The league was, therefore, specifically a free confederation of autonomous [onian cities founded as a protection against the common danger which threatened the Aegean basin, and led by Athens in virtue of her predominant naval power as exhibited in the wae against Xerxes.
Its organization, adopted by the common synod, was the product of the new democratic ideal embodied in the Cleisthenic reforms, as interpreted by a jurt and moderate exponent.
It is one of the few examples of free corporate action on the part of the ancient Greek cities, whose centrifugal yearning for independence so often proved fatal to the Hellenic world. It is, therefore, a profound mistake to regard the history of the league during the first twenty years of its existence as that of an Athenian empire.
Of the first ten years of the league's history we know practically nothing, save that it was a period of steady, successful activity against the few remaining Persian strongholds in Thrace and the Aegean Herod. In these years the Athenian sailors reached a high pitch of training, and by their successes strengthened that corporate pride which had been born at Salamis.
On the other hand, it naturally came to pass that certain of the allies became weary of incessant warfare and looked for a period of commercial prosperity. Athens, as the chosen leader, and supported no doubt by the synod, enforced the contributions of ships and money according to the assessment. Gradually the allies began to weary of personal service and persuaded the synod to accept a money commutation.
The Ionians were naturally averse from prolonged warfare, and in the prosperity which must have followed the final rout of the Persians and the freeing of the Aegean from the pirates a very important feature in the league's policy a money contribution was only a trifling burden. The result was, however, extremely bad for the allies, whose status in the league necessarily became lower in relation to that of Athens, while at the same time theil military and naval resources correspondingly diminished.
Athens became more and more powerful, and could afford to disregard the authority of the synod. Another new feature appeared in the employment of coercion against cities which desired to secede. Athens might fairly insist that the protection of the Aegean would become impossible if some of the chief islands were liable to be used as piratical strcngholds, and further that it was only right that all should contribute in some way to the security which all enjoyed.
The result was that, in the cases of Naxos and Thasos, for instance, the league's resources were employed not against the Persians but against recalcitrant Greek islands, and that the Greek ideal of separate autonomy was outraged. Shortly after the capture of Naxos c. Cimon proceeded with a fleet of ships only from the allies to the southwestern and southern coasts of Asia Minor.
Having driven the Persians out of Greek towns in Lycia and Caria, he met and routed the Persians on land and sea at the mouth of the Eurymedon in Pamphylia. In after a had quarrelled over mining rights in the Strymon valley. It is said Thuc. But this is both unproved and improbable.
Sparta had so far no quarrel with Athens. Athens thus became mistress of the Aegean, while the synod at Delos had become practically, if not theoretically, powerless. It was at this timc that Cimon q. During the ensuing years, apart from a brief return to the Cimonian policy, the resources of the league, or, as it has now become, the Athenian empire, were directed not so rnuch against Persia as against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina and Boeotia.
A few points only need be dealt with here. The first years of the land war brought the Athenian empire to its zenith. Apart from Thessaly, it included all Greece outside the Peloponnese. Peace was made with Sparta, and, if we are to believe 4thcentury orators, a treaty, the Peace of Callias or of Cimon, was concluded between the Great King and Athens in after the death of Cimon before the walls of Citium in Cyprus.
The meaning of this socalled Peace of Callias is doubtful. At all events, it is significant of the success of the main object of the Delian League, the Athenians resigning Cyprus and Egypt, while Persia recognized the freedom of the maritime Greeks of Asia Minor.
During this period the power of Atherls over her allies had increased, though we do not know anything of the process by which this was brought about.
Chios, Lesbos and Samos alone furnished ships; all the rest had commuted for a money payment. This meant that the synod was quite powerless. Moreover in probably the changed relations were crystallized by the transference proposed by the Samians of the treasury to Athens Corp.
Thus in B. Athens was not only mistress of a maritime empire, but ruled over Megara, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, Achaea and Troezen, i.. Thus measure must have had a detrimentaleffect on the allies, who thus saw themselves excluded stiU further from recognition as equal partners in a league see PERICLES. The natural result of all these causes was that a feeling of antipathy rose against Athens in the minds of those to whom autonomy was the breath of lifej and the fundamental tendency of the Greeks to disruption was soon to prove more powerful than the forces at the disposal of Athens.
The first to secede were the land powers of Greece proper, whose subordination Athens had endeavoured to guarantee by supporting the democratic parties in the various states. Gradually the exiled oligarchs combined; with the defeat of Tolmides at Coroneia, Boeotia was finally lost to the empire, and the loss of Phocis, Locris and Megara was the immediate sequel. Against these losses the retention of Euboea, Nisaea and Pegae was no compensation; the land empire was irretrievably lost.
The next important event is the revolt of Samos, which had quarrelled with Miletus over the city of Priene. The Samians refused the arbitration of Athens. The is! It is, however, equally noticeable on the one hand that the main body of the allies was not affected, and on the other that the Peloponnesian League on the advice of Corinth omcially recognized the right of Athens to deal with her rebellious subject allies, and refused to give help to the Samians.
Two important cvents alone call for special notice. The first is the raising of the allies' tribute in B. II ; it was proved by the discovery of the assessment list of Hicks and Hill, Inscrip.
The second event belongs to , after the failure of the Sicilian expedition. The Tribute. In the first place there is the question of the tribute. Similarly he is probably wrong, or at all events includes items of which the tribute lists take no account, when he says that it amounted to talents at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War.
The moderation of the assessment is shown not only by the fact that it was paid so long without objection, but also by the individual items. The number of tributaries is given by Aristophanes as , but this is greatly inexcess of those named in the tribute lists. Some authorities give ; others put it as high as These were grouped into five main geographical divisions from to ; afterwards four, Caria being merged in Ionia. If there was any difference of opinion the matter was referred to the Ecclesia for settlement.
In the Ecclesia a private citizen might propose another assessment, or the case might be referred to the law courts. No tribute was paid by members of a cleruchy q. This highly organized financial system must have been gradually evolved, and no doubt reached its perfection only after the treasury was transferred to Athens.
Government and Jurisdiction. Grote maintained that on the whole the allies had little ground for complaint; but in so doing he rather seerns to leave out of account the Greek's dislike of external discipline. The very fact that the hegemony had become an empire was enough to make the new system highly offensive to the allies.
No very strong argument can be based on the paucity of actual revolts. The indolent Ionians had seen the result of secession at Naxos and rebellion at Thasos; the Athenian fleet was perpetually on guard in the Aegean. Therefore, even though Athenian domination may have been highly salutary irl its effects, there can be no doubt that the allies did not regard it with affection. To judge only by the negative evidence of the decree of hristoteles which records the terms of alliance of the second confederacy below , we gather that in the later period at least of the first league's history the Athenians had interfered with the local autonomy of the allies in various ways-an inference which is confirmed by the terms of "alliance " which Athens imposed on Erythrae, Chalcis and Miletus.
Moreover the practice among Athenian settlers of acquiring land in the allied districts must have been vexatious to the allies, the more so as all important cases between Athenians and citizens of allied cities were brought to Athens.
Even on the assumption that the Athenian dicasteries were scrupulously fair in their awards, it must have been peculiarly galling to the selfrespect of the allies and inconvenient to individuals to he compelled to carry cases to Athens and Athenian juries. Furthermore we gather from the Aristoteles inscription and from the 4thcentury orators that Athens imposed democratic constitntions on her allies; indeed Isocrates Paneg. Even though we admit that Chios, Lesbos and Samos up to retained their oligarchic governments and that Selymbria, at a time B.
Thus the great attempt on the part of Athens to lead a harmonivus league of free Greek states for the good of Hellas degenerated into an empire which proved intolerable to the autonomous states of Greece. Her failure was due partly to the commercial jealousy of Corinth working on the dull antipathy of Sparta, partly to the hatred of compromise and discipline which was fatally characteristic of Greece and especially of Ionian Greece, and partly also to the lack of tact and restraint shown by Athens and her representatives in her relations with the allies.
The Second League. There can be no reasonable doubt that as soon as the Athenians began to recover from the paralysing effect of the victory of Lysander and the internal troubles in which they were involved by the government of the Thirty, their thoughts turned to the possibility of recovering their lost empire. The first step in the direction was the recovery of their seapower, which was effected by the victory of Conon at Cnidus August B. Sparta had only Sestos and Abydos of all that she had won by the battle of Aegospotami.
At the same time no systematic constructive attempt at a renewal of empire can as yet be detected. Athenian relations were with individual states only, and the terms of alliance were various.
Moreover, whereas Persia had been for several years aiding Athens against Sparta, the revolt of the Athenian ally Evagoras q. Many of the island towns subsequently came over, and from inscriptions at Clazomenae C. IIb we learn that Thrasybulus evidently was deliberately aiming at a renewal of the empire, though the circumstances leading to his death at Aspendus when seeking to raise money suggest that he had no general backing in Athens.
Antalcidas compelled the Athenians to give their assent to it only bymaking himself master of the Hellespont by stratagem with the aid of Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse. By this peace all the Greek cities on the mainland of Asia with the islands of Cyprus and Clazomenae were recognized as Persian, all other cities except Imbros, Lemnos and Scyros as autonomous.
Directly, this arrangement prevented an Athenian empire; indirectly, it caused the sacrificed cities and their kinsmen on the islands to look upon Athens as their protector. The gross selfishness of the Spartans, herein exemplified, was emphasized by their capture of the Theban citadel, and, after their expulsion, by the raid upon Attica in time of peace by the Spartan Sphodrias, and his immunity from punishment at Sparta summer of B.
The Athenians at once invited their allies to a conference, and the Second Athenian Confederacy was formed in the archonship of Nausinicus on the basis of the famous decree of Aristoteles. Those who attended the conference were probably Athens, Chios, Mytilene, Methymna, Rhodes, Byzantium, Thebes, the latter of which joined Athens soon after the Sphodrias raid.
In the spring of invitations were sent out to the maritime cities. At this point Sparta was roused to a sense of the significance of the new confederacy, and the Athenian corn supply was threatened by a Spartan fleet of sixty triremes. The Athenians immediately fitted out a fleet under Chabrias, who gained a decisive victory over the Spartans between Naxos and Paros battle of Naxos B.
Proceeding northwards in Chabrias brought over a large number of the Thraceward towns, including Abdera, Thasos and Samothrace. It is interesting to notice that a garrison was placed in Abdera in direct contravention of the terms of the new confederacy Meyer, Gesch. About the same time the successes of Timotheus in the west resulted in the addition to the league of Corcyra and the cities of Cephallenia, and his moderation induced the Acarnanians and Alcetas, the Molossian king, to follow their example.
Once again Sparta sent out a fleet, but Timotheus in spite of financial embarrassment held his ground. By this time, however, the alliance between Thebes and Athens was growing weaker, and Athens, being short of money, concluded a peace with Sparta probably in July , by which the peace of Antalcidas was confirmed and the two states recognized each other as mistress of sea and land respectively. Trouble, however, soon arose over Zacynthus, and the Spartans not only sent help to the Zacynthian oligarchs but even besieged Corcyra Timotheus was sent to relieve the island, but shortness of money compelled him to search for new allies, and he spent the summer of in persuading Jason of Pherae if hehad not already joined , and certain towns in Thrace, the Chersonese, the Propontis and Aegean to enrol themselves.
This delay in scnding help to Corcyra was rightly or wrongly condemned by tke Athenians, who dismissed Timotheus in favour of Iphicrates. The expedition which followed produced negative successes, but the absence of any positive success and the pressure of financial difficulty, conpled with the defection of Jason probably before 37 , and the highhanded action of Thebes in destroying Plataea , induced Athens to renew the peace with Sparta which Timotheus had broken.
With the support of Persia an agreement was made by a congress at Sparta on the basis of the autonomy of the cities, Amphipolis and the Chersonese being granted to Athens. The Thebans at first accepted the terms, but on the day after, realizing that they were thus baiked of their panBoeotian ambition, withdrew and finally severed themselves from the league.
The peace of may be regarded as the conclusion of the first distinct period in the league's existence. The Delian League referred to an alliance of city-states that grouped together to unify against the Persian Empire. It was founded in B. To give you an idea of the timeline of when it was formed, the First Persian Invasion that was mentioned above took place between and B.
As you can see, the Delian League was formed two years after the Second Persian Invasion was over, which was decided at the Battle of Plataea. There were in between and member city-states that were part of the alliance at any given time. One of the things that set this alliance apart is that it had its own navy. Sure, the Athenian city-state had a formidable navy of its own. Over time, as the Delian League grew, so did the strength of its navy. In doing so, the member city-states of the league bickered over whether or not this was ethical.
In particular, less powerful city-states often found themselves at odds with Athens over the issue. As other issues between Athens and the other city-states surfaced, so did the tension.
In B.
0コメント