ABSTRACT
The Thracian gold mines, exploitation of which probably did much for the education and leisure of the historian Thucydides, may have been acquired through the activities of the Delian League and later were protected, at least indirectly, by the power of Athen's imperial navy. Thucydides did intend to describe Athenian undertakings against Persia. So the lack of clear reference in his work to a formal peace treaty between Athens and Persia in the early 440's should make us hesitate before accepting statements from elsewhere that there was something of the kind. Sparta's attempts to keep command of the naval alliance against Persia were not wholehearted. But Sparta acquiesced when, not long afterwards, the eastern Greeks and the Athenians rejected the leadership of Pausanias and his Spartan successors. With the enthusiastic approval of the eastern Greeks, command of the naval war against Persia was formally given to Athens.
