They maintained that the allies paid for deliverance
from the Persians; they, therefore, had no claim against Athens so
long as she defended them from the Great King. The allies had now
become the tributaries of Athens: they were now her subjects. Athens
increased the tax on them, and required their citizens to bring their
cases before the Athenian courts; she even sent colonists to seize a
part of their lands. Athens, mistress of the league, was sovereign
over more than three hundred cities spread over the islands and the
coasts of the Archipelago, and the tribute paid her amounted to six
hundred talents a year.
STRIFE AMONG THE GREEK STATES
=The Peloponnesian War.=--After the foundation of the Athenian empire
in the Archipelago the Greeks found themselves divided between two
leagues--the maritime cities were subject to Athens; the cities of the
interior remained under the domination of Sparta. After much
preliminary friction war arose between Sparta and her continental
allies on the one side and Athens and her maritime subjects on the
other. This was the _Peloponnesian War_. It continued twenty-seven
years (431-404), and when it ceased, it was revived under other names
down to 360.
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