II. The Foundation of the Delian League

Abstract

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