This dissertation explores novel perspectives on the fifth-century Athenian empire, drawing on both overlooked evidence and new theoretical approaches. Informed by visions of state formation as formally experimental, its ultimate aim is to transform the conversation about the empire by bringing to light alternative lines along which sovereignty was expressed and contested. From its very beginning, Athenian imperialism mobilized forms of interaction that were altered in use, often in aleatory and unexpected ways. I thus see in its history not a trajectory from voluntary alliance to heavy-handed empire, but a conceptual and discursive struggle to define and control a novel form of politics.

The first chapter explores these issues through social-scientific and lexical discussion of empires and the Athenian empire in particular, and of the implications of the growing trend to refer to it with the word arche. In the second, I turn to dissent over Athens' solipsistic domination of the empire by considering the construction of several treasury buildings on Delos by Athenian allies during the early period of the empire (ca. 478-454 BC). These apparently simple buildings were enmeshed in the web of ideological forces unleashed in the aftermath of the Persian invasions, asserting loyalty to the Greek cause while simultaneously challenging Athenian domination of that cause’s symbolic capital---and the definition of the empire that accompanied it. In the third chapter I use previously neglected literary and archaeological evidence to examine the interface between religious conduct and imperial power in Tenedos and Ionia. Pindar’s eleventh Nemean ode deploys genealogical myth in order to express a Tenedian aristocrat’s dissent from Athenian power, urging, instead, solidarity with Sparta and Boiotia. By contrast, elites in Ionia ceased using painted sarcophagi just as they fell under Athenian sway, revealing their acquiescence to leveling, democratic pressures emanating from the imperial center. And in the fourth chapter, I consider contributions to the empire in a more general sense, showing how and why different imperial obligations endured after the collapse of the empire and, in particular, examining the interface between tribute payment and civic fiscality at Miletos.

A number of recent historians have argued that there are simply no appropriate historical comparanda for Athenian imperialism and that, accordingly, modern languages furnish no word that could accurately denote the empire. My first chapter therefore begins the dissertation by addressing the literature’s largely implicit theory of the Athenian empire as a unique historical phenomenon defined by authoritarian control over subject cities—yet a control without administration, backstopped by a large naval force funded in part by the subject cities’ own tribute. I invoke concepts much discussed in the literature on contemporary global politics, such as “empire by invitation” or “postmodern imperialism,” to question the traditional story that the initially voluntary Delian League turned into a heavy-handed empire in the latter half of the fifth century. Even when supplemented by more recent views, advanced most forcefully by Lisa Kallet, that the empire was economically exploitative ab initio, this reductive account does not account for the elusive yet crucial quality of voluntary participation that always marked the empire even in the 420s and during the Ionian War. Far from being an incommensurable historical phenomenon, the Athenian empire raises questions of political theory that are of vital importance today, providing a particularly powerful example of the ambiguities and opacities of hegemony.

The second chapter continues to query what the empire was by focusing on the hermeneutics of tribute during the period traditionally called the Delian League. It begins by reviewing the consensus theory that Delos was chosen in 478 to be the league’s headquarters because it was a major Ionian sanctuary, and that its Ionian character enabled Athens to exploit her own status as putative motherland of Ionians in order to achieve domination over the allies. A close examination of the slender evidential thread by which that account hangs shows its insufficiency; and, with it removed, the selection of Delos becomes rather mysterious. The relocation of the treasury to Athens in 454 suggests that Delos was not working very well to support Athenian hegemony---it suggests that the multivocal environment of Delos was too open by comparison with the univocality on offer at the heart of Athens. These points are buttressed by a comparison of Delos to the central places of the Peloponnesian and Ionian leagues, Sparta and the Panionion on the Mykale. This comparison illuminates the novel qualities of the Delian League as an institution while also highlighting the history of international contestation and thalassocratic ambitions staked out on Delos. Finally, with this picture of early Classical Delos sketched out, I turn to the tribute and to the treasuries themselves. The tribute turns out to be a way of expressing positions---taken voluntarily or ascribed violently---on Medism and Greek unity against the Persians. In consequence thereof, and as a result of the multivocal nature of Delos, the construction of treasuries on Delos by several allied cities during the period of Delian centrality within the alliance (478--454) is of special significance. Although the architecture of the treasuries is poorly preserved, enough remains to make it likely that all but one of them date to the relevant period. Since the cities in question are among those Athens charged with Medism after the Persian Wars, their construction of treasuries must be indicative of their desire to declare full participation in and dedication to the Greek cause, but it unavoidably also asserts countervailing claims against Athenian domination of the league on a symbolic level.

One of the dissertation’s overall aims is to shed light on attitudes within subject cities; accordingly, in the third chapter, I turn to excavating the ways in which elites responded---in their own cities---to Athenian imperialism in two case studies. The first deals with Tenedos, where a member of the aristocracy, Aristagoras, commissioned an ode from Pindar that was then performed for his inauguration as prytanis. Probably composed in the early-to-mid 450s, the ode remarkably emphasizes the kinship links between Tenedos, Boiotia, and Sparta (the latter two rivals or open enemies of Athens throughout much of the fifth century). Building on recent Pindaric criticism, I argue that the ode was meant to be a significant and effective intervention in the social life of Aristagoras’ society, prying it away from alignment with Athens. In the event, however, Tenedos remained loyal despite this sign of elite disaffection. In some ways the reverse occurred in mainland Ionia, where patterns in the usage of Klazomenian sarcopaghi suggest that elites bowed before a leveling, democratic pressure toward less ostentatious funerary display just at the time this region was entering the Athenian sphere. The sarcophagi are painted with imagery redolent of aristocratic ideology and were probably accompanied by equally lavish funerary display when put into use. Where Aristagoras openly dissented from Athens, Klazomenian and other Ionian elites were conducted by pro-Athenian pressures.

This conclusion is somewhat paradoxical at first blush, since some have argued that mainland Ionian elites were the most negatively affected by the Athenian empire. While the second chapter dealt extensively with the tribute (phoros) as a system that signified allegiance to the Greek cause, the fourth and final chapter considers contributions to the empire in a more general sense. A discussion of the apparent requirement that allies bring a cow and panoply to the Greater Panathenaia demonstrates the complex interplay between voluntary and compulsory contributions to the empire, with effects continuing down through the fourth century. By contrast, the similar requirement to offer aparchai at Eleusis was not apparently embraced. I argue that this difference can be explained by the discrepancy of the two systems in which each instance of imperial control was embedded. The bulk of the chapter, however, focuses on the long-term organization of civic fiscality at Miletos, a very large territorial state that included islands far from its coast. By looking at the epigraphic evidence from the islands and the Athenian tribute lists, I argue that the requirement to collect and pay tribute to Athens fostered the development of institutions in these small, extraurban communities.