Professor Polly Lowe

And it's settled in favour of the pro-Athenian faction.

And then Eritrea is incorporated, reincorporated into the Athenian.

And we have the inscription that sets up the terms for Eurythra rejoining the Athenian alliance.

And it's tempting.

We could put that inscription, put it in the 450s and make it part of a sort of bigger story of sort of sorting things out in this region after the Peace of Callias.

But that inscription, some people put it in the 460s, some people put it in the 430s.

So we have to be quite cautious trying to make a very neat picture.

I'm going to frustrate you again by saying that we can't be sure because we used to think that we did know this because we used to think there was a cluster of inscriptions, inscribed documents that showed the Athenians being very heavy handed in running their empire.

and sending out officials and passing very sort of quite brutal regulations about the consequences of not doing what the Athenians wanted, what happens if you don't pay your tributes, that sort of thing.

And those used to be dated in the late 450s into the 440s.

And again, connected with this, the end of the war against Persia and a big change in the Athenian empire.

Isurians have, as we all want to do, changed our minds about the date of most of these texts.

And they're now put in the 420s.

Which doesn't mean that the Athenians weren't being horrible earlier on, but just means that they weren't writing it down.

Or if they did write it down, we haven't got the evidence for them writing it down.

So this is one of those cases where the last 30 years of scholarship have ended up with us knowing less about

We once thought we knew about exactly what was happening in the 450s, 440s.

A quite common tactic the Athenians use, and I think we can say in fact that they are doing this in the 440s certainly, is that if a city tries to rebel and fails, then one of the punishments which is inflicted is confiscation of land.

The Athenians will seize the land that was owned by members of that community.

and take it for themselves and usually distribute it among Athenian citizens.