Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/321

GRECIAN CONFEDERACY UNDER ATHENS. 297 provements down to the Peloponnesian war: it was by these, combined with the present fear, that they were enabled to or- ganize the largest and most efficient confederacy ever known among Greeks, — to bring together deliberative deputies. — to plant their own ascendency as enforcers of the collective resolu- tions, — and to raise a prodigious tax from universal contribution. Lastly, it was by these same operations, prosecuted so success- fully as to remove present alarm, that they at length fatigued the more lukewarm and passive members of the confederacy, and created in them a wish either to commute personal service for pecuniary contribution, or to escape from the obligation of service in any way. The Athenian nautical training would never have been acquired, — the confederacy would never have become a working reality, — the fatigue and discontents among its mem- bers would never have arisen, — unless there had been a real fear of the Persians, and a pressing necessity for vigorous and organized operations against them, during the ten years between 477 and 466 B.C. As to the ten years from 477-466 B. c, there has been a tendency almost unconscious to assume that the particular inci- dents mentioned by Thueydides about Eion, Skyros, Karystus, and Naxos, constitute the sum total of events. To contradict this assumption, I have suggested proof sufficient, though indi- rect, that they are only part of the stock of a very busy period, — the remaining details of which, indicated in outline by the large general language of Thueydides, we are condemned not to know. Nor are we admitted to be present at the synod of Delos, which during all this time continued its pex-iodical meetings: though it would have been highly interesting to trace the steps whereby an institution which at first promised to protect not less the separate rights of the members than the security of the whole, so lamentably failed in its object. We must recollect that this confederacy, formed for objects common to all, limited to a certain extent the autonomy of each member ; both conferring definite rights and imposing definite obligations. Solemnly sworn to by all, and by Aristeides on behalf of Athens, it was intended to bind the members in perpetuity, — marked even in the form of the oath, which was performed by casting heavy lumps of 13*