Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/311

X the allies were held in the temple. At first the allies were independent and deliberated in a common assembly under the leadership of Athens."

It is obvious from these words that every member of the league was as free in all essentials as before the league was formed. All agreed to follow a common foreign policy, and to support that policy by a common fund; but the treasury was at the neutral and sacred island of Delos, and though administered by Athenian officials, was so administered by the general consent of all. At Delos also the representatives of the cities met periodically, not to meddle with each other's affairs, but to deliberate on the policy of the whole league. This was certainly no more than a very loose form of federal union, though Athenian quickness and vigour supplied it with a centralising tendency far stronger than that of any league which had yet appeared in Greece.

But it was this very Athenian energy which constituted the weak point in it as a federation. The superior strength of one member of a league is, as I have already said, a serious difficulty in the way of a true federal union; and in this case the ever-increasing strength of Athens had its natural consequence. The league had been established in 475 B.C.; in little more than twenty years it had begun to pass into an Athenian empire. From 454 onwards we have sure evidence of this in inscribed documents, apart from the literary evidence of Thucydides. It is important for our present