Silver Coin (Tetradrachm) Of Athens, 440-430 B.C. The types for Athenian coins, with Athena's head and the owl with olive twig, change only
in style from the end of the sixth century through the Hellenistic period. Athens enjoyed her own supply of silver from the mines at Laurium
and attempted to monopolize the coining of silver throughout her empire in the fifth century.
That the fifth-century Athenian Empire (despite the protection which it offered to the more uncomfortably placed Greeks against Persia and,
we should add, pirates) was, or became, an oppressive instrument should not be disputed. The strongest argument, against desperate efforts to
see it as a benevolent and generally popular institution, is to be found in an important inscription of the year 377, which sets out the terms and
aims of a second Athenian naval confederacy and explicitly repudiates for the future a number of fifth-century practices - tribute, territorial
encroachments, garrisons, governors, and so forth - which were clearly felt in retrospect to have been abuses. The only real argument is not
over the adjective 'oppressive', but over the appropriate verb, 'was' or 'became'. That is, was the empire (always), or did it (gradually) become,
oppressive? There is very little detailed evidence of any kind about the Athenian Empire before about 450, so that the appearance of
qualitative change after that date may be a delusion. Nevertheless formulas do get more candidly imperialistic even in the period for which
inscriptions survive in numbers, and from the Tribute Lists it is plausible to reconstruct a period of crisis after the Peace of Callias in 449. Late
payment and non-payment of tribute in those years suggest disaffection due to a feeling that the originally anti-Persian organization had lost
its justification. But whatever is taken to be the point of change, it is sure that there was one: the remark made in 411 by a speaker in the pages
of Thucydides, that what the 'allies' really wanted was freedom from both Spartan-sponsored oligarchs and Athenian-supported democrats,
could not have been made in the euphoric atmosphere of 478.
What forms, then, did Athenian interference and control, or (less neutrally) oppression, take? First, economic: obedient to the economic
compulsion which we have noticed already, Athens used imperial institutions to make sure of her own corn-supply. We hear of 'guards of the
Hellespont', who determined how much grain was permitted to consumers other than Athens; of 10-per-cent taxes levied on shipping there
(grain bound for Athens herself was presumably exempt); and, in the fourth century at any rate, of laws restricting commercial transactions
involving grain bound elsewhere than for Athens. More generally we have already noticed that desire for precious metal and ship-timber was
part of the explanation for aggression against, and settlements at, Thasos, Thurii, and Amphipolis. Above all there was tribute, in ships or
money (increasingly the second was preferred by all parties).
Second, administrative and military garrisons and garrison-commanders are amply attested, by no means all of them to be explained as present
by invitation, like Russian tanks rolling into 'fraternal' Prague or Kabul. And the greatest weapon of all was the fleet.