Note 79 — Chapter XLVII · FROM THE THIRTY YEARS’ TRUCE, FOURTEEN YEARS BEFORE THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, DOWN TO THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA, IN THE YEAR BEFORE THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

Thucyd. viii, 48. Τούς τε καλοὺς κἀγαθοὺς ὀνομαζομένους οὐκ ἐλάσσω αὐτοὺς (that is, the subject-allies) νομίζειν σφίσι πράγματα παρέξειν τοῦ δήμου, ποριστὰς ὄντας καὶ ἐσηγητὰς τῶν κακῶν τῷ δήμῳ, ἐξ ὧν τὰ πλείω αὐτοὺς ὠφελεῖσθαι· καὶ τὸ μὲν ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνοις εἶναι καὶ ἄκριτοι ἂν καὶ βιαιότερον ἀποθνήσκειν, τὸν δὲ δῆμον σφῶν τε καταφυγὴν εἶναι καὶ ἐκείνων σωφρονιστήν. Καὶ ταῦτα παρ᾽ αὐτῶν τῶν ἔργων ἐπισταμένας τὰς πόλεις σαφῶς αὐτὸς εἰδέναι, ὅτι οὕτω νομίζουσιν. This is introduced as the deliberate judgment of the Athenian commander Phrynichus, whom Thucydidês greatly commends for his sagacity, and with whom he seems in this case to have concurred.

Xenophon (Rep. Ath. i. 14, 15) affirms that the Athenian officers on service passed many unjust sentences upon the oligarchical party in the allied cities,—fines, sentences of banishment, capital punishments; and that the Athenian people, though they had a strong public interest in the prosperity of the allies, in order that their tribute might be larger, nevertheless thought it better that any individual citizen of Athens should pocket what he could out of the plunder of the allies, and leave to the latter nothing more than was absolutely necessary for them to live and work, without any superfluity, such as might tempt them to revolt.

That the Athenian officers on service may have succeeded too often in unjust peculation at the cost of the allies, is probable enough: but that the Athenian people were pleased to see their own individual citizens so enriching themselves is certainly not true. The large jurisdiction of the dikasteries was intended, among other effects, to open to the allies a legal redress against such misconduct on the part of the Athenian officers: and the passage above cited from Thucydidês proves that it really produced such an effect.