cultural

Old Oligarch Describes Athenian Imperial Practices

Date

-430

Part of

cultural

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.

What Happened

Amid ships and lawsuits, a sharp voice narrates. Pseudo‑Xenophon—the “Old Oligarch”—composed a brief, acid treatise on the Athenian politeia in the mid‑5th century. He despised the democracy, and he understood it. He listed how the empire worked: force when needed, but mostly courts, councils, and incentives that flowed through the Piraeus [8].

Allies, he wrote, were compelled to litigate in Athens. This was not accidental. Cases about property, contracts, and status were heard before Athenian jurors. Travelers filled inns along the Long Walls; sailors’ voices barked in multiple dialects; the city’s blue‑cloaked officials collected fees and taxes that fell into Athenian hands [8]. Jurisdiction had become a revenue stream.

He also noted politics. Athens supported democrats in allied cities, on the assumption that democratic leaders would look to their Athenian patrons and hate their own oligarchs more than they chafed at distant control. This ideological export stabilized tribute more cheaply than garrisons [8].

The portrait is not kind. “In this way,” he says bluntly, “the allies have become instead the slaves of the Athenian people.” Hyperbole, perhaps. But the mechanisms he describes align with inscriptions and Thucydides: central courts, tribute procedures, and the profits of port traffic and imperial hospitality all benefit the city [8][4][1].

Listen to the Piraeus to test him. Hammers fall on silver owls in mint workshops; porters shout as grain from the Hellespont is tallied; ship‑brokers argue rates under painted stoai. Each trade is taxed; each dispute may land before Athenian dicasts. The empire’s center is less a fortress than a marketplace set to Attic standards.

The Old Oligarch offers the unvarnished view from a losing faction. He hates the democracy but concedes its genius: to locate power in procedures that pay. In courtrooms and harbors, blue Attic skies witness the daily work of hegemony [8].

Why This Matters

Pseudo‑Xenophon’s text clarifies how Athens maintained control without constant force: by compelling litigation in Athens, favoring democratic allies, and profiting from the traffic empire attracted [8]. It ties revenue directly to jurisdiction and ideology.

As courts-oaths-and-jurisdiction, his account supplements decree and inscription with lived mechanisms: jurors paid from tributes, litigants spending in the city, and political engineering in allied councils. It shows how empire saturates ordinary transactions and disputes.

The treatise also structures later debates. When Cleon and Diodotus argued punishment, they did so in a system the Old Oligarch sketches: one in which the costs and gains of severity or restraint were counted not just in morals but in cases and taxes [17].

Historians read him critically but gratefully. His bias underscores the effectiveness of the very democracy he loathed: a machine that made subject cities attend, spend, and plead in Athens [8].