Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (9 page)

tages of empire to the Athenians, tangible and intangible, were many.

The most obvious was financial. Revenues paid directly by the allies in

the form of tribute, indemnities, and other unspecified payments came

to 600 talents annually at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. Of

the 400 additional talents of home income that came in each year, a

large part also resulted from the empire, for import and other harbor

duties at Piraeus and court fees paid by allied citizens whose cases were

heard in Athens. Athenians also profited in the private sphere by pro-

viding services for the many visitors drawn to Piraeus and Athens by

judicial and other imperial business and by the greatness of Athens it-

self, which the empire made possible.

The imperial revenues are sometimes thought to have been neces-

sary for the maintenance of the democracy, providing the money to

pay for the performance of public duties. But the evidence argues oth-

erwise. Pay was introduced, after all, before the Athenians began to

keep a sixtieth of the tribute for themselves. Even more telling is the

fact that the Athenians continued to pay for these services even after

the empire and its revenues were gone—and even introduced compen-

sation for attendance in the Assembly in the early fourth century. On

the other hand, it cannot be irrelevant that these payments were inau-

gurated when the success of the empire had brought great wealth to

Athens in the form of booty and increased trade, and that they spread

beyond jury pay in the years surrounding the introduction of Athena’s

tithe. It seems likely, in any case, that in Pericles’ time, the people of

Athens connected the growth and flourishing of the democracy with

the benefits of empire.

Apart from direct financial gain and, as they thought, the financial

support for their democracy, the people of Athens also received ben-

efits in what it is now fashionable to call quality of life. The empire,

according to the “Old Oligarch,” allowed Athenians to mingle with

people from many places, and so they discovered

various gastronomic luxuries; the specialties of Sicily, Italy, Cy-

prus, Egypt, Lydia, Pontus, the Peloponnesus or any other area

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have al been brought back to Athens because of their control of

the sea. They hear al dialects, and pick one thing from one, an-

other from another; the other Greeks tend to adhere to their own

dialect and way of life and dress, but the Athenians have mingled

elements from al Greeks and foreigners.7

A contemporary comic poet provides a more detailed list of the ex-

otic delicacies and useful wares that the empire made available to the

Athenians:

From Cyrene silphium and ox hides, from the Hellespont mack-

erel and all kinds of salted fish, from Italy, salt and ribs of beef . . .

from Egypt sails and rope, from Syria frankincense, from Crete

cypress for the gods; Libya provides abundant ivory to buy,

Rhodes raisins and sweet figs, but from Euboea pears and sweet

apples. Slaves from Phrygia . . . Pagasae provides tattooed slaves,

Paphlagonia dates and oily almonds, Phoenicia dates and fine

wheat-flour, Carthage rugs and many-colored cushions.8

These, as the Old Oligarch observes, are “less important matters,”

but they helped bring home to the Athenians the advantages of empire

and the rule of the sea that it made possible.

Perhaps the greatest attraction of the empire was less tangible than

any of these things, appealing to an aspect of human nature common

to many cultures across the centuries. Most people prefer to think

of themselves as leaders rather than followers, as rulers rather than

ruled. Each Athenian took pride in the greatness of his state. The Old

Oligarch, an anonymous writer who took a caustic view of Athenian

self-aggrandizement, in explaining how the Athenians benefited from

having allied citizens come to the courts in Athens for justice shows

how the ordinary citizen enjoyed such feelings:

If the allies did not come for trials, they would only respect those

Athenians who go abroad—the generals, the trierarchs and the

ambassadors; but as it is, each individual ally is compelled to flat-

ter the common people of Athens, realizing that, having come

to Athens, the penalty or satisfaction that he receives at law de-

pends solely upon the common people; such is the law at Athens.

Pericles and the Defense of Empire 39

Therefore he is compelled to plead humbly in the courts and to

seize people’s hands as a suppliant as they enter. This situation has

increased the subjugation of the allies to the people of Athens.9

For al the benefits it brought to the Athenians, the imperial ledger

was not entirely unbalanced, for the al ies also received much value for

their participation. Foremost among these advantages was freedom

from Persian rule, the chief purpose for which the league had been

formed, and the peace that the Athenian Cal ias, son of Hipponicus, had

negotiated with the Persian Empire. Ionian cities had either been under

barbarian rule or fighting to be free of it for wel over a century, so these

achievements were not insignificant. The success of the league and em-

pire had also brought an unprecedented freedom to sail in the waters

of the Aegean. In addition, the campaigns against Persia had brought a

percentage of booty to the al ies who had taken part in them, and the

commercial boom that enriched Athens also brought wealth to many

of its al ies. In short, the Athenians had brought freedom from Persian

rule, peace, and prosperity to al Greeks in and around the Aegean Sea.

To many, Athenian intervention also brought democracy, but that

was not its aim. Pericles and the Athenians, when they could, left the

existing regime in place, even when it was oligarchic or tyrannical. Only

when rebellions forced them to intervene did they impose democra-

cies, and even then not always. Pericles’ imperial policy was prudent

and pragmatic, not ideological. Nevertheless, over the years the Athe-

nians instituted and supported many democracies against oligarchic

or tyrannical opponents throughout the empire. From a twentieth-

century perspective, this might seem like an unalloyed benefit of the

empire, but it was not so viewed by everyone in the time of Pericles.

Aristocrats and members of the upper classes in general regarded de-

mocracy as a novel, unnatural, unjust, incompetent, and vulgar form

of government, and they were not alone in resenting the Athenian role

in support of it. In many cities, probably in most, even members of the

lower classes regarded Athenian intervention in their political and con-

stitutional affairs as a curtailment of their freedom and autonomy, and

would have preferred a nondemocratic constitution without Athenian

interference to a democratic government with it.

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Modern scholars have tried to argue that this Athenian support for

democracy made the empire popular with the masses in the allied cities,

and that the hostility with which they reportedly came to view it was

the result of distortions caused by the aristocratic bias of the ancient

writers. The consensus, however, has rightly continued to emphasize

the empire’s fundamental unpopularity with all classes except the small

groups of democratic politicians who benefited directly from Athenian

support. There is no reason to doubt the ancient opinion that Greeks

outside, and especially inside, the Athenian Empire were hostile to it.

Even some Athenians objected to what they deemed the immorality of

Athens’s behavior toward the imperial allies.

Pericles undertook to justify to each constituency Athenian rule and

Athens’s continued col ection of the tribute. For the cities in the empire

he provided justification by claiming a change in the concept behind the

league. From the beginning, some league members were colonies that

had been founded by Athens. Among the Greeks, colonial status implied

a proud familial relationship, not inferiority. Beyond that, the Athenians

had long claimed to be the founders of the Ionian cities; the Ionians not

only accepted the claim but had used it to persuade the Athenians to ac-

cept the leadership in the first place. The time of the treasury’s transfer

was the year that had been scheduled for the quadrennial celebration

of the Great Panathenaic Festival in Athens; ties between colony and

mother city were normal y warm and were celebrated by such religious

observances. It was customary for Athens’s al ies to bring a cow and a

ful suit of armor to this festival, more as a symbol of al egiance than

as a burden. It gave the colony the honor of participating in the grand

procession to the sacred shrine of Athena on the Acropolis. Henceforth,

al the al ies of Athens would share the honor.

We need not believe that all were grateful for the honor or that they

found the trappings of a colonial relationship a satisfactory reason for

continuing their contributions in circumstances so different from what

they had been. Their doubts were surely increased by the terms of the

peace treaty with the Persian Empire negotiated by Callias in 449: “All

the Greek cities of Asia are to be autonomous; no Persian satrap is to

come closer than a three days’ journey from the sea; no Persian war-

ship is to sail in the waters between Phaselis and the Cyanean rocks; if

Pericles and the Defense of Empire 41

the King and his generals respect these terms, the Athenians are not to

send any expedition against the country over which the King rules.”10

By this agreement, the Persians gave up their claim to the Greek states

on the Aegean and its coasts, as well as the Athenian lifeline through

the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. The Persian Wars were now truly

over, and the Athenians could claim to have completed the victory left

unfinished by the Spartans.

It was a great moment, but it raised serious questions. Although

Cimon, the indefatigable prosecutor of the war against Persia, was

dead, his example, his memory, and his friends remained to raise

doubts about a peace with what had become the traditional enemy. If

there was peace with Persia, moreover, would that mean the end of al-

lied contributions, of the league, of Athenian hegemony?

To the first problem, a question of Athenian politics, Pericles applied

a skil ful touch. The choice of Cal ias as the Athenian negotiator had

been significant. He was the brother-in-law of Cimon, the husband of El-

pinice. His central role was evidence that the recent friendship between

Pericles and Cimon lived on after the latter’s death, and he must have

done much to help win the Cimonian faction over to the new policy. By

various other connections Pericles had associated himself with the Ci-

monians, and he continued to do so throughout the years. As a modern

scholar has put it, “Behind the public politics of the Athenian state was

the family-politics of the great houses; here Pericles was an adept.”11

Pericles’ political operations appear to have had a public aspect as

well, if the reconstruction of events by a great modern historian is cor-

rect. After their victory at Cyprus, the Athenians made a thanksgiving

dedication of a tenth of the booty and commissioned the poet Simo-

nides to commemorate the Persian defeat. It “praised the struggles on

Cyprus as the most glorious deed that the world had ever seen. At the

same time, it was a monument to the whole Persian War, the inclina-

tion to which had been embodied in the person of Cimon.”12 We may

assume that Pericles was behind this propaganda, which implied that

the war had been won by a glorious Athenian victory instead of by a

negotiated peace, and which tied Cimon to the new Periclean policy. At

the same time, the memorial to Cimon was a gesture meant to attract

and conciliate his friends.

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Pericles had need of conciliation and unity in Athens. For despite the

peace, he had no thoughts of abandoning the league that had become

an empire. Nor did he wish to sacrifice the glory, the political and mili-

tary power, and the money that went with it. Athens needed the empire

to protect its own security and to support the creation and maintenance

of the great democratic society Pericles had in mind. Part of that great-

ness would involve a vastly expensive building program that would need

to draw on the imperial treasury for nonmilitary and purely Athenian

purposes. Pericles and the Athenians therefore needed to justify the con-

tinuation of al ied payments as wel as their diversion to new purposes.

But already there was trouble in the empire. In 454–453, 208 cities

appear on the tribute list and are assessed more than 498 talents. Four

years later, only 163 cities are assessed at 432 talents; but some made

only partial payment, some paid late, and some surely did not pay at