Money and mutual benefit between Athens and Persia in the early fourth century

Most discussion of Achaemenid influence in the 390s B.C. is overshadowed by the mission of Timocrates to Greece. The tantalising references made by Xenophon and the author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia continue to frustrate scholars. This paper, however, argues that there is one critical event in the 390s which is of far greater interest. That event is the Persian gift of ships to Athens in 393. The fleet of eighty vessels given to Athens was the end result of a series of actions which — taken in tandem — suggest that Persia saw Athens as a partner for the future. In what follows, I emphasise the critical importance of these ships to Athens and the evidence for the execution of a plan which made the gift possible.