book 2, chapter 7-8 (volume 1-2).

ATHENS: B. C. 478-477. Alienation of the Asiatic Greeks from Sparta. Formation of the Confederacy of Delos. The founding of Athenian Empire.

See GREECE: B. C. 478-477.

ATHENS: B. C. 477-462. Constitutional gains for the democracy. Ascendency of Aristeides. Declining popularity and ostracism of Themistokles. The sustentation of the commons. The stripping of power from the Areopagus.

At the time when the Confederacy of Delos was formed, "the Persians still held not only the important posts of Eion on the Strymon and Doriskus in Thrace, but also several other posts in that country which are not specified to us. We may thus understand why the Greek cities on and near the Chalkidic peninsula ... were not less anxious to seek protection in the bosom of the new confederacy than the Dorian islands of Rhodes and Cos, the Ionic islands of Samos and Chios, the Æolic Lesbos and Tenedos, or continental towns such as Miletus and Byzantium. ... Some sort of union, organised and obligatory upon each city, was indispensable to the safety of all. Indeed, even with that aid, at the time when the Confederacy of Delos was first formed, it was by no means certain the Asiatic enemy would be effectually kept out, especially as the Persians were strong not merely from their own force, but also from the aid of internal parties in many of the Grecian states--traitors within, as well as exiles without. Among these traitors, the first in rank as well as the most formidable, was the Spartan Pausanias." Pausanias, whose treasonable intrigues with the Persian king began at Byzantium (See GREECE: B. C. 478-477) was convicted some nine or ten years later, and suffered a terrible fate, being shut within a temple to which he had fled, and starved. "His treasonable projects implicated and brought to disgrace a man far greater than himself--the Athenian Themistokles. ... The charge [against Themistokles] of collusion with the Persians connects itself with the previous movement of political parties. ... The rivalry of Themistokles and Aristeides had been greatly appeased by the invasion of Xerxes, which had imposed upon both the peremptory necessity of cooperation against a common enemy. {156} And apparently it was not resumed during the times which immediately succeeded the return of the Athenians to their country: at least we hear of both in effective service and in prominent posts. Themistokles stands forward as the contriver of the city walls and architect of Peiraeus: Aristeides is commander of the fleet and first organiser of the Confederacy of Delos. Moreover we seem to detect a change in the character of the latter. He had ceased to be the champion of Athenian old-fashioned landed interest, against Themistokles as the originator of the maritime innovations. Those innovations had now, since the battle of Salamis, become an established fact. ... From henceforth the fleet is endeared to every man as the grand force, offensive and defensive, of the state, in which character all the political leaders agree in accepting it. ... The triremes, and the men who manned them, taken collectively, were now the determining element in the state. Moreover, the men who manned them had just returned from Salamis, fresh from a scene of trial and danger, and from a harvest of victory, which had equalized for the moment all Athenians as sufferers, as combatants, and as patriots. ... The political change arising from hence in Athens was not less important than the military. 'The maritime multitude, authors of the victory of Salamis,' and instruments of the new vocation at Athens as head of the Delian Confederacy, appear now ascendant in the political constitution also; not in any way as a separate or privileged class, but as leavening the whole mass, strengthening the democratical sentiment, and protesting against all recognised political inequalities. ... Early after the return to Attica, the Kleisthenian constitution was enlarged as respects eligibility to the magistracy. According to that constitution, the fourth or last class on the Solonian census, including the considerable majority of freemen, were not admissible to offices of state, though they possessed votes in common with the rest; no person was eligible to be a magistrate unless he belonged to one of the three higher classes. This restriction was now annulled and eligibility extended to all the citizens; We may appreciate the strength of feeling with which such reform was demanded when we find that it was proposed by Aristeides. ... The popularity thus ensured to him, probably heightened by some regret for his previous ostracism, was calculated to acquire permanence from his straightforward and incorruptible character, now brought into strong relief by his function as assessor to the new Delian Confederacy. On the other hand, the ascendency of Themistokles, though so often exalted by his unrivalled political genius and daring, as well as by the signal value of his public recommendations, was as often overthrown by his duplicity of means and unprincipled thirst for money. New political opponents sprung up against him, men sympathising with Aristeides. ... Of these the chief were Kimon [Cimon], (son of Miltiades), and Alkmæon." In 471 B. C. Themistokles was sent into exile by a vote of ostracism, and retired to Argos. Five years later he was accused of complicity in the treasonable intrigues of Pausanias, and fled to the court of the Persian king, where he spent the remainder of his days. "Aristeides died about three or four years after the ostracism of Themistokles."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 44 (volume 5)_.

The constitutional effects of the Persian war, and the political situation of Athens immediately after the war, are represented somewhat differently from the account above, in the lately discovered work on the Constitution of Athens which is attributed to Aristotle. The following is quoted from one of the translations of the latter: "After the Median war the council of Areopagus [See AREOPAGUS] recovered strength and ruled the state, not that any law conferred the hegemony on them, but because the aristocratic party had the credit of the victory at Salamis. For when the generals had despaired of the country and proclaimed a sauve qui peut, the Areopagus raised funds, gave every man eight drachmas (6s. 6d.) and induced them to man the ships. In consequence of this public service the Ecclesia yielded the ascendency to the Areopagus, and public affairs were admirably administered during the following epoch. For they acquired the art of war, made their name honoured throughout the Hellenic world, and possessed themselves of the sovereignty of the sea with the consent of Lakedaimon. At this time the leaders of the commons were Aristeides, son of Lusimachos, and Themistokles, son of Neokles; the latter studious of the arts of war, the former reputed eminent in statesmanship and honest beyond his contemporaries; which characters made their countrymen employ the one as a general, the other as a councillor. The rebuilding of the walls of Athens was their joint work, though they were otherwise at feud. The detachment of the Ionians from Persia and the formation of an alliance with Sparta were due to the counsels of Aristeides, who seized the opportunity afforded by the discredit cast on the Lakonians by the conduct of Pausanias. He too originally apportioned, two years after the battle of Salamis, in the archonship of Timosthenes (478 B. C.), the contribution to be paid by the islanders. ... Subsequently, when lofty thoughts filled every bosom and wealth was accumulating, Aristeides advised them to administer the hegemony with their own hands, to leave their country occupations and fix their domicile in the city. Sustentation, he promised, would be provided for all, either as soldiers or sailors in active service, or as troops in garrison or as public servants; and then they could increase the vigour of their imperial sway. They followed his advice, and, taking the rule into their own hands, reduced their allies to the position of vassals, except the Chians, Lesbians, and Samians, whom they kept as satellites of their power, and permitted to retain their own constitutions and to rule their own dependencies: and they provided for their own sustentation by the method which Aristeides indicated; for in the end the public revenues, the taxes and the tributes of the allies gave maintenance to more than 20,000. There were 6,000 dicasts or jurors, 1,600 archers, 1,200 cavalry, 500 senators, 500 soldiers of the dockyard garrison, 50 city guards, 700 home magistrates, 700 foreign magistrates, 2,500 heavy armed soldiers (this was their number at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war), 4,000 sailors manning 20 guardships, 2,000 sailors appointed by lot, manning 20 tribute-collecting ships, and in addition to these the Prutaneion, the orphans, the gaolers; and all these persons were maintained at the expense of the national treasury. The sustentation of the commons was thus secured. {157} The 17 years which followed the Median war were about the period during which the country continued under the ascendency of the Areopagus, though its aristocratic features were gradually on the wane. When the masses had grown more and more preponderant, Ephialtes, son of Sophonides, reputed incorruptible in his loyalty to democracy, became leader of the commons, and began to attack the Areopagus. First, he put to death many of its members, by impeaching them of offences committed in their administration. Afterwards in the archonship of Konon (462 B. C.) he despoiled the council itself of all its more recently acquired attributes, which were the keystone of the existing constitution, and distributed them among the Senate of 500, the Ecclesia, and the courts of law. In this work he had the co-operation of Themistokles, who was himself an Areopagite, but expecting to be impeached for treasonable correspondence with Persia. ... Ephialtes and Themistokles kept accusing the Areopagus before the Senate of 500, and again before the commons, till finally they stripped it of all its principal functions. The assassination of Ephialtes by the instrumentality of Aristodikos of Tanagra followed not long after. Such were the circumstances of the overthrow of the Areopagus. After this the degradation of the constitution proceeded without intermission from the eagerness of politicians to win popular favour; and at the same time there happened to be no organizer of the aristocratic party, whose head, Kimon, the son of Miltiades, was too young for some years to enter political life; besides which their ranks were much devastated by war. Expeditionary forces were recruited by conscription; and as the generals had no military experience and owed their appointment to the reputation of their ancestors, each expedition entailed the sacrifice of 2,000 or 3,000 lives, chiefly of the noblest sons of Athens, whether belonging to the wealthy classes or to the commons."--Aristotle, On the Constitution of Athens (translated by E. Poste.) chapter 23-26.--On the above, Dr. Abbott comments as follows: "So much of this account as refers to Themistocles may be at once dismissed as unhistorical. ... If the evidence of Thucydides is to count for anything, it is quite certain that Themistocles finally left Greece for Persia about 466 B. C. ... Plutarch says not a word about Themistocles. But the remainder of the account [of the attack on the Areopagus] is supported by all our authorities--if indeed it is not merely repeated by them."

_E. Abbott, History of Greece,