Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/367

 GRECIAN CONFEDERACY UNDER ATHENS. 343 Athens was now at peace both abroad and at home, under the administration of Perikles, with a great empire, a great fleet, and a great accumulated treasure. The common fund collected from the contx'ibutions of the confederates, and originally depos- ited at Delos, had. before this time been transferred to the acropolis at Athens. At what precise time this transfer took place, we cannot state : nor are we enabled to assign the succes- sive stages whereby the confederacy, chiefly with the freewill of its own members, became transformed from a body of armed and active warriors under the guidance of Athens, into disarmed and passive tribute-payers, defended by the military force of Athens, — from allies free, meeting at Delos, and self-determining, into subjects isolated, sending their annual tribute, and awaiting Athenian orders. But it would appear that the change had been made before this time : some of the more resolute of the allies had tried to secede, but Athens had coerced them by force, and reduced them to the condition of tribute-payers, without ships or defence ; and Chios, Lesbos, and Samos were now the only allies free and armed on the original footing. Every successive change of an armed ally into a tributary, — every subjugation of a eeceder, — tended of course to cut down the numbers, and en- feeble the authority, of the Delian synod ; and, what was still Athens it altered the reciprocal relation and feelings both of worse, and her allies, — exalting the former into something like a despot, and degrading the latter into mere passive subjects. Of course, the palpable manifestation of the change must have been the transfer of the confederate fund from Delos to Athens. The only circumstance which we know respecting this transfer is, that it was proposed by the Samians,i — the second power in the confederacy, inferior only to Athens, and least of all likely to favor any job or sinister purpose of the Athenians. It is far- ther said that, when the Samians proposed it, Aristeides charac- terized it as a motion unjust, but useful : we may well doubt, however, whether it was made during his lifetime. When the synod at Delos ceased to be so fully attended as to c(jn!imand respect, — when war was lighted up, not only with Persia, but ivith ^gina and Peloponnesus, — the Samians might not unnat« ' Plutarch, Aristeide?, c. 25.