1
00:00:00,460 --> 00:00:07,150
Hello and welcome to the Ancient History A-level podcast brought to you by the Classical Association.

2
00:00:07,630 --> 00:00:12,530
Today I'm really pleased to be welcoming Professor Peter Liddel of Manchester University.

3
00:00:12,730 --> 00:00:15,700
He's going to be talking to us all things attic inscriptions.

4
00:00:16,180 --> 00:00:23,410
You will probably all remember that you've got three attic inscriptions on your prescribed source list for the ancient history A-level period study.

5
00:00:23,650 --> 00:00:28,960
And we're going to be talking about these three plus a handful of those that we think are going to be very useful for you.

6
00:00:29,320 --> 00:00:32,680
So without further ado, let's meet Peter. Peter, welcome.

7
00:00:33,160 --> 00:00:37,600
Tell us a little bit about yourself and also about your work with attic inscriptions.

8
00:00:38,530 --> 00:00:41,920
Hello. Thank you very much, James, for inviting me.

9
00:00:42,340 --> 00:00:51,670
And as you've said already, my name is Peter Liddel and I am professor of Greek history and epigraphy at the University of Manchester.

10
00:00:52,270 --> 00:00:56,799
And I study and teach Greek history and geography and epigraphy.

11
00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:03,520
this refers to the study of writing on hard surfaces.

12
00:01:03,610 --> 00:01:13,420
So by hard surfaces we mean stone metal, even wood, which doesn't survive very often from the ancient Greek world.

13
00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:26,590
And among my research interest is the city of Athens, which, as you know, already was probably one of the most important ancient Greek cities.

14
00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:35,650
And it's important for many things, for its politics, for the formation of a democratic system of government,

15
00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:43,870
for its establishment of a network of subject states in the fifth century B.C.,

16
00:01:43,870 --> 00:01:51,070
which gave rise to what we call the Athenian empire, but also for publishing in different forms.

17
00:01:51,400 --> 00:02:04,330
Many written documents. And many of these written documents were committed to stone, especially from the middle of the fifth century BCE onwards,

18
00:02:04,630 --> 00:02:08,530
the Athenians developed what we call an epigraphic habit.

19
00:02:09,010 --> 00:02:14,860
And this was the habit, essentially, of writing down on stone slabs,

20
00:02:14,860 --> 00:02:24,220
often pieces of white or yellowish or greyish marble, the official transactions of their city.

21
00:02:24,580 --> 00:02:37,240
So decrees, laws, inventories and accounts were written down by the Athenian community for other members of the community to pay attention to.

22
00:02:37,780 --> 00:02:47,709
I think what the a level specifications point us towards when it comes to Athenian history in particular is primarily those

23
00:02:47,710 --> 00:02:56,770
documents were Greek which were written down by the Athenian state or the Athenian community recording public transactions.

24
00:02:57,650 --> 00:03:06,129
And many of these are pertinent to how we understand Athenian power in the fifth century B.C. in other words,

25
00:03:06,130 --> 00:03:17,320
how we understand the Athenians manage their allies or subjects states later in the fifth century B.C., and also how they commemorate the war dead.

26
00:03:18,130 --> 00:03:21,490
So over the years then, these inscriptions,

27
00:03:21,490 --> 00:03:29,440
documents of ancient transactions have come to be collected in modern museums and private collections, too.

28
00:03:30,100 --> 00:03:40,990
But why are they important to us? Well, inscriptions, unlike a long narrative of a historian like few cities,

29
00:03:41,590 --> 00:03:48,790
offer a small snapshots of particular episodes in history or particular phenomena.

30
00:03:49,660 --> 00:04:01,780
Sometimes those episodes or phenomena concern aspects of history that fThucydides or other historians don't tell us anything about.

31
00:04:02,440 --> 00:04:09,399
So the details of the tributes or taxation which Athens' allies paid to the

32
00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:14,400
treasurers of Athena, Thucydides doesn't give us much detail on these,

33
00:04:14,410 --> 00:04:25,300
but the inscriptions certainly do give us a lot of detail. So sometimes then inscriptions fill in the gaps that Thucydides left up to the times.

34
00:04:25,780 --> 00:04:36,310
Inscriptions can tell us a bit more about those events, about battles or other phenomena which the literary sources do tell us about.

35
00:04:36,730 --> 00:04:37,780
So, for instance,

36
00:04:37,780 --> 00:04:47,770
there are detailed casualty lists listing the Athenian war dead at battles that we know from Thucydides to have taken place in the fifth century.

37
00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:53,170
So that's why inscriptions are useful sometimes for filling in the gaps,

38
00:04:53,470 --> 00:04:59,440
sometimes for giving us a bit more detail about things we already know about from the ancient sources.

39
00:05:00,280 --> 00:05:04,480
Thank you, Peter. That's a really helpful introduction there. And there's a couple of things that really strike me.

40
00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:10,000
The first thing is that you said that inscriptions start to become prominent in Athens in the middle of the fifth century,

41
00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:14,230
which is obviously around the time that we're studying the period study.

42
00:05:14,830 --> 00:05:15,370
Why is that?

43
00:05:15,370 --> 00:05:24,670
Is that connected to Athens becoming a democracy and things needing to be more visible and more accountable to the general citizen population?

44
00:05:25,330 --> 00:05:33,490
Yeah, that's a really good question. So why does epigraphic culture blossom in the middle of the fifth century B.C.?

45
00:05:34,030 --> 00:05:38,140
And I think there are many different things that you can associate with this.

46
00:05:38,770 --> 00:05:48,700
So one, as you say, is the emergence of democracy and the key aspect of democratic forms of government is accountability.

47
00:05:49,300 --> 00:05:58,510
So setting out in a publicly accessible way what the rules and regulations are of a particular community,

48
00:05:59,230 --> 00:06:07,210
setting out also the names of the people who were responsible for making decrees and laws.

49
00:06:07,810 --> 00:06:19,540
This is part of a sort of emerging openness of democracy, if you like, and the drive towards the rule of not just law, but also written law,

50
00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:26,740
which was doubtlessly emerging in the middle of the fifth century B.C. It seems to

51
00:06:26,740 --> 00:06:32,320
become the done thing for the Athenians to write down their transactions on stone.

52
00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:44,650
And in a recent article, the German historian Kai Trampadak has argued that the latter was premised the first stele or the first slab,

53
00:06:45,220 --> 00:06:57,340
which recorded monies received by the treasurers of Athena from the Allies, actually inspired the Athenians to write up more inscriptions.

54
00:06:57,520 --> 00:07:05,800
So money came in to Athens. The Athenians decided to record this on stone, and they did so on a huge slab.

55
00:07:06,430 --> 00:07:14,950
And this process seems to have encouraged the Athenians to emulate this practice by setting up many inscriptions,

56
00:07:15,190 --> 00:07:18,790
recording their decrees and other transactions on the stone.

57
00:07:19,360 --> 00:07:23,409
Maybe I could also add to that the religious angle as well.

58
00:07:23,410 --> 00:07:32,320
I think that's important because when the Athenians wrote down their decrees or their inventories on stone,

59
00:07:32,890 --> 00:07:38,470
they were presuming not just an audience of human beings would pay attention to them,

60
00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:44,559
but they also held the belief that these transactions were written down for divine

61
00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:50,230
eyes so that the gods could also know something about what the Athenians were doing.

62
00:07:50,770 --> 00:07:56,559
I'm not imagining the Athenians thought that the gods would somehow appear and read the inscriptions.

63
00:07:56,560 --> 00:08:03,560
But there's one slightly, slightly vague way in which the Athenians were writing these inscriptions down.

64
00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:11,980
as dedications to the gods on the Acropolis, which was a network of sanctuaries and was a was a sacred place.

65
00:08:13,060 --> 00:08:16,240
Really. Thank you. Okay. Well, let's think about that.

66
00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:21,040
First prescribed source, the first stele, the lapis primus.

67
00:08:21,310 --> 00:08:29,710
And let's just do the basics when it first of all we can date this are believed to the civil year 454, three.

68
00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:33,060
So Athenian years went from July to June.

69
00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:36,520
So we're talking about the year, roughly the equivalent of that.

70
00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:43,989
We're talking about that that year. And that's the year that we know that the Treasury of the Delian, League which had been set up in four,

71
00:08:43,990 --> 00:08:49,870
seven, seven, was moved from Delos that neutral island in the middle of the Aegean to Athens.

72
00:08:49,870 --> 00:08:55,870
And that's a really big moment. Some people would say that's the really the definitive moment when the Athenian empire starts.

73
00:08:55,870 --> 00:08:59,110
It changed from being a league of Allies to clearly being an empire.

74
00:08:59,650 --> 00:09:03,910
So the other thing we should say is that Thucydides makes no mention of this at all.

75
00:09:04,330 --> 00:09:10,870
And this is one of these points that you say where you can actually add extra information, which you get in later sources, I think.

76
00:09:11,380 --> 00:09:15,940
But could you maybe just tell us a bit more about that historical context?

77
00:09:15,940 --> 00:09:21,100
Why doesn't Thucydides say anything and why is it such an important moment the moving of the treasure?

78
00:09:21,790 --> 00:09:24,729
Thank you very much. Those questions? I think so, yes.

79
00:09:24,730 --> 00:09:33,520
On the tribute list, I think the first thing to say about these tribute lists is that the Lapis Primus or the first stone,

80
00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:35,800
which we we're dealing with now,

81
00:09:36,340 --> 00:09:50,170
records from four, five, four, three B.C., the quota of the tribute that the Athenians dedicated to the treasury of the deity, Athena.

82
00:09:50,650 --> 00:09:57,160
And that was 1/60 of the amount of tribute from each community that sent it.

83
00:09:58,090 --> 00:10:04,350
So in order to get a sense of how much tributes the Athenians received in total.

84
00:10:04,470 --> 00:10:10,350
We have to multiply the figures by 60 to get the full amount.

85
00:10:11,130 --> 00:10:15,000
Now, physically, these lists are particularly striking.

86
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:21,360
This first stone is almost four metres tall, so it's a very big inscription indeed.

87
00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:29,729
It's really monumental. You need to stand on somebody's shoulders and look up if you want to read the top line so you can see

88
00:10:29,730 --> 00:10:36,260
them as as part of the sort of Athenian building programme that's going on on top of the Acropolis,

89
00:10:36,300 --> 00:10:39,420
part of the monumentalization of the Acropolis.

90
00:10:40,230 --> 00:10:47,850
Now, the movement of the Treasury from the island of Delos to Athens to the Athenian Acropolis.

91
00:10:47,850 --> 00:10:58,650
Yes, we believe that took place in 454 B.C. And we think so because this was the first tribute, quota list to be preserved.

92
00:10:59,010 --> 00:11:03,540
There's no explanations, no account of this movement in Thucydides.

93
00:11:03,540 --> 00:11:07,199
It's alluded to, I think, in the work of Plutarch.

94
00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:11,130
I think. Why doesn't Thucydides tell us about this?

95
00:11:11,160 --> 00:11:18,540
Well, I think the answer is that Thucydides was giving an account of the Peloponnesian War,

96
00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:26,190
he's not writing a history of Athenian imperialism or the development of Athens' methods of control.

97
00:11:26,940 --> 00:11:30,270
He is concerned with the growth of Athenian power.

98
00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:39,739
But I don't think he sees the movements of the Treasury as part of the development of Athenian power.

99
00:11:39,740 --> 00:11:48,960
And that's quite surprising to us because we tend to think of financial centralisation as an aspect of control and of power.

100
00:11:49,470 --> 00:11:50,190
Whereas Thucydides

101
00:11:50,190 --> 00:12:01,530
appears not to have taken that view either that or it was among the things that he chose not to include in his account of Athenian power.

102
00:12:01,980 --> 00:12:10,350
Remember that Thucydides is an individual making choices about what to and what not to include in his history.

103
00:12:10,620 --> 00:12:18,600
And for whatever reason, he may have deliberately decided it not to be relevant to his view of Athens.

104
00:12:19,560 --> 00:12:22,990
So what does this stone actually say on it?

105
00:12:23,070 --> 00:12:31,020
Well, it's got a heading that tells us that during the arconship of Ariston in Athens,

106
00:12:31,020 --> 00:12:38,130
which is the Athenians way of referring to the year four or five or three B.C. So the Archon Ariston

107
00:12:38,140 --> 00:12:45,780
comes into office in summer four or five four holds office until summer four or five three.

108
00:12:45,780 --> 00:12:54,629
And that's why it's called The Alchemy of Our Stone. The Inscriptions tells us that these were the first fruits declared by the

109
00:12:54,630 --> 00:13:00,150
HellenoTamiai to have been received by the Goddess from the Allied Tribute.

110
00:13:00,660 --> 00:13:07,140
These Hellenotamaia are translated usually as the Treasuries of the Greeks,

111
00:13:07,560 --> 00:13:13,110
and they seem to have been the officials who were responsible for receiving the tribute and

112
00:13:13,110 --> 00:13:20,909
counting it and making sure that the 1/60 of it was given to the Treasury of the deity.

113
00:13:20,910 --> 00:13:33,290
Athena. So then we have several columns of writing in which the Athenians give the names of the allied communities.

114
00:13:33,540 --> 00:13:44,510
So, for instance, the Abdyrites writes, the people from Abdyra are recorded as paying 1285 drachmas and to abuse.

115
00:13:45,300 --> 00:13:52,170
And then other communities as they paid are listed with the sum of money that they paid.

116
00:13:52,650 --> 00:13:58,800
And so that goes on for several columns until we get to the next year.

117
00:13:59,460 --> 00:14:05,700
So that's pretty much what these lists consist of, a heading declaring what this is.

118
00:14:06,180 --> 00:14:14,340
Then the list of the communities. So it's generally communities rather than places wholly state, but with an ancient Greek heritage.

119
00:14:14,700 --> 00:14:22,530
And then the sum of money, which as I say, you have to multiply by 60 to get a sense of the full amount.

120
00:14:23,430 --> 00:14:25,200
In that first year's list.

121
00:14:25,560 --> 00:14:35,100
Probably one of the outstanding things, one of the eye catching things is the sheer amount of tribute that some of the communities pay.

122
00:14:35,880 --> 00:14:41,160
So in the sixth column, we have the mention of the Aeginitans

123
00:14:41,160 --> 00:14:49,710
the people of Aegina who transferred 3000 drachma in that year to the treasury of Athena.

124
00:14:50,280 --> 00:14:56,610
So to to understand the full sum, we have to multiply that 3000 struck me by 60.

125
00:14:57,180 --> 00:15:02,820
And it turns out that the Aeginitans would have paid a total of 30 talents tribute.

126
00:15:03,270 --> 00:15:06,389
And that's a lot of money. It reflects.

127
00:15:06,390 --> 00:15:16,920
On the one hand, the Agenitans community was pretty wealthy and appears to have been able to afford to pay that large sum,

128
00:15:17,430 --> 00:15:22,680
but also maybe says something to us about the Athenian attitudes towards the ancient items.

129
00:15:22,980 --> 00:15:28,200
This was probably a punishing tax to have extracted from your community.

130
00:15:28,530 --> 00:15:31,800
It would have been a burden on the people of Aegina.

131
00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:35,910
I'm I right in Thucydides 

132
00:15:35,940 --> 00:15:39,990
Short accounts of the years for 7812, four, three, five or so.

133
00:15:40,320 --> 00:15:46,970
He mentions in about 4.8 the Athenians just absolutely scorched as an island.

134
00:15:46,980 --> 00:15:56,290
Is that is that right? Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the bones of contention between the Athenians and the Peloponnesian

135
00:15:56,300 --> 00:16:01,460
War at the beginning of the war is certainly the Athenian attitude towards the Aeginitans.

136
00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:08,450
Well, as you say, if you said this tells us a lot about Athenian treatment of Aegina, a mistreatment of Aegina.

137
00:16:09,170 --> 00:16:14,360
Fantastic. Thank you, Peter. Well, let's let's move things on to what's known as the Calchis Decree.

138
00:16:14,630 --> 00:16:20,540
So we've seen with the first stone, the first evening that the Athenians are running their own treasury.

139
00:16:20,930 --> 00:16:23,450
If this isn't an empire, then I don't know what it is.

140
00:16:23,780 --> 00:16:30,200
But quite often the Calchis Decree is the one where people sort of save and it's gone further.

141
00:16:30,650 --> 00:16:36,139
I guess also we should mention. What we have from the literary record, particularly each of the these,

142
00:16:36,140 --> 00:16:44,600
is the fact that the island of Euboea  has a big revolt in about four, four, six, which Pericles manages to put down.

143
00:16:44,930 --> 00:16:51,530
And that seems to be the context for this Decree, of course, being the main city on the island.

144
00:16:51,890 --> 00:16:55,730
So tell us a bit more about the relationship with Euboea  and then this decree.

145
00:16:56,690 --> 00:17:08,810
Euboea is an island with plenty of resources, with space, with planes, the growing grain, with supplies of wood, with other mineral resources.

146
00:17:09,260 --> 00:17:20,300
And it becomes quite a desirable place for the Athenians to exploit in many ways and militarily, quite weak.

147
00:17:20,780 --> 00:17:28,520
These city states seem to sign up to the Athenian empire quite early on, or sign up to the deal in league quite early on.

148
00:17:28,850 --> 00:17:35,960
But maybe as time wears on they start to realise that this isn't the kind of association that they want to take part in.

149
00:17:36,260 --> 00:17:46,550
And that may well explain some of the political dissatisfaction that they appear to express in the middle of the fifth century,

150
00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:50,540
which leads to the kind of upheaval that you've already mentioned.

151
00:17:51,470 --> 00:17:59,540
I think one of the striking things about this decree is the fact that the Athenians

152
00:17:59,900 --> 00:18:08,360
are writing it in language which emphasises the relations of cold case with Athens.

153
00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:16,070
So when the people of cold case swear, as the Athenians set out for them to do so,

154
00:18:16,430 --> 00:18:22,820
they swear not revolt from the people of Athens by any means or default whatsoever.

155
00:18:22,850 --> 00:18:36,140
Neither in world or indeed on the people of Calchis then are swearing not in oath to Athens and her allies, but just to the people of Athens.

156
00:18:36,530 --> 00:18:43,880
But I think in this decree, which is which is probably a settlement after a dispute,

157
00:18:44,060 --> 00:18:49,790
there are two sides to it, as on the one hand and this is stated early on in the decree.

158
00:18:50,540 --> 00:18:51,860
The Athenians,

159
00:18:51,980 --> 00:19:01,220
or at least the members of the Athenian council and their jurors swear an oath that they're not going to expel Calchidians from Calchis. 

160
00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:08,750
They're not going to deprive individuals of their civic rights or send any Calchidians into exile.

161
00:19:09,110 --> 00:19:15,140
They're going to maintain this kind of behaviour while the Calchidians obey the Athenians.

162
00:19:15,650 --> 00:19:24,200
So this is important. The Athenians are giving the Calchidians some rights as long as they obey the Athenians

163
00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:28,580
so can't just come in there because that word obeying is really important though,

164
00:19:28,580 --> 00:19:37,580
isn't it? Because if we go back 30 years, Aristidies the just to set up this wonderful equal organisation which we call the Delian League,

165
00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:43,970
the Athenians and its allies on the island of Delos and in some mutual protection Greek.

166
00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:47,900
This is not what we're looking at now with the Calchis decree anymore, is it?

167
00:19:48,710 --> 00:19:53,800
Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's a it's a very different situation where yeah.

168
00:19:53,870 --> 00:19:58,879
The Calchidians are expected to obey the Athenian people and they swear an

169
00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:03,920
oath promising that they're not going to revolt from the people of Athens.

170
00:20:04,310 --> 00:20:07,730
They swear not to obey anybody who does revolts.

171
00:20:08,780 --> 00:20:13,910
They also swear if anybody revolts from the Athenians, they will denounce them.

172
00:20:14,330 --> 00:20:20,540
They will pay whatever tributes. They have persuaded the Athenians to agree with them.

173
00:20:21,110 --> 00:20:28,520
They swear to help and defend the Athenian people in the event of anyone blocking the Athenian people.

174
00:20:28,550 --> 00:20:32,060
And again, in the oath of the town Calchidians swear.

175
00:20:32,420 --> 00:20:41,960
Obedience. And this oath is sworn by all Calchidians, male Calchidians, of military age.

176
00:20:42,290 --> 00:20:52,280
And if anybody refuses to swear they so, they will be deprived of their civic rights and their property would be confiscated.

177
00:20:52,310 --> 00:20:56,780
So this is. Yeah. This is quite hard imperialism.

178
00:20:57,530 --> 00:21:05,330
The Calchidians are made obliged to swear this oath of obedience to the Athenian people.

179
00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:13,370
The Athenians, we know, also have persuaded or coerced, maybe the Calchidians to send them hostages.

180
00:21:14,030 --> 00:21:17,190
This is not being part of a free alliance.

181
00:21:17,210 --> 00:21:22,120
This is very much being part of a an imperialistic organisation.

182
00:21:22,850 --> 00:21:27,259
And they want to then because it is such good evidence for who were by this time.

183
00:21:27,260 --> 00:21:31,620
In terms of the empire, can we transfer this across to other states?

184
00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:34,430
Can we say, well, because they're treating the Calchidians like this.

185
00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:39,260
This is pretty much how they're going to be treating all of this subject allies, potentially those who revolt.

186
00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:50,140
Yeah, we probably can extrapolate from this, but at least say this is one model of the way that the Athenians treated their allies.

187
00:21:50,500 --> 00:21:55,280
Obviously, we don't have decrees like this for every Athenian state.

188
00:21:55,720 --> 00:22:03,010
We have a decree for it from some 20 years later for the people of Hystiaea.

189
00:22:03,220 --> 00:22:11,260
Also on the island of Euboea , which has similar kinds of specifications that they have to obey.

190
00:22:11,950 --> 00:22:18,609
I mean, it's also interesting to compare this inscription with the decree for the Erythryans.

191
00:22:18,610 --> 00:22:22,000
about ten years previously,

192
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:32,139
which is in some ways rather different because in that decree the Athenians seem to be treating the people of Erithrya,

193
00:22:32,140 --> 00:22:37,930
which is a small state on the west coast of Asia, minor, probably after having put down a revolt.

194
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:48,430
But in that takes, the Athenians tend to place emphasis on setting up a democratic constitution in a Erithrya.

195
00:22:49,150 --> 00:22:59,550
So they set up the details of a council of 100 and 2020 male citizens selected from the population of a record.

196
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:07,870
And there is a lot of coercion in that. And there's this evidence for the Athenians being worried about

197
00:23:07,870 --> 00:23:14,920
them going over to the Persians or going over to people who the Athenians label as tyrants.

198
00:23:15,430 --> 00:23:16,209
But the reason,

199
00:23:16,210 --> 00:23:26,950
the same level of detail and the reason the same emphasis on obedience to the Athenians or obedience to the for the Athenian courts in that decree.

200
00:23:26,950 --> 00:23:34,480
So I think we can compare the Calchis decree with the Erithyra decree and see how Athenian imperialism

201
00:23:34,810 --> 00:23:41,380
is developing and see how the the methods of coercion and control are emerging as time goes on.

202
00:23:42,500 --> 00:23:44,170
That's really helpful. Thank you, Peter.

203
00:23:44,470 --> 00:23:50,340
Well, let's move to our third prescribe stones for the appearance of the and that is what's known as the Thudyppus Decree.

204
00:23:50,350 --> 00:23:56,560
And that is talking about a huge increase in the in the year 45.

205
00:23:56,830 --> 00:23:57,909
And perhaps we should say,

206
00:23:57,910 --> 00:24:05,830
because we've talked quite a bit about it now that Thucydides these tells us in 477 that the initial tribute was this for 60 talents.

207
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:12,700
And then he tells us again that at the outbreak of the war, it was 600 talents.

208
00:24:12,910 --> 00:24:20,140
So I know there's some debate about whether these numbers are totally reliable, but it's gone up in that 45 year period.

209
00:24:20,410 --> 00:24:24,430
But then it goes up to a whopping 1460.

210
00:24:24,430 --> 00:24:34,930
I think if I haven't got that number wrong with this decree and also 425, such a key year, I know all of the students studying this will remember this.

211
00:24:34,930 --> 00:24:40,479
This is the year that Cleon has this amazing success down in Pylos and bactria was

212
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:45,490
the victory there and the taking of 220 Spartans soldiers back to Athens as hostages.

213
00:24:45,820 --> 00:24:53,190
So clearly he's riding high. He's a hard liner. Tell us about this decree and how does it fit in with everything else that's going?

214
00:24:54,140 --> 00:25:06,080
Okay. So the Thoudippus decree. This is a decree in which the Athenians and it's firmly dated to 425, 424 B.C.,

215
00:25:06,620 --> 00:25:13,040
in which the Athenians decide to revise the assessment of Delian League tribute.

216
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:21,050
And the decree goes into details about how this is going to be undertaken.

217
00:25:21,230 --> 00:25:34,190
And it's all or the main part of the decree is carried out on the basis of a proposal by somebody, a male Athenian citizen called Thoudippus.

218
00:25:34,700 --> 00:25:40,250
And according to some accounts,Thoudippos was the son in law of the politician.

219
00:25:40,490 --> 00:25:52,910
That James just mentioned, Cleon. So this titan of tribute could possibly be associated with the imperialistic drive of Cleon.

220
00:25:53,060 --> 00:25:57,350
Now, that association isn't very controversial.

221
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:02,780
Some historians have disputed this close link between Thoudippos and Cleon.

222
00:26:03,020 --> 00:26:05,900
But it certainly is one interpretation.

223
00:26:06,470 --> 00:26:17,090
So the Athenians in this decree say that they're going to send heralds, which will be sent to the different districts of the Athenian empire.

224
00:26:17,300 --> 00:26:26,360
So to Ionia and Caria on the west coast of Asia, minor to Thrace in the north to the island district,

225
00:26:27,170 --> 00:26:33,500
which is some of the districts of the Athenian empire and to the Hellespont in Northwest Asia minor.

226
00:26:34,010 --> 00:26:42,260
And these these heralds are going to announce to the assembly of each of the city that the envoys are on their way

227
00:26:42,410 --> 00:26:49,160
and that they're going to come and reassess the amount of tributes that each of these cities is expected to pay.

228
00:26:49,970 --> 00:26:57,160
Some lines later in the decree. I think there's a really important passage which explains why the Athenians are doing this.

229
00:26:57,190 --> 00:27:06,890
So this is line 16 and it says, since the tribute has become too little and that's vital to this reassessment.

230
00:27:07,670 --> 00:27:13,610
The Athenians, it seems, probably owing to the ongoing efforts in the Peloponnesian War,

231
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:18,950
find that they need more money to be brought in from the allies.

232
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:25,010
That goes on to say another important sentence, which I think is really important to consider.

233
00:27:25,220 --> 00:27:33,530
So I'll quote it. It says, There shall not be a lesser tribute for any of the cities than the amount which they were paying previously.

234
00:27:34,100 --> 00:27:45,410
So all tributes are going to go up unless for any one city there is a problem that the land is unproductive so that it is impossible to pay more.

235
00:27:45,470 --> 00:27:51,230
And this is really interesting. This gives us an Athenian perspective on imperialism.

236
00:27:51,950 --> 00:28:00,860
They're saying all tribute is going to go up unless there's some issue with a lack of probably agricultural productivity.

237
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:07,130
Now, of course, we don't know whether the Athenians actually put that rule into place.

238
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:14,690
But at least they're saying this. They're saying that we're going to take into consideration the possibility that

239
00:28:14,690 --> 00:28:19,070
there is a low level of production and that that's making things difficult.

240
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:26,420
There are a number of other things I'd also emphasise that are going on in this decree.

241
00:28:27,260 --> 00:28:37,100
One is the importance of the great Panathenaia here, which is the big celebration of the festival of Athena that takes place every four years.

242
00:28:37,580 --> 00:28:43,580
And this, by that time, has become the context for the reassessment of tribute.

243
00:28:44,390 --> 00:28:51,830
And there are also things about the amounts of money being expected by the Athenians, being requested by the Athenians.

244
00:28:52,580 --> 00:29:02,810
Again, we can think about amounts. The people of the island of Paros are expected to hand over considerable amounts.

245
00:29:03,140 --> 00:29:08,660
So 30 talents, according to this decree, is expected from the Parians.

246
00:29:08,990 --> 00:29:14,630
But we also know that actually in the 430s, the Parians were paying 18 talents.

247
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:21,020
So there's a a considerable increase from 18 to 30, the amount being expected from the Parians.

248
00:29:21,170 --> 00:29:25,370
And then there are one or two other oddities as well in this decree.

249
00:29:25,420 --> 00:29:31,310
The Athenians are expecting that the Melians should pay an amount of tribute.

250
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:39,590
And it's very hard to say how or why the Athenians expected the people of Melos to pay.

251
00:29:39,890 --> 00:29:46,770
They don't seem to have paid for a number of years. And as you know from the Melian dialogue in Saturday's Book five,

252
00:29:46,790 --> 00:29:52,760
the Athenians have quite a lot of trouble with the Melians and getting them to join the Athenian.

253
00:29:53,570 --> 00:30:01,880
Confederacy. So the Athenians have high expectations of their allies, which is set out in this decree.

254
00:30:02,090 --> 00:30:06,080
But it's probably the case that those expectations were never actually met.

255
00:30:06,770 --> 00:30:07,070
Okay.

256
00:30:07,730 --> 00:30:18,200
So we don't quite know exactly whether they gathered all of this tribute, but the the headline news news is that from 431, when they're charging 600 talents.

257
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:22,009
And Thuycides is a high level Athenian that probably knows.

258
00:30:22,010 --> 00:30:25,280
That's probably a very reliable, vigorous. They're more than doubling.

259
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:27,080
It's going up about two and a half times.

260
00:30:27,590 --> 00:30:38,480
And that is because presumably the war has gone on longer than Pericles was anticipating, he's dead by now, they need more money for the war.

261
00:30:38,510 --> 00:30:40,340
That's, I guess, question one.

262
00:30:40,700 --> 00:30:47,630
And then secondly, in the course, we go on to read about the the expedition of Brasidas us to the thrace-ward region.

263
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:54,170
And he seems to be able to turn quite a lot the Athenian cities into Spartan hands and

264
00:30:54,170 --> 00:31:00,800
make them revolts and therefore does this massive hike in the collection of tribute.

265
00:31:01,220 --> 00:31:06,030
Does that cause revolts, do we think? You would expect that it would.

266
00:31:06,690 --> 00:31:13,560
And we'd have to turn to Thucydides to ask whether those revolts took place.

267
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:21,510
Certainly there are examples of communities that are unhappy with the new status quo.

268
00:31:22,190 --> 00:31:30,150
These are the Scionians of northern Greece revolt, and they're treated particularly harshly by the Athenians.

269
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:40,140
There are revolts going on, and certainly the Athenian response to those revolts seems to become harsher and harsher as time goes on.

270
00:31:40,500 --> 00:31:47,130
So I think, yes, this is a clear indication that all is not well in the Athenian empire.

271
00:31:47,190 --> 00:31:52,020
The amounts of money being asked for is going up. And additionally, as you say,

272
00:31:52,230 --> 00:31:59,610
the Athenians have to take into account the fact that the Spartans are quite happy to support revolts

273
00:31:59,910 --> 00:32:06,180
and to take advantage of this kind of unhappiness in the Athenian empire to suit their own purposes.

274
00:32:07,690 --> 00:32:13,269
That's great. Thank you, Peter. Well, before we finish, there are obviously lots and lots and lots of attic inscriptions out there.

275
00:32:13,270 --> 00:32:17,460
And I do encourage students to go and explore the attic inscriptions online.

276
00:32:17,470 --> 00:32:20,880
The site is incredibly detailed commentaries there and links.

277
00:32:22,030 --> 00:32:27,960
But let's just headline, I think for our students, a few other inscriptions that could be really useful to look at.

278
00:32:27,970 --> 00:32:31,900
So we've already talked about we've already talked about the Erythrian inscription

279
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:36,910
and the four fifties and how Athens imposed as a democracy really on a city.

280
00:32:37,570 --> 00:32:43,300
Let's actually jump back, though, to the Pelos and Bactria is a very short inscription,

281
00:32:43,690 --> 00:32:50,889
is one from a shield captured from one of those spots and 120 soldiers?

282
00:32:50,890 --> 00:32:58,780
Are we we assume that. So it's just worth mentioning that, again, for our students, there's archaeological evidence of something, a really key moment.

283
00:32:59,230 --> 00:33:02,390
That's right. That's right. So, as you know,

284
00:33:02,410 --> 00:33:13,959
Thucydides gives us many details of the the Athenian victory on the island of bacteria off the coast of Messinia in 425 B.C. And this is

285
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:23,140
one of those times where the inscriptions add a bit more colour to the the detail given to us by military sources on a later writer.

286
00:33:23,140 --> 00:33:25,150
Pausanias in the second century,

287
00:33:25,150 --> 00:33:38,050
A.D. says that the Athenians took bronze shields from Spartan prisoners and displayed them as trophies in the agora at the painted stoa

288
00:33:38,380 --> 00:33:46,070
And some of these seem to have been extant at the time that he was writing, but one of them survives into the present day.

289
00:33:46,070 --> 00:33:48,850
It was later used as a cover for a cistern.

290
00:33:49,330 --> 00:33:57,280
And on the shield, which is preserved in the Athenian agora, we have a inscription saying The Athenians dedicated this,

291
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:01,510
having taken it from the Lakedaimonians, i.e. the Spartans at Pelos.

292
00:34:01,810 --> 00:34:12,880
And it's an excellent way that we can start to think about how the Athenians presented a military campaign that was successful by taking something,

293
00:34:13,270 --> 00:34:16,659
writing on it, setting it up as a gift to the gods,

294
00:34:16,660 --> 00:34:24,100
and at the same time also giving them their own military success, a bit of publicity for the home audience.

295
00:34:24,460 --> 00:34:28,330
So that's a really interesting object to focus on.

296
00:34:29,260 --> 00:34:35,700
Yeah. And it's for me, it's so exciting to think that we read about this amazing episode where the Spartans surrendered.

297
00:34:35,710 --> 00:34:40,450
They're never supposed to surrender. And we can actually go to, I think is in the Agora Museum in Athens.

298
00:34:40,450 --> 00:34:44,500
And you could actually look at one of the shields that the Spartans were holding.

299
00:34:44,570 --> 00:34:49,479
It's just incredible that so a couple of others. The first one is a war memorial.

300
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:58,270
You mentioned war memorials at the start, and this is a memorial for one tribe, one of the ten tribes of Athens in the year 460-459.

301
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:03,940
And it records these six places that they were fighting.

302
00:35:03,940 --> 00:35:10,120
Three of them are in Greece. And then I think the other three are Cyprus, Egypt and Phoenicia, modern Lebanon.

303
00:35:10,660 --> 00:35:18,219
And what's useful about this, I think, is that it really matches what thucydides is telling us in his account for the year of that period that the

304
00:35:18,220 --> 00:35:24,970
Athenians are fighting both in in Greece against the Peloponnesian War and what we call the first Peloponnesian War.

305
00:35:25,150 --> 00:35:28,629
But also they're on that massive campaign down to Egypt.

306
00:35:28,630 --> 00:35:31,810
And tell us a bit about that war memorial. Yes.

307
00:35:31,810 --> 00:35:39,730
So as you say, this is a inscription that records the war dead of the tribe of erektais.

308
00:35:40,330 --> 00:35:44,800
So the Athenian community was divided into ten separate tribes.

309
00:35:45,220 --> 00:35:50,980
And so this inscription lists the war dead of that one tribe.

310
00:35:51,730 --> 00:36:03,790
It's a beautiful inscription, one that was taken by the French in the late 18th, maybe early 19th century, and is still at the Louvre in Paris.

311
00:36:04,660 --> 00:36:08,049
But historically, it's one that, as James says,

312
00:36:08,050 --> 00:36:18,520
coincides very closely with what Thucydides says in the Penteconta about Athenian expeditions in 460 B.C.,

313
00:36:18,940 --> 00:36:22,060
their major naval expedition against Cyprus,

314
00:36:22,510 --> 00:36:33,580
its diversion to Egypt, and also the fact that the campaigning at the same time as Megara and in Aegina all in the same year,

315
00:36:34,270 --> 00:36:38,590
the inscription also mentions an expedition in Phoenicia.

316
00:36:38,860 --> 00:36:45,940
So probably modern Lebanon. That's not mentioned, I don't think, by a few cities,

317
00:36:46,270 --> 00:36:54,400
but it may well have sort of fallen into the context of Cyprus in Egypt that through cities was interested in.

318
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:59,830
But on the whole it very much coincides with the account of thucydides.

319
00:37:00,190 --> 00:37:06,850
The Athenian forces were overstretched at this time, stretched very thin with war on different fronts.

320
00:37:07,330 --> 00:37:16,510
At the same time. Another thing about this inscription is to think about the types of names that we get on it.

321
00:37:17,500 --> 00:37:26,840
It consists of bad name names and just the personal names of those people who died from that tribe.

322
00:37:27,430 --> 00:37:33,190
There is no indication of who their fathers were or where their home village was.

323
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:37,720
All we know is their first name, their personal name and their tribe.

324
00:37:38,260 --> 00:37:45,430
And that might be part of an effort to emphasise the sort of community cohesion of the Erektain tribe.

325
00:37:45,430 --> 00:37:49,300
Everybody is presented equally, if you like.

326
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:59,020
The only differentials that we get, all the two people that named as generals, one of whose names is lost.

327
00:37:59,410 --> 00:38:01,510
The other one was called Hippodamas.

328
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:11,410
There are no other distinctions of rank, though, so we don't know who was a cavalryman or who was a sailor, or who was a hoplite.

329
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:16,720
The only details that we get are that four of the war dead were archers.

330
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:23,170
That may well be because they were non citizens drafted into the Athenian fighting force.

331
00:38:24,380 --> 00:38:31,070
Brilliant thank you And then the final one is what's sometimes known as the Kallias decree, which again,

332
00:38:31,070 --> 00:38:36,380
the dating is not completely agreed, but it seems to be from about four, three, four, four, three, three.

333
00:38:36,950 --> 00:38:47,060
And this is a decree which seems to have the Athenians saving lots of money and requiring lots of money to be brought into the Athenian treasury.

334
00:38:47,390 --> 00:38:52,400
And if that's true, and that date is correct, it could well be that they're getting ready for war,

335
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:56,220
that they're trying to get their funds ready for war. So tell us a little bit about that one as well.

336
00:38:56,990 --> 00:39:08,270
Yeah. So this inscription tells us about the Athenians creating a consolidated treasury of the other deities.

337
00:39:08,660 --> 00:39:12,020
So deities. In other words, other than Athena.

338
00:39:12,650 --> 00:39:22,520
It's a decree which authorises public spending on the walls of the Athenians, the dockyards and the Acropolis.

339
00:39:23,150 --> 00:39:31,400
But otherwise, it's quite limiting about what kind of expenditure the Athenians could undertake from this Treasury.

340
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:38,120
And so this may well be part of a growing concern to monitor spending.

341
00:39:38,450 --> 00:39:45,230
Maybe it's bringing to an end the extravagant parts of expenditure on the building program.

342
00:39:45,590 --> 00:39:52,969
And it may well be part of an attempt of the Athenians to put their finances on a war

343
00:39:52,970 --> 00:39:58,820
footing if they're worried that conflict with the Spartans is about to break out.

344
00:39:59,570 --> 00:40:08,600
And it's interesting to read this inscription alongside you said it is 213 who indirectly quotes Pericles talking

345
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:17,060
about sums of silver think 6000 talents worth of silver that was available as a reserve fund on the Acropolis.

346
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:24,950
So this may well be part of a tightening of financial management in preparation for war.

347
00:40:25,940 --> 00:40:29,989
Yeah. Thanks, Peter. That's really helpful. 213 is a prescribed source one on the course.

348
00:40:29,990 --> 00:40:34,069
So students will have read all about the financial preparations for war.

349
00:40:34,070 --> 00:40:40,340
And it seems likely that this kalmias decree is evidence for that saving of money,

350
00:40:40,570 --> 00:40:45,320
not being prepared to spend much money so that they're getting ready for the war.

351
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:46,750
Well, Peter, thank you.

352
00:40:46,750 --> 00:40:53,389
You've taken us through some really key sources there, and I'm sure that all the students of distance this are going to find that really useful,

353
00:40:53,390 --> 00:41:01,250
but also hopefully want to go and explore themselves because obviously there's only a small number of sources on the A-level period study books.

354
00:41:01,460 --> 00:41:03,530
Hopefully, this has been a fantastic taster.

355
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:10,970
Thank you so much for your time and we look forward to hearing from you more in regards to A-level ancient history.

356
00:41:11,810 --> 00:41:16,100
Thank you very much for your questions and for for all the very helpful prompting.

357
00:41:16,430 --> 00:41:21,560
And it was really good to talk to you and to talk to talk about Greek inscriptions, which I'll do anytime.