Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/127

ATHENIAN DECREE. 105 pretence hold property, either in house or land, in the territory of any one of the confederates ; neither by purchase, nor as security for money lent, nor by any other mode of acquisition. Any Athe- nian infringing this law, was rendered liable to be informed against before the synod ; who, on proof of the fact, were to deprive him of the property, half of it going to the informer, half to the general purposes of the confederacy. Such were the liberal principles of confederacy now proposed bj Athens, who, as a candidate for power, was straightforward and just, like the Herodotean Deiokes, 1 and formally ratified, as well by the Athenians as by the general voice of the confede- rate deputies assembled within their walls. The formal decree and compact of alliance was inscribed on a stone column and placed by the side of the statue of Zeus Eleutherius or the Liber ator ; a symbol, of enfranchisement from Sparta accomplished, as well as of freedom to be maintained against Persia and other ene- mies. 2 Periodical meetings of the confederate deputies were pro- vided to be held (how often, we do not know) at Athens, and the synod was recognized as competent judge of all persons, even Athenian citizens, charged with treason against the confederacy. To give fuller security to the confederates generally, it was provi- ded in the original compact, that if any Athenian citizen should either speak, or put any question to the vote, in the Athenian as- sembly, contrary to the tenor of that document, he should be had already joined the confederacy, together with certain other names added afterwards, of cities which joined subsequently. The Inscription it- self directs such list to be recorded, elg d'e rr/v arrj^rjv TO.VTTJV avaypdfyeiv ruv TE ovauv irufauv avfipaxiSuv TU bvofiara, Kal TJTI<; uv uXkr} avfipa^of yly- Unfortunately M. Boeckh has not annexed this list, which, moreover, he states to have been preserved only in a very partial and fragmentary condi- tion. He notices only, as contained in it, the towns of Poiessa and Kore- sus in the island of Keos, and Antissa and Eresus in Lesbos ; all four as autonomous communities. 1 Herodot. i, 96. '0 6e, ola 6% fiveufievog ap%T)v, l-&vf TS Kal dinaioc %v. 8 This is the sentiment connected with Zei)f 'EAeutfeptor, Pausanias the victor of Plataea, offers to Zeus Eleutherius a solemn sacrifice and thanks giving immediately after the battle, in the agora of the town (Thucyd. ii, 71). So the Syracusans immediately after the expulsion of the Geloniar, dynasty (Diodor. xi, 72) and Maeandrius at Samoa (Herodot. iii, 142) 5*