League by Athens from Thasos and from its dependencies on the main-
land. Thasos paid an enhanced tribute from 443bconwards, moving
from payments of 3T to 30T.^36 These tend to imply, perhaps justifiably, a
kind of‘stick and carrot’approach on the part of Athenian officials. The
profile of coins discovered on the island suggests that Athenian politics
certainly ruled the economic climate in the third and part of the fourth
quarter of thefifth centurybc, with a veritable panorama of coins from
the‘Thracian district’of tribute collection.^37 However, the larger frame
of reference is that of the north as a whole. An overwhelming number of
coins found on Thasos hail from the kingdom of Macedon, including
silver from the time of Amyntas II and the more numerous bronze issues
(bronzes of Philip II and Alexander III dominate here, as elsewhere in the
region); and from issuing centres of Thrace, both civic and ethnic
coinages, representing a sizeable component from the late sixth to the
early third centurybconwards. Abdera (130 out of 650‘northern’coins,
of various periods), Maroneia (80 coins), and Krenides-Philippoi (90
coins) take the lion’s share. There is some evidence from certain idiosyn-
cratic coin types that the island of Thasos was sympathetic to anti-
Macedonians at Olynthos and at Krenides.^38
There are two principal factors that help to explain the nature of
Thasian economic relations with its mainland hinterland orperaia.
One is a gamble that failed; namely, Athenian attempts to plant a full-
blown colonial settlement upriver from their naval base at Eion. The
historian Thucydides, who knew much more than he was prepared to
elaborate in his history of the Peloponnesian War, nevertheless presents
a graphic and rather specific account of the failure,first of Aristagoras of
Miletos, at the time of Darius’expedition to Greece; then of an Athenian
venture that included 10,000 would-be colonists, which coincided with
the siege of Thasos; andfinally the expedition to found Amphipolis,
under Hagnon, in 437bc. Thefirst attempt was defeated by the Edo-
nians; the second by Edonians and other Thracians; and the third by the
Spartan Brasidas, exploiting a variety of local anti-Athenian sentiments
(4.102–109, cf. 1.100.3). Thucydides did not live to see the city’s later
history and eventual Macedonian capture. He may have been exiled by
the Athenian demos as a result of his own role in the loss of Amphipolis
(^36) Pébarthe 1999, 139–49 (restoration of mainland sources of revenue); cf. Brunet 1997,
229 – 42 (mainland influence regained only in 410– 407 bc); Thuc. 8.64.2–5: restoration of
Thasian fortifications, thefleet andfinancial autonomy).
(^37) Pébarthe 1999, 146–50 on tribute to Athens; Picard 1999, 37, for Thasian coinage of
this period.
(^38) Picard 1999, 34–5, 39.
The lure of the northern Aegean 263