# The Pentecontaetia 1.15-18

Greek and Roman Historians, The Pentecontaetia, Lines 1.15-1.18. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/greek-and-roman-historians/the-pentecontaetia/1.15

9.1.5. The Rebellion of Thasos
Since Athens supplied the largest number of warships in the fleet of the Delian League, the balance of power in the League came firmly into the hands of the Athenian assembly, whose members decided how Athenian ships were to be employed. Members of the League had no effective recourse if they disagreed with decisions made for the League as a whole under Athenian leadership. Athens, for instance, could compel the League to send its ships to force reluctant allies to go on paying dues if they stopped making their annual payments. The most egregious instance of such compulsion was the case of the city-state of the island of Thasos which, in 465 B.C, unilaterally withdrew from the Delian League after a dispute with Athens over gold mines on the neighboring mainland. To compel the Thasians to keep their sworn agreement to stay in the League, the Athenians led the fleet of the Delian League, including ships from other member states, against Thasos. The attack turned into a protracted siege, which finally ended after three years' campaigns in 463 B.C. with the island's surrender. As punishment, the League forced Thasos to pull down its defensive walls, give up its navy, and pay enormous dues and fines. As Thucydides observed, rebellious allies like the Thasians "lost their independence," making the Athenians as the League's leaders "no longer as popular as they used to be."
9.1.6. The Military and Financial Success of the Delian League
The Athenian-dominated Delian League enjoyed success after success against the Persians in the 470s and 460s. Within twenty years after the rout of the Persian fleet in the battle of Salamis in 479, almost all Persian garrisons had been expelled from the Greek world and the Persian fleet driven from the Aegean. Although the Persian heartland was not threatened by these setbacks, Persia ceased to be a threat to Greeks for the next fifty years. Athens meanwhile grew stronger from its share of the spoils captured from Persian outposts and the dues paid by its members. By the middle of the fifth century B.C., League members' dues alone totaled an amount equivalent to perhaps $200,000,000 in contemporary terms (based on the assumption of $80 as the average daily pay of a worker today). For a state the size of Athens (around 30,000 to 40,000 adult male citizens at the time), this annual income meant prosperity.

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Greek and Roman Historians, The Pentecontaetia. Text: The Latin Library (thelatinlibrary.com), used with permission. Changes: HTML markup removed and the text divided into reading sections by Interlinea.
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