Chapter Six
Athens' Financial Resources in the Archidamian War
When war broke out between Sparta and Athens in summer 431, Athens' financial resources were at their height: Perikles, in a speech to the Athenians shortly before the outbreak, assured his fellow citizens of their capacity to wage a successful war against the Peloponnesians and encouraged them by recounting in detail their assets, revenue, and reserve. Thucydides, undoubtedly present on the occasion, judged Perikles' ideas integral to the analysis of power that he was developing in his work, and thus he included the statesman's derailed expliqué of the city's financial status in his History (2.13.3-5). Not only were the Athenian treasuries stocked with reserve, ever replenished by revenue from the empire, but the fleet also had its largest complement (2.13.8); moreover, the empire had been under firm control without any serious recalcitrance for nearly a decade. This had allowed the recovery of the reserve, whose height at ninety-seven hundred talents, probably in the mid-fifth century; had diminished due to the building program and the expenses necessitated by the revolts of the early 440s and, most recently, Poteidaia (2.13.3-4). By 431, however, the Athenians had succeeded in replenishing the treasury of Athena by three thousand talents, bringing the reserve on the Akropolis to six thousand talents;[1] shortly thereafter, the moneys of the local gods and goddesses of Athens and Attica were likely concentrated on the Akropolis as well, further increasing the city's accumulated capital.[2]
The centralization of all immediately usable financial resources of the Athenian polis formed the cornerstone of Periklean strategy. The states-
man recognized that the foundation of Athens' dunamis was its wealth, not its manpower, which was Sparta's strength: for Athenian naval mastery rested on the extraordinary, continual expenditure of money; thus, its success required substantial annual revenue and centralization of financial resources, to facilitate immediate disbursement and effective management of funds. These were the two essential components of Athens' financial strength: periousia chrematon supplemented by reliable prosodos . The idea of surplus as a necessity for naval mastery that is central to Thucydides' analysis of power stems directly from the dramatic increase in the expenditure of money in the sphere of military affairs due to the emergence of naval dunamis .
The Athenians' expectations at the outset of the war are difficult to judge, but it is likely that only when a Lakedaimonian force under King Archidamos actually marched into Attica and ravaged the territory of Acharnai did the majority of the citizens fully appreciate the implications and consequences of adopting the Periklean strategy. One response, to set aside an "iron reserve" of one thousand talents in case of emergency (2.24.1), clearly reflects their acknowledgment of the potential scale and gravity of the struggle now upon them, as it demonstrates their awareness of the crucial role of expense in the war. Moreover, the decision to create a special reserve was made solely with naval operations in mind, unambiguous testimony to the Athenians' fundamental understanding of the connection between money and the fleet, and especially of the absolute necessity of surplus. It is unclear to what extent they anticipated a lengthy struggle; however, after the first round of opposing strategies was played out, it became evident that a quick derision was unlikely.[3] Accordingly, the cost of the struggle would have been expected to be potentially enormous and unprecedented, but not unimaginable. For the Athenians were no strangers to the degree of expense a war could require, especially while maintaining an empire (and vice versa): their experience from the 470s through the 440s had been instructive. Moreover, two recent sieges against their own allies, one against Samos in 440/39 and the other currently under way against the town of Poteidaia in the Chalkidike, had repeated the lesson. Perikles' calculations in summer 431 would have included the need to keep a firm check on the allies, to avert the possibility of further revolts and sieges, and to conduct operations against the Spartans and their allies.
Finally, in winter 430-29, the Poteidaians surrendered to the Athenians (Thuc. 2.70.1). According to Thucydides, the siege had cost the Athenians two thousand talents (a good part of which had already been
spent before the outbreak of war) and inflicted great suffering on both Poteidaia and Athens. Uneasiness about their financial losses is perhaps further suggested by a naval mission to extort money from Karia and Lykia (2.69.1) which occurred just before the surrender of Poteidaia—and which Thucydides makes a point of noting right before he relates Poteidaia's fall. The tremendous cost of the siege renders the terms of the settlement all the more surprising. The generals on the spot abolished the community of Poteidaia but allowed the former inhabitants to take money with them and settle where they would; the site of the former polis was later colonized by Athens. The Athenians consciously gave up the profits of war in bodies and financial resources: most important, there is no record of any financial reparation made directly to the state in the form of continued tribute or an indemnity.
It is difficult to assess the Poteidaian decision because of the apparent disagreement it engendered in Athens (2.70.4); nevertheless, it marks a departure from previous settlements following the suppression of a revolt in that the Athenians did little or nothing to recover the cost of the siege by imposing an indemnity, nor to insure revenue to the polis for the future by, in this case, continuing to demand tribute, even if at a lower assessment than the prerevolt level.[4] It is indeed possible that the eventual colony indirectly facilitated the flow of revenue to Athens through taxation, for example; but whatever direct financial gain derived from the new apoikia most likely benefited individual colonists alone, not the public coffers of the mother city. There is no doubt that colonies and klerouchies make good strategic sense in trouble spots;[5] but such an approach raises important questions: How significant was the loss to the centralized financial resources of the state? Is there a pattern in the post-Periklean years of private benefit (however one assesses the indirect public gain) over public? What light do these changes, if detectable, shed on the relationship between leader and demos and on the effectiveness of political leadership in general in a city with an arche and a war? The settlement of Lesbos is of great importance in connection with these issues.
In 428/7, two years after the fall of Poteidaia, with the war now in full force and Athens debilitated by the plague, Mytilene (and much of Lesbos) revolted. The city had been one of Athens' most important and strongest allies and had enjoyed the nearly singular honor of retaining
its own fleet; it was, that is, an autonomous ally with the means of defense, not a relatively powerless tributary subject, as Thucydides makes clear.[6] But the Athenians' reaction contrasted sharply with their earlier response upon merely suspecting disaffection by the Poteidaians in 433. At that time, they responded immediately and swiftly, recognizing the threat to their revenues; now, in 428, with Perikles dead and the plague still raging, reaction was laggardly and suspicious. When at last they accepted the truth and were forced into action by fear, they dispatched forty ships to the scene, but too late: Mytilene and all of Lesbos except Methymna had already revolted against Athens (3.2-3).
The Athenians were now faced with a new siege, only two years after Poteidaia came to terms. The length, cost, and hardship involved in quashing that revolt were still fresh in their minds; and unlike the timing of the revolt of Poteidaia,[7] now they were at war with Sparta and suffering from a devastating plague. The Athenians' next move is instructive: they levied a tax on propertied citizens for the first time and dispatched ships, as they had done in the winter of 429, to collect money from the empire (Thuc. 3.19.1). These measures must be considered in the general context of events at the time. The atmosphere in Athens no doubt approached panic; decisions were made hastily through fear, and without the luxury of careful forethought and intelligent planning.[8] Indeed, such emergency ad hoc financing was exactly what Perikles had insisted was not the way to win wars (1.141.5).
What is important to appreciate is that the Athenian treasury at this time, in 428/7, was far from empty: the cost of the siege of Poteidaia had been sizable, even unusually high,[9] but probably a good part of this had already been spent before summer 431 and, therefore, was taken into account by Perikles in his speech on Athens' resources on the eve of war. Accordingly, the decisions made in 428/7 may betoken more a collective psychological insecurity and the lack of sound financial and political management in an anxious atmosphere than a serious depletion of cash.[10] When Thucydides points out that "then, for the first time" the Athenians levied an eisphora on themselves of two hundred talents, his
emphasis may in part be explained by the desire to contrast the policy and actions of Perikles with those of leaders who gained prominence after his death. Only then, that is, and not while Perikles was in command, did the Athenians take an action which that general and strategist would neither have approved of nor judged necessary. Moreover, the phrase, which points ahead to the continued use of a war tax in the course of the Peloponnesian War,[11] raises serious questions both about the stability of imperial revenue and about financial management. For the decision once again to plunder the empire as well as to impose a war tax on Athenian citizens suggests concern about the adequacy of normal revenues, chief among which was tribute, to satisfy the requirements of naval war and maintenance of the empire.
The decisions affecting Athens' financial resources made in the years immediately following Perildes' demise demonstrate at the very least a changed conception of the city's financial capability and a markedly different view of the proper methods for insuring the influx of revenue; this is patent not only from the decision to levy an eisphora but also from the terms of the settlement of Mytilene following the suppression of the revolt. For just as in the case of Poteidaia, tribute was not imposed on the defeated, although this would have been the usual procedure for a polls that had revolted and had not paid tribute previously; nor was an indemnity slapped on it. Thus, for the second time early in the war (though obviously it would not have seemed so at the time), the Athenians departed from their normal practice of insuring financial gain to the polis through the previously reliable system of tribute. Coming during a war, this trend toward rejecting tribute as both a punitive and necessary financial measure is surprising from a purely financial standpoint. The land of Lesbos, except that belonging to Methymna, was divided into 3,000 kleroi , 300 of which were set aside for the gods, while the remaining 2,700 became an Athenian klerouchy. From rent on the sacred land, the Athenian state derived ten talents a year, but the bulk of revenue, an impressive ninety talents annually, was spread among individual Athenians; it is important to underscore that the latter sum was not public revenue and that the Athenians chose to accept their leaders' proposal not to extract revenue from the island in the form of tribute for the public war fund.[12]
In the cases of both Poteidaia and Mytilene, the immediate question arises whether these communities would have been able to pay tribute
after having experienced severe depletion of their own resources in the sieges. Poteidaia is problematic, for the issue is as much the community's hypothetical ability to pay tribute had it been allowed to survive intact as it is the colony's ability to exploit the region's financial potential and guarantee Athens state revenue. The revival of the polis under new inhabitants, however, combined with the wealth of the region, makes it reasonable to assume that Athens could have derived revenue from Poteidaia.[13]
An important part of the discussions at Athens after the revolt of Mytilene was quelled concerned the effect of revolts on the financial resources of the allies, and consequently, of the Athenian polis.[14] Kleon argued that a siege, leaving the conquered city a wasteland, would render it unable to bear any subsequent financial burden. But Mytilene was hardly reduced to poverty by the siege as is dear from the total financial yield of the settlement, nine-tenths of which, however, was scattered among private individuals and not accruing to the state.
As the settlement of Lesbos suggests that the Athenians could have imposed tribute but did not, their decision must have been based on choice, not necessity. What explains the fact that individual Athenian citizens, rather than the polis as a whole, reaped the reward of the Mytilenaian settlement? It may have been motivated by a genuine desire to placate especially those Athenians suffering from confinement in the city; but it resulted in the reduction of the amount of revenue that would have joined the war reserve and thus cut away at the polis's periousia chrematon necessary for ultimate victory. More broadly, it indicates a shift away from Perikles' view that the polis commands the highest allegiance, outweighing individual gain and self-interest, and that benefiting the polis does the greatest good to individuals in it, while catering to individuals brings harm to the polis. Thucydides allows Perikles to make this point abundantly clear in his last speech (2.60), at a time when personal hardship was at its height.
Against this background, the settlements of Poteidaia and Mytilene start to reflect an ominous development in the 420s, as they appear designed for individual gain at the expense of the welfare and strength of the polis, which depended on surplus concentrated wealth. These decisions shed important light more on Athenian political leadership and personal power than on financial, military strategy. For. after the death of Perikles, appealing to the material and physical losses, lately relentless, suffered by the citizenry offered an easy formula for political success
and encouraged a style of political leadership which promoted the idea of personal gain, often by example. The increase of money in Athens, its constant association with Athens' new leaders, and its negative effect on society are depicted with the venom of late fifth-century comedy[15] and also by Pseudo-Xenophon (Ath.Pol . 3.3). Even Thucydides, normally reticent about details of this kind, judges it relevant to comment on the reputation and character of Perikles' successors, leaders who instilled in the citizenry by example a venal and mercenary individualism (2.65.7). Benefits accruing to individuals from the empire as the direct result of political decisions rather than of private initiative fit into this context. At the same time, however, the settlements of Poteidaia and Mytilene raise an additional consideration about the cohesion of the Athenian citizenry as a whole with respect to the empire and thus to the war. Wealthy Athenians had profited from the empire to a considerable extent,[16] a fact that no doubt engendered support for the continuation of the arche .[17] Colonies and klerouchies were among the means—apart from military service—of extending the exploitation of the empire to a broader group below the elite; these settlements were, in effect, a method of distributing the spoils of war to selected individuals among the citizenry.[18]
It is impossible to offer a definitive interpretation of the settlements that we have been examining. But it is clear that Athens, as a matter of policy, was steering away from the imposition of tribute on allies who had revolted. This raises an important question: how successful and effective in general was the collection of tribute during the war? For if there was growing difficulty in collecting phoros , which decreased its reliability and, hence, its value as a source of income, then the settlement of Mytilene could be regarded as a sensible approach to the problem of imperial revenue (though perhaps only if the Athenians had now begun to institute a fairly regular practice of taxing themselves). In conjunction with regular taxation, the klerouchy on Lesbos might be a fairly effective, though certainly circuitous, way of insuring regular revenue from the empire to the state by raising the income level of some individual Athenians. Unfortunately, the tribute quota lists, the best gauge for estimating tribute totals, are virtually useless on this question for the 420s, given their con-
dition of survival.[19] But there are other useful indicators suggesting that the amount of revenue coming to Athens in the form of tribute was declining.
First, that tribute collection was a matter of concern even early in the war can be inferred from an inscription dated ca. 430, IG I3 60, which, although in extremely fragmentary condition, dearly deals with tribute. It is reasonable to suppose that underlying this inscription were problems in tribute collection serious enough to warrant a decree in response. If tribute was indeed proving much more difficult to collect in wartime, which would not be surprising, what were the responses to the problem? The inscription just mentioned is not helpful on this matter, beyond its probable testimony to the existence of a problem. More interesting and substantial is other epigraphic evidence, some dearly and some only possibly dated to this period, which suggests a tightening of the screws in a rather heavy-handed and likely unrealistic way. The decree proposed by Kleonymos, IG I3 68 (dated to 426), calling for the appointment of tribute collectors, strongly indicates difficulties with tribute collection, concerned as it is with insuring that the cities make their full payments.[20]
The most famous of the epigraphic evidence concerned with tribute during the 420s is the inscription recording the assessment of 425, IG I3 71. This reassessment, but one in a long line of reassessments since the formation of the Delian League in 478, occupies a special place because it is thought to have raised the tribute more drastically than all its predecessors; it is, moreover, extremely valuable as evidence of the "tribute problem" of the 420s, but in a more complex way than the inscriptions noted above. Leaving aside for the moment the total of the reassessment, the inscription testifies to continuing trouble with collection, and thus to the ineffectiveness of the previous measures mentioned. Moreover, it suggests that the problem emanated not only from the subject dries but, to a certain extent, from Athens itself: the decree orders future assessments every four years, with stiff penalties levied for the failure of the responsible prytaneis to do so (lines 26ff.), suggesting that recently assess-
ments had not been carried out on a regular four-year basis.[21] Like previous measures concerned with tribute, this document lays down stringent terms and penalties designed to raise more money, culminating with the list of the new assessment, which may have totaled more than fourteen hundred talents. This would mean a two- to three-fold increase for most cities in the empire since the assessment of 434, the last one for which we have any knowledge of the total. That assessment seems to have totaled approximately 430 talents, though our knowledge is incomplete.[22]
Thus, it appears that even though the Athenians' previous measures to insure the collection of tribute were by no means "soft," they had been less than successful. Yet in 425, the Athenians not only maintained their tough stance but even demanded greater amounts of tribute than previously assesseddespite their having failed to collect the lesser amount. What are we to infer from the measure of 425 in the light of our knowledge of the Athenians' continuing difficulties in obtaining tribute?
At the outset, we need to note, as discussed in the last chapter, the high uncertainty whether the assessment of 425 was indeed as sharp an increase as is commonly believed.[23] That the document, itself physically imposing, was intended to impress and intimidate the allies is obvious. How realistic it was, seen against the background of the war and the evidence we have been considering, is another matter.
The fortunes of war had, by 425, switched to Athens, as the city had made a spectacular recovery from the heavy cumulative toll of the plague and the revolts of Poteidaia and Mytilene: the cream of the Spartan army surrendered on Sphakteria, which gave the Athenians both a military and psychological advantage over their enemies. Indeed, insult was added to injury shortly after when an Athenian naval squadron captured the island of Kythera, a Lakedaimonian polis, and forced it to pay tribute.[24] The corresponding psychological effects on the Spartans and on the Athenians must have been extraordinary, as is evident from the Athenian decision just after Sphakteria alone to reject, no doubt on Kleon's proposal, Spartan peace overtures.[25] In this context, the reassessment of 425 reveals much about Athens' self-image at that time, constituting an unmistakable illustration of the projection of power; however, it tells us remarkably little by itself about what actually ended up in the treasury.
The effect the intimidating nature of the inscription had on the practical and concrete level, that is, on the amount of money consequently collected, is difficult to determine. To be sure, Athens' successes, especially that on Sphakteria, must have impressed Athens' allies as well: their would-be "liberator" had now been humiliated. Perhaps the majority of Athenians thought the victory was sufficient to cow the allies into greater obedience and compliance with their obligations, indeed, even increased ones. But shortly thereafter, in 424, the tables turned when Brasidas succeeded in wooing away a number of subject cities in the north, most important of which was Amphipolis, and Athens' attention was focused once again on revolts. It is not likely that the allies would have obediently met their (increased) financial obligations to the city. One of the most unfortunate losses in the epigraphic evidence is the record of quota for the years immediately following the reassessment; in fact, for the remainder of the 420s, nothing survives that could have indicated the success of the measure.
Arguments from silence are by themselves not compelling; but it has always caused some discomfort to scholars that Aristophanes is silent on a spectacular increase in tribute, given his penchant for exploiting the financial aspect of Athens' empire to comic effect, especially in the Knights and Wasps , and frequently in connection with Kleon, who may well have had a hand in the assessment of 425.[26] In particular, the absence of any allusion to the decree in the Knights of 424 is noteworthy. Thus, considering the topicality of Aristophanes' plays and his fondness for using as fodder for slander and humor the financial aspect of the empire as it affected Athenian politics and society (in particular, the efforts of Athens' leaders to fill their pockets around reassessment time), it is a bit odd, to say the least, to find no specific mention of a spectacular increase in tribute. It is less peculiar if the increase was neither as dramatic nor as effective as commonly believed.
As for Thucydides' omission of the assessment, we saw earlier the tenuousness of the position that we should expect to find explicit mention of a reassessment in the History : the only time he explicitly refers to an assessment is at its first occurrence, in 1.96. If the assessment of 425 was the highest yet, there is still no reason to expect Thucydides to mention it; he was not interested in decisions (in this case, assessments) per se. Only if the decree had in fact been effective—causing tribute to reach its highest peak and making an important impact on Athens' resources—would it be surprising to find no allusion to it in the text.
The reassessment of 425 was unexceptional if it was less dramatic than a doubling or trebling of the previous assessment; if it was as extraordinary an increase as usually presumed, then it was a striking piece of propaganda, testifying to and symbolizing the dunamis of Athens, a monument serving to bolster Athens' self-image and Athenian identity rather than a solid piece of realistic wartime financial planning.[27] However we interpret the significance of the decree of 425, underlying its passage is the growing problem of the proportion of revenue derived from tribute. The dispatch of the money-collecting expeditions may also signify trouble and point to a further method designed to offset a decline in tribute. The indications and evidence we have been exploring lead to the distinct possibility that tribute was becoming an insufficient source of cash for Athens. Thucydides' frequent attention to tribute earlier in the work, manifest in 1.96 and in discussions of arrangements imposed on the allies, contrasts with his relative silence about tribute in writing about the course of the Archidamian War. Indeed, the implications in his work about the declining reliability and importance of tribute as a form of revenue compared to the prewar years and the corresponding attention to other types of imperial revenue should be taken as fin intentional and significant reflection of the historical reality of Athens' financial condition during the war.[28]
The general and, to some extent, expected difficulty in collecting tribute and the resulting decline in its usefulness as the chief source of imperial revenue are both explicit and implicit in the evidence under our purview. Does the evidence, however, signify that the total of imperial revenue was declining? More important, does it support the view that the Athenian treasuries were virtually drained in the course of the Ar-chidamian War? We need to consider this second question before turning to the first.
An important piece of evidence for this question is the accounts of the Logistai, from the years 433-423. The inscription recording these ac-
counts, IG I3 369, reveals extensive borrowings from the sacred treasuries and has been largely responsible for the view that Athens depleted its financial resources during the Archidamian War. If correct, it has important implications for our assessment of Perikles' strategy in the conduct of the war as well as for the statesman's optimistic judgment about Athens' financial ability to succeed in a long struggle. The question is whether the conclusion is warranted. What precise information can we glean from the document, and what inferences can we safely draw?
Before addressing these questions, let us establish the extent of the body of evidence by which to estimate total reserve and revenue and therefore to judge the effect of the borrowings attested in the Logistai inscription: first, we have Perikles' totals of revenue and reserve in 2.13.3-5; no continuing record exists of total revenue accruing to the state from domestic sources and abroad, and no record of total reserve in the various treasuries for the period in question (or any period). Second, we have the Logistai's accounts, presenting evidence of outstanding loans in 423 dating back to 433. Finally, we have Thucydides' history of the Archidamian War.
What are the definite implications of heavy borrowing from the sacred treasuries of Athens? One clearly is the existence of substantial coined reserves to enable loans of this scale, and this accords with Thuc. 2.13. Further, the extensive borrowing corroborates in specific terms the degree of expense necessitated by the war and demonstrated in the History . It is important to note that the Logistai inscription is not useful on the question of whether any repayments of loans between the years 433 and 426 occurred, although there are indications that none were repaid between 426 and 423.[29] Moreover, it casts no light on how much money came in to the sacred treasuries in the form of revenue (for example, rents on sacred land) or dedications. The picture, therefore, which emerges from this document is skewed: it is illuminating only in the area of expenditure but leaves us completely in the dark about income and reserve.
So much is clear. When we move to the level of interpretation, however, we reach less secure ground. The natural emphasis of the inscription on expenditure makes it tempting to infer a drastic depletion of the reserve in the sacred treasuries. However, since we have only half of the picture, we cannot fairly arrive at such a conclusion without other support. Another approach to the significance of these loans is required, beginning with these questions: Why did the Athenians have such recourse to loans in the Archidamian War? Does such activity betoken a
dearth of other funds in some "war chest"? Is it correct to assume financial strain? Answers to these queries may lie in the realm of attitudes as much as economic practice—indeed, the two are surely linked.
In the modern world, it is customary to assume that the presence of loans denotes insufficient funds from the borrower's usual source. Yet it is a mistake to apply this assumption to ancient Athens or other Greek cities, where recourse to loans was a regular, normal practice, not a last resort.[30] Most important, the funds available in the sacred treasuries were those which the Athenians normally, though not exclusively,[31] used in wartime because these repositories held the majority of Athens' wealth, receiving annual revenue from various sources. That withdrawals from the sacred treasuries were a regular form of financing is clear from Thuc. 2.13 as well as from the epigraphic evidence of payments from these sources.[32] At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, virtually all of the sacred treasure belonging to almost all of the gods and goddesses of Athens and Attica was housed on the Akropolis, concentrated there on the motion of Kallias (IG I3 52A). As Perikles made clear to the Athenians (Thuc. 2.13.3-5), money in the treasuries was to be used by the Athenians in the coming struggle; one of the reasons for centralizing the treasures was to have an immediately accessible reserve continually supplemented by income, to meet the ensuing expenditures. The idea of the loan is necessary, for the treasures properly belonged to the gods. The central point is that these were the Athenians' own gods, and the money was the Athenians'.
Since we do not have any details about precise amounts under the control of the Hellenotamiai in any given year, nor total income beyond the evidence of 2.13.3-5, nor proportions of available moneys in the various treasuries, sacred and "imperial," that is, tribute, we cannot be specific about the state of the reserve in the course of the Archidamian War. We can only be confident that loans do not imply lack of funds. There are other, more intriguing, issues that remain unanswerable: for example, the reasons underlying decisions to withdraw from one source or another and, in particular, for withdrawing from a sacred treasury rather than from the Hellenotamiai's fund. For there was clearly an element of choice involved.[33] This raises the further question of attitudes
toward interest.[34] Here we must draw a distinction between interest from exchange in private transactions and interest on loans from sacred treasuries and other public loans. Aristotle's repugnance at the idea of interest in private exchange stems from the misuse of money inherent in usury: money, he asserts, came into use as a necessary medium of exchange, not for the purpose of producing more money—so that the process begets "money, son of money." For Aristotle, this fell into the category of "unnatural" exchange (Pol . 1258 b3ff.).[35]
When we consider the question of the significance of interest on public loans, we lack any direct assessment of its purpose. Some scholars have argued that interest on loans was a way of discouraging recourse to sacred moneys, thus safeguarding the sacred funds against indiscriminate use.[36] For others, it may instead reflect normal practice or piety.[37] It is perhaps significant that in 2.13 there is no trace of religious scruples over the use of sacred moneys; Perikles only reminds the Athenians of the obligation to repay in full the forty talents of gold from the statue of Athena if they were ever so hard-pressed as to make use of it. Introducing the notion of piety into the concept of interest on sacred loans does not, however, require the idea of restraint; rather, it may be a natural development from gift exchange between the divine and human in which the loan/gift must be repaid with something with enhanced value. Indeed, surplus deposits in the fifth century were called "gifts."[38]
The existence of heavy borrowing, then, need not signify more than a normal method of financing, given that the moneys recorded in the inscription of the Logistai formed part of the city's reserve. But the document does attest to heavy expenditure, therefore returning us to the question of whether revenue was sufficient to offset such expenses. Were
the Athenian treasuries virtually depleted by the end of the Archidamian War?
By examining Thucydides' treatment of financial resources as a whole, we can obtain a considerably fuller and more diverse financial picture of the economic benefit that the Athenians derived from their arche than is usually appreciated. In questions of imperial finance, attention has usually focused on tribute, and Thucydides has not been thought to contribute much in this area. However, in conjunction with the evidence of the tribute quota lists, Thucydides' History provides a more accurate picture of Athenian public finance as it was affected by the empire. The historian attributes great importance to tribute in the development of the Athenian arche , and it is clear that at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, tribute comprised the bulk of imperial revenue (2.13.3). But as we have seen, after the war broke out, the intake of tribute declined, for the reasons discussed above. What should not be overlooked or obscured, however, is that this decline may have been offset by other, additional types of revenue extracted from the empire, about which Thucydides provides valuable evidence, especially if, as seems likely, the alternate sources were relied upon to a greater extent than in the past. What other financial benefit have we observed in the History that would have gone into Athenian state coffers rather than into individual hands?
One of the most important examples is revenue from Amphipolis, for which Thucydides is our only source (4.108.1). He does not specify its nature, but it surely consisted largely of income from the gold and silver mines around Amphipolis. Nor does he specify its amount, except to make clear that it was substantial, since its loss accounted in part for the reaction in Athens upon hearing that Brasidas had gained control of Amphipolis. That the colony did not pay tribute but nevertheless supplied important revenue to the polis should alert us to the possibility that other colonies benefited the state as well as the individual colonists, whether or not they also paid tribute.[39] From the same northern area came additional revenue from mines, those on Thasos and on the mainland coast opposite the island, which came under Athenian control as a result of the successful suppression of the Thasian revolt in 463 (1.101.3); this revenue was over and above the estimated thirty talents which Thasos paid in tribute. The total income that could be generated from the mines around and on Thasos ranged from an impressive two hundred to three hundred talents per annum.[40]
Revenue of an unspecified nature additional to tribute is attested in Thucydides not just from Amphipolis but also farther east, from Ionia, which we learn of in the account of Alkidas' Aegean cruise after Mytilene fell, when some Ionians suggested that, the Spartan general liberate Ionia, said to supply "the greatest revenue" to Athens (3.31.1). As the tribute record appears to show that Ionia's totals were rather low compared to other districts, this testimony, despite likely exaggeration, suggests the possibility that this area also supplied the empire considerable nontribute revenue. In the case of both Amphipolis and Ionia, specific reference to revenue (prosodos ) suggests the regularity of money coming in to Athens, which therefore should be reckoned into the estimate of total income and reserve.
Also providing regular imperial revenue were rents from sacred lands throughout the empire, testimony of which appears in Thucydides for the island of Lesbos (3.50.2). Supplemental evidence as well as common sense confirms that these references in Thucydides to rents (as well as other revenue) are representative, not comprehensive;[41] they reveal a glimpse of the modes of exploitation rather than a panorama, but they allow important inferences about both the nature and extent of imperial revenue that reflect more accurately the economic picture.
Finally, we come to the category of sporadic revenues of which Thucydides provides important evidence, that, in some instances, can be supplemented by other evidence. For example, one quite restricted type was indemnities following the suppression of revolts, which enabled Athens to recoup the often extraordinary expense entailed by a naval siege. We learn that both Thasos and Samos were forced to bear the cost of the sieges against them (1.101.3, 1.117.3). Thucydides does not specify the costs involved, but an inscription recording the expenses of the operations against Samos shows that they amounted to nearly fifteen hundred talents.[42] We have seen, however, that the Athenians stopped imposing
indemnities (or even tribute) on vanquished poleis during the Archidamian War and turned instead to other avenues of revenue raising. For example, they taxed themselves, an expedient that Thucydides states was first imposed at the time of the revolt of Mytilene, with the dear implication that the measure was repeated subsequently.[43] They also had periodic recourse to another method of raising money that is intriguing and important for the light it sheds on the nature of Athenian imperialism; it is also highly problematic. I refer to the money-collecting expeditions sent out—how often is unclear—to parts of the empire.
I argued in the last chapter that these expeditions were probably not connected with tribute, although most scholars make that association, following the editors of ATL .[44] Thucydides mentions such expeditions four times (2.69, 3.19.1, 4.50, 4.75), attesting to dispatches of varying sizes and numbers of generals, and to diverse locations lining the north and west coasts of the Aegean and into the Pontos. Two of the expeditions mentioned by Thucydides involved forays into the Karian hinterland, and this is important: it suggests that the money-collecting expeditions were directed not only at poleis and regions firmly within the arche but also beyond, and raises doubts about the hypothesis that the ships were on routine missions of collecting tribute or arrears. Furthermore, the manner in which Thucydides mentions these expeditions, sometimes casually or incidentally, other times with greater emphasis, points to the likelihood that these instances are representative, not comprehensive. What are the implications of these expeditions to collect money?
As we observed in the last chapter, the term
by itself conveys nothing about tribute but rather is a word which most often refers to extortions of money (and certainly is used in this sense later in Thucydides' work: 8.3.1).[45] Indeed, the money-collecting expeditions sent out by the Athenians look very much like a kind of state piracy, officially authorized and organized plundering raids. Among the fundamental types of brigandage in the ancient Greek world categorized and described by Garlan is one which is regulated and controlled by the state; in all the instances of this kind of piracy, he notes, "on constate donc un lien 'structurel' entre la piraterie et l'Etat: la piraterie y faisait plus ou moins figure d'institution publique, d'industrie d'Etat."[46] There are both
important differences and similarities between Garlan's typology and the Athenian money-collecting expeditions. In the former, the ruling authority or collective group, for example, the Illyrians or Kretans, is strong enough to exert control over and use to its own profit what otherwise reverts to a kind of "private enterprise:' The remarkable feature in the case of the Athenian arche is a considerably more advanced stage of state piracy, authorized by the Athenian demos, and headed by Athenian generals. But the basic nature of the financial extortion and exploitation is consonant with that among
This leads us back to where we began in this study,, if unchecked, in acquiring great wealth; if checked, it pointed the way to the exploitation of resources by any ruler strong enough to Thucydides' Archaeology. There the historian accords great importance to naval piracy and its effectiveness turn the profits reaped by pirates into revenue for the extension of power. For Thucydides, as peoples such as the Illyrians and Aitolians.Garlan notes, piracy is tied directly to the affirmation of a "state power."[47] Thucydides' discussion of piracy makes it clear that he regarded it as a natural (though not necessarily commendable) development in the history of power, as indeed Aristotle in the Politics classed piracy as a natural mode of acquisition (1256 a37). This sort of attitude is hard for modern readers to reconcile with their construct of the advanced Athenians, operating an empire which gave legal rights to its subjects and which was so systematic in its approach as to seem, somehow, fair, rather than exerting power like some arbitrary despotism; but as Chester Starr has pointed out in his comments about modern attitudes to Athens' empire, we are grossly misled if we fail to recognize the predatory and oppressive nature of the arche .[48] The innovative system of exploitation and control that the Athenians developed in the course of the fifth century B.C ., includes, then, a natural adoption and extension to the public sphere of the long traditional pursuit of piracy and plunder.
Let us return to the money-collecting expeditions. It is frustrating not to know whether money-collecting expeditions went out before, or only during, the Peloponnesian War; it would help us to assess whether they were prompted by special pressure or were simply a routine way of extracting as much as possible from the Aegean world under Athenian control, supplementing more regular imperial revenue such as tribute, rents, yield from mines, and so forth. If they were sent out only after the war began, then they suggest a response to special stress caused by war,
of which we have seen signs in Thucydides. Certainly the expedition dispatched in 428 (3.19) was designed to meet a temporary emergency.
The idea of the state's extorting money from the empire on marauding expeditions may receive some support from Aristophanes. His attention to the financial resources of the empire, the venality of politicians, and the pervasiveness of a "money mentality" in Athenian politics and society as a direct result of the Athenian empire makes him a valuable source for evidence concerning financial matters. There are frequent allusions to extortive practices on the part of the state and its leaders that could apply solely to tribute itself, and certainly there is continual focus on tribute in the plays. But general references to and jokes about the extent to which Athens squeezed the empire for money (and other goods) may well include practices that went beyond the collection of tribute to other ways of extracting revenue.[49] Moreover, a passage in Knights (1070-71), which refers to the "money-collecting ships" that Paphlagon is continually requesting, identifies them as triremes which are called in an oracle "hound-foxes" (
, line 1069), because they are swift like a hound and the troops "scour the farms and eat the grapes:' This allusion brings out nicely the plundering character of such expeditions; even if these "money-collecting ships" were involved in tribute collection, it is reasonable to suppose that piratical-type raids were common to them as well.
Thus, the scope and nature of imperial revenue cuts a wide swath, and it is through Thucydides' History that we are able to enrich our knowledge of the diverse methods of financial exploitation which the Athenians employed before and during the Peloponnesian War, the period in which his testimony has been most useful for highlighting a shift in financial and imperial policy. Such evidence as Thucydides provides has, of course, not gone unnoticed but generally has been appreciated only in individual instances and not accorded its cumulative weight and implications. We still cannot arrive at a total for revenue beyond tribute; nevertheless, we should not for that reason downplay its significance, and I have attempted to give it a proper balance alongside tribute. Together this combined revenue provides important indications that the Athenian treasuries were not seriously depleted at two crucial times in question, 428 and 422.
Despite the questionable decisions made after Perikles was gone, despite the Spartans' successes in the north, the Athenians' financial capability to wage war was not severely threatened, though the defection of
tributary states and the loss of revenue from Amphipolis caused substantial alarm. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that by 424, Athens' financial resources had been sharply cut into because of problems in compensating for lost revenue: no indemnities came in from the costly siege of Poteidaia or from Mytilene; on top of that, Amphipolis and other Thraceward poleis were lost, though some only temporarily. But it is noteworthy that Thucydides gives no hint that the treasury was exhausted, nor does he include financial insufficiency among the reasons for the decision first to make a truce and then to make peace with Sparta. It is of great relevance that the Athenians did not touch their "iron reserve" until after the Sicilian expedition. Moreover, as we have seen, the naval expeditions sent out just after a time when the treasury is assumed to have been gravely low (when the revolt of Lesbos occurred) were neither necessary to Athenian war strategy nor particularly modest in nature.[50] Finally, the continued expenditure on domestic building projects through the 420s is another important indication that the reserve had not reached a dangerous low, either in 428 or in 422.[51]
We have summarized the chief historical results to which this examination of Thucydides has led. Let us conclude by noting some of the other, more strictly historiographical, issues relating to Thucydides' treatment of financial resources, first, its value for understanding more fully the historian's portrayal of Perildes and his "successors."
Thucydides presented Perikles as being fully attuned to the extraordinary potential expense of the war; moreover, the historian's treatment of Perikles indicates his own approval of the statesman's understanding of finances and strategy, and he set out to confirm the accuracy of Perikles'
and strategy with respect to Athens' financial resources in two ways: first, not by downplaying but by accurately emphasizing the great expense of the war; and, second, by implying that such expense was not unanticipated and that Athens had ample funds to meet it. At the same time, it is implicit in the History that both intelligent judgment and surplus financial resources were necessary. In the remaining years of the Archidamian War after Perikles' death in autumn 429, Thucydides presents a picture of Athens in some disarray, under the control of leaders who were unable to make intelligent use of the city's resources or to project accurately the city's financial needs in the war.
In short, Thucydides believed that Athens was now guided by men who lacked the foresight and judgment of Perikles, necessary qualities for handling something so critical to success as Athenian public finance. Nevertheless, he presents an implicit case that the city's financial re-
sources were extensive enough even to withstand poor judgment, at least during the Archidamian War. Therefore, passages in which the historian specifically draws attention to financial strictures do not signify serious financial problems; they are rather intended to create a general impression of financial trouble and mismanagement. The historian does not castigate explicitly but allows the reader to judge various measures with an awareness informed by his presentation of Perikles' financial strategy, acumen, and pronoia , and by his treatment of the role of financial resources in general. The historian's attitude toward Perikles, thus, is revealed through his analysis of financial resources in the war.
Thucydides' treatment of Athenian financial resources constitutes almost an apologia for the statesman who was generally held responsible for what became the most devastating event in Athens' history. This does not mean that the historian's analysis of Athenian finances should be discounted: rather, his attention to this aspect reveals a desire to explain, to provide evidence for his confidence in Perildes' foresight. Beyond that, Thucydides' analysis helps to clarify and indeed to refine our understanding of his objections to Athenian leaders after Perikles' death. His judgment of their inferiority to Perikles in their management of affairs and in their relationship to the demos is obvious in a general way; but we have been able to point out more specifically one area of disapproval, that is, the political decisions under their leadership which gave higher priority to individual interests and benefits than to the safeguarding of the city's surplus and imperial revenue.
The Spartans, too, were targets of Thucydides' censure in the course of his narrative of the Archidamian War. He argues implicitly that the Spartans failed to grasp one of the most important and basic lessons that he imparts in his History , namely, the siguificance of chremata to the war. Before the war began, Archidamos explained it to them in the most elementary terms, yet at the time his words had no effect. Even though they lacked sufficient financial resources, they voted to go to war anyway, and Thucydides remarks on the relative speed with which the Spartans made their preparations, while the Athenians had been building up and consolidating their own resources for almost fifty years.[52] The Korinthians understood Archidamos' arguments, but nevertheless, the Peloponnesians under Spartan leadership failed to effect a strategy which would deprive Athens of its revenue or increase their own until 424, when Brasidas marched north to Thrace with the express intention of terminating Athens' profit from its arche . Thucydides repeatedly draws attention to the Spartans' difficulty in meeting the demands of the new kind
of war in which they were involved and their basic ignorance about the role of financial resources in it.[53]
Finally, let us summarize Thucydides' essential contribution to the history of ideas and the historiographical tradition. The historian's treatment of financial resources forms part of his interpretation and analysis of dunamis . He contests and rejects ideas about wealth and its relation to "state power" that had persisted since Homer, demonstrating a conspicuous lack of interest in the morality of profits and prosperity; rather, his concrete analysis focuses on the role that money played in the development of dunamis, auxesis , and naval arche . He argues in effect that the rise and fall of naval empires depend upon monetary flow, from revenue to reserve to expense (prosodos, periousia chrematon , and dapane ), and not upon hubris or fate, not, that is, upon the gods or abstract moral forces governed and manipulated by them; nor, in turn, on the physical prowess, courage, and technical ability of a soldier. To Thucydides, dunamis had decisive, concrete components: as Perikles put it, dunamis was something the Athenians could actually see (2.43.1); it was partly composed of talents on the Akropolis and ships in the Piraieus, with the importance of the former lying exclusively in its expenditure on the fleet. Dunamis , therefore, was something tangible and mortal, susceptible to precise and concrete definition.[54]
Thucydides' treatment of the role of financial resources in his History through the end of the Archidamian War constitutes, in its breaking away from a long and venerable tradition of ideas about wealth and power, a central aspect of his originality as a historical analyst. He does not stand alone among his contemporaries in recognizing the significance of money to naval power; Athens' exploitation of the wealth of the empire as a crucial key to the city's dunamis was patent to every Athenian and was dearly "in the air" in discussions preceding the outbreak of war (in Sparta as well as Athens). Rather, he was the first to formulate in writing a fundamentally new definition of the relation of wealth to power; his rejection of traditional concepts of possession and display as a measure of power and worth would have dashed not only with earlier
but also with prevailing aristocratic values, which placed great emphasis on display as well as expenditure. Thucydides' contribution to the history of thought about power extends to his exploration into the very nature of sea power and its intrinsic superiority to land power, which forms a part, I suggested, of his "truest explanation" of the need for war; underlying his ideas about sea power may be a sense of the potential for the limitless extension of power that occurs when money becomes the enabling force behind military might.[55] Thus, Thucydides' work, especially his treatment of financial resources, reveals the tension between discordant values and mentalities between Athens and Sparta and within Athens itself, and between traditional and new attitudes to the way that military power is achieved and projected, all of which permeate the social, political, and military fabric of late fifth-century Greece.