obtain this, Athens abandons Argos, and Sparta abandons Thebes.
• Athens, the third power of the Mediterranean.

Peace with Persia (peace of Callias)

• In 454 BC, Pericles moved the treasury of the Delian League from Delos to Athens.
• , allegedly to keep it safe from Persia.
• In 451, expedition under Cimon to seize Cyprus from the Persians.
• Death of Cimon from disease: the Athenians negotiated a peace treaty with the Persian Empire.
• The Peace of Callias (the Athenian negociator):
  • gave autonomy to the Ionian states in Asia Minor,
  • prohibited the establishment of Persian satrapies elsewhere on the Aegean coast,
  • and prohibited Persian ships from the Aegean.
  • Athens not to interfere with Persia's possessions (Asia Minor, Cyprus, Libya, Egypt).
• The Athenians did not consult their allies…

The cleruchies

• In 450 BC Pericles established the first cleruchies.
• Colonies of Athenian settlers who retained their Athenian citizenship.
• They were granted land inside the allied city-states of the Delian league.
• Initial settlements: Lemnos, Andros, Naxos and Carystus (many other over the next twenty years).
• The participating citizen received a plot of agricultural land, but was obliged to defend his colony by serving it as a hoplite.
• It reduced population pressure in Athens itself and increased Athenian military and economic power.
• Cleruchs (settlers) intensely disliked by the locals.

The Athenian empire

• Athens had now a mighty empire.
• More than 200 members, but only a few allies remained largely autonomous.
• The majority had ceased to contribute ships and instead gave Athens tribute.
• Around 448 BC Pericles forced the allies to utilize Athenian coinage, weights and measures.
• The Athenian drachma = 6 oboloi.

• After the Peace of Callias no more active Persian threat.
• But Athens continued to collect the tribute money.
• The Delian fleet used to suppress all attempts at revolt.
• Amount of the tribute payment increased.
• Money used for an ambitious building program under Pericles (Acropolis).
• The allies were furious…

Subject states

• After Carystus, Naxos and Thasos, a new type of member emerged: a subject state.
• Dominated by an Athenian garrison, their votes controlled by Athens in the league's council.
• The council became irrelevant and was abolished between 440 and 432.
• Athens ruled over the league by decree, establishing its authority on a navy of 300 triremes.
• Subject states unable to revolt in front of such a force.

Forced democracy and Athenian control of trials

• Athens maintained a tight grip.
• Constitutions modeled of Athens' imposed on some allies.
• Serious cases placed under the jurisdiction of Athens.
• Anti-Athenian elements often prosecuted.
• No sentence to death without Athenian permission.
• Cleruchies.
• Athens opportunistically exploited religion and idealism.
• Democratic Athens occasionally supported oligarchs when the situation demanded it.

Conclusion

• Athens' intentions honorable at first (great feats, they expelled of Persians from Greece).
• But the Athenians got used to the huge influx of money from the league's members.
• Tributes and pillaging : more than a thousand talents a year, from which everyone in the city benefited.
• Tributes more oppressive after the Peace of Callias (but correction for recent inflation).
• Tibutes partly justified: many of the states in the Delian League could not build triremes or train crews.
• Athens' rashness was partly due to its democratic status.
• And the concern about security provided a self-perpetuating rationale…