Each State contributed at its option either ships or money according to the assessment proposed by Aristides (q.v.), representing Athens, and ratified by the assembled delegates. The first assessment amounted to 460 talents, or about $550,000. The contributions were collected and administered by officers called Hellenotamiae. (Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898)
A league entered into by the Greek States under the hegemony of Athens in B.C. 478, with the primary object of defending Greece against the designs of Persia. The league obtained its name from the fact that the representatives of the States composing it met periodically at the island of Delos, in the temple of Apollo and Artemis.