The Athenians next sent envoys round to the principal islands and maritime cities in the Ægean, inviting all of them to an alliance on equal and honorable terms. The principles were in the main the same as those upon which the confederacy of Delos had been formed against the Persians, almost a century before. It was proposed that a congress of deputies should meet at Athens, one from each city, small as well as great, each with one vote; that Athens should be president, yet each individual city autonomous; that a common fund should be raised, with a common naval force, through assessment imposed by this congress upon each, and applied as the same authority might prescribe; the general purpose being defined to be, maintenance of freedom and security from foreign aggression, to each confederate, by the common force of all. Care was taken to banish as much as possible those associations of tribute and subjection which rendered the recollection of the former Athenian empire unpopular.[215] And as there were many Athenian citizens, who, during those times of supremacy, had been planted out as kleruchs or out-settlers in various dependencies, but had been deprived of their properties at the close of the war,—it was thought necessary to pass a formal decree,[216] renouncing and barring all revival of these suspended rights. It was farther decreed that henceforward no Athenian should on any pretence hold property, either in house or land, in the territory of any one of the confederates; neither by purchase, nor as security for money lent, nor by any other mode of acquisition. Any Athenian infringing this law, was rendered liable to be informed against before the synod; who, on proof of the fact, were to deprive him of the property,—half of it going to the informer, half to the general purposes of the confederacy. [215] The contribution was now called σύνταξις, not φόρος; see Isokrates, De Pace, s. 37-46; Plutarch, Phokion, c. 7; Harpokration, v. Σύνταξις. Plutarch, De Fortunâ Athen. p. 351. ἰσόψηφον αὐτοῖς τὴν Ἑλλάδα κατέστησαν. [216] Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plataic.) s. 47. Καὶ ~τῶν μὲν κτημάτων τῶν ὑμετέρων αὐτῶν ἀπέστητε~, βουλόμενοι τὴν συμμαχίαν ὡς μεγίστην ποιῆσαι, etc. Diodor. xv, 28, 29. Ἐψηφίσαντο δὲ καὶ ~τὰς γενομένας κληρουχίας ἀποκαταστῆσαι τοῖς πρότερον κυρίοις γεγονόσι~, καὶ νόμον ἔθεντο μηδένα τῶν Ἀθηναίων γεωργεῖν ἐκτὸς τῆς Ἀττικῆς. Διὰ δὲ ταύτης τῆς φιλανθρωπίας ἀνακτησάμενοι τὴν παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν εὔνοιαν, ἰσχυροτέραν ἐποιήσαντο τὴν ἰδίαν ἡγεμονίαν.