In the last video, where I discussed how the Delian league was formed, I mentioned that the
Ionians were impressed by Aristedes quick and just actions against the conspiracy within the Hellenic
army before the battle of Plataea in 479 BCE. This event confirmed to the Ionians that Aristides
reputation of being the quote unquote “just Aristides” was accurate, and so, a year later,
when it came to deciding how much will each city pay to the treasury of the newly formed Delian
League, Aristedes was chosen by the allies, who where mostly Ionians, to conduct ‘the assessments
according to each member's worth and ability to pay.’ According to a Roman era historian Diodorus,
Aristides ‘distributed the sum so accurately and justly that all the cities consented to it.’ This
overly positive view of Aristides assessment could be Athenian propaganda at play, however, from the
sources it does seem like a lot of the city states did initially go into the Delian League willingly
which they probably wouldn’t have if the initially determined payments were exorbitantly high.
The total initial sum of the payments to the treasury, at least according to Thucydedis,
turned out to be 460 talents a year. To put that into perspective, there are 6,000 drachmi in a
talent and it is said that a citizen could easily sustain himself with half a drachma a day and a
just an ideal number the Athenians came up with, when in reality the money that got
eventually collected by the Hellenotamiai, the Athenian treasures, was smaller,
as the ideal Athenian number didn’t account for cities defaulting on the payments or, being
unable to pay the full amount or, even refusing to pay the full amount, or paying late, etc.
Going back to Thucydides, he also mentioned that not all states paid into the treasury. Yes,
most states, in lieu of not sending their own citizens to war,
paid into the treasury, however, some city states, like Samos for example,
contributed ships and soldiers to the League rather than money. The city states that
contributed ships and soldiers rather than money saw this as a point of pride, they didn’t have to
pay into the treasury for they were at the front lines fighting the Persians with the Athenians.
Now that the payments and military obligations of the newly formed league were sorted,
Athens’ first order of business was to decide who should be in charge of the
league’s military expeditions. Since Athens was designated as the Delian League’s hegemon,
it was the responsibility of the Athenians to appoint a leader for the leagues military.
As you may recall, the last person in charge of the combined Hellenic League’s military,
which preceded the Delian League, was the hated Spartan general Pausanias
who eventually got booted out by the Greek city states for his behaviour.
A quick side note here about Pausanias. He wasn’t very liked in Sparta at this point because
not only did he lose them the leadership of the Hellenic League but there were also many rumours
about him trying to incite a slave rebellion in Sparta all while being allied with the Persian
king. With that said, Pausanias was safe for now as these were just rumours with no real evidence,
but then, one day, one of these rumours got substantiated by a messenger who claimed to
be highered by Pausanias to deliver a message to the Persian King. This, combined with the
already circulating rumours, didn’t look good for Pausanias and so when he found out that his
messenger conspired against him he knew that he was in trouble and, therefore, quickly, before
he could be arrested, ran into a nearby Temple of Athena in Sparta. Now the Greeks couldn’t,
well more accurately shouldn’t, arrest someone in a temple who asked for sanctuary, as the said
person was deemed to be under the protection of the god the temple was enshrined to. Therefore,
the Spartan officials just stood outside of the temple hoping to wait out Pausanias. According
to Diodorus, Pausanias’ mother showed up at the scene, with a brick in hand,
and placed it in front of the entrance while stating ‘You are unworthy to be a Spartan,
you are not my son’. The Spartan officials then followed her lead and placed more bricks
in front of the entrance until Pausanias was completely walled off inside the Temple. After
a while Pausanias starved to death. This act was un-welcomed by the goddess Athena,
as the Spartans, even though indirectly, just killed someone who was supposed to be
under Athenas protection. Athena, through the oracle at Delphi, voiced her anger at the
Spartans. To apiece Athena, the Spartans buried Pausanias in the consecrated grounds of the temple
where he died and erected two bronze statues in the temple “and dedicated them as a substitute
for Pausanias’ [death].” Angering the patron god of your biggest rival perhaps wasn’t the best
tactic for the Spartans as the Athenians continued to grow in power during this time.
Back in Athens. Themistocles was trying to control most
of Athenian politics, which also likely included the military leadership of the Delian League.
However, Aristides, ever the rival to Themistocles, championed his ally named Cimon
as the new head of the league's military. Cimon was well known in Athens, he was the son of the
famous Miltiades, and very successfully partook in the various battles of the Greco Persian Wars.
Plus, the fact that Aristedes was so well liked by the other members of the Delian League meant
that many Athenians saw him as the reason why Athens ended up in such a politically lucrative
position as the leaders of the Delian League and, therefore, Aristides’ championing of Cimon swayed
a lot of votes towards Cimon’s way. In the end, unsurprisingly, Cimon became the new leader of
the League’s military over Themistocles and the Greek attacks upon Persia could resume.
The first expedition of the league was in c. 476 against the city of Eion which was one of the most
important Persian strongholds in Thrace. Cimon defeated the local Persian leader in a battle
and then besieged the city. After a while the local Persian leader saw that there was no hope
of victory for him and, in an act of desperation, layed fire to the city and then committed suicide.
Cimon tried to salvage as much of the burning city as possible and enslaved most of its population.
It is important to understand here, and for the rest of the video series, that people were often
seen as part of the booty that could be gotten in a war. A slave was a commodity that could be
used or sold just like metals or grains, and if the captured slave happened to be a high
ranking person, you could even sell them back to their family for a high ransom. So capturing
slaves in a war was very valuable. In fact there’s an anecdote about Cimon and slaves.
According to Plutarch. After one particular battle where the Athenians and the allies managed
to capture a lot of Persians, Cimon stripped the Persians of all their valuables and placed
the valuables on a pile next to the Persians. Then he turned to the allies and asked them to
pick which they wanted. All the scraggly looking Persians or their “gold anklets and
armlets and collars and jackets and purple robes for display”. The allies without hesitation chose
the valuables of the Persians while the Athenian got the Persians themselves. The Athenians were
extremely unhappy with Cimon as they saw his distribution of booty as completely unbalanced,
but then, after a couple of months. Families of the enslaved Persians came to Athens
asking to buyout their family members, each and every one of them. After the deals were made,
it turned out that the amount of money the Athenians made was far greater than the actual
gold and silver the allies got, and so Cimon was praised in Athens as a cunning genius.
Anyways, back to Eion. After this fairly violent capture of Eion, where much of the
population was enslaved, other Threcian cities surrendered to the league fairly quickly.
The loot acquired from this expedition was divided among the allies, and an
aparche was given to the gods as per the foundation agreement of the league, however,
the city of Eion itself, and the surrounding area, was retained under direct Athenian control.
This probably didn’t sit well with many of the league members as the whole foundation
point of the league was to protect existing Greek cities from Persian attacks and free
other Greek cities from Persian control. But here, on one of the first expeditions of the league,
Athens was already taking control of a Greek city which it quote unquote “freed” from the Persians.
Likely the most angered city state about this was Thasos which, before the Persian
conquest of Thrace, controlled Eion and the surrounding area as it’s peraia,
basically a colony, but now that the area was liberated from the Persians,
Athenians didn’t give it back to Thasos, they just kept it. There were several very obvious
economic reasons for why Athenians decided to keep control of this area for themselves
despite the harrumphing it caused in the league. First the control of the area gave Athens access
to the Thracian markets through the Strymon river. Second the area had ample supply of
Threcian timber which was absolutely necessary for the large Athenian shipbuilding projects.
Attica was kind of devoid of good shipbuilding lumber at this point. And third, the “access to
precious metals from the mines around Mount Pangaion” was just too valuable to give up.
Right after this expedition in Thrace, Athens turned its sight on the island of Scyros.
The reasons for Athens attacking Skyros were multiple.
For one it layed close to a strategically important trade route between Athens
and the Black Sea and the island also harboured a lot of annoying pirates which,
not just Athens, but also the rest of the cities in the league wanted to get rid of.
However, there was also a religious aspect for this Athenian Expedition. The Athenians,
at some point in the past, received an oracle from Delphi bidding them to bring back “the bones of
Theseus to the city and honor him as befit of a hero” for it is their fault that he ran away to
Skyros and died. If you don’t know the specific myth of Theseus that is being referred to here,
basically. Long ago, Theseus was the king of Athens who, along with his friend Pirithous,
went into the underworld to try to quote unquote “rescue” Persephone. Persephone
was the goddess of grains and crops who got abducted by Hades in order that he
could marry her. We don’t have time to get into the details of this myth but in the end
Theseus and Pirithous were unsuccessful and Theseus got trapped in the underworld
where he stayed until Heracles saved him during his 12th task. When Theseus returned from the
underworld he found Athens in an active rebellion against his rule and subsequently got dethroned by
his enemies. Theseus had no choice but to flee Athens for the island of Skyros which he hoped
to use as a base for his plan to retake Athens. However, the king of Skyros was afraid of Theseus
and distrusted him, therefore, through deceit hidden behind charming hospitality the king
of Skyros managed to lure Theseus into a trap and kill him. Hence the bones of Theseus, which
the Athenians have been told by the oracle to retrieve, were somewhere on the island of Scyros.
Now, a reasonable person might think it is a bit ridiculous to attack an island because it
allegedly has some bones of a mythical Athenian figure, but you have to realize that in Ancient
Greece the Greek myths, we read today for entertainment, were a religion to the ancient
Greeks. People believed these things happened, they followed them, literally, religiously. Just
like bones of saints in medieval Europe, bones of Theseus were a big deal to ancient Athenians.
With that said, as mentioned before, there were also plenty of other more practical reasons for
why Athens decided to conquer Skyros, which they did under the leadership of Cimon in c. 476.
Plutarch tells us that when Cimon conquered Skyros he was having a very hard time finding
the bones of Theseus. However, during one of the searches for the bones, Cimon spotted an eagle
which landed on a suspiciously looking mound of dirt. Cimon realized this must have been a sign
from the gods, and so started digging into the mound and, there, found the bones of Theseus.
“When these relics were brought home on Theseus’ trireme by Cimon, the Athenians were delighted,
and received them with splendid processions and sacrifices, as though Theseus himself were
returning to his city.” Here, the mentioned “Theseus’ trireme”, better known as the
“Ship of Theseus”, was an actual ship the Athenians had in their city. It was a bronze
age trireme believed by the Athenians to be the original ship of Theseus and, therefore, they
maintained the ship in working sailing condition for centuries. So, this bronze age trireme,
maintained in working condition by Athenians for centuries, was used by Cimon to bring the bones
of Theseus back to Athens. This must have been a very momentous occasion for the Athenians.
Going back to Skyros. The inhabitants of the island were either killed, enslaved,
or driven out by the Athenians, after which the Athenians set up their own colony on the island.
After Skyros, in c. 472, Cimon attacked and conquered Carystus on Euboea. This attack
was a continuation of Athenian efforts dating back to the 6th century to subjugate the whole
island. The island was a natural barrier to any northern attack on Attica and, therefore, the
Athenians were very keen on taking control of it. They would succeed in their goals of conquering
the whole island at some point in the following decade. It is often very hard to pinpoint exact
dates in classical antiquity, hence I always use the word circa before almost every date I say.
While these military expeditions lead by Cimon were occuring in the 470s,
Themistocles and Aristides continued governing Athens as the two most
prominent, and at this point also senior, Athenian politicians.
Aristides, during this time, was mainly involved with the politics of the Delian League since,
as mentioned, he was very well liked by the allies but, with that said,
he seems to have not been as active in politics as before because he had to deal with living in
poverty. This was due to the fact that Aristides lost a great deal of his wealth during the Persian
destruction of Athens in the Greco Persian Wars. According to Plutarch when Aristides,
nearing the end of his life, was asked about his state of wealth, he said
“It became him better to be proud of his poverty than Callias of his wealth; since there are many
to be seen that make a good or bad use of riches, but it is difficult, comparatively,
to meet with one who supports poverty in a noble spirit; those only should be ashamed of it who
incurred it against their wills.” Basically saying that he lost his wealth willingly,
serving Athens, and so he is not ashamed of living in poverty. Aristides then died most
likely in Athens in c. 468 which was, however, not before the ostracism of Themistocles in c. 471.
Before the ostracism, Themistocles continued with his pro maritime policy,
first he pushed for tax cuts to the merchants and artisans so that Athens could become a
great mercantile city, and second he stressed that Athens should build at least 20 military triremes
a year to keep up its maritime dominance. However, he also suggested, after the Greco Persian Wars,
that Athens should destroy the fleets of all the allied cities while they were defenceless and
anchored in a port. If this happened Athens could finally rule all the seas unchallenged. Naturally,
this was refused by the Athenians and such drastic suggestions didn’t make him many friends. He was
also hated by the Spartans for that whole trickery over the wall building project and some other
stuff, the Delian League members didn’t like him either who preferred Aristides, and over time even
the Athenian populace started to find Themistocles too arrogant; and what do you with arrogant
politicians in Athens? You ostracise them; and so in c. 471 Themistocles was ostracized.
At some point after Themistocles ostracism and around Aristides’ death, between c. 470 and
467 the first rebellion of the Delian League occurred. Naxians living on Naxos,
the largest island of the Cyclades, decided they had enough of the Delian League and
left. Why did they decide to leave? We don’t really know. Most likely the Naxians didn’t feel
like it was worth paying the tribute or supplying ships and soldiers to a league which increasingly
seemed like it was solely runned by Athens for Athenian benefit. Plus there was no precedent
on whether a city state could leave the league or not, no one had tried it before. But fun fact,
No. The Athenians decided you can’t leave the league without their consent and so Athens
besieged and conquered Naxos. A former founding ally of the league. Afterwards
the Athenians took down the Naxian walls, forced them to pay higher tribute to the
Delian treasury and settled some Athenians on the island to discourage any further descent.
And so slowly but surely, under the military leadership of Cimon,
the Delian League was starting to look more like an Athenian arche
than a League of equal city states formed to fight a bigger Persian enemy.
I know the first video in this series didn’t do too well, but I decided to continue the
series because, honestly, despite me being a medievalist, I enjoy classical Greece a
lot. Going back to it for this video was really fun so I am probably just going to continue the
series despite it not doing too well. Hopefully you won't have to wait almost two years for the
next video in the series to come out, in fact, I can guarantee you won't have to wait that long. I
already started writing a bit of the script for the next video. Anyways, thank you so much to
my Patrons and YouTube supporters, my name is M. Laser, and as always, stick around for history.