Volume 1

Herodotus : the fourth, fifth, and sixth books / With introduction, notes, appendices, indices, maps by Reginald Walter Macan.

Herodotus

Date:: 1895

Credit: Herodotus : the fourth, fifth, and sixth books / With introduction, notes, appendices, indices, maps by Reginald Walter Macan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

430/528 (page 302)

$VI Kapra toIctl ''\o3aL iyevero tovtov tov ereo9' 'A.pra(^pevr)<i 6 %aphio3v virap^o<; p>6ra'jr€p,'\^dpbevo<; uyyeXov<; Ik. twv ttoXlwv 5 avvO'pKa^ a(f)LcrL avTOLcrt rov<; '’Icova'^ 'pvdyKaae iToikecrQai, 'Iva BocrlBiKot elev Kal p.^ dW7]\ov<; cf)6poLei> re kul dyoiev. ravTo, Appendix VI., Introduction, p, Ixvii. Two .useful and pacific measures affect- ing the loniaus are ascribed to Arta- phrenes satrap of Sardes and dated to the year 493 B.c. (1) the institution of (commercial) treaties establishing 5lko.I {dirb cyv/j.p6X(i}v) throughout Ionia, and suppressing all private or local warfare and piracy. (For samples of such treaties elsewhere, later, see Hicks, Manual of Inscript. No. 31.) (2) A new census and assessment of tribute, which Hdt. appears to say was still in existence and of force in his own day, and indeed at the time of writing (StareXeoacrt). In regard to the first of these measures it is probable that such arrangements were already in force between at least some of the Ionian cities, and perhaps between the states represented at Nau- kratis (cp. 2. 178, c. 21 supra). But the arrangement may have been revived and extended by Artaphrenes at this time. In any case the precedent would be welcome at Athens. In regard to the second measure, it is likely enough that a new assessment was made, after the reduction of Ionia, and the other revolted tributaries, Hdt. himself stating that they had been tributary previously for about the same amount (cp. 3. 90). The further statement that this census was still in force gives rise to questions which can only be hypo- thetically solved. Blakesley took the statement as “decisively proving’’the subjection of the Asiatic Hellenes to the king of Persia, at a time when the restoration of their liberty by Athe- nian arms was a favourite topic with Athenian orators. But did the unhappy lonians then pay tribute twice over, to Persia and to Athens, at the same time ? Grote maintains that no Greek city on the coast paid tribute to Persia between 476 and 412 B.O., cp. Thuc. 8. 5, 5, and explains this passage as meaning that the tribute was assessed, but not paid ! Rawlinson’s polemic against Grote is here conclusive : Hdt. could not have been ignorant Avhether tribute was paid or not, and would not have expressed himself as he has done, had he meant that the claim was made but not recognised after 476 b.c. Moreover Thuc. 1. 138, though not referring strictly to Ionian cities, may be quoted against Grote. When Rawlinson goes on to date the emancipation of the Greek cities on the mainland as late as 449 B.c. and to connect it with a (fabulous) “ treaty of Cyj)rus ” his view requires correction. The argument from the Athenian Tribute lists points to the conclusion that the Greek cities in Ionia and Karia remained subject and tributary to Persia till the battle of the Eurymedon in 465 B.c, The effect of that battle was the enlargement of the Ionian tribute, by the inclusion of many cities on the main, and the addition of the Karian region. Some ten years later, however, the crushing disaster on the island of Prosopitis led (as Duncker has made probable) to the transfer of the treasure from Delos to Athens for safety, and to the loss of a large number of the tributarj’^ cities on the Asiatic main, which passed back probably to the Persians. Under Perikles the Confederacy suffered dimi- nution in area, but many cities on the mainland continued to pay tribute to Athens down to the Peace of Nikias, and later {0. I. A. i. pp. 226 ff.). Whether this passage in Hdt. refers to the condition of the Ionian states before 465 B.c. or after 454 B.c., or both, is not quite clear, but it is on the whole more probable that it was written after the later date, and there would then never have been any need to revise it. In no case is the passage satisfactory, for it is not sufficiently explicit. Hdt. refers only to ‘ the lonians ’; of Dorians, Aeolians, Karians he says nothing. The conduct and fortunes of the Dorians here as throughout the period are unnoticed. Even in regard to ‘the lonians,’ he does not make it plain whether the i.slanders or any of them are included. He is only concerned to put on record the fact that payments were still being made on the assessment of Artajihrenes. (For the facts in regard to the Athenian tribute, Kohler, Abhand. dcr Berlin. Akademic, 1869 ; I \ ii i* k 1 I r I 4 ) I I I ,{ il Ij$