cities if they were obedient and gave no trouble, she did not hesitate to do so if she deemed it advisable. She seems to have made separate treaties with individual cities, by which constitutions were set up in them under her own supervision; and these were naturally of a democratic type.[1] 4. As is evident to every reader of Thucydides, the foreign policy of the "allies" was entirely controlled by Athens; and, so far as we know, the synod of members which had originally been used to meet at Delos either ceased to exist or fell into utter insignificance.
It is plain, then, that the members of the league, some 200 in number, have ceased to be City-States in the true sense of the word; that they are no longer free and self-sufficing.[2] This will be made still more apparent from the following clause in the extant treaty with Chalcis containing an oath to be taken by all adult Chalcidians on pain of disfranchisement.
"I will not revolt from the people of the Athenians, in any way or shape, in word or deed, or be an accomplice in revolt. If any one revolts I will inform the Athenians. I will pay the Athenians the tribute, which I can persuade them (to accept), and I will be a faithful and true ally to the utmost of my power. I will help and assist the Athenian people if any one injures them, and I will obey their commands."[3]
- ↑ Treaties with Erythræ, Miletus, Colophon, and Chalcis are in part extant. Corp. Inscr. Att. i. 9, 10, 11, and 13; iv. 22a and 27a = Hicks, No. 28.
- ↑ Read, for example, the speech of Euphemus, the Athenian envoy at Syracuse, in Thucyd. vi. 82 foll.
- ↑ This most telling document is translated in full by Mr. Abbott, vol. ii. p. 345; Hicks, Greek Historical Inscriptions, p. 34.
