The years 460–454, marked a period of unprecedented, military successes for the Athenians in their campaigns in Greece. Corinth, Sparta’s chief ally, and other Spartan allies of note (e.g. Sicyon) had been comprehensively defeated on land and at sea; Aegina had been crushed, giving the Athenians undisputed control of the Saronic Gulf; and the most spectacular of all was the acquisition of the ‘Land Empire’. The Athenian objectives and their ambitions seem to have grown in tandem with their success. A Spartan land invasion in 462/1 would have been greatly feared and the Athenians’ hopes of success tentative, but, in addition to the Helot revolt hampering the Spartans’ war effort, the defection of Megara c.460 not only proved to be beneficial to the Athenians by denying the Spartans easy access to Attica but also gave them the confidence to pursue a dynamic foreign policy in Greece, culminating in the ‘Land Empire’.
However, it has to be asked whether the ‘Land Empire’ was a wise foreign policy decision. The maintenance of Athenian control depended on three things: first, the Athenians had to give their full and undivided attention to it, which would require a full military occupation of central Greece; second, it was crucial that Megara remained loyal and stayed in Athenian hands, thus discouraging a Spartan land invasion; and, third, there was the need for the Helots to continue their revolt, which was paralysing the Spartans’ ability to wage effective war. Ultimately the ‘Land Empire’ collapsed because these three preconditions could not be met: first, full military commitment to central Greece was impossible, since the Athenians also needed to conduct campaigns against the Persians and were intensifying their imperial control over the Delian League; second, the Megarians’ traditional loyalty lay with the Spartans, which had only been disturbed by a temporary conflict with the Corinthians; finally, the Helot revolt came to an end in 455/4 at the latest (accepting ‘in the tenth year’ in Thuc. 1.103.1; AE39 p. 25), which then allowed the Spartans to turn their undivided attention to the issue of Athens’ growing ambitions in Greece.
While the events described above were taking place, the Athenians were still campaigning in Egypt against the Persians. The years 460–456 saw great success for the Athenians, so much so that the Persians even tried unsuccessfully to bribe the Spartans to invade Attica in order to force the Athenians out of Egypt (1.109.2–3; AE9 p. 27). When this failed, there was only one viable alternative – a full military campaign to regain Egypt. Megabazus with a large Persian army defeated the Egyptians and their allies, drove the Greeks out of Memphis and shut them up on the island of Prosopitis, which he besieged for a year and a half. Finally in 454 he drained the canal, which left the ships high and dry, crossed over on foot, captured the island and thus defeated the Greeks. In addition, a relief squadron of 50 Greek ships, unaware of the defeat at Prosopitis, also suffered extensive damage at the hands of the Persians with most of the ships being lost (109.1–110.4; AE39 pp. 27–28).
454–446/5
This defeat in 454 was a major turning-point in Athenian foreign policy. The early years of the war had seen the Athenians embark on an ambitious policy of expansion, which had entailed fighting on more than one front and had consequently overstretched their resources. There is controversy over the size of the defeat in 454 in Egypt and its effect upon the Athenian foreign policy towards the Delian League allies (see Chapter 10). Whether it was a disaster, with the loss of over 200 ships, or a serious defeat with the loss of nearly 100 ships, it led to a major rethink in the conduct of Athenian foreign policy. The Athenians decided wisely that it was essential to concentrate on one area of foreign policy at a time in order to avoid their earlier mistakes. The first of the three areas of foreign policy that demanded action was the Delian League which, owing to a combination of allied unrest and Persian infiltration, needed to be brought fully under control; the second was Persia, which was now resurgent in confidence after the recent victory in Egypt and a potential threat to the Athenians in the Aegean; the third was Sparta, which, although needing a period of recuperation from the exhausting ten-year Helot revolt, was bound to attack at some point to restore at the very least the balance of power in Greece by helping to destroy the ‘Land Empire’.
After 454, active warfare died down in Greece and this allowed the Athenians to begin to resolve the problems in the Delian League. Whether the Athenians now decided upon a policy of intensive imperialism owing to numerous revolts following their disastrous defeat in Egypt (Meiggs), or whether they were tightening up the League after revolts in the early 450s and were removing Persian influence on the coast of Asia Minor (according to the authors of the Athenian Tribute Lists), it was essential that this area of foreign policy received immediate attention, as Athens’ existence as a super-power depended on the Delian League. By the late 450s, the Athenians felt secure and strong enough to tackle the next front, i.e. the Persians. An all-out military offensive, leading to a crushing victory on the scale of Eurymedon, would probably convince the Persians that there was little to be gained from continued warfare and thus persuade them to accept peace, thereby removing one of the Athenians’ foreign policy problems. However, such a victory could only be gained by the full commitment of Athenian forces to the campaign, which would be very risky without some guarantee that the Spartans would not take this opportunity to stab them in the back. The need for a truce with Sparta was crucial, and the ideal man to negotiate it was Cimon, who either had been recalled earlier on the proposal of Pericles (Plutarch, Life of Cimon 17) or had just returned to Athens in 451 after his ten-year ostracism. A five-year truce was concluded, which would run from 451 to 446. The Athenians were now free to tackle Persia, ably led by their greatest anti-Persian general:
The Athenians stopped fighting in Greece, but made an expedition against Cyprus with two hundred ships manned by themselves and their allies under the command of Cimon.
(Thucydides 1.112.2–3; AE39 p. 28)
In c.450, although Cimon died on campaign, the Greeks won two mighty victories, reminiscent of Eurymedon, at sea and on land (1.112.4; AE39 p. 28). This massive defeat probably convinced the Persians of the need for peace, and negotiations between the two states led to the making of peace in 449.
The ending of the war with Persia had a direct bearing on the Delian League, originally formed in part to liberate the Greeks from the Persians, which aim had been achieved by the peace. Many of the allied cities probably hoped that the ending of the conflict and a consequent reduction in armed forces would bring an end to the Athenians’ increasingly imperialistic behaviour. AsfortheAthenians,thedecisionhadbeentakentoembarkonafinal, intensive period of imperialism which was to be completed by the ending of the five-year truce in 446, when a refreshed and rejuvenated Sparta was likely to take military action. Consequently the years 449–446 reveal an intensive period of imperialism by the Athenians with numerous, tough decrees, imposing the Athenians’ will upon recalcitrant allies (see Chapter 10). If the timetable was adhered to, then the Athenians, with the Empire fully established and firmly in place, would be equipped in 446 to meet any Spartan hostility. However, the Spartans had no intention of making it easy for the Athenians by allowing them to execute their foreign policy in this orderly fashion:
After this the Spartans fought the so-called Sacred War, got control of the sanctuary at Delphi and restored it to the Delphians. Then later, when the Spartans had retreated, the Athenians marched out, got control and handed it over to the Phocians.
(Thucydides 1.112.5; AE64 p. 39)
At first sight this seems a very minor affair for Thucydides to include in his brief and highly selective digression, the so-called Pentecontaetia (see above). However, apart from the religious dimension, it can be seen from the events that followed that there were powerful, underlying political motives on the part of the Spartans. This campaign gave them access to Megara and central Greece, which would be allowed under the five-year truce, and a chance to stir up anti-Athenian feelings.
In the following year, trouble broke out in Boeotia where Boeoti
an exiles had occupied some places and were threatening to undermine Athenian control. The Athenians sent out a force of hoplites under Tolmides and at first gained some success against the rebels by the capture of Chaeroneia (1.113.1; AE64 p. 39). On their return:
the Boeotian exiles from Orchomenus, together with Locrians and Euboean exiles and others who were of the same mind, attacked them at Coroneia, got the upper hand in the battle, killed some of the Athenians and took others alive. The Athenians then evacuated the whole of Boeotia
(Thucydides 1.113.2–3; AE64 p. 39)
The battle of Coroneia, c.447, marked the end of the ‘Land Empire’ and it is relevant to point out, when making a critical assessment of Athenian foreign policy, how unwise the Athenians had been to embark on this particular policy, when one defeat had brought about the complete collapse of their control of central Greece.
This humiliating defeat had an even greater fall-out for the Athenians, as it acted as a source of encouragement for other dissident allies to throw off the Athenian yoke:
Not much later Euboea revolted from the Athenians, and when Pericles crossed there with an Athenian army, reports came in of the revolt of Megara, of the Peloponne-sians being about to invade Attica, and of the Athenians’ garrison troops … having been destroyed by the Megarians. … Pericles quickly brought the army back from Euboea. (Thucydides 1.114.1; AE64 p. 39)
The Athenians were now facing disaster on all fronts. It was crucial to crush Euboea’s revolt as soon as possible, otherwise the continued defiance of Athens by such a large island would encourage others to join in the revolt and destroy the Athenians’ naval empire. In addition, the Spartans under King Pleistoanax, having taken advantage of Megara’s return to their alliance, had invaded Attica and were ravaging the countryside (1.114.2; AE64 p. 39). All Pericles could do militarily was to stay behind the long walls with his army, as the inevitable defeat in a full-scale hoplite battle would bring Athens to its knees. In the event Pericles and the Spartans appear to have struck a bargain, whose terms were probably reflected in the Thirty Year Peace agreed later. This resulted in the departure of the Spartans without pressing home their military advantage (see end of Chapter 12 for possible reasons), thus allowing Pericles to return to Euboea and crush the revolt (1.114.3; AE64 p. 39).
Not long after this (446/5) the Athenians swore the Thirty Year Peace with the Spartans and their allies, which put the dual hegemony on a legal basis by attaching a list of each side’s allies to the treaty and forbidding both super-powers from interfering in each other’s sphere of influence. For all their successes in the early part of the war the Athenians had ended up staring defeat in the face due to mistakes in foreign policy and only survived by the withdrawal of the Spartan forces. Pericles learned some valuable lessons from the First Peloponnesian War, which helped him to shape future foreign policy decisions: Athens’ power was based upon the sea and therefore the maintenance of the sea empire had to be the greatest priority for the Athenians; consequently, this naval power should not be put at risk in the future either by pursuing a land empire or by undertaking major overseas naval campaigns, while waging war in Greece. The continued possession of Aegina, allowed by the Spartans, and the consequent control of the Saronic Gulf were an added bonus; but the loss of the Megarid, allowing the Spartan army access to Attica, was a serious problem and thus some counter-measure to offset this weakness would need to be devised. Pericles believed that, if the Athenians conducted their foreign policy in accordance with these tenets, the potential disaster of 446 could be avoided in the future. As he said on the eve of the Peloponnesian War in 432/1:
For I am more afraid of our own mistakes than the strategy of our enemies.
(Thucydides 1.144.1)
Bibliography
Cartledge, P. Sparta and Lakonia, pt 3, ch. 12.
Hornblower, S. The Greek World 479–323 BC, ch. 3.
Kagan, D. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, pt 2, chs 5–7.
Lewis, D. M. CAH vol. 5, 2nd edn, chs 5.II–6.III.
McGregor, M. F. The Athenians and their Empire, chs 6–10.
Sealey, R. A History of the Greek City States 700–338 BC, pt 2, ch. 10.
de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. The Origins of the Peloponnesian War, ch. 5, v–vii.
16
THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE: MEANS OF CONTROL, BENEFITS AND POPULARITY
The means of control
The basis of Athens’ imperial power was the fleet. The allies were for the most part either island-cities or coastal towns, and for that reason the Athenians had the ultimate weapon in exercising imperial control. After the battle of Eurymedon in c.469 most of the ship-suppliers gradually converted to phoros-paying status to avoid military service, the expense and the strictness of Athenian leadership on campaign, resulting in the growth of the Athenian fleet:
As a result the Athenian fleet grew from the money that the allies brought in, and when they revolted, the allies were unprepared and short of experience in war.
(Thucydides 1.99.3; AE29 p. 21)
By 450, only Samos, Lesbos and Chios supplied ships to the League’s campaigns, and even this number was soon reduced, with the reduction of Samos in 439 (Thuc. 1.117.3; AE64 p. 40) and Lesbos in 427 (Thuc. 3.28) – thus the Athenians had the military strength to crush any state that revolted or opposed their wishes.
This situation was made easier by the fact that they controlled a naval and not a land empire:
Those who are subject to a land power can get the forces of small cities and fight in a body; but those who are subject to a sea power, if they are islanders, cannot unite their cities; for the sea lies in between and those who rule them have control of the sea.
(Old Oligarch 2.2; AE108 p. 54)
The Old Oligarch, although a right-wing pamphleteer and opponent of Athens’ radical democracy, is very astute in his observations of the means by which the Athenians maintained their control over the subject-allies. Although Plutarch’s statement that the Athenians kept 60 ships on permanent patrol for eight months of the year seems exaggerated owing to the cost involved (Plutarch, Pericles 11), there is no doubt that an Athenian fleet was constantly patrolling the Aegean in a policing capacity. The fear of a sudden appearance by this fleet at any time during the sailing season in a subject-ally’s harbour would usually act as a deterrent to the anti-Athenian faction and as a source of encouragement to the pro-Athenians. The removal of defensive walls, at least in Ionia (Thuc. 3.33.2), whether as part of the peace agreement with Persia in 449 or under Athenian orders, gave the subject-allies little chance of a successful revolt.
The dominance of the fleet could also ensure good behaviour without recourse to brute force. The economies of most of the subject-allies were dependent on overseas exports, as well as the feeding of their populations by grain imports, and these could easily be threatened by the Athenian fleet:
there is no city which does not need to import and export, and no city can do that unless it obeys those who rule the sea.
(Old Oligarch 2.3; AE108 p. 54)
There were the Athenians’ regulations for Methone, passed in the Archidamian war (431–421), which granted it the right to import corn from the Athenian controlled clearing-house at Byzantium (ML 65; AE121 pp. 58–59). This decree instructed the Methonians to register with the ‘Hellespontophylakes’ (Athenian officials controlling shipping through the Hellespont) in order to gain free access to Byzantium. A similar privilege was granted to Aphytis near Potidaea (AE122 p. 59), and clearly these Athenian officials controlled the access of other subject-allies to the Black Sea for other products, which was an effective means of rewarding good behaviour and punishing disloyalty. However, it must be remembered that the Athenian fleet had removed piracy from the Aegean (Plutarch, Cimon 8) and kept the sealanes free from this particular threat, which was of considerable benefit to the economies of the islands and coastal towns in the Aegean.
An alternative form of military control was the presence of garrisons among allied
states. Most of the evidence for these comes from inscriptions, beginning with the Erythrae Decree, passed in c.453/2, after Erythrae had been recovered by the Athenians (ML 40; AE216 pp. 113–14). In the same way Miletus had revolted in the 450s, was subdued towards the end of that decade and had to accept a garrison (AE218 p. 115). However, it is likely that the Athenians had been using this method of control from the 460s as the allies became more restless. Before the peace with Persia in 449, these garrisons could be justified on the grounds of protection for the allied state either from an anti-democratic political faction or from Persian infiltration, but their continued existence after 449 is clear evidence of their imperialist role. There is probably an element of truth in the report of the widespread distribution of garrisons to be found in Isocrates, although he is a propagandist pamphleteer, writing in the first half of the fourth century, and very prone to exaggeration and distortion:
And then, when the mass of people were sovereign over affairs, we garrisoned the acropoleis of the other cities.
(Isocrates 7.65 (Areopagiticos); AE226 p. 118)
Aristophanes in the Wasps (235–37; AE227 p. 118) and Eupolis in the Cities (fr. 233; AE228 p. 118), which were both written most probably in the late 420s, mention guard duty in Byzantium and Cyzicus, respectively; and many garrisons in the cities of Chalcidice are mentioned by Thucydides, although these were probably installed either just before or soon after the Peloponnesian War broke out.
More blatant than the garrisons as a means of controlling the allies were the ‘cleruchies’. These cleruchies consisted of lower-class Athenians who, while retaining their citizenship, were sent out to take over land which had been confiscated from suspect or subdued allies. Apart from the economic and social benefits (see below), these ‘cleruchs’ (lot-holders) performed an important military function:
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 41