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The Early History of the Delian League

Evelyn Abbott

The Classical Review / Volume 3 / Issue 09 / November 1889, pp 387 - 390 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00195885, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00195885

How to cite this article: Evelyn Abbott (1889). The Early History of the Delian League. The Classical Review, 3, pp 387-390 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00195885

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NOVEMBER 1889.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE DELIAN LEAGUE.

THE latest German writers on Greek whom Diodorus followed, Ephorus of Cyme, History, with some exceptions, seem to and the statement is ' in direct contradiction' accept, either in the whole or in part, the to Herodotus. account of the growth of the Delian league There is no 'direct contradiction,' for given by Kirchhoff in Hermes vol. xi. p. 1 fE. Herodotus is absolutely silent about the As I find myself quite unable to follow Aeolians of the mainland. Kirchhoff himself them, I venture to review the conclusions admits that the possessions of Lesbos on the at which Kirchhoff arrives. mainland would probably follow the lead of They are mainly these : Lesbos; and if so, why should the other 1. That the Aeolians and Ionians of the cities hold back ? There is no certain proof mainland of Asia Minor did not join the that the Aeolians of the coast did not come Delian league till after the battle of Eury- into the alliance at this time, no good reason medon (465 B.C.). why they should not, and a slight presump- 2. That the Hellespontian allies mentioned tion that they did. by Thucydides (i. 89) were not really members b. The case of the Ionians of the main- of the Hellenic alliance. land is different. Kirchhoff grounds his 3. That the cities of the Delian league opinion on the fact that in his flight from were distributed into districts from the Greece Themistocles could land at Ephesus. first. This in his judgment would have been im- 4. That the first 6pos could not havepossible if Ephesus had been an allied town amounted to 460 talents, as Thucydides at the time. He has no positive proof stronger than this against the admission of 5. That after his first recall to Sparta the Ionian cities of the coast into the alliance Pausanias became ruler of Byzantium; that before Eurymedon. Sestos was reconquered by the Persians; In answer we may observe : (1) that the and that both cities were finally won for the proof only touches one city, and that the Greeks by Cimon. most Asiatic of Greek cities, the port at Let us examine the evidence on which which the great inland route from Susa these conclusions rest. struck the sea; (2) that the allies were busy 1. a. As to the Aeolians. It is of course at Naxos when Themistocles landed. On stated by Herodotus (ix. 106) that the the other hand it is quite clear from the Lesbians were received into the alliance language of Herodotus and Thucydides that immediately after the battle of Mycale. ' Ionia' really did come into the alliance at Diodorus goes further and asserts that the the time: OVTU> 8r] TO Sevrepov 'IUIVLTJ airo Hepcriuiv ' Aeolians,' meaning no doubt the cities of aireo-Tr) says the first, and in the second we the mainland, were admitted at that time read, 01 Se 'A6rjvSamos, Chios etc., which, which Herodotus gives of the proceedings as he assumes, at the first formed the Ionian after Mycale makes the assumption very district. But such an argument requires improbable. As is well known the ques- that Euboea, Naxos, and Delos, which were tion was then raised whether the Greeks members of the Hellenic confederacy before should undertake to protect the Ionians the Athenians formed a separate confederacy in their colonies, or transfer them to at all, should be classed with Samos and the ports of the Medizing cities in the Chios. As a matter of fact they are not, peninsula of Greece. The Spartans wished but they formed part of the island district, to transfer them, but the Athenians under- and therefore, so far as chronology goes, Nisy- took their defence and carried the day. rus could have been placed in either group. Are we to suppose that in this discussion it Again, Lemnos and Imbros are put among is only the islanders who are meant; only the islands, not in the Hellespontian district, those who were cut off from Asia by sea, at because, says Kirchhoff, the island district a time when Xerxes had hardly a ship in the was formed before the Hellespontian. This Aegean ? The cities most in need of pro- view of course assumes that the Hellespontians tection were Miletus and other cities of the were not allies from the first. Yet, as we coast which were exposed to the vengeance have seen, the Hellespontians were received of the King. immediately after Mycale, and it is difficult 2. Thucydides very plainly tells us (I. c.) to conceive, impossible to prove, that Lemnos that the Athenians were aided in besieging and Imbros were received earlier. The Sestos by the allies from the Hellespont. Hellespontians were certainly allies before Kirchhoff asserts that these could not be the Athenians formed a separate league. We members of the Hellenic alliance because, may also observe that Delos and Samos came after the departure of the Peloponnesians, into the alliance within a month of each other: the Athenians had no power to receive them. both are Ionian islands, yet each is in a For this assertion he has no authority. different district. The classification into The language of Thucydides (inro/xeiWvTcs) districts then seems to have nothing to do implies (rather than not) that the Helles- with the date of the accession of the cities pontians were allies before the departure of included in them. As a matter of fact we the Spartans; and, if this were not the case, do not find these districts established till the Athenians, when they had carried the 442 B.C. What principles prevailed in the day about the admission of the Ionians, were classification we are unable to say. probably in a position to admit new members, 4. Thucydides tells us that the first tribute or thought that they were. (The synod at was 460talents,and laterwriters associate this the Isthmus had ceased to act; the idea assessment with the name of Aristides who, that their consent was necessary to the en- as we also learn from Thucydides, did fix a rolment of allies is preposterous.) Besides scale of tribute. (Thucydides does not pre- in the account of Herodotus, at any rate, cisely say that Aristides fixed the tribute at Leotychidas sails as far north as the Hel- 460 talents, but that Aristides fixed a scale lespont, though he takes no part in the siege of tribute, and that the first tribute was of Sestos. assessed at 460 talents; later writers say 3. The attempt to prove that the Delian definitely that the tribute was fixed by league was divided into districts from the Aristides at 460 talents, and this on the face first has been dealt with by Beloch in of it is what Thucydides means, though Rheinisches Museum, xliii. p. 104 ff. Kirchhoff denies it, and attempts to show Kirchhoff is in reality reduced to this posi- that the text of Thucydides is faulty.) tion : he assumes that an Ionian, an island, Kirehhoff asserts that such a sum is far in ex- and a Hellespontian district were formed at cess of any tribute paid before Eurymedon ; a very early time in the League, not even if we allow that all the cities which simultaneously but in rapid succession; and paid in the Peloponnesian war (i.e. in the that the Ionian district, though distinct from island, Hellespontian, Ionian, exclusive of the island district, was entirely composed of the cities in the mainland, and Thraeian islands. For proof he relies on these facts : districts) paid from the first, and take the the little island of Nisyrus near Rhodes, which highest payments recorded in the inscriptions has nothing to do with Ionia, is classed (in between 454 and 425 B.C., we do not get such a THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 389 sum. The largest amount which can have he remained for some years and meanwhile been collected from the states included in even Sestos fell back into Persian hands. Kirchhoff's list before Eurymedon is 354 Then Cimon succeeded in reconquering both. talents ; later accessions brought it up to 512 This account is at variance with Thucydides, talents, as assessed. who certainly does not convey the impression It would be more satisfactory if Kirchhoff that Pausanias was in supreme authority on had made it clearer how he arrives at the sum his return to Byzantium. The only words of 354 talents, and in any case, if we do not which Kirchhoff can quote on his side are accept his conclusions about the Ionian cities those given above, iKirokwpK-qOa.'i fiia, and of the coast, his reckoning must be altered. they seem to mean no more than that But without going into this we may observe : Pausanias, though a Spartan and an ally, was (1) that the inscriptions from which we derive forcibly expelled and shut out from the city our knowledge of the payments of the allies as an enemy. Plutarch's expression is do not begin till 454, eleven years after nearly identical with that of Thucydides; Eurymedon, and (2) that the first assessed but he substitutes Cimon and the allies for <£opos of which Thucydides speaks may have the Athenians. But Plutarch (1) confounds included not only the sums paid in money, but the first and second residence of Pausanias also the value of the ships provided by those at Byzantium, a blunder which he could allies who sent ships and not money. have avoided by consulting Thucydides; The use of such an assessment would be to and (2) puts the story of Ion later than provide an equitable scheme for commuting Eurymedon. And neither Thucydides nor service in ships into payment of money, in Plutarch speaks of any garrison with order that those who did not wish to send Pausanias. Moreover Kirchhoff's theory ships could pay on a fixed scale. If this is requires that Byzantium was held for the meaning of Thucydides, the amount is Pausanias during his absence at Sparta. By certainly not too large. Four hundred and whom was it held 1 The Persian garrison had sixty talents would about pay for a fleet of been taken captive and sent away. When sixty ships during eight months of the year Dorcis was sent out immediately after the (which is what Pericles is said to have put recall of Pausanias, the Athenians and allies upon the water), or of one hundred and were in possession of the place and refused twenty ships during four, or of eighty during to receive him. How did Pausanias get six months. rid of them? We may allow that he was 5. The theory of the double conquest of supplied with money from Persia, and Byzantium and Sestos rests mainly on the backed by Persian influence. He may have story quoted by Plutarch from Ion of Chios. established a party in the place, so that Ion when a young man at Athens had heard force was needed to turn him out. But Cimon give an account of his division of this is quite a different thing from being the spoil from Sestos and Byzantium. Now practically tyrant of the city and master of Sestos was taken in 478 by Xanthippus and forces to hold it. Byzantium in the same year (probably) by The whole theory of the second siege Pausanias; how then could Cimon have any- really rests on the flimsy foundation of Ion's thing to do with the spoil? Moreover story. And with respect to this we observe Thucydides says of Pausanias after his return that Ion merely says that the allies brought to Byzantium that he was driven out— many captives to Cimon from Byzantium and fHq. VTTO 'A6rjvaia>v iiciro\iopKr]Oeis, and PlutarcSestosh , to be divided between them and the confirms this : ol (rvfi/jLa)(oi //.era rov K.ifj.(avosAthenians. Now Cimon was no doubt iitTToXiopicrjcrav avrov. This then, says Kirch- present at both sieges in 478, and that hoff, was the siege of Byzantium from which might serve for the foundation of the story. came the spoil in Ion's story; and as Sestos It is not certain, indeed it is very improba- is mentioned in the same breath it must have ble, that we have the story in a genuine been captured about the same time. form before us. The Ion may be a Pseudo- We are to believe then that Pausanias, of Ion ; or Plutarch may quote inaccurately. whom Thucydides tells us that he returned As it is told, the story is too silly to be to the Hellespont in a single Hermionean credible. Were the allies so ignorant of vessel, as a private person wishing to take the value of slaves and of ransom that they part in the war against Persia, resumed took clothes before men ? Had not Artayctes his position as commander of Byzantium, and quite recently offered large sums of money that by some means he established himself for his own life and his son's ? Against the there with a Persian garrison in spite of the theory built on such a substructure we have presence of a large Athenian force. Here the silence of Thucydides who, while c c 2 390 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. dwelling at unusual length on the fortunes dotus and Thucydides are our only sure of Pausanias and speaking of his intrigues guides. We contradict them at our peril; with Persia, says nothing of his second rule and ' combinations' which involve such in Byzantium. contradictions require much stronger proof For these reasons I think that we are in their favour than they are ever likely to very much where we were in regard to the receive. earlier history of the Delian League. Hero- EVELYN ABBOTT.

GRAMMATICAL GENDER.1

THE phenomena of grammatical gender far back as their history is known to us, belong still to the profoundest mysteries of gender is grammatical, i.e. attaches solely to language. The questionings that arise in the word-form. This is attested by a great the mind of every English-speaking school- variety of facts, as well as in the conscious- boy when he first hears that mensa is ness of speakers of living languages. Foxes ' feminine ' and ager is ' masculine ' remain of both natural genders were among the practically unanswered for all his teachers. Greeks called by a name that was grammati- The German boy who has grown up in the cally feminine, mice by a masculine name. mystery of a ' masculine' Kopf and a ' fem- When the German uses the article die in inine ' Hand is less liable to ask questions, die Maus, he does so because it is demanded and is more tolerant of the grammar's dogma- by the name Maus, not by the object denoted tism, but the mystery is only transferred, thereby. not explained. An examination of the linguistic con- The plain difficulty lies just here. What sciousness of those who speak languages in is meant by the assertion that mere words which grammatical gender is widely applied possess characteristics of sex ? What fine- shows furthermore that the speaker does fibred quality inheres in the word urbs and not in any wise associate" the characteristics the word fortitudo that can establish them of sex with the word-forms to which he a claim to femininity, or what is peculiarly applies grammatical gender; e.g. to the masculine in the sound of ager ? But does German folk-consciousness there is nothing not the notion of sex attach rather to the woman-like or cow-like in the form and thing denoted by the word than to the sound of the word Hand. The terms ' mas- word itself ? Certainly the names of objects culine ' and ' feminine ' therefore, inasmuch having natural gender usually follow that as they apply in their real meaning neither gender; thus, la femme is a commoner to the denoted objects nor to the denoting case than das Weib. We know furthermore names, are to be regarded solely as meaning- that in many cases words of kindred signifi- less symbols serving the convenience of cation are associated together in point of grammatical science. That the two inde- grammatical gender ; thus, a group of fem- pendent systems of descriptive grammar, inine words for road, path, etc., is formed the Hindoo and the Greek, upon which all within the recorded history of the Greek the current systems of the world base, should language, so of names for trees in the have adopted these terms to mark and Latin. It is not however because roads are denote certain mysterious categories of thought of as possessing feminine character- grammar is undoubtedly due to the istics that KeX.tvOo's is made feminine withapproximate correspondence of these classi- 68os, but solely because the likeness of sig- fications of words to the classifications of nification induces an association of the word natural sex; i.e. the relation of the word forms. Ovpa to the word Xoyos was described in In all of the Indo-European languages, so terms of the relation of the objects denoted by the words 0eds and Bed. 1 Heinrieh Winckler. Weiteres zur Sprachgeschichtc. Das Grammaiische Gesdileeht. Formlose Sprachen. We come now to the question, which is Entycgnung. Pp. 206. Berlin 1889. Ferd. Dummler's fundamental in all consideration of the sub- Verlagsbuchhandlung. ject: viz. Is this approximate correspondence Karl Brugmann. Das NmninalgcschlecM in den Indogermanischcn Sprachen. Techmer's Internationale, of the gender-classifications to the sex-classi- Zeitschrift der allgcmcinen Sprachwissenschrafi. Vol. fications original or only secondary? That ix. pp. 100-109. is to say, does grammatical gender have its