Latest / The History of Greece: Philosophy, Empire, and Endless Reinvention — Fexingo History / The Delian League Becomes Empire: Thucydides and the Tribute Lists
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the Peloponnesian War, about Pericles, about the plague. But one thing we haven't really sat down and looked at is the machine that made Athens powerful enough to fight that war in the first place: the Delian League, and how it turned into an empire. Luna: The Delian League we've mentioned a few times—it started as an alliance against Persia, right? Lucas: Exactly. Formed in 478 BCE, right after the Persian Wars. Athens took the lead, and the member states contributed either ships or cash to a common treasury kept on the island of Delos. But within a generation, that alliance had become something very different. And we actually have an incredible source for tracking this shift: the Athenian Tribute Lists. Luna: Wait—tribute lists? Like, actual stone records of what each city paid? Lucas: Exactly. These are large marble stelai that were set up on the Acropolis, recording the annual tribute—they called it phoros—that each allied city contributed. They date from around 454 BCE onward, and they're one of the most important epigraphic sources we have for the fifth century. They list hundreds of cities, grouped by geographical region, and the amounts they paid. And what you see over time is not just the amounts changing—cities disappearing from the list, being reassessed, or being listed separately after a revolt. Luna: So you can literally watch the empire tightening its grip. Lucas: That's exactly what historians have done. The first major turning point was the transfer of the treasury from Delos to Athens in 454 BCE. Thucydides tells us that the stated reason was security—fear of a Persian attack on the island. But the effect was that Athens now had direct control over the funds. And shortly after that, Pericles used some of that money to build the Parthenon. Not everyone was happy about that. Luna: Before we dive deeper into that—this is a good moment to mention that we keep this show completely ad-free. No ads, no sponsors, no interruptions. That's a choice we've made from the start, and it's only possible because of listeners who support us. If you want to help keep it that way, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Any amount helps, and it really does make a difference. Lucas: Absolutely. It's a small thing that lets us keep doing what we do. So, back to the tribute lists—one of the earliest signs of coercion was the treatment of cities that tried to leave the alliance. Naxos tried to secede in 469 BCE, and Athens besieged it, forced it back in, and made it pay tribute instead of providing ships. Thucydides calls this the 'first allied city that was enslaved'—his word, doulōtheisa. That's a strong word. Luna: Enslaved? That's how he saw it? Lucas: Thucydides is remarkably blunt about the power dynamics. He says that the Athenians were no longer popular as leaders, and that when they suppressed revolts, it was a clear sign that the alliance was becoming an empire. And the tribute lists back this up. For example, after the revolt of Thasos in 462 BCE, Thasos's tribute was increased. The lists show that some cities paid more after a revolt, as a penalty. Luna: So the lists are like a financial record of imperial control. Lucas: Exactly. And they also show the shift from ships to cash. Originally, larger allies like Chios, Lesbos, and Samos contributed ships and crews. But over time, most cities commuted their naval obligations to cash payments, and Athens built its own fleet with that money. That meant Athens controlled the navy, and the allies lost their military independence. By mid-century, only a handful of states still contributed ships. Luna: And I guess if you paid cash, you were more vulnerable to reassessment? Lucas: Yes. The tribute was reassessed periodically—we have evidence of major reassessments in 446, 443, and 438 BCE. The amounts could go up, and the lists show that the total tribute collected rose from about 460 talents in the early years to maybe 600 talents by the 430s. That's a huge sum. And Athens used that money not just for the navy, but for public works, for the empire's administration, and for supporting the democracy—paying citizens for jury duty, for example. Luna: So the empire funded Athenian democracy. That's a direct link. Lucas: It's a crucial one. The Old Oligarch—the anonymous author of a pamphlet on the Athenian constitution—makes exactly this point. He says that the empire allows Athens to draw resources from the allies, and that this wealth makes it possible for the Athenian people to have leisure and political power. He's critical of democracy, but he sees the connection clearly. Luna: I've always found that document fascinating. It's so cynical. Lucas: It is. And it's a valuable counterpoint to the official Athenian ideology. The Athenians publicly celebrated the empire as a benefaction—they brought peace, they suppressed piracy, they spread democracy. But the tribute lists show a more coercive reality. For instance, the lists include a category called 'the cities that the Athenians hold by force.' That's not my phrase—that's from the inscriptions themselves. Luna: Wait, they actually carved that into stone? Lucas: Yes. On the so-called 'Tribute List of 443/2 BCE,' there is a heading that reads: 'The cities which the Athenians hold by force.' It lists about a dozen names, including places like Byzantium and Eion. So they were openly acknowledging that some of these cities were subjects, not allies. Luna: That's stunning. So much for the idea of a voluntary alliance. Lucas: Right. And by the time the Peloponnesian War breaks out, the empire is fully entrenched. Thucydides puts a famous speech in the mouth of Athenian ambassadors at Sparta, where they say, 'We did nothing remarkable, nothing contrary to human nature, in accepting an empire when it was offered to us, and then in refusing to give it up.' They argue that fear, honour, and interest motivated them. But the tribute lists show the material basis of that empire. Luna: And the allies themselves—how did they respond to this? Beyond revolting, I mean. Lucas: The evidence is fragmentary, but we have hints. Some cities sent protests to Athens—we have inscriptions from cities like Erythrae and Miletus that show Athens imposing a democratic constitution and a garrison. Others tried to negotiate lower tribute. And of course, there were the revolts: Naxos, Thasos, Euboea in 446, Samos in 440. Each revolt was crushed, and Athens imposed stricter controls afterward—garrisons, tribute increases, sometimes cleruchies. Luna: Cleruchies—those are the Athenian settlements on allied territory, right? Lucas: Yes. Athens would send a number of its own citizens to settle on land confiscated from a rebellious city. The settlers—cleruchs—kept their Athenian citizenship and formed a pro-Athenian presence. The tribute lists sometimes show cleruchies paying tribute separately, or not at all, because they were considered Athenian. This was another way of tightening control and also alleviating population pressure at home. Luna: So it's like internal colonization. Lucas: Exactly. And it was deeply resented. But the Athenian argument, as Pericles puts it in his Funeral Oration, is that Athens is a 'school for Hellas'—that the empire brings benefits: stability, prosperity, cultural flourishing. The tribute lists, though, are a reminder that this flourishing came at a cost. The Melian Dialogue, which we covered in episode 116, is the most famous literary expression of that cost—the Athenians tell the Melians that 'the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.' But the tribute lists show that this wasn't just rhetoric; it was policy. Luna: It makes you wonder: could Athens have avoided the Peloponnesian War if it had been less aggressive with its allies? Lucas: That's a big question. Some historians argue that the empire was inherently destabilizing—that Sparta and Corinth felt threatened by Athenian power, and that the allies were ready to revolt if given a chance. Thucydides certainly thinks the war was inevitable because of the growth of Athenian power. But the tribute lists show that Athens was actively creating the conditions for that resentment. The more they squeezed the allies, the more they needed a strong navy and a tight grip, which in turn required more revenue. It was a feedback loop. Luna: A vicious cycle. Lucas: Yes. And it's one that ended badly. After the Sicilian disaster, many allies revolted, and the empire began to crumble. The tribute lists themselves stop in 413 BCE, when Athens replaced the tribute with a 5% tax on all maritime trade—a desperate measure to raise revenue. By then, the empire was already dying. Luna: So the lists give us a kind of financial autopsy of the empire. Lucas: Exactly. They show the rise, the peak, and the beginning of the end. And they're a reminder that behind the grand narratives of Pericles and Thucydides, there were hundreds of cities making annual payments, and thousands of people whose lives were shaped by those stone records. Luna: It's a different way of looking at the same story—more granular, more material. Lucas: And that's what I love about epigraphy. It gives us the voices of the not-so-great—the accountants, the stonecutters, the allied ambassadors who came to Athens to plead for a lower assessment. The tribute lists don't tell us everything, but they tell us a lot that the literary sources leave out. Luna: So, for next time, maybe we could look at one of those revolts in detail? Samos, or maybe Byzantium? Lucas: That's a great idea. Let's do Samos—it's a fascinating story, and it involves Pericles himself in a naval campaign. We'll pick it up there.