6 THUCYDIDES AND THE EMPIRE (p. 92-93)

Has Thucydides misrepresented the character of the Athenian Empire? In a celebrated article1 published in 1954, two years before the Hungarian uprising which began the illumination of the character of another empire, de Ste Croix declared that the truth about Athens’ empire was revealed in the speech which Thucydides put into the mouth of Diodotus in the Mytilene debate. That speaker declared (3.47.):

As things are now, the demos in all the cities (i.e. of the Empire) is well disposed to us and either it does not join with the few in revolt, or if it is forced to do so, is hostile from the outset to those who have revolted, and you go to war against the city in revolt having the masses on your side.

Almost 30 years later this same author declared2 that the fifth-century Empire ‘is unique among past empires known to us in that the ruling city relied very much on the support of the lower classes in the subject states.’ In between, in 1972, this proud proclamation was somewhat ‘sullied o’er’.

It would be a mistake to exaggerate. Apart from a few leading politicians who might expect great gains from being the recipients of Athenian trust and goodwill, I doubt if many of the ordinary citizens of the subject states felt any real enthusiasm towards Athens: they may rather have seen Athenian domination simply as a ‘lesser evil’ than being subjected to their own oligarchs. . . . The cardinal fact that under an oligarchy only the propertied classes enjoyed real freedom was bound to drive many of the lower orders in many cities into reliance, however reluctant, upon Athens, as the evidence shows that in fact it did.

The question is entirely a matter of how Athens’s subjects perceived the Empire. As empires go, the Athenian Empire was a good empire. All empires seek to secure peace, and Athens certainly did that until Sparta brought Persia back into Greek affairs. en then, the age-long evil of the Aegean, i.e. piracy, did not reassert itself until Athens lost her fleet. Further, Athens, like other imperial powers, established and maintained a satisfactory judicial system which provided a fair means of settling commercial disputes between citizens of different member states.

Like the Athenian judicial system itself, the imperial system had its dark side – namely ‘political’ justice which served the interests of the Athenian demos and not impartial justice – but for the most part the system was a matter for pride. Nor were the burdens of Empire, tribute and military service, severe. In 413, the Athenians replaced the tribute with a five per cent tax on imports and exports in the harbours of the allies, ‘thinking that by this method they would increase their revenue’ (7.28.4), which hardly suggests that the tribute was oppressive. The case was similar with military service. Athens’s power was essentially naval and, as the Corinthian speaker in the debate of the Peloponnesian League observed (1.121.3), crews were largely mercenary.