190 HISTORICAL TALES.

to Athens. And in the end Chios, Samos, and
Lesbos were the only free allies of Athens. All the
other members of the league had been reduced to
subjection. Several of the states of Greece also
became subject to Athens, and the Athenian Empire
grew into a wealthy, powerful, and extended state.

The treasure laid up at Athens in time became
great. The payments amounted to about six hun-
dred talents yearly, and at one time the treasury of
Athens held the great sum of nine thousand seven
hundred talents, equal to over eleven million dollars,
—a sum which meant far more then than the equiv-
alent amount would now.

It was this money that made Athens great. It
proved to be more than was necessary for defensive
war against Persia, or even for the aggressive war
which was carried on in Asia Minor and Egypt. It
also more than sufficed for sending out the colonies
which Athens founded in Italy and elsewhere. The
remainder of the fund was used in Athens, part of
it in building great structures and in producing splen-
did works of art, part for purposes of fortification.
The Pireus, the port of Athens, was surrounded by
strong walls, and a double wall—the famous “ Long
Walls”—was constructed from the city to the port, a
distance of four miles. These walls, some two hun-
dred yards apart, left a grand highway between, the
channel of a steady traffic which flowed from the
sea to the city, and which for years enabled Athens
to defy the cutting off its resources by attack from
without. Through this broad avenue not only pro-
visions and merchandise, but men in multitudes, made