The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

8 THE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
the grain ships that had to pass by while the Spartan garrison at Decelea
blocked the normal route from Euboea. They abandoned the fort in
Laconia, which had produced disappointing results and was a drain
on the treasury, for as Thucydides remarks, "if they judged any expenditure
useless they curtailed it in the interests of economy." Most
especially, the Athenians in the time of the probouloi kept a close watch
over their allies "so that they might not revolt from them." 38
At the same time, they introduced a major change in the manner
of collecting revenue from the empire. They abandoned the collection
of tribute on the basis of assessments imposed by the Athenians on
each allied city; instead, they imposed on the allies a 5 percent duty
on all goods imported or exported by sea. 39 One reason for the change
was the hope of increasing revenue. The tribute from 418 to 414 has
been estimated at 900 talents annually. To equal that figure with the
new tax would require an annual value of the seaborne traffic in the
empire of r8,ooo talents. 40 We cannot tell whether such a figure would
be easily achieved, but we may view the problem in another way. The
Athenians may have made the change not in the hope of collecting
more money than they were already getting but more than they might
expect to get from the old system under the new circumstances. After
all, they were fearing and expecting defections, some, presumably,
from those allies most heavily assessed. The shift in the nature of the
tax could mean a shift in how heavily each state was taxed and also
which citizens within each state bore the burden. We do not know
how the several subject states raised the money to pay their tribute;
probably practices varied. Very likely, real property was the basis for
internal taxation to provide funds for paying the tribute, at least to
some degree. The new tax would shift the burden to those engaged
in commerce, who may have been burdened less, or not at all, in the
past. Thus new sources of revenue might be tapped. Perhaps, also,
subjects engaged in commerce, who benefited so greatly from the
advantages of the empire, might be less reluctant to pay taxes and
better disposed to Athens. Tax relief for the landed citizens, presumably
more restive, might reduce the pressures for rebellion as well as
increase Athenian revenue.
In the absence of better evidence, all of this is only speculation, but
"8·4·
39
7.28.4. The change was probably made in the autumn of 413 (HCT IV, 402), just
when the probouloi were elected (Smith, Athenian Political Commissions, 39).
4{)HCT IV, 4o8.