But to the Athenians he was a traitor and as such, according to law, could not be buried in the national territory. In Magnesia, though, he remained popular even after his death and a magnificent memorial was built in his honor in the main square. As late as the first century A.D. his direct descendants were still receiving a pension from public funds. It was reported that his family removed his bones to Athens and buried them secretly.
At some stage a monument to him, known as the Tomb of Themistocles, was erected on a headland near the Grand Harbor at Piraeus. It looked rather like an altar and stood on a stone plinth. With touching aptness for the father of the Athenian navy, sailors would set a course by the tomb when it appeared on the horizon. The comic poet Plato wrote towards the end of the fifth century, addressing him directly:
there you look down
Upon the outward and the inward bound,
And galleys crowding sail as they race for home.
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The war with Persia did not end at Plataea and Mycale. Greeks at the time celebrated their victory, but they did not feel safe. The Hellenic heartland had been saved, but for how long? The invasion had cost the Great King a mass of treasure, but his empire was rich and he could well afford to build another fleet and equip another army, if he so chose.
What was more, the whole story had begun fifteen years previously in Darius’s day with the revolt of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor—but they were still in chains and still waiting for them to be struck off. Would they ever be free? Finally, the Greeks were not rich, and now that they had the upper hand they looked for opportunities to make up the cost of the war by pillaging the Great King’s lands.
So the idea of a maritime league dedicated to continuing the fighting at sea and (now that the infuriating Pausanias was safely out of the way) led by the leading Ionian power, Athens, received universal support. States around the Aegean pressed it to accept the challenge, but in truth it needed little persuasion. What other use did it have for its two hundred triremes?
Even Sparta, dislodged from its leadership role, was content to allow matters to take their course. It recognized that Persia needed to be treated firmly and welcomed the emergence of a standing allied fleet, even if it were to play little part in its operations. The Athenians had acted bravely and, for a Greek polis, more or less disinterestedly. They might as well take charge, even if some nationalists back in the Peloponnese were anxious about the long-term consequences.
Founded in 478, the league’s administrative headquarters and treasury were established on the holy island of Delos in the Cyclades—hence the name by which this association of Greek states is known, the Delian League. It was an appropriate choice for here was the birthplace of Apollo, divine patron of the Ionians, for whom it was a cult center. Delegates met in the god’s temple there, and each of them, whatever the size and wealth of the state he represented, had a single vote. Member states were autonomous and Athens guaranteed their independence. We do not know how many joined the league in the first instance, but in its heyday later in the century they may have numbered as many as two hundred.
The league was a full offensive and defensive alliance. Some members provided ships for the fleet, and others—especially those miniature island states that could not afford to fit out even a single trireme—made a financial contribution to Athens. To begin with it was agreed that members who paid in cash rather than kind should in total cover the costs of one hundred triremes, estimated at 460 talents annually. As the years rolled by more and more league members found that their citizens disliked military service and absence abroad. They preferred, writes Plutarch, “to stay at home and become farmers and peace-loving merchants instead of fighters, and all through their short-sighted love of comfort.” They switched from providing ships to handing over money. This was greatly in the interest of Athens, for the triremes that membership income financed came under its direct control and were, in effect, an addition to its fleet. In time only three members, the rich and large islands of Lesbos, Chios, and Samos, insisted on contributing their own small but effective navies.
Aristides, the Athenian statesman and old rival of Themistocles, was detailed to determine the assessments member by member. He fixed them according to their assets and their ability to pay. He seems to have done the job fairly as his nickname, “The Just,” testifies. He was not a rich man when he went into the process nor, tellingly, when he came out of it. Aristides once told an unregenerate Themistocles that “the quality which makes a real general is the power to keep his hands clean.” No doubt irritated that he had not been given the assessment commission himself, he in turn sneered that Aristides’ reputation “suited a money-box rather than a human being.”
Athens led expeditions and appointed its own treasurers to record and manage the league’s income. Probably the council met to agree on a plan of campaign for the year ahead, but after a time these sessions were discontinued and Athens took all the key military decisions itself.
Another method of control, indirect but powerful, lay in the administration of justice. Each polis, however tiny, had its own judicial system, with different kinds of court, definitions of offenses, and punishments. What was to be done when citizens of one jurisdiction were sued or tried in another? Normally states entered into bilateral agreements. As leaders of the alliance the Athenians insisted that commercial lawsuits involving their citizens should be tried in their own courts. It seems that juries acted fairly and there were few complaints, but the arrangement only added to a shift of power from the periphery to the center.
A critic of the democracy, fierce but clear-eyed, wrote that “the Athenian people are thought to act ill-advisedly in this matter, namely, in forcing the allies to sail to Athens for litigation.” But in fact there were advantages to the arrangement. It kept the law courts busy, filled boardinghouses, increased income from harbor dues, and guaranteed juror fees. He continued: “Sitting at home without sailing out on ships, they control the allied cities.”
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We have already seen that a remarkable feature of the Athenian democracy was the indestructibility of the upper crust. In other Greek states the arrival of popular rule usually meant the extinction or at least the expulsion of the old families. In Athens the inventor of democracy, Cleisthenes, was an Alcmaeonid and that rich and ambitious clan, nicknamed “accursed” because of its role in the Cylon affair 250 years previously, still flourished. Another clan, the Philaids, were wealthy conservative landowners, and the celebrated Miltiades, victor at Marathon, had been of their number. Now his son Cimon, the new chief of the Philaids, took center stage in the politics of Athens. It was telling that he married an Alcmaeonid, granddaughter of the Megacles who was suspected of Medism after the battle of Marathon and was exiled in 486. The “best people” (literally, “the beautiful and the good”) knew that it was in their interest to stick together.
During the 470s the Athenians continued on their upwards imperial path, but the dramatis personae changed. Themistocles was no longer employed and, as we have seen, by the end of the decade he was ostracized. Xanthippus’s final command was in 479 and that of Aristides in the following year. It seems they merely grew old. The dates of their deaths are unknown, although Aristides lived to see the expulsion of his great competitor.