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THE ARISTOTELES DECREE AND ATHENS’ IMPERIALIST POLICIES IN THE FOURTH CENTURY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2025

Sviatoslav Dmitriev
Sviatoslav Dmitriev*
Affiliation:
Ball State University
*
dmitriev@bsu.edu
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Abstract

Rejecting the widespread view of the Aristoteles Decree as the founding charter of the Second Athenian League allows us to reconsider the traditionally accepted date of the League’s foundation and to readjust the standard perception of how it was organized. As a public-relations statement and a tool of Athens’ imperialist policies, the Aristoteles Decree both intimidated the Greeks into joining the League and demolished the military alliances of League members (by enforcing individual participation) and non-members (by advancing the autonomy clause).

Keywords

the Aristoteles Decreethe Second Athenian LeagueAthens’ imperialist policiesXenophonDiodorusAgesilausSphodriasChabriasthe Boeotian Federation

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , May 2025 , pp. 165 - 178
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Reconsidering the nature of the so-called Aristoteles Decree, our single most important source for the Second Athenian League, which was Athens’ military alliance in the fourth century, casts a new light on the old question of whether the League was a new edition of the fifth-century Athenian empire and illuminates some of Athens’ imperialist policies after her demise in the Peloponnesian War. The closely interconnected topics examined in this article are the nature of the Aristoteles Decree and the status of Athenian allies.

1. THE ARISTOTELES DECREE

Diodorus and Xenophon are our two main literary sources for the events surrounding the League’s origins. Diodorus’ much more detailed account is significantly later than Xenophon’s text. There is good reason, however, to believe that Diodorus’ source regarding the League’s foundation was Ephorus, a fourth-century historian.Footnote 2 While not consistently reliable, Ephorus at least could claim to be a contemporary of the Second Athenian League, as was Xenophon (whose reliability cannot always be taken for granted either). According to Diodorus, after the liberation of the Cadmea and Thebes from Sparta in the winter of 379/8 (which Diodorus dates to 378–377),Footnote 3 Athens sent envoys to Greek city-states under Spartan control with an appeal to ‘hold on to the common freedom’.Footnote 4 Then, continues Diodorus, the Athenians established a common council (the synedrion) of all the allies in Athens, and ‘the Athenians and the rest of the Greeks who participated in the council were allied with the Thebans’.Footnote 5 Diodorus says that, after Sphodrias’ failed attack on the Piraeus in March 378 (which Diodorus dates to 377, referring to him as Sphodriades), the Athenians declared war on Sparta, ‘admitted the Thebans into the synedrion on terms equal in all respects’, and ‘voted to restore the land settled by cleruchs to its former owners and passed a law that no Athenian should cultivate lands outside of Attica’, thus securing the goodwill of the Greeks who eagerly accepted Athens’ leadership.Footnote 6 Xenophon begins his account with the recovery of the Cadmea from the Spartan garrison by the Thebans with Athens’ help and continues with the failed raid of Sphodrias (using this name, now commonly accepted) and his trial and acquittal in Sparta, after which the Athenians ‘gave aid to the Boeotians with all zeal’.Footnote 7

The Aristoteles Decree—an inscribed Athenian decree moved by Aristoteles of Marathon and adopted in the seventh prytany of Nausinicus’ archonship (February–March 377)—is typically interpreted as the League’s founding document.Footnote 8 The Decree (IG II2 43.15–25), however, merely proclaimed the principles on which the Greeks could join Athens and her allies:

If any of the Greeks or of the barbarians living in Europe or of the islanders, who are not the King’s, wishes to be an ally of the Athenians and their allies, he may be—being free and autonomous, being governed under whatever form of government he wishes, neither receiving a garrison nor submitting to a governor nor paying phoros, on the same terms as the Chians and the Thebans and the other allies.

Opinions on the date of the League’s establishment have diverged. Some believe that its foundation occurred following the liberation of the Cadmea in the winter of 379/8 and that it preceded, and precipitated, Sphodrias’ attack on the Piraeus. Others date the beginning of the League to the autumn of 379, that is, even before the recovery of the Cadmea and the liberation of Thebes.Footnote 9 The majority opinion sees the League’s foundation as a consequence of Sphodrias’ attack and dates it to the period from that attack (March 378) to the adoption of the Aristoteles Decree (February–March 377).Footnote 10 However, Diodorus mentions Athens’ appeal to the Greeks in the name of ‘common freedom’ (from Sparta) after the liberation of the Cadmea, and speaks of Thebes as becoming an ally of Athens and her League at that time before noting that Thebes joined the League in connection with Sphodrias’ raid.Footnote 11

As to Thebes’ League membership, one may question the universally accepted explanation of Diodorus regarding why Thebes joined the League while keeping his suggested date of that event. Why should the Thebans, who already were the allies of Athens and the League, wish to be admitted into the League’s synedrion—acknowledging Athens’ supremacy and (formally) forsaking their nascent hegemony over Boeotia—after Sphodrias’ hapless attack on the Athenian Piraeus? The probable reason Thebes joined the League was Agesilaus’ incursion into Boeotia in the spring of 378. Not as famous as Sphodrias’ raid, it posed a real danger to Thebes’ independence and, as the Thebans should have rightly suspected, established a pattern for such incursions in the future.Footnote 12 Responding to Agesilaus’ attack would give the Thebans enough time to join the League before the adoption of the Aristoteles Decree in February or March 377. Xenophon, who disliked the Thebans, says nothing in the Hellenika about Thebes’ membership in the League (which may not necessarily mean much since Xenophon ignored mentioning the foundation of the League in the first place),Footnote 13 while noting, in the Poroi, that the Thebans ‘handed the leadership over to the Athenians having profited from their good services’. The latter might relate to Xenophon’s description of Agesilaus’ raid into Boeotia in 377, which casually mentions the presence of Chabrias, who was in charge of the Athenian force on the Theban side. In the following year, the Spartan raid into Boeotia was curtailed once its leader, Cleombrotus, saw both the Thebans and the Athenians guarding the road.Footnote 14 The military cooperation between Athens and Thebes in 377 and 376 appears to have been based on Thebes’ membership in the League. Briefly, then, the League should have been in place at some time after the liberation of the Cadmea (winter 379/8), when the Athenians appealed to the Greeks to join in a fight for freedom against Sparta and when the Thebans allied themselves with Athens and the League, and before Agesilaus’ raid into Boeotia (spring–summer 378), when the Thebans became members of the League. There is no direct indication of an earlier date of the League’s foundation.

Establishing the moment of the League’s foundation also depends on understanding how it came into being. The usual view has been that its foundation, as summed up by Ruzicka, ‘represented the augmentation of an already existing συμμαχία comprising Athens, Rhodes, Chios and Byzantium’, meaning that the existing bilateral alliances formed the ‘core’ of the League. According to Tuplin, the foundation of the League ‘involved converting several existing bilateral alliances into a system which eventually offered special rights’ to the members of the League.Footnote 15 However, Athens was not a member of the League, nor did it have a seat in the League’s synedrion—documents mention the Athenians side by side with their allies when decisions were being made and oaths were being swornFootnote 16 —nor did bilateral treaties constitute a comprehensive alliance.

Arguing from parallels between ancient and modern developments might sometimes be illuminating. For instance, the European Union’s formal predecessor, the European Coal and Steel Community (1952–2002), did not just expand into the European Union via augmentation: representatives of its founding countries (France, Belgium, West Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Luxemburg) signed a new agreement, the Maastricht Treaty, in 1993, together with the other six members of the European Communities—in the same way as the countries that would be joining later. The requirement for a separate procedure and treaty explains why the European Coal and Steel Community formally coexisted with the European Union for another decade. Something similar might be suggested for the Second Athenian League: while it relied on the practice and principles of Athens’ earlier bilateral agreements with individual Greek states, the latter made new treaties when they joined the League, just like the states which became its members later. For example, Thebes first formed an alliance with Athens and the League and then joined the League’s council.Footnote 17 Accame, Burnett, Rice, Cargill, Buckler and (tentatively) Occhipinti believe that Athens and Thebes made two treaties and that the second sealed Thebes’ membership in the synedrion.Footnote 18 Whether this second treaty was the lacunose inscription containing Athens’ treaty with Thebes is uncertain.Footnote 19

Diodorus’ reference to Chios and Byzantium as ‘the first to change sides’ in response to Athens’ appeal that ‘the cities which were subject to the Lacedaemonians’ should adhere to ‘the common cause of liberty’ following the liberation of the Cadmea similarly suggests that those cities made new agreements with Athens, because Chios already had a treaty of mutual protection with Athens,Footnote 20 and Byzantium’s treaty with Athens from 378 allegedly included a (restored but universally accepted) clause that the Byzantines would form an alliance with Athens and other allies (which does not mean membership in the League) ‘on the same terms as the Chians’.Footnote 21 Mytilene and Thebes followed later but still before the adoption of the Aristoteles Decree: these cities were inscribed by the same hand as the main document, as opposed to those whose names were added subsequently.Footnote 22 Other Athenian allies similarly changed their status, as evidently did Methymna, whose treaty with Athens from 377 b.c. included the following clause (IG II2 42.11–16):

Concerning what the Methymnaeans say, since the Methymnaeans are allies and well disposed to the city of Athens, so that their alliance may be with the other allies of Athens also, they shall be written up by the secretary of the council, as the other allies have been written up also.

Methymna then swore oaths to the councillors (synedroi) of the League and to Athens in the persons of her generals and hipparchs, and the synedroi together with Athenian generals and hipparchs swore oaths to Methymna. This has been seen as evidence of Methymna ‘converting a bilateral alliance into membership in the League’.Footnote 23 However, if indeed this is evidence of Methymna joining the League, it means that Methymna established a new treaty at that moment.Footnote 24 It is these new treaties that were mentioned in the Aristoteles Decree.Footnote 25

The Aristoteles Decree was not, therefore, the League’s founding document. Nor was it the official list of League members: those who share this idea believe that this list was neglected beginning in 375 or 373 or the late 370s.Footnote 26 For example, the name of Alcetas of Epirus remained on the list after he died in 370.Footnote 27 Nor did the Athenians erase the name of Thebes, which had dropped its League’s membership after (if not before, as we shall see below) the battle of Leuctra (371)—as opposed to how they (allegedly) erased the name of Jason of Pherae after his assassination in 370.Footnote 28 Neither were the names of the cities that renounced their membership in the League erased from the Decree, which many have noticed without providing a convincing explanation.Footnote 29

The apparent neglect of the membership list in the Aristoteles Decree has received diverse interpretations. Some argue that the League stopped admitting new members and, thus, interpret later treaties concluded by Athens and the League with individual states as withholding actual League membership.Footnote 30 However, such attempts fail to define the status of those states. Others believe that, while the League kept admitting new members, the Athenians did not add them to the list in order not to be bound by the principles outlined in the Aristoteles Decree.Footnote 31 But why did, then, the Athenians keep the Aristoteles Decree that invited Greek states to join the League based on those very principles? Still, the fact remains that, although Athens made treaties with Corcyra, Acarnania and Cephallenia in 375, only the last two found a place in the Aristoteles Decree.Footnote 32 Nor does the Decree list the Epirotes, the Athamanes and the Chaones, whom Timotheus made League members in 375, according to Nepos.Footnote 33

This neglect is closely related to the fact that, as many have already noted, the number of allies listed in the Aristoteles Decree (‘about fifty-eight’, according to some)Footnote 34 did not correspond to the total number of the League’s members, as far as it can be surmised. The Aristoteles stele had enough free space to add many new members and, although we do not know the overall number of League members, which certainly changed over time, it was more than 58: describing the beginning of the League in the early 370s, Diodorus noted that ‘seventy cities eventually entered into alliance with the Athenians and participated on equal footing in the common synedrion’. And, speaking in 343, Aeschines claimed that the Athenians had lost 75 allies during and after the Social War, which was clearly far from all of them: if Isocrates’ Areopagiticus dates to (after) the end of the Social War, Athens had ‘numerous’ members of the League when that war was over.Footnote 35 The scepticism of Cargill, who brusquely rejected the information of Diodorus and Aeschines, is unconvincing, just as his idea (shared, as we have seen, by some) that Athens stopped admitting new League members later in the 370s. What should we do with evidence for League membership from much later times, such as when, for example, Chalcis expressly declined to join the League in 341 b.c.?Footnote 36

A better explanation of why we see no new members in the Aristoteles Decree from the latter half of the 370s might be that this Decree was not concerned with meticulously keeping and adjusting the list of the League’s members in the first place. There should have been archival records and a specific public display for that purpose. Whether the ‘common stele of the allies’ mentioned in the Athenian decree on the League’s membership of Corcyra, Acarnania and Cephallenia meant the Aristoteles Decree (which seems to be the majority opinion) or a separate document is unclear.Footnote 37 We also have a (restored) reference to the ‘stele with treaties of the allies’ in the text of Thebes’ treaty with Athens, dated to before the Aristoteles Decree.Footnote 38 Such evidence suggests that the Athenians kept a separate record of the League members and that, accordingly, the Aristoteles Decree was not supposed to accomplish this task.

2. ATHENS’ IMPERIALIST POLICIES AND THE STATUS OF ATHENIAN ALLIES

The nature and purpose of the Aristoteles Decree thus require a reconsideration. Mossé interpreted Athens’ pledges in the Aristoteles Decree as showing ‘clearly that the initiators of the second maritime confederation had no intention of merely reverting to the imperialism of the preceding century’, and Cargill claimed that the League members occupied a privileged ‘free and autonomous’ position.Footnote 39 In a sense they did, but this was only one part of the story. Although Diodorus says in general terms that, after Sphodrias’ raid, the Athenians voted to restore the land settled by Athens’ cleruchs to its former owners and passed a law that no Athenian should cultivate lands outside of Attica, the Aristoteles Decree limited such measures only to League members:

For those who make alliance with the Athenians and the allies, the people shall renounce whatever Athenian possessions there happen to be, whether private or public, in the territory of those who make the alliance […] From the archonship of Nausinicus, it shall not be permitted either privately or publicly to any of the Athenians to acquire either a house or land in the territory of the allies […] If anyone does buy or acquire or take as security […] the synedroi shall sell it and give one half to the man who exposed, while the other shall be the common property of the allies.Footnote 40

By imposing this limitation, the Decree endorsed Athens’ right to occupy the land of non-members, thus pressuring them to join the League. The difference between the text of the Decree and its interpretation by Diodorus not only reminds us of Diodorus’ frequent inaccuracies but also portrays the Decree as a tool of Athens’ imperialist policies.

The same conclusion follows from Athens’ declared aim to preserve the freedom and autonomy of member-states. It took the form of their individual membership (IG II2 43.19–21): each of them held one seat in the synedrion,Footnote 41 which resided in Athens, had equal rights with other members and enjoyed but one vote.Footnote 42 This equality formally aligned with the principles of the King’s Peace,Footnote 43 which comprised the ‘territorial clause’ (acknowledging the right of the Persian king to certain territories and, accordingly, to their cities) and the ‘autonomy clause’ (ensuring the political, legal and administrative independence of Greek cities). In reality, the requirement of individual membership effectively undermined military alliances in Greece, which was the purpose of the ‘autonomy clause’, as some have already noted.Footnote 44

According to Dreher, however, the list of the League members included three dynasts, two demes and two federations, which Dreher saw as ‘special cases’.Footnote 45 The League membership of Alcetas I of Epirus and, as argued by some, Jason of Pherae, whose name was allegedly erased after his assassination, can and should be questioned.Footnote 46 The membership of ‘the Chalcidians from Thrace’ and of ‘the Acarnanians’ led Cargill to conclude that ‘Athens did not enforce the King’s Peace by breaking up leagues’.Footnote 47 But this would go against Athens’ declared principles of individual participation and autonomy.Footnote 48 Of Cargill’s two examples, the [Χαλκι]δῆς ἀπὸ [Θρᾴκης] appears to have been one specific entity, similar to Διε̑ς ἀπὸ Θρᾴκης, which is mentioned below,Footnote 49 whereas ‘the Acarnanians’ simply meant that they all joined the League one by one. If only some of the constituent parts became members, the Decree listed them individually together with their affiliation, such as, for example, Κεφαλληνῶν Πρῶννοι, as noted by Cargill himself, or Κείων Ἰουλιῆται Καρθαιε̑ς Κορήσιοι, or Ζακυνθίων ὁ δῆμος ὁ ἐν τῷ Νήλλῳ.Footnote 50 In short, the surviving list of League members in the Aristoteles Decree offers no indication that Athens reneged on the principle of individual membership or on her desire to break down local alliances. Federations and rulers could certainly be Athens’ allies, as were Amyntas III of Macedonia, Dionysius of Syracuse and Cersobleptes, king of Thrace, none of whom was a League member. The more important the potentate, the more unthinkable that he would have accepted Athenian hegemony by joining the Athenian League, noted Griffith, who saw Amyntas III, Dionysius and Jason as Athens’ allies without League membership.Footnote 51 Athens’ allies either had bilateral treaties with Athens and the League or were League members.Footnote 52

As the prostatês of the King’s Peace, the Spartans combined its ‘autonomy clause’ with keeping their military alliance. The Athenians advanced a similar claim now: the Aristoteles Decree guaranteed safety and independence to each current and future member of the Athenian alliance, breaking local hegemonies down to individual member-states: for example, Cean cities joined the League on an individual basis and, it appears, at different times,Footnote 53 and the same was true of Euboean cities, with Carystus, Eretria and Chalcis joining the League separately in 378–377,Footnote 54 and Histiaea becoming a member only later (in 375?), after Chabrias ‘laid waste’ her territory (and those of other Euboean communities that offered resistance) and left a garrison on her acropolis.Footnote 55 Having been reduced to individual participation, members of the League acknowledged the hegemony of Athens, meaning that Athens displayed her imperialism by usurping military and political leadership, having the final say regarding the League’s membership, representing members of the League internationally, and acting on their behalf.Footnote 56

The corresponding evidence suggests that the Aristoteles Decree was not a technical document but a piece of Athenian public propaganda that functioned in multiple ways. Since only League members were free from Athenian intervention, the Decree both incentivized the Greeks to join the League by threatening and attacking those who declined the invitation (such as Histiaea and, evidently, some other Euboean communities) and also reflected Athens’ policy of demolishing the military alliances of League members by enforcing individual participation and participation of non-members by using the autonomy clause. More specifically, the Decree ordered three Athenian ambassadors to be sent to Thebes, ‘who are to persuade the Thebans of whatever good thing they can’.Footnote 57 Some interpreted this phrase to mean that the Athenian envoys were dispatched to Thebes because, according to Buckler, ‘Theban obligations and responsibilities to the common council had [not] been spelled out in [the treaty between Athens and Thebes, known as] IG ii2 40’.Footnote 58 The Aristoteles Decree, however, included both the clause that the Athenian ambassadors ‘are to persuade the Thebans of whatever good thing they can’ (which sounded like acting in the interests of all Greeks) and the appeal that the Greeks join the League on the same terms as the Chians, the Thebans and ‘other allies’. The latter clause (IG II2 43.23–5) leaves no doubts that the provisions of Athens’ treaty with Thebes were clear enough and that Thebes had the same status as other League members.

Since Thebes occupied a place on the synedrion when the Aristoteles Decree was published, why did Athens need to dispatch her ambassadors? Athens’ intent ‘to persuade the Thebans of whatever good thing they can’ reflected the resurgence of Thebes’ Boeotian Federation: once the Spartan garrison left Thebes in the winter of 379/8, the Thebans proceeded to rebuild their alliance.Footnote 59 The Thebans’ request that Athens mount a naval expedition around the Peloponnese in 375 to divert the Spartans from another invasion of Boeotia further strained the relationship between Athens and Thebes: the Thebans not only failed to compensate Athens’ expenses but used that situation to further expand the Boeotian Federation and increase their military strength. According to a pseudo-Demosthenic speech, in 373, Athens both paid for Theban crews and, judging by a reference to the Theban admiral as ‘Boeotian’, effectively recognized the Boeotian Federation.Footnote 60 Thebes’ mounting military might and her growing control over Boeotia made Cargill, Jehne, Dreher, and Rhodes and Osborne, among others, surprised to see a Theban presiding over the synedrion of the Second League in a fragmented inscription comprising the last lines of an Athenian decree and the opening part of a decree of the League (the only known such specimen) about the affairs in Paros, which thus documented Thebes’ membership in the League still in 372.Footnote 61

One is even more surprised to see Thebes among League members in 372 when one remembers that the previous year the Thebans demolished Plataea and expelled its citizens and those of Thespiae from Boeotia (Diod. Sic. 15.46.4–6). It is for these reasons, says Xenophon (Hell. 6.3.1–2), that the Athenians decided to accept the Sparta Peace of 371 and invited Thebes to join in. The Athenians hoped to break down the Boeotian Federation with the help of the autonomy clause, just like it had happened in 386 and 375. As the Thebans claimed the right to swear on behalf of all the Boeotians at the King’s Peace of 386, Agesilaus dissolved the Boeotian Federation with the help of the autonomy clause that required Boeotian cities to join the Peace on an individual basis.Footnote 62 This is precisely what Agesilaus intended to do at the Sparta Peace of 371, which similarly required the Greeks to swear individual oaths, but with a very different outcome this time.Footnote 63 The general understanding has been that the Thebans combined League membership with their Boeotian hegemony or left the League (or forsook its membership) after reconstituting the Boeotian Federation.Footnote 64 The fact that the Athenians resigned to the use of the autonomy clause against the Thebans suggests that Thebes ceased to be a League member at some time between the above-mentioned presidency of a Theban over the synedrion in 372 and the Sparta Peace which was arranged shortly before the battle of Leuctra on 6 July 371.

In this context, the Aristoteles Decree appears to have been an Athenian tool to reinforce the principles of autonomy (for all Greeks) and individual participation (for League members) against the Thebans in an attempt to subvert the nascent re-edition of their Federation.Footnote 65 Nor did Athens allow the Thebans to join the League as ‘Boeotians’. At the level of individual cities, if the Thebans established their control over Histiaea in 377–376, the Athenians quickly turned it into a League member.Footnote 66 It appears that, as a piece of Athenian public propaganda, the Aristoteles Decree strove to destroy not only the Spartan domination but also the rising Theban hegemony.Footnote 67 Athens’ public claim to act for the freedom of the Greeks—against Sparta and (implicitly) against Thebes—explains why the Decree was displayed near the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios,Footnote 68 which was built during Athens’ war against Sparta in the name of Greek freedom half a century earlier, while the cult of Zeus Eleutherios emerged in Athens in connection with the defeat of the Persian attempted encroachment on Greek freedom. Its location in the Agora made it accessible to anyone.

CONCLUSION

Although the Athenians could have developed plans to rebuild their military alliance earlier in the fourth century, their bilateral agreements with individual Greek city-states in the later 380s cannot be counted as proof of the League’s foundation. Regardless of whether they had such separate agreements with Athens (and the League), aspiring members had to make new treaties before taking their place on the League’s council. Judging by the available evidence, the League’s foundation occurred between the liberation of the Cadmea in the winter of 379/8 and Agesilaus’ invasion of Boeotia in the spring (early summer?) of 378. Far from being its founding document, the Aristoteles Decree publicly reasserted the fundamentals of the King’s Peace as the guiding principles of Athens’ military alliance. By pledging to protect League members’ safety and privileges—such as defence against attack, freedom and autonomy, self-government under any constitution desired, no collection of phoros, no imposition of Athenian garrisons and governors, and prohibition of Athenian property ownership in the territories of all member statesFootnote 69 —the Aristoteles Decree untied Athens’ hands against non-member states, incentivizing them to join the League.Footnote 70 Reinforcing the League’s individual membership, the Decree legitimized Athens’ protection of the Greeks not only from Sparta, which was the League’s declared purpose, but also from its own members, such as Thebes.

References

1 All ancient dates are b.c. With occasional modifications, translations come from the Loeb Classical Library series and from P.J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions, 404–323 b.c., Edited with Introduction, Translations, and Commentaries (Oxford and New York, 2003).

2 For example, C.D. Hamilton, ‘Diodorus on the establishment of the Second Athenian League’, AHB 3 (1989), 93–101, at 95 on Ephorus as Diodorus’ ‘principal source for these events’; P.J. Stylianou, A Historical Commentary on Diodorus Siculus, Book 15 (Oxford, 1998), 5: ‘Ephorus was Diodorus’ main authority for Books 11–16’.

3 Diod. Sic. 15.25.1–15.27.2.

4 Diod. Sic. 15.28.1–3 (dated by him to 377–376). On the first state to respond, see J. Buckler, The Theban Hegemony, 371–362 b.c. (Cambridge, MA, 1980), 17 (Thebes); Hamilton (n. 2), 98 (Chios).

5 Diod. Sic. 15.28.3–4 and J. Cargill, The Second Athenian League: Empire or Free Alliance? (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981), 113–14. See also Diod. Sic. 15.28.5 and Hamilton (n. 2), 94: the Spartans expected the war against Athens to be difficult, ‘since the Athenians and the rest of the Greeks who participated in the council were allied with the Thebans’.

6 Diod. Sic. 15.29.5–8.

7 Xen. Hell. 5.4.1–12, 5.4.20–3 and 5.4.34.

8 This interpretation: G. Busolt, Der zweite athenische Bund und die auf der Autonomie beruhende hellenische Politik von der Schlacht bei Knidos bis zum Frieden des Eubulos (Leipzig, 1874), 663; J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte, vol. 32, part 2 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1923), 156; P. Cloché, La politique étrangère d’Athènes de 404 à 338 avant Jésus-Christ (Paris, 1934), 59; C. Dunant and J. Thomopoulos, ‘Inscriptions de Céos’, BCH 78 (1954), 316–48, at 321; R. Sealey, ‘IG II2 1609 and the transformation of the Second Athenian Sea-League’, Phoenix 11 (1957), 95–111, at 104: the Aristoteles Decree stated the ‘principles on which the Second Athenian Sea-League is to be organized’ and, accordingly, that Decree included a list ‘of some members of the Sea-League’; D. Knoepfler, ‘Une paix de cent ans et un conflit en permanence. Étude sur les relations diplomatiques d’Athènes avec Érétrie et les autres cités de l’Eubée au IVe siècle av. J.-C.’, in Ed. Frézouls (ed.), Les relations internationals (Paris, 1995), 309–64, at 319 and D. Knoepfler, ‘“Pour que demeurent la philia et la symmachia entre Athènes et les Eubéens” (IG II2 149 = IG II3 1, 2, 398, une inscription attique à reconsidérer)’, in J.-C. Couvenhes (ed.), La symmachia comme pratique du droit international dans le monde grec: d’Homère à l’époque hellénistique (Besançon, 2016), 125–60, at 129; P. Carlier, Le IVe siècle grec jusqu’ à la mort d’Alexandre (Paris, 1995), 46; S. Ruzicka, ‘Epaminondas and the genesis of the Social War’, CPh 93 (1998), 60–9, at 63; P. Brun, Impérialisme et démocratie à Athènes: inscriptions de l’époque classique (c.500–317 av. J.-C.) (Paris, 2005), 93; G. Bonnin, ‘Phoroi, syntaxeis, and loans from Delian Apollo: the Cyclades under Athenian financial imperialism’, in T.J. Figueira and S.R. Jensen (edd.), Hegemonic Finances: Funding Athenian Domination in the 5th and 4th Centuries b.c. (Swansea, 2015), 135–66, at 145; J. Buckler and H. Beck, Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century BC (Cambridge and New York, 2008), 22, 26; R. van Wijk, ‘Contested hegemonies: Thebes, Athens and Persia in the Aegean of the 360s’, in R. Strootman et al. (edd.), Empires of the Sea. Maritime Power Networks in World History (Leiden and Boston, 2020), 81–112, at 82. Pace V. Ehrenberg, ‘Zum zweiten attischen Bund’, Hermes 64 (1929), 322–38, at 323–4; F.H. Marshall, The Second Athenian Confederacy (Cambridge, 1905), 18; G.L. Cawkwell, ‘The foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy’, CQ 23 (1973), 47–60, at 47–8 (= G.L. Cawkwell, Cyrene to Chaeronea. Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History [Oxford and New York, 2011], 192–211); H. Bengtson, Die Staatsverträge des Altertums im Auftrage der Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik. Bd. 2, Die Verträge der griechisch-römischen Welt von 700 bis 338 v. Chr. (Munich, 1962), 210; Cargill (n. 5), 99; P.J. Rhodes, A History of the Classical Greek World, 478–323 b.c. Second Edition (Malden, MA, and Oxford, 2010), 265; S. Hornblower, The Greek World, 479–323 b.c. Fourth Edition (London and New York, 2011), 241.

9 The former: A. MacDonald, ‘A note on the raid of Sphodrias: a case for Diodorus’, Historia 21 (1972), 38–44, at 38; Cawkwell (n. 8), 55, who put the League’s foundation before Sphodrias’ raid, like R. Seager, ‘The King’s Peace and the Second Athenian Confederacy’, in D.M. Lewis et al. (edd.), The Cambridge Ancient History. Second Edition. VI: The Fourth Century b.c. (Cambridge and New York, 1994), 156–86, at 166; Cargill (n. 5), 58–9; B. Rutishauser, Athens and the Cyclades: Economic Strategies, 540–314 b.c. (Oxford and New York, 2012), 158. The latter: R. Morstein Kallet-Marx, ‘Athens, Thebes, and the formation of the Second Athenian League’, ClAnt 4 (1985), 127–51, at 127–8, 147–9; M. Dreher, ‘Zum Eintritt Thebens und Methymnas in den Zweiten Athenischen Seebund’, LCM 15 (1990), 51–3, at 51 n. 1 and M. Dreher, ‘Poleis und Nicht-Poleis im Zweiten Athenischen Seebund’, in M.H. Hansen (ed.), Sources for the Ancient Greek City-State (Copenhagen, 1995), 171–200, at 171; pace Stylianou (n. 2), 251; Hornblower (n. 8), 352 n. 13.

10 Busolt (n. 8), 677, 683; Marshall (n. 8), 14–15; S. Accame, La lega ateniese del sec. IV a.C. (Rome, 1941), 27, 31; C. Mossé, La fin de la démocratie athénienne: Aspects sociaux et politiques du déclin de la Cité grecque au IVe siècle avant J.-C. (Paris, 1962), 305; J. Buckler, ‘Theban treaty obligations in IG ii2 40’, Historia 20 (1971), 506–8, at 507; G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1972), 134; J. DeVoto, ‘Agesilaos in Boiotia in 378 and 377 b.c.’, AHB 1 (1987), 75–82, at 76; H. Beck, Polis und Koinon: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Struktur der griechischen Bundesstaaten im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Stuttgart, 1997), 98; J. Buckler, Aegean Greece in the Fourth Century b.c. (Leiden and Boston, 2003), 225, 242; M. Jehne, ‘Überlegungen zu den Auslassungen in Xenophons Hellenika am Beispiel der Gründung des Zweiten Athenischen Seebundes’, in C.J. Tuplin (ed.), Xenophon and his World. Papers from a Conference held in Liverpool in July 1999 (Stuttgart, 2004), 463–80, at 465–6; E. Bianco, Lo stratego Timoteo: torre di Atene (Alessandria, 2007), 146; Buckler and Beck (n. 8), 22; M. Dreher, ‘Athenian Confederacy, Second’, in R.S. Bagnall et al. (edd.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 13 vols. (Malden, MA, 2013), 2.908–9, at 908 (‘most probably during the harvest of the year 378’); E. Occhipinti, ‘Trattato tra Atene e Chio’, Axon 1 (2017), 151–68, at 155. See also P.J. Rhodes, ‘Attischer Seebund (4. Jh. v. Chr.)’, NP 2 (1997), 257–8, at 257: after either Thebes’ liberation or Sphodrias’ attack, and Rhodes (n. 8), 264 as well as P.J. Rhodes, ‘Athenian foreign policy’, in G. Martin (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Demosthenes (Oxford and New York, 2019), 130: after Sphodrias’ attack; Hornblower (n. 8), 240: before the winter 378/7.

11 Diod. Sic. 15.28.2, 15.28.5 and 15.29.7.

12 It is, thus, incorrect to claim that Agesilaus’ campaign in 378 had no notable consequences: C. Mossé, ‘Le IVe siècle (403–336)’, in É. Will, C. Mossé and P. Goukowsky, Le monde grec et l’Orient, vol. 2: Le IVe siècle et l’époque hellénistique (Paris, 1975), 9–246, at 25. On its dating: Hamilton (n. 2), 96: ‘no later than May of 378’. The Thebans could justify Epaminondas’ subsequent yearly invasions of the Peloponnese as a tit-for-tat retaliation.

13 As, for example, MacDonald (n. 9), 39; Cawkwell (n. 8), 47; Morstein Kallet-Marx (n. 9), 129; Hamilton (n. 2), 93; R.J. Buck, Boiotia and the Boiotian League, 432–371 (Alberta, 1994), xvi; Knoepfler (n. 8 [1995]), 321; Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 100; Jehne (n. 10), 466 (and nn. 16–17), 468; Rhodes (n. 8), 264; C.J. Tuplin, ‘Second Athenian Confederacy’, OCD 4 1337; Rutishauser (n. 9), 159; M. Bertoli, ‘L’Eubea nella prima metà del IV secolo a.C. tra aspirazione alla libertà e dipendenza da Atene’, in C. Bearzot and F. Landucci Gattinoni (edd.), Tra mare e continente: l’isola d’Eubea (Milan, 2013), 191–223, at 203; Dreher (n. 10), 908.

14 Agesilaus’ raid (378): Xen. Hell. 5.4.35–41; Diod. Sic. 15.27.4 and DeVoto (n. 10), 76–9. Agesilaus’ raid (377): Xen. Hell. 5.4.47–55; Diod. Sic. 15.34.1–2 with Plut. Vit. Ages. 26.4; E. Bianco, ‘Chabrias Atheniensis’, RSA 30 (2000), 47–72, at 55. Xen. Poroi 5.7 (Θηβαῖοι εὐεργετούμενοι ἡγεμονεύειν αὑτῶν ἔδωκαν Ἀθηναίοις) and S. Dmitriev, The Greek Slogan of Freedom and Early Roman Politics in Greece (Oxford and New York, 2011), 382. Chabrias: Xen. Hell. 5.4.54. Cleombrotus’ raid (376): Xen. Hell. 5.4.47–59.

15 Ruzicka (n. 8), 62, following Accame (n. 10), 53. Tuplin (n. 13), 1337. See also Mossé (n. 10), 414–15; Cargill (n. 5), 103, 190; Morstein Kallet-Marx (n. 9), 131; Hamilton (n. 2), 98–100; Carlier (n. 8), 45–6; Buckler (n. 10 [2003]), 242; Jehne (n. 10), 465–6. A similar stance is occupied by those who believe that the League was created in two stages: first, by Athens’ treaties with the founding members before Sphodrias’ raid; and then by other states joining on the same terms: Seager (n. 9), 166; Bianco (n. 10), 17; Buckler and Beck (n. 8), 83.

16 Athens being mentioned side by side with the League and the synedrion: IG II2 43.57–9 (377); SEG 31, 67 (with SEG 45, 47) = StV no. 268 = Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), no. 29.7–8 (372). Decisions: IG II2 96.24–5 (375). Oaths: IG II2 42.11–16 (377), 111.57–8 (c.363–362). See Busolt (n. 8), 689; J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte, vol. 32, part 1 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1922), 150; Cloché (n. 8), 61; Accame (n. 10), 112–14, 133 n. 2; Mossé (n. 12), 31; Cargill (n. 5), 115, 119; M. Dreher, Hegemon und Symmachoi. Untersuchungen zum Zweiten Athenischen Seebund (Berlin, 1995), 53, 70; Bonnin (n. 8), 146.

17 Diod. Sic. 15.28.3–4, 15.29.5–8, followed by Cawkwell (n. 8), 50–1; Beck (n. 10), 98; Stylianou (n. 2), 250; Rhodes (n. 8), 265, 267. On identifying the League’s participation with membership in its synedrion: Accame (n. 10), 27–8.

18 A.P. Burnett, ‘Thebes and the expansion of the Second Athenian Confederacy: IG II2 40 and IG II2 43’, Historia 11 (1962), 1–17, at 15–17; D.G. Rice, ‘Xenophon, Diodorus and the year 379/378 b.c. Reconstruction and reappraisal’, YClS 24 (1975), 95–130, at 125; Cargill (n. 5), 58–60; Buckler (n. 10 [2003]), 226–8; E. Occhipinti, ‘Trattato di alleanza tra Atene e Tebe’, Axon 2 (2018), 89–100, at 96. This differs from the view that an earlier treaty between Athens and Chios was renewed in 384, advocated by Accame and his followers, who thus believe that joining the League did not require making a new treaty; on Chios’ two treaties with Athens, see Accame (n. 10), 10–11, 35; Stylianou (n. 2), 254–5; Hornblower (n. 8), 241; Occhipinti (n. 10), 161.

19 IG II2 40 (378–377), dated to the period before the Decree of Aristoteles by Kirchner (on IG II2 40), Bengtson (on StV no. 255), Rice (n. 18), 125, and P. Harding, From the End of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Ipsus (Cambridge and New York, 1985), no. 33. Cf. Morstein Kallet-Marx (n. 9), 147 n. 86: ‘it is hardly certain that the text was a treaty of alliance with Thebes’ (with bibliography) and Rice (n. 18), 125: the dinner, to which envoys were invited in this decree, was xenia in the case of the Thebans but deipnon in the case of ‘other allies’ (IG II2 40.3 and 9), which led Rice to conclude that Thebes ‘was not yet a member’ of the League; but see Rice (n. 18), 130: ‘Athenians persuade Thebans to join the League (IG II2 40; Diodorus 15.29.7–8)’.

20 Diod. Sic. 15.28.3. See IG II2 34 (384–383); I.A.F. Bruce, ‘The alliance between Athens and Chios in 384 b.c.’, Phoenix 19 (1965), 281–4; R. Seager, ‘The King’s Peace and the balance of power in Greece’, Athenaeum 52 (1974), 36–63, at 44–5. Occhipinti (n. 10), 161–2 saw it as a renewed alliance.

21 IG II2 41 (378); Diod. Sic. 15.28.3 (see previous note). See Accame (n. 10), 33–4. Hence, it seems, Byzantium’s ambassadors were invited to xenia: IG II2 41.12–13, although the word is restored (see also n. 19 above).

22 Diod. Sic. 15.28.2–3; Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 97. These cities were listed in the Aristoteles Decree: IG II2 43.24–5 and 79 (Chios, Thebes), 80 and 83 (Mytilene and Byzantium).

23 For example, Cawkwell (n. 8), 51; Cargill (n. 5), 100, 103 (the quotation); Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 106; E. Occhipinti, ‘The treaty of alliance between Athens and Carystus’, AHB 34 (2020), 138–54, at 144 n. 21.

24 On Methymna being listed in the Aristoteles Decree: IG II2 43.81. An Athenian decree from 369–367 mentions a synedros of Methymna; IG II2 107.28, with Cargill (n. 5), 36.

25 For example, Marshall (n. 8), 15; Ehrenberg (n. 8), 327–9.

26 After 375: Dreher (n. 10), 909. From 374: Busolt (n. 8), 684; Ehrenberg (n. 8), 334–5. From 373: Burnett (n. 18), 14; A.G. Woodhead, ‘Chabrias, Timotheus, and the Aegean allies, 375–373 b.c.’, Phoenix 16 (1962), 258–66, at 259; Seager (n. 9), 170; E. Badian, ‘The ghost of Empire: reflections on Athenian foreign policy in the fourth century b.c.’, in W. Eder (ed.), Die athenische Demokratie im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr.: Vollendung oder Verfall einer Verfassungsform? (Stuttgart, 1995), 79–106, at 93; Brun (n. 8), 100; C.A. Baron, ‘The Aristoteles Decree and the expansion of the Second Athenian League’, Hesperia 75 (2006), 379–95, at 388–90; Tuplin (n. 13), 1337. Cf. J. Cargill, ‘The Decree of Aristoteles: some epigraphical details’, The Ancient World 27 (1996), 39–51, at 47: ‘none of them need have been inscribed later than 375’; Rhodes (n. 8), 270: ‘certainly none is later than 373 and probably none is later than 375’ and P.J. Rhodes, ‘The alleged failure of Athens in the fourth century’, Electrum 19 (2012), 111–29, at 117. On the Aristoteles Decree not reflecting the League’s actual membership: Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 105; G. Bonnin, De Naxos à Amorgos. L’impérialisme athénien vu des Cyclades à l’époque classique (Bordeaux, 2015), 252–3.

27 IG II2 43.109 and Ps.-Dem. 49.9–10 (see next note).

28 Jason’s membership: Marshall (n. 8), 68 (from 373); Accame (n. 10), 98; Sealey (n. 8), 106; A.G. Woodhead, ‘IG II2 43 and Jason of Pherae’, AJA 61 (1957), 367–73, at 371 (from 373); F.W. Mitchel, ‘The rasura of IG II2 43: Jason, the Pheraian demos and the Athenian League’, The Ancient World 9 (1984), 39–58 on the rasura in the Aristoteles Decree as irrelevant, thus essentially inventing Jason’s League membership; Dreher (n. 9 [1995]), 175, 285; Hornblower (n. 8), 247; Rutishauser (n. 9), 161; pace Beloch (n. 8), 158; Seager (n. 9), 174. Cargill (n. 5), 43–4, 83–5, 163, 191 (who spoke of Jason’s bilateral agreement with Athens; but see Cargill [n. 26], 49 still admitting the possibility of Jason’s League membership); M. Jehne, ‘Iasons Symmachie mit Athen und das Mitgliederverzeichnis des 2. Athenischen Seebunds’, ZPE 89 (1991), 121–34, at 121–3, 132 marked Jason’s alliance with Athens from sometime after 375 to 371; and S. Sprawski, Jason of Pherae. A Study on History of Thessaly in Years 431–370 b.c. (Kraków, 1999), 89, 93 on Jason’s bilateral agreement with Athens. A ps.-Demosthenic speech mentions Alcetas and Jason as Athens’ allies, but this does not necessarily mean their League membership: Ps.-Dem. 49.9–10.

29 For example, Sealey (n. 8), 106–7, speaking of the states that ceased to be Athens’ allies in the 360s writes: ‘it follows that […] the document bearing the list of names became in some sense obsolete’.

30 For example, Woodhead (n. 28), 371: after the battle of Leuctra in 371; Cargill (n. 5), 64–6, 68–9, who tentatively identified Thera and Zacynthus as the only two post-375 members that joined the League in 374 (pace Baron [n. 26], 382), when—as Cargill (n. 5), 102, 190–1 believed—the League stopped admitting new members; Seager (n. 9), 170: after 373; Buckler (n. 10 [2003]), 377; pace Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 105; Dreher (n. 10), 909 (with evidence to the contrary, which should include Aeschin. 3.91–3).

31 Sealey (n. 8), 106–9, based on his belief that Jason’s name was erased from the Decree.

32 IG II2 96 and Xen. Hell. 5.4.64; IG II2 43.106–7. On Corcyra as a League member, whose listing in the Aristoteles Decree did not survive, see Busolt (n. 8), 741–2, 754; Marshall (n. 8), 62–3; S. Hornblower, ‘Review of J. Cargill, The Second Athenian League: Empire or Free Alliance? (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981)’, CR 32 (1982), 235–9, at 236–7; P. Brun, Eisphora, Syntaxis, Stratiôtika. Recherches sur les finances militaires d’Athènes au IVe siècle av. J.-C. (Paris, 1983), 134–5; Badian (n. 26), 95 n. 46; C.M. Fauber, ‘Was Kerkyra a member of the Second Athenian League?’, CQ 48 (1998), 110–16, at 116; pace those who believe it was never listed: Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 112; Buckler (n. 10 [2003]), 255. Cf. C.J. Tuplin, ‘Timotheos and Corcyra: problems in Greek history, 375–373 b.c.’, Athenaeum 72 (1984), 537–68, at 565–6: the question of whether Corcyra joined the League in 375–374 cannot be answered on the basis of the available evidence.

33 Nep. 13.2.1; Bianco (n. 10), 20.

34 This number: Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 105; Dreher (n. 10), 909; cf. M.N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions. Vol. II. From 403 to 323 B.C. (Oxford, 1948), 67–8: ‘the names of fifty members are read or restored, of three others one or more letters survive … and five at least have wholly perished …’; Cargill (n. 5), 45–7: around sixty; J.N. Jansen, ‘After empire: Xenophon’s Poroi and the reorientation of Athens’ political economy’ (Diss., University of Texas, 2007), 171: sixty-two; Rhodes (n. 8), 267: ‘fifty-three or slightly more’.

35 Diod. Sic. 15.30.2; Beloch (n. 8), 162: probably about seventy by 372. Aeschin. 2.70; Isoc. 7.2.

36 Cargill (n. 5), 45–7. Chalcis: Aeschin. 3.91 = StV no. 339.

37 IG II2 96.14 τὴν στήλην τὴν κοινὴν τῶ[ν συμμάχων and 21–2 τὴν στή[λην τὴν κοινὴν οὗ οἱ σύμ]μαχοι ἐ[γγ]εγραμ<μ>ένοι εἰσίν (375). Its identification with the Aristoteles Decree: Harding (n. 19), 58 n. 5.

38 IG II2 40.15–16 τὸ περὶ τῶν συν]θηκῶν τῶν ἐν τῇ στήλ[ῃ τῶν συμμάχων.

39 C. Mossé, Athens in Decline, 404–86 b.c., transl. J. Stewart (Boston and London, 1973), 38; Cargill (n. 5), 66–7, 140. IG II2 43.15–25 (see above).

40 Diod. Sic. 15.29.8 has been identified as a reference to the clauses in the Aristoteles Decree: Accame (n. 10), 48, 138; Tod (n. 34), 71; Cawkwell (n. 8), 48; Cargill (n. 5), 146–7; Morstein Kallet-Marx (n. 9), 132; Hamilton (n. 2), 95; Stylianou (n. 2), 269. See IG II2 43.25–30, 35–46.

41 As Accame (n. 10), 110; Mossé (n. 39), 37.

42 Diod. Sic. 15.28.4 and IG II2 124.8–9 (Carystus, 357–356), 233.38–9 (Tenedus, 340–339).

43 Pace Badian (n. 26), 95: the Decree as ‘an extraordinary diplomatic document’, which ‘both satisfied the King and positively attracted allies’. However, Athens’ individual treaties of alliance had been based on the King’s Peace, which does not look extraordinary; and, then, there was a difference between being an ally of Athens (and of the League) and a member of the League. Seager (n. 20), 47–8 saw the extraordinary role of the Decree in its reflecting the new claim of Athens as the champion of the (King’s) Peace. Neither Seager nor Badian saw the ‘autonomy clause’ as a tool of Athens’ imperialist policies (see next note).

44 The purpose of the ‘autonomy clause’: A.B. Bosworth, ‘Autonomia: the use and abuse of political terminology’, SIFC 10 (1992), 122–52, at 135, 137–8, without discussing this use of autonomia by Athens; M. Jehne, Koine Eirene. Untersuchungen zu den Befriedungs- und Stabilisierungsbemühungen in der griechischen Poliswelt des 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Stuttgart, 1994), 35, 46; Dmitriev (n. 14), 4, 16–23. This aspect of autonomia was omitted in two fundamental works on this concept: E.J. Bickerman, ‘Autonomia. Sur un passage de Thucydide (I, 144,2)’, RIDA 5 (1958), 313–44; repr. in E.J. Bickerman, Religions and Politics in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Edited by E. Gabba and M. Smith (Como, 1985), 419–52, and M. Ostwald, Autonomia: Its Genesis and Early History (Chico, CA, 1982), 48–9, who only considered autonomia as pertaining to the status of individual poleis.

45 Dreher (n. 9 [1995]), 179–81.

46 On Alcetas’ and Jason’s alleged membership, see nn. 27 and 28 above.

47 IG II2 43.101–2 and 106. Cargill (n. 5), 59 n. 26 (the quotation), 190. On lines 101–2 as a reference to the Chalcidian League, see also Accame (n. 10), 87 (Olynthus and its allies); Baron (n. 26), 387.

48 Diod. Sic. 15.28.3–4 and IG II2 43.15–25.

49 IG II2 43.101–2 and 128–9, respectively. On the latter, see Cargill (n. 5), 168 n. 12; Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 104. This ‘Chalcis’ could refer to some settlement in the north; for a debate on its identification: Cargill (n. 5), 42 n. 46.

50 IG II2 43.107–8 (and Cargill [n. 5], 152, 119–22; Baron [n. 26], 382) and 131–4 (with a debate on its location: Cargill [n. 26], 51), respectively. Cf. IG II2 43.124 Ἀμόργιοι, with Brun (n. 8), 124: ‘les trois cités avaient intégré la confédération sous le terme générique d’Amorgioi malgré leur indépendance formelle’.

51 Cf. Athens’ treaty with the Thessalians: IG II2 116.11–14 (361–360); Amyntas: IG II2 102 (c.370) = Tod (n. 34), no. 129 (375–373) = StV no. 264 (375 or 373) = Harding (n. 19), no. 43 (375–374 or 373–372); Dionysius: IG II2 105 (368); Cargill (n. 5), 88; and Cersobleptes: Aeschin. 2.82–3, 3.74 (346). G.T. Griffith, ‘Athens in the fourth century’, in P. Garnsey (ed.), Imperialism in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 1978), 127–44, at 136.

52 Specific examples of allies of Athens (and the League) but not League members: Woodhead (n. 28), 372–3 (Amyntas and Jason); Cargill (n. 5), 173 (Corcyra); Mitchel (n. 28), 58 (Jason); E. Occhipinti, ‘Trattato di alleanza tra Atene e Arcadia, Acaia, Elide e Fliunte’, Axon 3 (2019), 72–82, at 75–6 on ‘alleati degli Ateniesi e degli alleati, ma non membri della lega’.

53 IG II2 43.82: Poiessa, 119–22 Κείων Ἰουλιῆται Καρθαιε̑ς Κορήσιοι, and W. Duszyński, ‘Athenian “imperialism” in the Aegean Sea in the 4th century bce: the case of Keos’, Electrum 27 (2020), 117–30, at 119 (around 376); cf. Rhodes (n. 26), 119: ‘Athens preferred to deal with them as separate cities’. Challenges of studying Ceos’ federal organization: D.M. Lewis, ‘The federal constitution of Keos’, BSA 57 (1962), 1–4 (= P.J. Rhodes [ed.], D.M. Lewis, Selected Papers in Greek and Near Eastern History [Cambridge and New York, 1979], 22–8); P. Brun, ‘L’île de Kéos et ses cités au IVe siècle av. J.-C.’, ZPE 76 (1989), 121–38, at 129–32; Duszyński (this note), 117–30. P. Brun, ‘La datation de IG II2 404, décret athénien concernant les cités de Kéos’, ZPE 147 (2004), 72–8, at 75–6 and (n. 8), 113 suggested that the three Cean cities joined the League as a ‘sympolitie’ in 375 or 373. However, the Aristoteles Decree only says that three (out of the four) Cean cities became members; see the English translation by Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 99: ‘of Ceos: Ioulis, Carthaea, Coresia’. The principle of individual membership was preserved.

54 The Aristoteles Decree lists Chalcis (together with Eretria, Arethousa and Carystus) under ‘cities allied with Athens’: IG II2 43.80–3; Knoepfler (n. 8 [2016]), 129. On Arethousa’s membership: Accame (n. 10), 72–3; Knoepfler (n. 8 [1995]), 322–3 and (n. 8 [2016]), 129, who identified it as a Thracian city; Cargill (n. 5), 33, who identified it as Euboean Arethousa; Bertoli (n. 13), 204; cf. the scepticism of P.A. Brunt, ‘Euboea in the time of Philip II’, CQ 19 (1969), 245–65, at 247 n. 2.

55 Diod. Sic. 15.30.1–5, including 15.30.2: on the Athenian force dispatched to Euboea to protect allies and subdue enemies; IG II2 43.114. Busolt (n. 8), 744–5, 761, 807; W.P. Wallace, The Euboian League and its Coinage (New York, 1956), 8–9.

56 Cf. Diod. Sic. 15.28.4 and IG II2 43.15–25. See T.R. Martin, ‘Review of J. Cargill, The Second Athenian League: Empire or Free Alliance? (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981)’, CPh 79 (1984), 243–7, at 245: ‘there is simply no evidence that the allies had any say in the approval of new league members’.

57 IG II2 43.74–5.

58 Burnett (n. 18), 1–3 rejected ‘an old conjecture’ that the Thebans were scolded for attempting to dominate Boeotia, because ‘this does not suit the phraseology of the decree: the Thebans are to be persuaded to grant an unspecified privilege or advantage’. This argument fails to explain why the old interpretation ‘does not suit the phraseology’ of the Aristoteles Decree, which formally advocated the principles of the King’s Peace and thus quite naturally also extended them to Thebes. Hence, Burnett (n. 18), 10 concluded that ‘the Theban treaty contained a new and thorough definition of an ally’s rights and responsibilities within the league’. Buckler (n. 10 [1971]), 508 and Cawkwell (n. 8), 48 justly rejected this theory. For the inscription identified by some with that treaty (IG II2 40), see n. 19 above.

59 Diod. Sic. 15.28.1, 15.50.5; Seager (n. 9), 168: ‘immediately after the democratic coup’; Carlier (n. 8), 42; C. Schwenk, ‘Athens’, in L.A. Tritle (ed.), The Greek World in the Fourth Century (London and New York, 1997), 8–40, at 20; B. Buckler, ‘The phantom synedrion of the Boeotian Confederacy, 378–335 b.c.’, in P. Flensted-Jensen et al. (edd.), Polis & Politics: Studies in Ancient Greek History (Copenhagen, 2000), 431–46, at 431 and Buckler (n. 10 [2003]), 215–16; cf. Seager (n. 9), 173 and Rhodes (n. 8), 264: after Cleombrotus’ expedition of 376. The foundation of the Boeotian Federation has been put in 378: J. Buckler, ‘The re-establishment of the Boiotarchia (378 b.c.)’, AJAH 4 (1979), 50–64, at 52–3 = Buckler and Beck (n. 8), 90; C. Bakhuizen, ‘Thebes and Boeotia in the fourth century b.c.’, Phoenix 48 (1994), 307–30, at 320; Buck (n. 13), 81; J. Buckler and A. Spawforth, ‘Boeotia and Boeotian Confederacy’, OCD 4 237–8, at 237; cf. D. Knoepfler, ‘The Euboian League—an “irregular” koinon?’, in H. Beck and P. Funke (edd.), Federalism in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge, 2015), 158–78, at 165: ‘in and after 379 bce’. However, this process is believed to have lasted several years; see Xen. Hell. 5.4.63 and 6.1.1: the Thebans finally ‘subdued’ (κατεστρέψατο) Boeotia in 375 (accepted by Buckler [this note (1979)], 56 and Buckler [n. 4], 18); cf. Hornblower (n. 8), 248 on the ‘reunification of Boeotia’ as ‘accelerating’ after 375; Busolt (n. 8), 785: by the summer of 371, Thebes controlled all Boeotian cities except Orchomenae, 796: Thebes controlled all Boeotian cities in 362 (Xen. Hell. 7.5.4); Beck (n. 10), 100 on the continuing buildup of the Boeotian Federation into the mid 360s. The Thebans quickly expanded their control beyond the Boeotian borders if the decree obliging the Euboean Histiaea to follow Thebes in war and peace and to acknowledge Theban leadership ‘by land and by sea’ belongs to 377–376: V. Aravantinos and N. Papazarkadas, ‘hαγεμονία: a new treaty from classical Thebes’, Chiron 42 (2012), 239–54, at 240, with D. Knoepfler, Bull. ép. 2013, no. 170.

60 375: Xen. Hell. 5.4.62–3, 6.2.1. 373: Ps.-Dem. 49.49, interpreted by Rhodes (n. 8), 271 in the sense that Thebes ‘provided ships for Timotheus in 373’. One wonders whether these were Athenian ships to be manned by Theban crews, which the Thebans then returned to Athens: IG II2 1607.49 (373–372).

61 SEG 31, 67 (with SEG 45, 47) = StV no. 268 = Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), no. 29 (372). Cargill (n. 5), 115; Jehne (n. 28), 124 n. 18; Dreher (n. 16), 113, 126; Rhodes and Osborne (n. 1), 149; Rhodes (n. 8), 271. On Thebes’ separation from the League in 371: Marshall (n. 8), 56, 66, 125; Beloch (n. 8), 162; Ehrenberg (n. 8), 335; Burnett (n. 18), 14; Cargill (n. 5), 60, 87; Dreher (n. 16), 122, 126; Rhodes (n. 8), 271 and Rhodes (n. 10 [2019]), 130, with an overview in Dmitriev (n. 14), 385–6, 389.

62 Xen. Hell. 5.1.32 οἱ δὲ Θηβαῖοι ἠξίουν ὑπὲρ πάντων Βοιωτῶν ὀμνύναι, 5.1.33 Θηβαῖοι δ᾽ εἰς τὰς σπονδὰς εἰσελθεῖν ἠναγκάσθησαν, αὐτονόμους ἀφέντες τὰς Βοιωτίας πόλεις, 5.1.36 the Spartans αὐτονόμους δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν Θηβαίων τὰς Βοιωτίδας πόλεις ἐποίησαν, and 5.2.16 and Seager (n. 20), 38–9 as well as Dmitriev (n. 14), 30 and n. 102. The Sparta Peace of 375: Jehne (n. 44), 57–64; Dmitriev (n. 14), 43–5. The opinion of Accame (n. 10), 94 that Thebes participated in the Sparta Peace of 375 as a member of the Second Athenian League does not hold if Greek states were required to swear individually to that Peace. Mossé (n. 12), 26 similarly suggested that the Sparta Peace of 371 acknowledged the Second Athenian League. However, then the Thebans did not have to make an individual oath to that Peace, and, additionally, their claim to be registered as ‘Boeotians’ would be an offense to the Athenians (who had them as ‘Thebans’ in the League) rather than to the Spartans.

63 Xen. Hell. 6.3.19–20; Plut. Vit. Ages. 28.1–2. The Sparta Peace of 371: Jehne (n. 44), 65–74; Dmitriev (n. 14), 43–5.

64 The former: Buck (n. 13), 93. The latter: Cargill (n. 5), 191: after ‘the Thebans reconstituted the Boeotian Confederacy, [they] shirked League military and financial responsibilities’; Dreher (n. 9 [1995]), 178, who explained Thebes’ membership in the League by arguing that the Boeotian Federation was not yet in place by the time the Aristoteles Decree was adopted.

65 Rhodes (n. 8), 266: ‘possibly to persuade the Thebans to join as Thebans, not as Boeotians’; Hornblower (n. 8), 241, although his note that the Decree referred to the Thebans, not to the Boeotians, might not be relevant since the Thebans had just proceeded to re-establishing their control over Boeotia (see above). See also Accame (n. 10), 69, 166 and Cawkwell (n. 8), 49—who interpreted Athens’ claimed defence of the freedom and autonomy of Boeotian cities as effectively meaning the dissolution of the Boeotian Federation—and Seager (n. 9), 168–70, who connected the adoption of the Aristoteles Decree itself with Thebes’ push to restore the Boeotian Federation.

66 Thebes: Dreher (n. 16), 21. Histiaea: Aravantinos and Papazarkadas (n. 59), 240; D. Knoepfler, Bull. ép. 2013, no. 170 (377–376) and IG II2 43.114 and Wallace (n. 55), 9. However, Diodorus Siculus (15.30.4–5) speaks of Histiaea resisting Chabrias because of her pro-Spartan loyalties.

67 See Cawkwell (n. 8), 48 on the prominence of ‘Thebans’ in the Aristoteles Decree as ‘propagandist’; cf. Seager (n. 9), 168–70 (see also n. 65 above). On the Aristoteles Decree as ‘a manifesto’: Marshall (n. 8), 16, 57; Burnett (n. 18), 10; Hornblower (n. 8), 241; as an advertisement: Griffith (n. 51), 133; as a proclamation: Cargill (n. 5), 190.

68 IG II2 43.9–11 and 63–6 (the location).

69 IG II2 43.15–25 and, for example, Mossé (n. 10), 415; Cargill (n. 5), 190.

70 This opinion, briefly raised by Martin (n. 56), 247 at the end of his review of Cargill’s book, has not received any serious consideration.