In addition Pericles sent out 1,000 cleruchoi to the Chersonese, 500 to Naxos, half that number to Andros, 1,000 to Thrace to live among the Bisaltae … and, by planting settlers alongside the allies to make them fearful and provide a guard against any revolution.
(Plutarch, Pericles 11.5–6; AE231 p. 119)
Colonies were also sent out to perform a similar function, such as that founded at Brea in Thrace in c.445 (ML 49; AE232 p. 119–20), which can probably be identified with the above-mentioned settlement among the Bisaltae and whose military purpose was to protect Athenian interests in the Thraceward region (see Map 5, the Athenian Empire). However, it is difficult to make a clear distinction between cleruchs and colonists. It is possible that the colonists, unlike the cleruchs, gave up their Athenian citizenship; but perhaps more convincingly the term ‘colonists’ was applied to those who took over all the land of a tributary ally (e.g. Scyros), whereas the term ‘cleruchs’ was used of those who lived on confiscated territory alongside the citizens of the subject-ally. Thus the fleet, the garrisons, the cleruchies and the colonies were used whenever a show of force was necessary to intimidate and ensure acquiescence.
The Athenians defended their administration of the empire by stressing how little they relied on force – they preferred subtler, less obvious means of control by the use of political appointments. First, there was the ‘phrourarch’ (garrison commander). Apart from his obvious military duties in charge of the local garrison, he also played an important political role among the allied states, as shown in the Erythrae Decree:
The [Inspectors] and Garrison Commander are to draw lots and set up the current council; in the future the council and the Garrison Commander [15] to do this no less than 30 days before the term of office expires.
(ML 40; AE216A p. 113)
He played a leading role in the establishment of the first Council (‘Boule’) and the appointment of subsequent Councils. Erythrae had been in revolt in the 450s and had most probably been under the control of a pro-Persian faction (see Chapter 10). The phrourarch’s political task was to vet the members of the Council to ensure that they had no political sympathies with the previous ruling faction and acted in the best interests of Athens; and to maintain a close scrutiny of all local developments.
Very similar to these were the ‘archontes’ (magistrates), officials sent out from Athens, who resided among the allies. They were widespread throughout the empire, as mentioned in the Coinage/Standards Decree (AE198 pp. 105–6) and numerous other decrees (e.g. the Miletus regulations – AE218 p. 115), although they did not necessarily command troops. It is worthy of note that the title phrourarch disappears from surviving inscriptions after 450/49, when peace was made with Persia, and it may be that archontes became the preferred title, avoiding the former’s military connotations. Their task was to ensure that local politics reflected Athenian interests, that the ‘phoros’ was efficiently collected and despatched to Athens, and that the ‘proxenoi’ (see below) were safeguarded.
Another Athenian political appointment was the ‘episcopos’ (overseer), but it is more difficult to define his duties accurately, as the title was not used after the fifth century. The definition of Harpocration – a lexicographer of (possibly) the second century AD, who explained the technical terms of law and administration that were used in the speeches of the ten major Athenian orators – is very useful for supplying an insight into the role of the episcopos:
Inspector (episcopos): Used by Antiphon in his speeches On the Tribute of the Lindians [frg.30] and Against Laispodias [frg.23]. Some men were regularly sent out to the subject cities who inspected their affairs.
(Harpocration Lexicon, under the word ‘Episcopos’; AE225 p. 118)
Harpocration compares them in function to the Spartan ‘harmosts’, who governed various states after the defeat of Athens in 404, but it seems unlikely that they were resident officials. In the Erythrae decree, quoted above, they help the phrourarch to establish the first Council but play no further part in the appointment of its successors. They seem to be visiting commissioners or trouble-shooters, who were sent out to investigate actual or potential problems in the allied states, and then report back to the Athenians. A good example of this role comes from Aristophanes’ Birds, when the new state of Cloudcuckooland is in the very process of being founded:
Inspector: Witness, everybody! I’m being beaten, I, an Inspector.
Peisetairos: Shoo! Take your voting urns. Isn’t it dreadful – they are already sending Inspectors to the city before we have even sacrificed to the gods!
(Aristophanes, Birds 1031–34; AE224 p. 118)
The mention of the ballot boxes in the above quotation, combined with their role in Erythrae, strongly suggests that they took a leading part in the establishment of new democratic constitutions in the allied states.
Even more valuable than these Athenian appointments were the proxenoi – citizens from the allied states, who were chosen and honoured by the Athenians. The proxenoi had to repay this honour by giving active loyalty on behalf of Athens. A decree in praise of Oeniades shows in general terms how the Athenians viewed their role:
Since Oeniades of Palaesciathos is a good man towards the city of Athens and keen to do [10] all the good he can, and does good to any Athenian who arrives at Sciathos, he should be praised and recorded as proxenos and benefactor of Athenians.
(ML 90; AE238 pp. 121–22)
Having been raised in the community, they had far more knowledge about local circumstances and untrustworthy individuals than the resident Athenian officials. They were usually reliable democrats and would be fully aware of those of their fellow citizens who harboured oligarchic, pro-Spartan sympathies. Their willingness to protect Athenian interests was even more valuable in the Peloponnesian War, when some allies were considering revolt and going over to the side of Sparta. In 428 the oligarchs in Mytilene were making preparations to revolt from Athens, but were compelled to advance their plans because:
some individual Mytileneans who were of the opposite political faction and were Athenian proxenoi, told the Athenians that Mytilene was forcing the cities of Lesbos into political union, and was hurrying on all preparations for revolt in collaboration with the Spartans and their Boeotian kinsmen. They said that unless the Athenians anticipated these preparations they would lose Lesbos.
(Thucydides 3.2; AE124 p. 60)
The premature revolt of the Mytileneans, without the necessary supplies of grain to withstand a long siege, was destined to fail – the proxenoi had proved their worth. It is hardly surprising that the first question of the episcopos, who has been sent to investigate the founding of the new polis of Cloudcuckooland in Aristophanes’ Birds,is‘Where are the proxenoi?’ (l. 1021; AE224 p. 117). They would be the perfect source for the vital background information that he needed in order to appraise the situation and to make his report to the Athenians.
The final means of control, which was direct interference with allied jurisdiction, was possibly the most effective – certainly much easier, safer and cheaper than the exercise of military control. This point, even allowing for right-wing bias and exaggeration, is highlighted by the Old Oligarch: it enables them to administer the allied cities, while staying at home, without sailing off on ships.
(Old Oligarch 1.16; AE200 p. 107)
This judicial control operated at both state and individual level. With the demise of the Delian League synods (League meetings) probably in 454 or the early 440s, the Athenian law courts took over responsibility for judicial action involving allied states. An example of this can be seen from the Athenian decree granting protection to Acheloion, a proxenos of Athens:
And if anyone kills [Akheloion or] any of his children [in any of the cities] that the Athenians [rule, the city is to be fined] five talents, [as in the case of] anyone killing [an Athenian. The prosecution is to be held at Athens] in the [same way as when an Athenian] is killed.
(Inscriptiones Graecae i3 19; AE235 p. 12
1)
In the same way the Athenian law courts are central to the efficient working of the Thoudippos decree (425/4) which greatly increased the phoros payments of the allied cities. If a city that wished to appeal against its assessment of phoros, it had to make the appeal before an Athenian law-court:
They must not [assess less] tribute for any [city] than the tribute that city [has brought in before] unless there [seems to be such shortage of resources that] that territory cannot [bring in more].
(ML 69; AE138 p. 66)
The allied states would need to furnish the relevant proof at Athens in an open tribunal to have any chance of a reduction in phoros.
The Athenians also ensured that certain cases concerning individuals in the allied cities should be compulsorily transferred to Athens, and that the punishments should be enforceable throughout the Empire. It was essential for the Athenians to exercise a close scrutiny over all ‘political’ cases, i.e. those that affected Athenian imperial interests. In some cases there was no doubt that the alleged offence was anti-Athenian and should go automatically to Athens for judgement:
and if anyone revolts I will denounce him to the Athenians.
(ML 52, Chalcis Decree; AE78 p. 44)
However, it was virtually impossible to define absolutely which category of cases affected Athens, and there was always the danger that anti-Athenian elements, bringing apparently non-political charges, would attempt to destroy the leaders of the democratic factions and the proxenoi upon whom the Athenians depended to maintain the loyalty and stability of the democratic regimes in the allied cities. This could be done with the aid of the allied courts, the majority of which were dominated by men of wealth and position, who in general would be anti-Athenian. Therefore the Athenians devised a system that not only protected their political allies but also ensured that their enemies were not let off or given trivial punishments by the biased local courts:
and that they use the courts to protect some members of the people and condemn those that oppose democracy, and if all the allies dealt with cases at home, then because they are fed up with the Athenians, they would condemn precisely those who are friends of the people of Athens.
(Old Oligarch 1.16; AE200 p. 107)
Although allowances must be made for the usual biased exaggeration of the Old Oligarch, his statement is still basically true. This was achieved by bringing all cases that involved specified penalties or specified individuals to the Athenian jury-courts. The Chalcis decree (ML 52; AE78 p. 44) allowed the Chalcidians to punish their own citizens except where the resulting penalty was one of exile, death or loss of citizen rights, which allowed a right of appeal to the ‘Heliaea’. The Athenians could then decide if the charge against one of its supporters had been politically motivated. Later in the Empire these cases, probably also involving the penalty of confiscation of land, came automatically to Athens for judgement. The Athenians also allowed specified individuals, usually proxenoi, to bring their cases with reduced court fees to Athens, since they might not get a fair hearing in their local courts. This infringement of their autonomy was greatly resented by the allies, but was a highly effective means of control for the Athenians:
It is this in particular [i.e. making the allies come to Athens for their court cases] that makes the allies slaves of the Athenian people.
(Old Oligarch 1.18; AE200 p. 108)
Athenian benefits from the Empire
Political benefits
The main benefit to arise from the Empire for the Athenian poor was political power, which was summed up accurately and succinctly by the Old Oligarch:
First of all, I maintain that it is appropriate that in Athens the poor and the common people should seem to have more power than the noble and the rich, because it is this class that provides the rowers for the fleet and on which the power of the city is based.
(Old Oligarch 1.2)
Therefore their numerical strength (as much as 60 per cent of the population) and the fact that Athens’ imperial power depended upon their naval prowess ensured that the poor collectively dominated Athenian politics. In other states, whose survival and power depended upon land forces, political power was usually vested either in narrow oligarchies, or in moderate oligarchies or moderate democracies, where the upper classes and to varying degrees the middle-class ‘hoplites’ held sway. In such states the political power of the poor was either non-existent or strictly limited. By contrast the Athenian poor had the right in the ‘Ecclesia’ (Assembly) to legislate and decide state policy, and the power to pass judgement in the Heliaea (People’s Court):
The people have made themselves masters of everything, and control all things by means of decrees and jury-courts, in which the people have the sovereign power.
(Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 41.2)
Economic benefits
The Empire also brought many economic benefits to the Athenians, especially but not exclusively the poorer classes. Most of these benefits stemmed from the phoros that the subject-allies contributed. Figures are in very short supply in the literary sources, but Thucydides states that Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War was receiving 600 talents a year from the allies (2.13.3). This figure can be plausibly accepted, since Xenophon also informs us that in 431 the total income of the Athenians, from both domestic and overseas sources, was 1,000 talents a year (Anabasis 7.1.27). If both figures are correct, then the Athenians’ domestic income at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War was 400 talents. Thus in 431, 600 talents, 60 per cent of Athens’ annual income, came from the allies, but this amount and percentage of income were greatly increased within a few years. Anticleon, speaking in Aristophanes’ Wasps (l. 660), performed in 422, claimed that Athens’ total revenue was now 2,000 talents. This could be dismissed as comic exaggeration, if it were not for the evidence of the Thoudippos Decree, dated to 425 (ML 69; AE138 pp. 66–67). The cost of the war had proved to be much higher than Pericles had anticipated in 431 and consequently the allies’ phoros was increased, often two- or three-fold and, in some places such as Eretria in Euboea, five-fold. The grand total of allies’ contributions after 425 can be said with some certainty to have been at least 1,460 talents and perhaps as much as 1,500 talents; this coincides with Aristophanes’ figure, which included the income from domestic sources. It was this massive sum of allied money – 75 per cent of Athens’ total revenue – and the uses to which it was put that were the main sources of economic prosperity for the Athenian poor.
It seems reasonable to believe that the Athenians kept a standing fleet of 100 ‘triremes’ and another 200 in dry dock ready for any emergency, and, as each trireme had a crew of 200, this would give employment to 20,000 sailors. The sources give little information about the length of and the number of ships on patrol or in practice, or the frequency of military campaigns. Plutarch (Pericles 11) talks of 60 triremes being on permanent patrol for eight months of the year, but this does seem excessive, and only the major campaigns, such as Eurymedon c.469 and Cyprus c.450, are mentioned by Thucydides. However, even with this lack of hard evidence, the constant use of the ships for the variety of purposes mentioned above must have given regular pay to thousands of poorer citizens (and allies) during the sailing season. Before the war of 431, the pay for an Athenian sailor was half a drachma per day, which was increased to a drachma a day at the beginning of the war. The prospect of earning pay while on campaign and of acquiring an inexhaustible supply of pay for the future was (according to Thucydides) one of the prime motives of the thetes in their enthusiastic support for the Sicilian expedition in 415 (Thuc. 6.24.3). In addition, the maintenance of this fleet would have needed a large naval infrastructure, providing employment for such craftsmen as carpenters, and other workers such as the 500 dockyard guards (Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 24.3; AE222 p. 116–17).
The Athenian fleet guaranteed not only the payment of phoros, which in turn paid for the fleet and the other economic benefits, but also a cheap and plentiful supply of superior grain by safeguard
ing the grain route from the Black Sea. The Athenians were very dependent on imported grain to feed their very large population, and the poor were always the first to suffer when there were shortages and famine. This was confirmed when the Athenian fleet was lost at Aegospotamoi in 405 and the Athenians were starved into submission in the following year. However, while their fleet and settlements protected the Black Sea corn route, the Athenians made sure that they were the first to benefit by controlling the other allies’ access to grain supplies. In the Methone decree (ML 65; AE121 pp. 58–59) the Athenians gave permission to the Methonians to import a fixed quota of grain from Byzantium without hindrance from Athenian officials. From this it is clear that other cities would need to have prior authorization and an agreed import quota from the Athenians, who would probably grant it only after their own grain requirements had been met first. Demosthenes, the fourth-century orator, mentions laws which forbade anyone who lived in Athens from bringing grain to anywhere else than Athens, and from lending money on ships carrying grain to cities other than Athens. As this was a long-standing problem for the Athenians, it is reasonable to assume that these laws were operative in the fifth century and, since the Athenians’ dominance of the Aegean was unchallenged for most of that century, were far more effective in delivering cheap grain – the staple diet of the Athenian poor.
The acquisition of additional territory overseas also supplied material benefits to the Athenians by the establishment of colonies and cleruchies, which brought economic independence to the settlers. Twenty-four are known to have been founded but it is extremely difficult to identify which of these settlements were colonies and which cleruchies, and there is also doubt about whether the colonists even renounced their Athenian citizenship. Colonies were probably sent either to reinforce existing cities (e.g. Thurii), or to take over expelled or destroyed enemy cities (e.g. Aegina, Melos), or to protect areas that were strategically important to the Athenians (e.g. Brea); the cleruchies were placed on the partially confiscated territory of an existing city. These settlements were primarily aimed at improving the economic standing of the lower classes, which is clearly shown in the amendment to the Brea decree:
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 42