I'm not trying to comment on the plausibility of the Athenian Empire federalizing in some way, but what would an Athenian federation/confederation look like if it we to happen?
I'm not too familiar with the Lycian Confederacy. How would it work?Could it be similar to the Lycian Confederacy?
Hmm, that's an interesting concept. Would something like what Athens had in Attica work on a Delian League scale?Wikipedia has a satisfactory overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycia#Lycian_League
Basically, 23 cities in Lycia were combined into a League, each with 1-3 votes in their governing body. Admittedly, this was under Roman supervision, but the Romans seemed to be satisfied enough that they generally left the Lycians to their own devises.
So, basically, the important cities of the Delian League would get a comparably proportional vote in whatever federal league Athens might lead. Athens, by virtue of population, would likely still dominate such a league.
Well federation can mean a lot of things to be fair.The problem is with an Athenian federation the size of the Delian League is that the Delian League was constructed entirely as a means of Athenian imperial hegemony over the Aegean region, using the excuse of future liberation of Ionian Greeks as an casus belli for (at times forcefully) keeping various Greek city-states under their thumb. The Athenians had no desire to enter into equal partnerships with the other city states.
This doesn't have to exactly happen during the Delian League. The Athenians showed later on they were willing to learn from the mistakes of their heavy-handedness. The Athenian Confederacy created in the 370s had these terms:The problem is with an Athenian federation the size of the Delian League is that the Delian League was constructed entirely as a means of Athenian imperial hegemony over the Aegean region, using the excuse of future liberation of Ionian Greeks as an casus belli for (at times forcefully) keeping various Greek city-states under their thumb. The Athenians had no desire to enter into equal partnerships with the other city states.