Delian League — Timeline & Key Events
In 478/7 BCE, Greek cities stacked silver on Delos to keep Persia out.
Central Question
Could Athens convert a voluntary anti-Persian alliance into a durable empire without breaking the trust, autonomy, and resources that made it possible?
The Story
Silver on a Sacred Island
On Delos, the salt wind smelled like freedom. The Greeks had beaten Persia, and in 478/7 BCE their poleis piled silver in neat, cold bars for a new symmachia—a mutual-defense league with a congress and treasury on Apollo’s island [14][1].
Aristides, an Athenian statesman, fixed the first assessment at 460 talents, a number meant to fund ships and walls rather than an empire [3]. Ten hellenotamiai—Greek Treasurers—counted, sealed, and scheduled deliveries, wax softening under the sun as seals pressed down [4]. Athens led the patrols. Trust held—at first.
When Allies Tried to Leave
But the alliance had a catch: what if a member wanted out? In the late 470s, Naxos tried. Thucydides says it was the first secession; Athens answered with siege engines thudding against stone and brought the island to heel, tribute restored and autonomy cut down [1].
A few years later, Thasos revolted (465–463 BCE). After defeat, its walls came down, its ships were surrendered, and penalties resumed flowing—by the 440s Thasos stood assessed at 30 talents, a single city paying the price of defiance [1][7]. Coercion had become policy. The League looked less like an agreement and more like an arche: dominion.
From Delos to the Acropolis
After those sieges, control moved from symbol to stone. In 454/3 BCE the treasury left Delos for Athens, a physical transfer of power that let the city count, allocate, and display allied money under its own roof [7][14]. Pericles, the dominant statesman, could now merge war finance with civic ambition: the gold-and-ivory Athena Parthenos even carried around 40 talents of removable gold, a reserve that gleamed in emergency [16][12].
Athens began to inscribe the one-sixtieth dedication to Athena—the tribute lists—on marble from 454/3 to 440/39 BCE. Aegina: 30 talents. Thasos: 30 talents. Chisels bit letters into stone with a dry, ringing rhythm [7]. Thucydides would tally allied revenue at roughly 600 talents a year by 431; Plutarch later reported a climb to 1,300 talents [1][3]. Officials like Thoudippos would soon harden the system with formal reassessments, and voices such as Cleon and Diodotus would argue how to keep this empire from breaking [5][17].
How an Empire Collected
Because money and law now ran through Athens, the rules tightened. A mid‑420s decree required each city to send sealed grammateia—written statements—so the hellenotamiai could confirm annual tribute and, after the City Dionysia, publicly announce who paid and who owed, a ritual of exposure on the Pnyx [4]. You could almost smell the ink drying on wooden tablets as names were read.
In 425/4 BCE, Thoudippos sponsored a rapid reassessment: ten taktai had ten days to set new figures; allied cities could appeal in Athenian courts; and each member owed a cow and a panoply to the Panathenaia, a clang of bronze that said who led the rites—and the war [5]. Oaths bound places like Chalkis not to revolt and to take capital cases to Athens, shifting life-and-death jurisdiction to the city that held the treasury [6]. A mid‑5th‑century critic put it bluntly: centralized courts and policies had made the allies "slaves of the Athenian people" [8].
Tyranny or Prudence on the Pnyx
Because the machine worked, it had to decide how. In 428–427 BCE, Mytilene revolted. The Assembly convened under open sky, the rock of the Pnyx radiating afternoon heat. Cleon, the hardline politician, told the crowd, "your empire is a tyranny" and argued that fear—executions, enslavement—kept subjects obedient [17].
Diodotus countered: rage destroys revenue. Keep the people alive, punish leaders, and allies will judge Athens by its interest, not its anger [17]. The decision swung overnight; a second trireme raced to rescind a massacre order, arriving in time to spare most of the city [1][17]. The debate etched a choice that would haunt every revolt: terror for deterrence, or restraint for profit.
The Logic Laid Bare—and the Bill
After Mytilene, the same logic turned colder at Melos in 416 BCE. Athenian envoys told the neutral island, "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must"; after refusal, the men were executed and the women and children enslaved [2]. Empire spoke without euphemism.
Then came 413. The Sicilian disaster forced emergency finance. Athens imposed a 5% ad valorem harbor tax, the eikoste, and—likely the same year—compelled Attic coinage, weights, and measures everywhere under its rule, closing allied mints [13]. The empire now minted its unity. In harbors from Euboea to the Hellespont, hammers struck owls into silver while collectors tallied the fifth, coin by coin [13]. It was the Tribute Lists’ logic scaled to every market stall.
A Fleet Lost, a League Ended
Because even perfect ledgers can’t replace ships, the war ended at sea. In 405 BCE, at Aegospotami, Sparta smashed the Athenian fleet; the long walls and tall talk meant little without triremes [14][15]. Silent slipways in the Piraeus told the story.
Athens surrendered in 404. The terms effectively dissolved the Delian League; the empire that began as 460 talents on Delos gave way to Spartan hegemony, and later a different Second Athenian League (377) [14][15]. What endured was the blueprint: assessments and appeals, marble lists and market standards, ritual and revenue braided into power [7][11]. Thucydides had captured its pulse; the inscriptions preserved its heartbeat.
Story Character
An alliance captured by its leader
Key Story Elements
What defined this period?
In 478/7 BCE, Greek cities stacked silver on Delos to keep Persia out. Athens counted it—460 talents by Aristides’ first assessment—and led the fleet that guarded the Aegean [3][14]. Within a generation, the congress became a treasury, then a lever: seceders were besieged, oaths rewritten, courts centralized, coins standardized. Thucydides measured the machine at 600 talents a year by 431; Plutarch heard later figures of 1,300 under Pericles [1][3]. The speeches that guided policy—Cleon’s iron, Diodotus’ ice—wrestled with a stark premise: rule by fear or rule for profit [17]. After disaster in 413, Athens added a 5% harbor tax and forced Attic coinage across the sea [13]. It wasn’t enough. Aegospotami broke the fleet; 404 ended the League. What remained was a blueprint for imperial control—and a warning about the cost of keeping it.
Story Character
An alliance captured by its leader
Thematic Threads
Alliance Capture Dynamics
A voluntary symmachia hardened into an arche through siege and statute. Early secessions (Naxos, Thasos) met force, the treasury shifted to Athens, and oaths bound cities not to revolt. Coercion deterred exits while central institutions absorbed autonomy, turning collective security into one city’s dominion.
Finance as Command and Control
Assessments, marble tribute lists, and later reassessments transformed money into obedience. Publishing payers and defaulters, dedicating one-sixtieth to Athena, and, in crisis, adding a 5% harbor tax made revenue visible, comparable, and enforceable—an administrative grip as decisive as garrisons or ships.
Courts, Oaths, and Jurisdiction
Decrees required sworn loyalty and routed capital cases to Athenian courts. Appeals procedures and ritual obligations (a cow and a panoply) fused law with ceremony. This jurisdictional web curtailed local sovereignty while legitimizing Athenian decisions as legal outcomes, not just military commands.
War, Debate, and Decision
Policy hinged on speeches as much as sorties. Cleon’s deterrence and Diodotus’ expediency framed how to punish revolt, while the Melian Dialogue exposed realpolitik without disguise. The Assembly’s choices calibrated fear versus income, shaping both immediate outcomes and the empire’s moral reputation.
Standards and Markets
Imposing Athenian coinage, weights, and measures unified transactions across the Aegean. Closing allied mints and enforcing Attic standards turned marketplaces into sites of sovereignty. Monetary uniformity lowered friction, raised surveillance, and, in wartime, sped the flow of resources to the center.
Quick Facts
Aristides’ 460 talents
Aristides’ initial assessment totaled 460 talents—about 11.96 metric tons of silver if one Attic talent ≈ 26 kg. Later claims rise to 1,300 talents (~33.8 metric tons).
Pre‑war 600 talents
Thucydides reports roughly 600 talents per year by 431 BCE—around 15.6 metric tons of silver flowing to Athens annually before the war.
One‑sixtieth to Athena
The tribute lists inscribed the one‑sixtieth dedication (1.67%) to Athena, making piety a public receipt of empire.
Thirty‑talent burdens
By the 440s, Aegina and Thasos each faced assessments of 30 talents—a single city owing around 780 kg of silver yearly.
Ten treasurers, ten assessors
Finance ran through boards of ten: the hellenotamiai handled receipts; in 425/4 ten taktai had ten days to reassess tribute.
Ritual dues in bronze
Thoudippos’ package made each member send a cow and a panoply to the Panathenaia—ritualizing subordination alongside fiscal demands.
Athena’s removable gold
The Athena Parthenos statue carried about 40 talents of removable gold—roughly 1,040 kg—as an emergency reserve.
Post‑Dionysia audit day
After the City Dionysia, an Assembly session publicized which cities paid and empowered pursuit of arrears—compliance became theater.
Chalkis oath, plain words
Chalkidians swore: “I shall not revolt from the People of Athens… and I shall pay… whatever tribute I persuade them to agree,” binding loyalty to Athenian courts.
‘Slaves of the demos’
A contemporary critic concluded: “In this way the allies have become… slaves of the Athenian people,” indicting centralized courts and ports.
5% harbor tax
After the Sicilian disaster, Athens imposed a 5% ad valorem harbor tax (eikoste), monetizing trade flows empire‑wide.
Melian aftermath
After refusing Athenian demands in 416, Melos’ men were executed and women and children enslaved—realpolitik without euphemism.
Timeline Overview
Detailed Timeline
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Foundation of the Delian League and Aristides’ Assessment
In 478/7 BCE, Athens led Greek poleis in forming a symmachia centered on Delos, with Aristides setting contributions at 460 talents. Silver stacked on the sacred island gleamed against the azure Aegean as heralds called oaths. A defensive pact was born—its ledgers already hinting at power [14][1][3].
Read MoreCongress and Treasury Established on Delos
After the League formed, its congress and treasury took root on Delos—neutral, sacred, and centrally placed. Ten hellenotamiai counted phoros as gulls cried over the harbor and red wax sealed returns [14][4]. Athenian leadership steered policy, but procedures began steering allies [1].
Read MoreNaxos Revolt Suppressed (First Secession Attempt)
In the late 470s BCE Naxos tried to leave the Delian League—and Athens answered with a siege. Scarlets on Athenian sails flashed offshore as engines thudded against stone [1]. The first exit attempt told every ally what leaving would cost.
Read MoreThasos Revolt and Athenian Repression
Between 465 and 463 BCE, Thasos revolted against Athenian leadership. Athens demolished its walls, confiscated ships, and restored tribute—by the 440s the island paid 30 talents, a figure chiseled in stone [1][7]. The clang of fallen masonry echoed across the northern Aegean.
Read MoreTransfer of the League Treasury to Athens
In 454/3 BCE the League treasury moved from Delos to Athens, a physical shift that centralized control under the Acropolis [7][14]. Bronze doors closed on sacred silver; a city’s ambitions opened. The money that once crossed the Cyclades now climbed the rock of Athena [16].
Read MoreFirst Athenian Tribute Lists Inscribed
From 454/3 to 440/39 BCE, Athens carved the Tribute Lists—marble records of the one‑sixtieth to Athena that mapped payments across the Aegean [7]. Chisels rang on the Acropolis; Aegina and Thasos appeared at 30 talents apiece. Accountability became stone.
Read MoreChalkis Decree Imposes Oaths and Legal Appeals
In the mid‑440s BCE, the Chalkis Decree bound the Euboean city by oath: no revolt, tribute as agreed, and major cases appealed to Athenian courts [6]. Purple‑edged cloaks brushed the Pnyx as envoys swore. Jurisdiction moved seaward, toward Athens.
Read MoreAthens Leverages Sacred Loans and Reserves
From the mid‑440s to 431 BCE, Athens tapped allied revenues and sacred loans—down to c. 40 talents of removable gold on Athena Parthenos—to fund war and building [12][16]. Coffer lids thudded shut as cranes swung marble on the Acropolis. Money moved; temples gleamed.
Read MoreOutbreak of the Peloponnesian War and Imperial Revenues Stated
When war broke in 431 BCE, Thucydides tallied Athens’ strength at roughly 600 talents in annual allied payments [1]. Trumpets sounded at the Piraeus as ships took on grain. Money—gathered across the Aegean—would keep walls manned and oars beating.
Read MoreMytilene Revolt and Athenian Debate
Mytilene’s revolt (428–427 BCE) forced Athens to choose between terror and profit. On the Pnyx, Cleon called the empire a tyranny and urged slaughter; Diodotus argued for expediency and restraint [1][17]. A second trireme raced to rescind the massacre order—the oars beat like a drum.
Read MoreKleinias Decree Orders Annual Tribute Collection
In the mid‑420s, the Kleinias Decree tightened the empire’s spine: tribute to be collected each year, sealed grammateia sent, and compliance publicized after the City Dionysia [4]. Red wax, read names, and regional commissioners turned law into logistics.
Read MoreThoudippos Decrees Reassess Tribute and Create Appeals
In 425/4 BCE, the Thoudippos Decrees reset tribute: ten taktai had ten days to assess, allies could appeal in Athenian courts, and every member had to send a cow and a panoply to the Panathenaia [5]. Bronze clanged; numbers rose.
Read MoreOld Oligarch Describes Athenian Imperial Practices
A mid‑5th‑century critic, Pseudo‑Xenophon, sketched Athens’ imperial toolkit: central courts, democratic allies, port taxes, and profit—“the allies have become… slaves of the Athenian people” [8]. In Piraeus’s salt air, ideology met income.
Read MoreHigh Tribute Assessments Recorded for Key Allies
By the 440s BCE the Tribute Lists fixed steep assessments: Aegina and Thasos at 30 talents each [7]. On the Acropolis, gray marble cried numbers while chisels rang. These figures were not abstractions—they were sentences passed after revolt.
Read MoreMelian Dialogue and Destruction of Melos
In 416 BCE Athens demanded Melos submit and pay; the island refused. “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” the envoys said [2]. After siege, the men were executed and the women and children enslaved. Realpolitik spoke—and killed.
Read MoreAthenian Standards (Coinage) Decree Imposes Attic Standards
After the Sicilian disaster, Athens likely issued the Standards Decree (late 413 BCE), enforcing Attic coinage, weights, and measures across the empire and closing allied mints [13]. Silver owls rang under hammers from Chios to Ephesus. Markets now spoke one monetary language.
Read MoreEikoste Harbor Tax Introduced After Sicilian Disaster
In 413 BCE, Athens imposed a 5% harbor tax—the eikoste—on maritime trade, aligning with monetary standardization after Sicily’s loss [13]. Coins clinked in the Piraeus as collectors counted by Attic measure. Tribute paused; transactions paid.
Read MoreAnnual Publicity and Enforcement of Tribute Compliance
Mid‑420s procedures made tribute public theater: after the City Dionysia, the hellenotamiai named cities that paid in full and empowered pursuit of arrears [4][11]. Names rang over the Pnyx; reputations traveled faster than triremes.
Read MoreSurrender of Athens and Dissolution of the Delian League
In 404 BCE, Athens surrendered to Sparta. The Long Walls came down, tribute stopped, and the Delian League was effectively dissolved [14][15]. Blackened timbers in the Piraeus and blank lines on ledgers marked the end of an Aegean empire.
Read MoreKey Highlights
These pivotal moments showcase the most dramatic turns in Delian League, revealing the forces that pushed the era forward.
Naxos: First Exit Denied
Naxos attempted to leave the League in the late 470s. Athens besieged the island, dismantled its autonomy, and restored tribute obligations. Thucydides marks it as the first clear act of coercive enforcement within the alliance.
Treasury Moves to Athens
In 454/3 BCE, the League’s treasury was transferred from Delos to Athens. Funds, records, and symbolic control shifted from a neutral sanctuary to the imperial center under the Acropolis.
Thoudippos’ Rapid Reassessment
In 425/4 BCE, ten taktai were tasked to reassess tribute within ten days, with an appeals process for allies. Membership also entailed ritual deliveries to the Panathenaia.
Mytilene: Terror or Profit?
Mytilene revolted in 428–427 BCE. The Assembly heard Cleon urge deterrent slaughter and Diodotus argue that sparing the populace would maximize long‑term revenue. A second decree rescinded mass execution.
Melos: Realpolitik Unmasked
Athens demanded Melos’ submission and tribute in 416. After refusal, it executed the men and enslaved the women and children, proclaiming that the strong act as they can.
Standards Decree and the Eikoste
After the Sicilian disaster, Athens likely imposed Attic coinage, weights, and measures and levied a 5% harbor tax. Allied mints closed; markets spoke in Attic metrics.
Aegospotami: The Fleet Destroyed
Sparta destroyed Athens’ fleet at Aegospotami in 405. Without control of sea lanes, Athens could not supply itself, police allies, or collect revenues.
404: League Dissolved
Athens surrendered to Sparta in 404. The terms effectively dissolved the Delian League, ending Athenian maritime hegemony.
Key Figures
Learn about the influential people who played pivotal roles in Delian League.
Thoudippos
Thoudippos is the otherwise obscure Athenian who, in 425/4 BCE, put imperial finance on a war footing. His decree reassessed allied tribute (phoros), created procedures for review and appeal, and demanded regularized payments that could be audited and enforced. Alongside the Kleinias decree and public posting of non-payers, his measures turned the Delian League from ad hoc contributions into a calibrated revenue system. In this timeline, Thoudippos is the bureaucratic mind of empire—the man who made policy into ledgers.
Diodotus
Diodotus steps from the pages of Thucydides as the cool counterpoint to Cleon during the Mytilene debate of 428/7 BCE. Arguing that anger is a poor counselor, he persuaded the Athenian Assembly to spare the Mytileneans, contending that an empire survives by revenue and deterrence calibrated to profit, not mass vengeance. His speech—one of the sharpest statecraft lessons in Greek literature—answers this timeline’s central question with ice: keep allies productive, and rule by the interests that sustain power.
Aristides
Aristides, remembered by Athenians as “the Just,” helped transform victory over Persia into a durable Aegean alliance. After Salamis and Plataea, he shaped the Delian League’s founding in 478/7 BCE and performed the first assessment of allied contributions at roughly 460 talents, a figure admired for its fairness. His integrity gave early legitimacy to Athenian leadership, binding cities to a voluntary compact before coercion hardened the system. In this timeline, he lays the fiscal and institutional groundwork—treasury at Delos, oaths, and quotas—that later leaders would tighten into an empire.
Cleon
Cleon rose from prosperous tradesman to Athens’ most forceful wartime voice after Pericles. He championed tighter tribute collection, stiff penalties for defiance, and a ferocious stance at Mytilene (428/7), where his push for mass execution was barely reversed in a second vote. Though derided by Aristophanes, he delivered victories—most famously at Pylos—while backing measures like the Kleinias and Thoudippos decrees that turned the Delian League into an extractive machine. In this timeline, he personifies ruling by fear, the hard edge of Athenian imperial control.
Interpretation & Significance
Understanding the broader historical context and lasting impact of Delian League
Thematic weight
THE FICTION OF SHARED POWER
From sacred symmachia to metropolitan arche
The Delian League’s constitution promised collective defense on sacred ground, but its institutions were engineered for capture. Thucydides charts the hinge moments—Naxos’ reduction, Thasos’ punishment—where exit became punishable and the Athenian fleet became a domestic police force [1]. Moving the treasury from Delos to Athens relocated sovereignty itself. What had been a neutral island shrine turned into ledgers beneath the Acropolis, the symbolic heart of an arche [7][14]. Decrees hardened the shift. The Kleinias decree made collections annual and public; the Chalkis decree bound oaths and shifted appeals to Athenian courts; the Thoudippos reassessment created time‑bound bureaucratic power with ritual obligations [4][6][5]. Annual assemblies didn’t just vote policy—they re‑ratified hierarchy. Modern analyses emphasize that these were not ad hoc improvisations but routine reaffirmations of power embedded in finance and law [11].
ACCOUNTING AS ARS IMPERII
Lists, loans, and legal reassessments as strategy
Marble lists turned finance into governance. Inscribing the one‑sixtieth to Athena publicized who paid on time and who did not, while the Kleinias procedures mandated sealed statements and post‑festival audits [7][4]. The Thoudippos decrees accelerated reassessment and created a court path for appeals, embedding Athenian oversight in both numbers and norms [5]. These mechanisms made compliance measurable and defaults actionable without dispatching a trireme. When pressures mounted, Athens blended resources: sacred loans and the Athena Parthenos’ removable gold supplemented allied payments, while Periclean ambitions translated surplus into stone and prestige [12][16]. Thucydides’ 600‑talent baseline by 431 shows the scale of this apparatus [1]. Accounting did not merely record empire; it produced it—allocating, auditing, and advertising power with the regularity of a fiscal calendar.
TYRANNY OR EXPEDIENCY
How the Assembly priced revolt
Athens debated the logic of empire in real time. In the Mytilenian Debate, Cleon named the truth many preferred to obscure—“your empire is a tyranny”—and demanded terror as deterrent. Diodotus answered with arithmetic: dead subjects pay no tribute; punish leaders, save the many, maximize revenue [17][1]. The Assembly’s overnight reversal rescued Mytilene’s populace, revealing a regime anxious to balance fear with profit. Melos shows the other end of the dial. There, the Athenians spoke without euphemism: might makes right, compliance or annihilation [2]. The policy eliminated a pocket of defiance but damaged Athens’ reputation and likely stiffened future resistance. These choices were not moral abstractions; they were cost‑benefit calculations that set precedents for allies watching from every island and strait.
MARKETS UNDER THE OWL
Monetary standards and a wartime tax state
After Sicily, Athens re‑engineered imperial extraction. The Standards Decree likely in late 413 mandated Attic coinage, weights, and measures, shuttering allied mints. In tandem, the eikoste skimmed 5% from harbor trade [13]. This monetized control at the point of exchange, lowering frictions and improving fiscal visibility even as tribute faltered under wartime strain. Yet standardization under duress could cut both ways. While it steadied revenues and simplified enforcement, it also erased local monetary autonomy and concentrated resentment where merchants lived and voters remembered. The policy’s effectiveness still depended on sea control to protect lanes and collectors—something Athens increasingly could not guarantee as the war turned against it [1][14].
SHIPS MAKE EMPIRES
Naval power as the master variable
The empire’s power flowed along sea lanes. Tribute, audits, and court summonses all presumed secure passage. Thucydides tallied finances, but he also noted the centrality of naval deployments to suppress revolt and collect dues [1]. At Aegospotami in 405, Sparta’s destruction of the Athenian fleet severed these arteries, rendering the fiscal machine mute [14][15]. What followed was inevitable: with ships gone, walls and ledgers could not sustain hegemony. Within a year, Athens surrendered and the League was dissolved. The lesson is structural: administrative sophistication is not a substitute for coercive capacity; it is a multiplier that requires it. When coercion failed at sea, every inscription on the Acropolis became a record of the past tense.
Perspectives
How we know what we know—and what people at the time noticed
INTERPRETATIONS
Alliance Capture, Not Consent
The Delian League began as a symmachia, but coercive reductions (Naxos, Thasos) and the treasury transfer to Athens show ‘alliance capture’—a gradual conversion to arche. Thucydides’ narrative of sieges and suppression aligns with epigraphic evidence for fiscal centralization and legal integration, suggesting consent yielded to structured compulsion. Modern analysis emphasizes how finance and law, not just force, embedded domination.
DEBATES
Did Tribute Build Temples?
How far did League revenues underwrite the Acropolis program? While sacred loans and removable gold from Athena Parthenos are documented, the mix of allied payments and internal resources remains debated. Pericles’ era clearly integrated war finance and monumental building, but quantifying the exact share of allied money versus temple loans is contested.
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Thucydides’ Empire of Words
The Mytilenian Debate and Melian Dialogue gave the Athenian empire its moral vocabulary: tyranny versus expediency, might versus right. These speeches have shaped modern interpretations of Athenian realpolitik. Yet inscriptions—tribute lists, reassessment and tribute decrees—reveal a quieter story of annual procedures and audits that operated beneath the drama.
CONFLICT
Litigation as Leverage
Athens forced allies to litigate in Athenian courts, binding capital cases and appeals to the imperial center. The Old Oligarch saw this as turning allies into ‘slaves,’ while the Chalkis Decree shows oaths and judicial channels that curtailed autonomy. Law became a daily instrument of control, not merely an abstract norm.
WITH HINDSIGHT
Standardization Under Duress
The coinage decree and eikoste were not simply rational reforms; they were wartime triage after Sicily. With hindsight, monetizing commerce and closing allied mints may have stabilized revenue briefly while intensifying resentment and administrative load. The regime’s durability still hinged on ships—Aegospotami proved that fiscally efficient empires drown without fleets.
SOURCES AND BIAS
Stone Versus Story
Marble tribute lists (including the one‑sixtieth to Athena) offer precise figures for select years but with gaps. Plutarch’s later totals and Thucydides’ revenue estimates provide scale, yet each source carries perspective and purpose. AIO’s epigraphic dossiers help triangulate, but the survival bias of stone and the rhetoric of prose must be read together.
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