Athens' Peacetime Navy in the Age of Perikles Eddy, Samuel K Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Summer 1968; 9, 2; ProQuest pg. 141

Athens' Peacetime Navy in the Age of 
Perikles 

Samuel K. Eddy 

I N THE eleventh and twelfth chapters of his biography of Perikles, 
Plutarch gives some details of the policies developed by the 
Athenian statesman to relieve the plight of the poor of Athens. 

Some men, he says, were sent as settlers to the newly-created klerou­
chies in the empire. Others, both skilled and unskilled workmen, 
were employed in constructing the great monuments rising on the 
Akropolis and in other parts of Attika. Perikles also, Plutarch says, 
(11.4), caused sixty triremes to be manned and equipped for eight 
months of each year for the purposes of giving pay to the crews and 
of training them for war. I shall undertake to show that this number 
is wrong and that it should be emended to sixteen. I wish also to 
discuss how the sixteen ships may have been used and what implica­
tions such a standing navy has for our understanding of the financial 
history of Athens. 

There is no reason to doubt that the essential point in Plutarch's 
statement is correct, that is, that the Athenian demos did receive naval 
training. The contemporary Old Oligarch says they did (1.20) and 
Thucydides makes Perikles say the same thing (1.142.7-9). Training 
was necessary both for the steersmen and for the simple oarsmen, 
who had to row in strict unison while seated in close quarters on 
board ship.1 Learning to row at the different speeds ordered by the 
keleustai, handling the long, heavy oars while changing from <Call 
ahead" to Hall astern," and bringing all the oars on one side rapidly 
inboard to practice the side-swiping tactic sometimes used against 
an enemy-all this required a certain skill which only practice could 
give. Where Plutarch found this information is impossible to say. 
But, as an honest man, he will have found it somewhere, for he did 
not invent his facts, but depended on his considerable reading to 

1 The oarage of a trireme is accurately described by J. S. Morrison, "Notes on Certain 
Greek Nautical Terms," CQ 41 (1947) 122-35, and by L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners 
(New York 1959) 93-4. 

141 



142 ATHENS' PEACETIME NAVY IN THE AGE OF PERIKLES 

supply them. He read, we know, the Atthis of Hellanikos, a contem­
porary of Perikles, Krateros' collection of Athenian decrees with its 
learned commentary, and Philochoros' A tthis , and, perhaps, his 
Attic Inscriptions toO.2 One or more of these sources no doubt con­
tained some such detailed information-based on an Athenian de­
cree of the Boule and Demos-on the fleet as Plutarch gives us. Philo­
choros was capable of recording events with great exactitude. He 
tells us that in 445/4 the Athenians received a gift of 30,000 medimnoi 
of grain from Egypt, which was shared between 14,240 citizens.3 

While Plutarch's basic information is correct, therefore, the number 
of ships must be corrupt. 

Modern scholars who have commented on this passage have con­
tented themselves with a few simple observations, that, for example, 
the ships went out for only eight months because sailing during the 
winter was difficult.4 Others have computed the number of men or 
the sum of money required for such a fleet. Perrin estimated that the 
crews of sixty ships would have amounted to 12,000 men. Bockh and 
Gomme calculated their cost at 480 talents a year.s But none of these 
scholars took the next step of comparing these figures with what is 
known of Athens' total population or income. Had they done so, I 
believe, they would have seen that the number sixty is impossibly 
high. 

Let us examine the financial aspect first, and proceed to do so by 
estimating the cost of manning sixty ships in the most conservative 
way. Let us allow that one crew amounted only to 191 men drawing 
pay, instead of following the usual rule-of-thumb number of 200. 
There would be a trierarch (who will not have been paid), six ship's 
officers, ten marines, a flute-player (a slave, perhaps, and not paid 
wages, but still an expense), possibly four sailors to handle the sails 

B Hellanikos: Pluto Alc. 21.1; Krateros: Pluto Aristid. 36.2; Philochoros: Pluto Nic. 
23.5. 

8 For Philochoros' reputation see L. Pearson, Local Historians of Attica (Philadelphia 1942) 
esp. 109,123, 135; and F. Jacoby, Atthis (Oxford 1949) passim. The grain is from FGrHist 328 
F 119 = Schol. Ar. Vesp. 718. These figures have been generally accepted, as by A. W. 
Gomme, The Population of Athens (Oxford 1933) 16-7. 

, As R. Flaceliere and E. Chambry on this passage in the BuM ed. (Paris 1964). 
5 Crews: B. Perrin, Plutarch's Cimon and Pericles (New York 1910) 226. Cost: A. Bockh, 

Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener 3 I (Berlin 1886) 357; A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commen­
tary on Thucydides II (Oxford 1956) 42 (hereafter cited as GOMME, Comm.). K. J. Beloch, 
Griechische Geschichte 2 II (Strassburg 1916) 331, put it as 240 talents, since he allowed pay 
of only three obols a day instead of a drachma. 



SAMUEL K. EDDY 143 

and steering oars, and 170 oarsmen.6 A fleet of sixty ships will have 
required 10,200 men to row, 600 epibatai and 660 other ranks, a total 
of 11,460 men. If each one received a drachma a day, which most 
authorities agree was the rate of pay at this time,7 the cost per diem 
will have been 1 talent, 5,460 drachmas, very nearly two talents. The 
minimum cost for eight months will have been something like this. 
Eight lunar months amount to 236 days, allowing for four full months 
of thirty days and four hollow months of twenty-nine. Let us suppose, 
too, that the crews were not paid on everyone of those days, because 
the ships had to be in port for upkeep or repair, because some reli­
gious festival was in progress, because the Assembly was holding 
some important session, or for some other reason. Thus, perhaps a 
third of this time, around 76 days, should be subtracted from the 
236, leaving 160 days of active service for which pay was given. Of 
course, the actual number of days without pay may well have been 
much less. At 1 talent, 5,460 drachmas a day for 160 days, the cost 
would be 305 talents, 3,600 drachmas as a minimum figure for sixty 
ships. The true figure no doubt lies between this and the 480 talents 
of B6ckh and Gomme. 

In 432/1, the annual income of Athens, from both domestic and 
foreign sources, was about 1,000 talents.s When Perikles inaugurated 
the training program, however, the income of the state was certainly 
less. Miltner thought that the program, as a democratic reform, would 
have been begun about 453-450 B.C.,9 and this may be right, but I 

should be inclined to put it right after the Peace of Kallias or even 
after the Thirty Years Peace of 445, by which time the founding of the 
great series of klerouchies was coming to an end, and there were 
prospects for a lengthy period of peace. That was just the time to 
start regular paid training. The exact date, however, does not matter 
-the system was certainly in operation by 445/4, and Athens' revenue 
was certainly less then than in 432/1. We know of two considerable 
items of income which did not exist in 445/4. One was the annual 
installment of 50 talents paid as war indemnity by Samos from 439 
on, and the second was the revenue, whatever it was, that came in 

8 For crews of triremes see F. Miltner in RE 16 (1935) 2030-1 S.v. NAUTAI, and A. Koster 
and B. Veith, Heerwesen und Krieg~fuhrung der Griechen und Romer (Munchen 1928) 188-91. 

7 A. Bockh, op.cit. (supra n.5) 1.340-2, 357, collected the evidence; Gomme Comm. II 
42,46-7, 275 gives it a recent discussion. 

S Xen. Anab. 7.1.27. 
9 In RE 19 (1937) 759 S.V. PERIKLES 1. 



144 ATHENS' PEACETIME NAVY IN THE AGE OF PERlKLES 

from Amphipolis after 437. The authors of ATL think that it was in 
the neighborhood of 70-75 talents, but this strikes me as too high, at 
least for 432/1, when Amphipolis had been settled for only five years. 
A third source of income, the phoros of the allies, in the early 440's 
varied between 360 and 375 talents; about 443 it rose to around 390 
talents and then remained approximately constant.10 Therefore, if 
we take these three items together as 125 talents (50 from Samos, 60 
from Amphipolis and 15 more of tribute), Athens' income at the 
time the training program was begun and was budgeted for was 
around 875 talents. The cost of the Annual Squadron, as I shall call 
it, would have been more than a third of this on the lowest possible 
estimate, or more than half on the highest, if it comprised sixty ships. 

We must, therefore, consider the yearly charge for the Annual 
Squadron along with what is known of other expenditure at Athens 
at this time. The non-naval outlay was certainly considerable. Work 
was in progress on numerous temples and costly monuments. The 
Parthenon required about 500 talents to complete, and the Propylaia 
about 200.11 Pheidias' gold and ivory statue of Athena consumed the 
enormous sum of 750 talents.a Not all of the money for the em­
bellishment of the Akropolis came from public funds, since a certain 
amount was contributed by private individuals.ls But such contri­
butions will have been relatively tiny, so that we can count the whole 
cost as an expense of the state, remembering that we do not know 
how much was spent for things like landscaping. Work on the Akro­
polis, therefore, buildings and statue together, absorbed during the 
seventeen years of construction an average annual expense of 85 
talents at least. Actually, most of the expense fell in the 440's, when 
gold was purchased for the statue and when most of the stone for the 

10 Samian indemnity: B. D. Meritt, H. T. Wade·Gery and M. F. McGregor, The Athenian 
Tribute Lists ill (Baltimore 1950) 307, 327 n.7, 334-6 (hereafter cited as ATL). Gomme, 
Comm.n.33, has argued that the annual amount was larger but the arguments in ATL fit 
the evidence much better. Amphipolis: ATL ill.309 n.45, 339 n.58. Plwros: ATL ill.338. 

11 R. S. Stanier in an interesting article, "The Cost of the Parthenon," ]RS 73 (1953) 
68-76, estimates the costs of these two buildings. The Parthenon, he thinks, cost 460 
talents, but he says that it may have cost more, depending on certain factors affecting 
his calculations. He even mentions 680 talents as possible. I have chosen to round off 460 
as 500 talents. 

12 IG J2 354, as republished by W. B. Dinsmoor, "The Final Account of the Athena 
Parthenos," ArchEph 1937, 507-11, and modified by Gomme, Comm. n.Z5. 

13 In year 10 of the Parthenon two individuals, Eupher [ ....... J and Sauponos con-
tributed money: IG 12 348. 



SAMUEL K. EDDY 145 

Parthenon was quarried and hauled to Athens. Simultaneously, there 
were under construction the Temples of Nemesis at Rhamnous, of 
Poseidon at Sounion, of Hephaistos in the Agora, and of Ares in or 
near the city of Athens, as well as the Telesterion for the celebration 
of the Mysteries at Eleusis.14 We do not know how much these build­
ings cost, nor how they were paid for. Even if we assume, as is com­

monly done, that the money came from old accumulated treasure 
of these gods, we still have to consider the expenditure for them part 
of state expense. Xenophon's figure of 1,000 talents includes the 
income of the other gods as well as that of Athena. Weare not 
concerned here only with the Sacred Treasure of Athena, or with 
the chest of the Hellenotamiai, or with any single treasure, but 
rather with the total annual income of the state. I concede that the 
expense of building these other temples could have come from 
accumulated treasure; but even so the expense both of constructing 
the temples and of training the fleet was expected to go on for a very 
considerable period of time-probably thirty years or so-and, in 
the long run, expenditure obviously could not exceed income. In 
the case of these temples, then, if we estimate very conservatively 
that each of these five buildings, including cult statue and other 
ornamentation, cost 100 talents to build, and allow twenty years for 
carrying out the work, this will have involved an average annual 
outlay of around 40 talents. Additional to these temples, there were 
also the new Odeion, whose cost is not known. Work on the platform 
for the Temple of Athena Nike on the Akropolis consumed another 
unknown sum of money down to 431. Some inexpensive preparations 
for the construction of the Erechtheion were possibly made between 
435 and 432. The Chalkotheke, just to the west of the Parthenon, may 
have been completed during the first years of our period. One or 
more half life-size, gold-plated statues of Nike were made in the 430's. 
The value of the gold used was 28 talents of silver, and the cost of 
making them will have increased the amount paid out for them to at 
least 30 talents each.15 There was other expenditure for more mun-

14 Recent discussion of the dates and other details of these buildings include those of 
W. H. Plommer, "Three Attic Temples," BSA 45 (1950) 66-112, and C. H. Morgan, "The 
Sculptures of the Hephaisteion," Hesperia 32 (1963) 91-108. 

15 Athena Nike: W. Wrede, "Mnesikles und cler Nikepyrgos," AthMitt 57 (1932) 74-91; 
Erechtheion: J. M. Paton, The Erechtheum (Cambridge [Mass.] 1927) 452-6; Chalkotheke: 
G. P. Stevens, The Setting of the Periclean Parthenon (Hesperia Suppl. 3, Baltimore 1940) 
7-9; J. P. Barron, "Religious Propaganda of the Delian League," JHS 84 (1964) 47; Nike: 

4-G.R.B.S. 



146 ATHENS' PEACETIME NAVY IN THE AGE OF PERIKLES 

dane construction, such as the middle Long Wall, completed perhaps 
in 443/2, and the other fortifications, like those on the north-western 
frontier.16 

In addition to expenditure on public works, other annual payments 
had to be met. These included pay for the jurymen, which amounted 
to 60-70 talents a year. The five hundred bouleutai received 20-25 
talents a year. The cavalry was subsidized by the state to the extent 
of some 40 talents a year.17 Annual charges for maintenance of the 
navy included the building of new triremes to replace those which 
inevitably wore out or were wrecked. We are not certain how many 
new ships were built every year. The Anonymus Argentinensis says 
that ten new triremes were constructed annually.ls By the 430's, this 
would have been too small a number, however, to have maintained 
the strength of the Athenian navy. Thucydides says that Athens had 
300 warships on her navy lists in 431. Kolbe thought that the average 
length of life of a trireme was twenty years, basing his estimate on a 
study of the naval inscriptions of the fourth century.19 To maintain 
a strength of 300 ships would therefore require fifteen new hulls a 
year. Perhaps, however, before the Samian War the Athenians had 
fewer than 300 ships, and, as a result of the loss of the services of the 
Samian fleet in 439, the number of new ships built was increased from 

H. A. Thompson, "A Golden Nike from the Athenian Agora," in Athenian Studies presenud 
to William Scott Ferguson (HSCP Suppl. 1, Cambridge [Mass.] 1940) 183-210. 

16 L. Chandler, "The North-West Frontier of Attica," JHS 46 (1926) 1-21; R. L. Scranton, 
"The Fortifications of Athens at the Opening of the Pe!oponnesian War," AJA 42 (1938) 
525-36. J. R. McCredie, Fortified Military Camps in Attica (Hesperia Suppl. 11, Princeton 
1966) does not discuss the fortifications of the north-west frontier, but lesser camps in the 
interior of the country, mostly of Hellenistic date. 

17 Pay for holding state office is discussed by C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Con­
stitution (Oxford 1952) 219-20. Ar. Vesp. 663 says that the jurymen of that time received 
150 talents a year, but that was after 425 B.C., when their pay had risen from two to three 
obols a day. ATL III.345 and n.97 say, rightly I think, that this is a theoretical maximum 
and not the actual amount spent. Hence, in the 44O's and 430's the cost of the juries was 
perhaps 60-70 talents. Members of the Boule received, probably, one drachma daily when 
in Prytany, otherwise five obols, but this is not certain (Hignett, lcc.cit.). M. N. Tod, in 
CAH V (Cambridge 1927) 30, estimated the cost of pay for dikastai and bouleutai together 
at 100-110 talents a year after the rise in pay in 425. 

18 I have used the text as restored by H. T. Wade-Gery and B. D. Meritt, "Athenian 
Resources in 449 and 431 B.C.," Hesperia 26 (1957) 164. The ships are from lines 10-11. 

11 W. Kolbe, "Zur Athenischen Marineverwaltung," AthMitt 26 (1901) 377-418. F. 
Miltner, in RE Suppl. 5 (1931) 920 S.V. SBBWESBN, mentions a forty-year old ship (Plut. 
Phil. 14.3) and an eighty-year old one (Livy 35.26.5). J. Labarbe, La loi navale de Themistocle 
(Paris 1957) 127 n.4, and Casson, cp.cit. (supra n.1) 98, follow Kolbe. 



SAMUEL K. EDDY 147 

ten to fifteen to compensate. How much a new trireme cost the state 
is also uncertain. It was one or two talents, but we do not know how 
much of this the trierarchs had to contribute.20 But we can still 
estimate the expense of new ships within limits: if the state paid one 
talent for each of ten ships, it was 10 talents; if two talents for fifteen, 
30 talents. I shall summarize the amount of all annual expenses in a 
moment. 

There is one last considerable amount of Athenian income which, 
while it cannot be reckoned as an expenditure, was still not available 
for financing the Annual Squadron. This was the amount of money 
set aside every year during this period and added to the Sacred 
Treasure of Athena. The Decrees of Kallias prove that by 434/3 the 
Athenians had amassed the sum of 3,000 talents and transferred it to 
the Akropolis. 21 We cannot be sure how much was set aside annually 
for this purpose, because we do not know when the Athenians began 
to accumulate the money. The authors of ATL have argued for the 
year 449/8, and claim that exactly 200 talents was the amount set 
aside each year. Gomme has vigorously attacked this view, and, I 
believe, has shown that ATL were wrong to posit an exact sum.22 

The actual sum may have been as much as 300 talents a year, that is, 
the amount left over after all expenses of the Hellenotamiai had been 
met. That amount would be the figure if we assume that there was 
a surplus only in years of peace. Since wars were fought in 447/6, 
446/5,441/0, and 440/39, there would have been, reckoning from 449/8, 
ten payments into the Sacred Treasure. I do not mean to imply that 
300 talents was an exact sum, but rather that in one year, say, 287 

talents were left over, in another 313, and so on. On the other hand, 
300 talents may be too much; the surpluses may have been accumu­
lated from 454/3, when the core of Athena's treasure was brought 
from Delos, and some surplus may have existed in some of these war 
years. If this is so, then a minimum of 150 talents will still have been 
set aside. 

20 Gomme, Comm. II.33 n.l; N. G. L. Hammond, A History of Greece (Oxford 1959) 326. 
Triremes grew more complicated after Salamis and Mykale (Thuc. 1.14.3; Pluto Cim. 
12.2, and see Gomme, Comm. I [Oxford 1945) 125, 222 and 278 on these passages). This and 
the gradual fall in the value of money in the fifth century may account for the differences 
between our sources. 

21 IG 12 91-2, now superseded by the text in ATL II DI-2. 
22 ATL III.326-9; A. W. Gomme, "Thucydides ii 13, 3," Historia 2 (1953) 1-21; Comm. II. 

26-33. 



148 ATHENS' PEACETIME NAVY IN THE AGE OF PERIKLES 

In summary, then, the known annual expenditure of Athens during 
the 440's, conservatively estimated, and with certain items omitted, 
was as follows: 

Dikastai 
Bouleutai 
Akropolis 
Other temples 
Cavalry 
Triremes 
Annual accumulation 

TOTAL 

60-70 talents 
20-25 

85 
40 
40 

10-30 
150-300 

405-725 

These figures do not include many other items of public outlay, 
whose amounts cannot be estimated with reasonable probability. 
These include maintenance and improvement of the fortifications, 
not only of the ring walls of Athens and Peiraieus but of the three 
Long Walls, the frontier fortifications from Eleusis to Rhamnous, 
and the fortini along Athens' west coast from Peiraieus to Sounion.23 

Maintenance of the naval dockyards at Peiraieus and of the arsenal 
was necessary, as of the ships in reserve and their equipment, in­
cluding sails, rigging, tackle and oars. Personnel to be paid in con­
nection with this were the 500 dockyard guards. Perhaps they served 
in relays of 50 per prytany. There was also the cost of cult and festivals; 
a celebration of the Panathenaia in 415, for example, cost 9 talents. 
Many priests and priestesses received an annual salary. The Akropolis 
had to be cared for and maintained, and pay found for fifty guards. 
There were the 300 Skythian archers. The empire required 700 paid 
administrators at home and more overseas. Some garrisons overseas 
had to be supported. In Attika, roads had to be kept up, money 
found to maintain the orphans of Athens' wars, and a dole provided 
for the physically disabled.24 The total amount of all these unknown 
expenses will have been considerable, and, with the other, known 
figures, make clear that it was an impossibility for Athens to keep an 

13 For the frontier fortifications see n.16 above; for the fortini, C. w. J. Eliot, Coastal 
Danes of Attica (Toronto 1962) 41-2, 129-35. 

24 Panathenaia: IG 12 302 = M. N. Tad, Greek Historical Inscriptions 2 (Oxford 1946) no. 75, 
lines 60-2 (hereafter cited as Ton). Priests: as, for example, the priestess of Athena Nike, 
IG II 24 = Tad no. 40, who was supposed to receive 50 drachmas yearly. Watchmen: 
Arist. Ath.Pol. 24.3. Orphans: Thuc. 2.41.1. Disabled: Arist. Ath.Pol. 49.4; Lys. 24. 



SAMUEL K. EDDY 149 

Annual Squadron of sixty ships in commission for eight months dur­
ing the 440's, when her income was about 875 talents. 

In the second place, the matter of manpower must be considered. 
Sixty triremes required 10,200 oarsmen and 1,260 other ranks. I 
suppose that most of the men, but not all, were thetes, so that we 
should imagine that perhaps 10,000 men of the thetic class would 
have to serve in these ships for two thirds of a year. But the number 
of thetes in Athens in 431 was around 18,000,25 so that the Annual 
Squadron will have required more than half the available number. 
We cannot assume that the ships were manned in part by metics 
and foreigners, for Plutarch states quite specifically that the crews 
were citizen. 

There were other demands being made simultaneously on the 
manpower of the thetes. Gomme has roughly calculated that between 
2,200 and 3,300 men were required as unskilled labor for the Akropolis 
buildings, being engaged to quarry stone, cut wood and transport 
these materials from outlying districts to the city.26 Of course, many 
of these men were no doubt zeugitai, metics and slaves, but these 
numbers do not include the manpower needed for the construction 
of the other buildings going up in Attika, nor the considerable 
number of men who must have been at work (no doubt many of 
them slaves) as stevedores in the civil port of Peiraieus, as seamen in 
merchant ships, as porters in the markets at Peiraieus and Athens, in 
the mines at Laureion with their attached smelters, or in the num­
erous small workshops in Attika which manufactured pottery, tiles, 
furniture, bricks, clothing, weapons and so on. Above all, we should 
also consider that by no means all the thetes were even able to row 
in the fleet; some were no doubt too old and some physically handi­
capped.27 

Therefore, because Athens had neither the financial strength nor 
the citizen manpower to equip a fleet of sixty ships year after year in 
peacetime, we must reject Plutarch's high figure and emend it. The 
most attractive number, palaeographically, is sixteen, whether we 
assume that the number was written out in full, or noted with letters 
or acrophonically. Thus, EKKAI.6EKA was mistaken for E3HKONTA 

25 Gomme, op.cit. (supra n.3) 16-7,25-6. 
26 Gomme, Comm. 11.46-7. 
27 A. W. Gomme, "The Athenian Hoplite Force in 431 B.C.," CQ 21 (1927) 142-51; and 

now see, too, B. Baldwin, "Medical Grounds for Exemptions from Military Service at 
Athens," CP 62 (1967) 42-3. 



150 ATHENS' PEACETIME NAVY IN THE AGE OF PERIKLES 

or IF for :::, or ~m for P~. Whether the mistake was due to a 
slip of Plutarch's fallible memory or to the carelessness of some 
copyist is impossible to say. 

There is, I think, good supporting evidence that the Athenian 
peacetime navy numbered sixteen ships in commission. In the sum­
mer of 440 B.C. news of the gravest import suddenly reached the city. 
rhe recently established democracy in Samos had been overthrown, 
the island was in revolt, and the Persian fleet was said to be advancing 
from Phoenicia in support of the rebels (Thuc. 1.115.5-116.1). A 
c~rtain Karystian said that the Samians were preparing a secret 
engine, and received the reward of Athenian citizenship for his report. 
This was no doubt a crisis of the most serious dimensions. Remem­
bering it years later, Thucydides said that the Samians had seemed to 
be about to overthrow Athens' control of the sea.2S This remark, I 
am sure, accurately reflects the anxiety that excited the Athenian 
citizens on the day that the news-already at least three days old­
was brought to the Assembly. It would be at least another three 
days before their fastest ships could reach the theater of operations.29 

What was vital for Athens was to act decisively and quickly, to send 
ships at once to summon help from Lesbos and Chios, to send other 
ships at once to discover if the dreadful rumor of a new Persian war 
was true, and, if so, to discover the whereabouts of the Persian fleet. 
Then, Samos herself must be attacked without delay, lest the revolt 
spread. And this, in fact, is what Thucydides said they did. 

We must remember that whatever the number of ships kept in 
commission during the summer, they would be the first to be sent out 
when crisis threatened. Only they were immediately available with 
full complements and all equipment on board. It would take some 
days to launch additional triremes from the ship-sheds and to enroll 
full crews for them. But the ships already in commission had crews 
in a higher state of training and in better physical condition than 
ships suddenly provided with crews hurriedly taken from civil life. 
Strength of arm and back, stamina and practiced skill were the 
necessary qualities for the oarsmen who had the dangerous task of 
searching for the Persian fleet. 

Thucydides says that the Athenians, confronted with the danger, 
dispatched a fleet of sixty ships against Samos. But, more specifically. 

28 Thuc. 1.116.1; the Karystian: Ar. Vesp. 282-3 and schoI. 
29 L. Casson, "Speed under Sail of Ancient Ships," TAPA 82 (1951) 136--48. 



SAMUEL K. EDDY 151 

he says (1.116.1) that this squadron was made up of a main body of 
forty-four ships, under Perikles' command, which followed out an 
advance force of sixteen ships, which sailed for Chi os and Lesbos to 
call for naval assistance, and for Karia to find the Persians. The 
Athenians, then, did not have sixty ships ready in commission, but 
only sixteen. 

A somewhat similar case occurred seven years later. In approxi­
mately July 433, the Athenians made a defensive treaty with Kerkyra. 
Almost at once they decided to send a squadron of warships to sup­
port their new ally, since an attack upon her by Korinth seemed 
imminent. Korinth and her allies had assembled no less than 150 
triremes against 110 older and weaker Kerkyrean vessels. On the 
thirteenth day of Prytany I, the Athenian Assembly voted to dispatch 
ten ships. A second squadron of twenty, which more nearly equalized 
the numbers of ships on both sides, was voted on the last (37th?) day 
of the same Prytany.30 In this case, it is true, the matter was less 
urgent and dangerous than the scare of 440 over Samos. But still, 
speed of decision must have been required, for the danger that the 
Korinthians might take immediate action was certainly felt in Athens. 
Korinthian ambassadors had even guardedly threatened war. As it 
turned out, the second contingent of twenty arrived barely in time.31 
No doubt, the decision to send ships to Kerkyra was complicated by 
many issues. Aside from the sharp difference of opinion between 
those who had originally voted for the alliance and those who had 
voted against it, there were factional disputes and the family rivalry 
between Perikles and Lakedaimonios, son of Kimon, one of the 
generals embarked in the first ten ships. Plutarch (Per. 29.1-2) pre­
serves an echo of this quarrel. The point is that Perikles and his 
advisers must have felt that only rapid and large-scale action could 
save Kerkyra from defeat or even, by a show of overwhelming force, 
avert war with Korinth. Perhaps we should think that the first squad­
ron of ten was sent out as rapidly as possible, while it was left to a 
subsequent session of the Assembly to decide whether additional 
ships should be sent, and, if so, how many. In any case, it looks again 
as if no more than sixteen ships were immediately available, since 
only ten ships sailed on day thirteen. From consideration, therefore, 

30 Size of fleets: Thuc. 1.46.1; the dating of the two contingents and their size: Thuc. 
1.44.1,45.1; IG I2 295 = Tod no. 55. 

31 Threats: Thuc. 1.39.3,40.2; arrival: Thuc. 1.51.4. 



152 ATHENS' PEACETIME NAVY IN THE AGE OF PERIKLES 

of the Samian and Kerkyrean incidents, it is clear that our sources 
contain no hint whatsoever that the Athenians ever had anything 
like sixty ships manned and ready in peacetime. 

It is thus reasonably certain that Plutarch's number sixty must be 
emended to sixteen. These ships will have needed only 3,056 men to 

man them instead of 11,460. Even this smaller number is about a 
sixth of the thetic class. Its cost will have been about 130 talents a 
year. I shall return to this last point presently. This peacetime 
squadron of sixteen, incidentally, is not to be confused with the twenty 
guard-ships mentioned in the Constitution of Athens ascribed to 
Aristotle. That document (24.3) says explicitly that they were em­
ployed in war-time.32 

How can this number sixteen be explained? I believe that our 
sources mention these sixteen ships in three widely separated places. 
There are the ten new ships constructed annually, probably four 
ships used to collect tribute, and the two state triremes, totalling 
sixteen. This evidence is not absolutely compelling, because the 
tribute-collecting ships might have included the Salaminia and Paralos. 

As mentioned above, the Anonymus Argentinensis says that in the 
440's Athens was building ten new ships a year. It would have been 
a sensible procedure to commission the new vessels and try them out 
under service conditions to test their water-tightness and to see 
whether the rowing benches were securely and correctly placed, 
whether the mast rested accurately in place and could easily be taken 
out and restepped according to need, and whether the sails, rigging 
and other equipment were sound. Then, after eight months of 
shaking down, the ships could be assigned to the reserve of "new 
ships" on the navallists.33 The next year the next batch of triremes 
would receive the same treatment. I am inclined to believe the 
Anonymus is right for the 440's, and that in those years the Athenians 
considered ten new ships all that they needed to build after the 
Peace of Kallias. They may have captured a good many off Cyprus in 
450/49 and others in the fighting in 447--445. Ten is also a number that 
suggests some kind of equalization among the tribes. In naval matters 
the Athenians certainly often thought in multiples of ten. Against 
Samos there was a first squadron of sixty (16+44), which was later 

81 Gomme, Comm. 1.460-1, for once is inexact and thinks these twenty may be in some 
way the same as Plutarch's sixty. 

38 Thuc. 2.24.2; IG II 2 1604, line 25: K]paTlC1T7J K/Uvr/' 



SAMUEL K. EDDY 153 

reinforced by an additional forty, and to Kerkyra they sent first ten 
and later twenty ships. This would seem to have been due to a wish 
to equalize the risks and the receipt of pay among the tribes. The 
annual ten new ships may have been commanded by trierarchs 
drawn one from each tribe. 

So far as training in these ships is concerned, the Athenians could 
have drilled more than the 1,700 oarsmen required by having the 
men serve in relays. If the crews were changed each month, 13,600 

oarsmen could receive training in a single year's time. 
Four tribute-collecting ships are probably to be inferred from the 

Decree of Kleinias of ca. 447 B.C. This decree directs that four men be 
appointed each spring, after the allies had paid their phoros, to collect 
arrears. Two men were sent to Ionia and the Islands and two to the 
Hellespont and Thrake "with fast triremes." I assume that each man 
had one trireme.34 These would not be brand-new ships, because one 
would not know whether a freshly-built vessel was fast until it had 
been tried out. It is a reasonable conjecture that these same ships 
could have been used in the fall to announce the assessed phoros due 
at Athens the following spring. And we can easily imagine other 
tasks these ships could have performed at other seasons of the year. 
Peiraieus and the Euripos each may have required a guardship, 
possibly in commission a longer time than eight months, and there 
were also despatches and pay chests to be carried to garrisons over­
seas, embassies to be transported, and the like. Possibly the trierarchs 
of these four ships were drawn from the tribes in rotation, like the 
secretaries of some of the administrative boards. 

Last, we know from our literary sources that in the fifth century 
Athens maintained two special triremes, the Paralos and Salaminia. 
These ships were used for missions of unique importance and great 
moment, so that mere tribute-collecting would appear to be excluded 
from their duties. Since we know that they were commanded not 
by trierarchs but by nauarchs and that each ship was assigned a 
treasurer, we may infer that they were in commission all year round, 
the state bearing the entire expense of their upkeep.35 

84 IG 12 66, now revised in ATL II 07 = Hicks and Hill, Sources for Greek History 2 (Oxford 

1951) no. 46, lines 25-31. During the Archidamian War the size of the tribute-collectng 
squadrons was larger; in 430 B.C. Melesandros commanded six such trieremes, and in 428 
General Lysikles and his colleagues twelve (Thuc. 2.69.1, 3.19.1). 

35 A. Koster, op.cit. (supra n.6) 183, collects the ancient evidence; for details see Thuc. 
6.53.1,61.4; Pluto Per. 7.7; Arist. Ath.Pol. 56.7. 



154 ATHENS' PEACETIME NAVY IN THE AGE OF PERIKLES 

At this point the objection might be raised that if the Athenians 
could not afford to support sixty ships in peacetime, how could they 
find the money and the manpower to operate as many as the 300 
ships which Thucydides says were in existence at the start of the Archi­
damian War? The answer is simple. In the first place, the Athenians 
never manned as many as 300 ships at one time. In the summer of 431 
they set aside 100 of their best triremes to be used only in case the 
active fleet was overwhelmed in a naval disaster. Only once, appa­
rently in summer 430 B.C., were there as many as 250 ships simul­
taneously in full commission, and of these 50 came from chios and 
Lesbos.36 Usually, then, the number of active ships was much less 
than 300. In the second place, the large fleets of up to 100 ships which 
were dispatched to devastate the coastal districts of the Peloponnesos 
did not remain in commission for as long as eight months but only 
for two months or less.37 These annual attacks by big, expensive 
naval squadrons and also the operations sustained during wartime 
winters at Naupaktos and in Sicily,3S had by 421 B.C. gradually used 
up most of the money in the war chest which the Athenians had 
put into reserve in peacetime.39 It was only by keeping the Annual 
Squadron small that the Athenians had been able to build up the 
Sacred Treassure of Athena. Manpower for the wartime fleets was 
found by the Athenians by supplementing their own citizen crews 
with mercenaries drawn from the allied states.40 

If all the foregoing is correct, we can now roughly estimate 
the cost of the standing navy in the years from 448 (or 445) to 
431 B.C. I shall now revert to the traditional number of 200 for 
a trireme's crew, and thirty days for a month, because we cannot 
hope for exact accuracy in making these estimates. At a drachma 
per day per man, the crew of one trireme was paid a talent a month. 
Therefore, the cost of 

36 The 300 ships: Thuc. 2.13.8; the 100 best ships: Thuc. 2.24.2; the 250: Thuc. 3.17.1. 
I accept the dating and explication of this passage proposed by F. E. Adcock, "On Thucy­
dides III, 17," CambHist] 1 (1923-5) 319-22, and accepted by Gomme, Comm. 11.272-3. 
The 50 ships: Thuc. 2.56.2. 

37 The first fleet dispatched in 431 sailed in June: Thuc. 2.17.4, 23.2 and Gomme, Comm. 
II.79-80. It returned in August: Thuc. 2.31.1,3 and Gomme, Comm. II.92. 

38 Naupaktos: Thuc. 2.69.1, 83.1, 90.1, 102.1, 103.1; 3.7.1-3,69.2, 75.1, etc. Sicily: Thuc. 
3.86.1,5, 88.1,4, 90.1, etc. 

39 ATL I1I.326--45; Gomme, Comm. m.687-9. 
(0 Thuc. 1.121.3, 143.1-2. 



SAMUEL K. EDDY 155 

ten ships used eight months for training was 80 talents 
four ships used ten months for administrative 

duties was 40 talents 
and that of the Salaminia and Paralos was 24 talents 

YEARLY TOTAL: 144 talents 

If we deduct a certain amount for festival days and the like, we might 
put the cost at 120 talents a year. The expense for new ships between 
448 and 440 was about 10 talents a year; from 439 to 431 it rose to 
about 15 talents. From 448 to 440, therefore, the expense of the 
standing navy was about 130 talents; from 439 to 431 it was near 135. 

A final word on the implications of all this for our understanding 
of the financial history of Athens. I offer these remarks tentatively, 
because our knowledge of this subject is incomplete. It is usually held 
that the general cost of the Athenian fleet was borne by the tribute­
paying allies after 450 or so. We cannot be sure that every item of 
expense was, but we can safely assume that a large proportion of the 
expenditure was. Meritt, Wade-Gery and McGregor have argued 
that the cost of the navy was a burden of the allies before the Pelo­
ponnesian War, but are necessarily vague about how long before.41 

I am now making the assumption that the Athenians decided to use 
the phoros to support their whole fleet in 449/8, when the Peace of 
Kallias was sworn and when considerable sums of money were diver­
ted from Athena's Treasure for the rebuilding of the Akropolis. 
Assuming, then, that the phoros was used to pay for the standing navy, 
as it was outlined above, a surplus could have been accumulated more 
or less as follows. The Hellenotamiai received the phoros from the 
allies, deducted a sixtieth of it to be given as first-fruits (aparche) to 
Athena, spent what was necessary (130-135 talents) on the fleet, or 
additionally upon campaigns, and set aside the remainder. An 
accumulation over the years could have come about as follows: 

AMOUNT ACCUM. 

YEAR Phoros Aparche NAVY SAVED TOTAL REMARKS 

449/8 000 0 000 000 000 No tribute collected 
448/7 360 6 130 224 224 
447/6 364 6 130 178 402 50 tal. for Boiotian expe-

dition 
446/5 375 6 130 189 591 50 tal. for Euboian expe-

dition 
n ATL III.89 and Thuc. 1.99.3. 



156 ATHENS' PEACETIME NAVY IN THE AGE OF PERIKLES 

AMOUNT ACCUM. 

YEAR Phoros Aparche NAVY SAVED TOTAL REMARKS 

445/4 375 6 130 239 830 
444/3 375 6 130 239 1,069 
443/2 390 6t 130 253-!- 1,322-!-
442/1 390 6t 130 253-!- 1,576 
441/0 390 6t 130 213-!- 1,789-!- 40 tal. for Samian expe-

dition 
440/39 390 6t ? 0 1,789-!- All income for Samian 

War 
439/8 390 6t 135 248-!- 2,038 
438/7 390 6t 135 173-!- 2,211-!- 75 tal. for Amphipolis 

and periplous of the 
Black Sea 

437/6 390 6t 135 248-!- 2,460 
436/5 390 6t 135 248-!- 2,708-!-
435/4 390 6t 135 248-!- 2,957 
434/3 390 6t 135 248-!- 3,205-!- IG 12 91: 3,000 tal. given 

to Athena, 200 to the 
Other Gods 

This scheme is obviously quite rough, rests on a number of pure 
assumptions, and is offered, therefore, simply exempli gratia. It does 
have the virtue, however, of plausibly showing how the sum of money 
named in IG J2 91 may have been arrived at. 

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY 

March, 1968