Map 3. The Athenian Empire. The shaded area on the map shows the maximum extent of the Athenian Empire: 'the cities which the Athenians
rule' is how the Athenians themselves would have put it; alternatively, 'the islanders'. This map shows why the second description was
appropriate. It should be remembered that some places in Asia Minor probably paid tribute to Persia as well as to Athens; that some
strategically important and financially valuable possessions (such as Amphipolis in the north) did not pay tribute in a way which caused them
to be entered on the so-called Tribute Lists at all; and that the Athenian Empire was not exclusively, though it was primarily, an 'Aegean', i.e.,
east Mediterranean affair. For instance, payments from some Italian and Sicilian communities in about 415 were handled by the
Hellenotamiai, the imperial treasurers; and it has been suggested that Orchomenus in landlocked Boeotia paid tribute in the mid-century. The
'Tribute Lists', from which we learn details of the payments, were great marble stelae set up on the Acropolis which recorded that one-sixtieth
of the tribute which was due to Athena; substantial fragments survive.
Third, judicial. Inscriptions show that serious cases were concentrated in Athens. Literary sources allege, no doubt truly, that the popular law
courts (below, p. 136) were used for the persecution of anti-Athenian elements, a category which overlaps, but is not necessarily identical
with, oligarchs. A final judicial shortcoming: Athenian law never anticipated Roman in developing a separate category of 'extortion' offences,
specifically framed to protect oppressed provincials from the rapacity of governors.
Fourth, religious. Doctrinaire imposition of religious views was generally alien to Greek and Roman thinking, but we have noticed already the
way in which Athens, the self-proclaimed metropolis of Ionia, exploited religious propaganda as a way of asserting her authority over her