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‘Athens aids Eretria’: a state's jurisdiction over its citizens' actions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

N. Toogood
Affiliation:
St John's College, Cambridge

Extract

In the course of studying ancient Greek diplomatic relations I have come to think that one item of evidence deserves a little more said about it than it has, up to now, received. Tod 11.154, entitled Athens aids Eretria: 357–6 B.C.', is a document whose significance in Greek diplomatic history has not, I suggest, been fully appreciated. It is a unique epigraphic record of a genre of diplomatic instrument that was available to states which wished to emphasize their non-belligerence. R. Bauslaugh has recently gathered the literary evidence for the use by neutral states of this type of instrument, prohibiting a state's citizens from serving as mercenaries for a foreign power, but he did not consider this decree, in which a state uses the same instrument to demonstrate its goodwill towards its allies.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1997

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References

2 Tod′s dating is by far the most likely, although the decree gives no direct internal evidence for it.

3 In The Concept of Neutrality in Classical Grehce (California, 1991): indexed under ’Neutrality and mercenary recruitment‘.

4 Op. cit., e.g. p. 73.

5 Bauslaugh, op. cit., passim.

6 Thuc. 1.35.4. It is hard to see, though, what prevented Corcyra herself from attempting to recruit mercenaries within the empire

7 Diod. 15.9.3.

8 This incident, and the nature of the relationship between Athens and Persia at this date, are discussed by Bauslaugh, op. cit., p. 216ff.

9 Xen. Hell. 5.2.27.

10 E.g. Bengtson, Die Staatsvertrdge des Altertums (Munich, 1962), vol. II, no. 193,11. 18–20. (Henceforth ’Bengtson‘.)

11 Bauslaugh, op. cit., p. 148 with refs.

12 Bauslaugh, op. cit., p. 187.

13 394 alliance: Tod 103, Bengtson no. 229–very heavily restored, including all the phrase summachos einai, but certainly a military treaty (... is standard–see e.g. Bengtson no. 223) and certainly dated.

14 See Tod on 11.154. A renewal would have clarified the position of the Euboeans, who had aligned themselves with Thebes at Leuctra.

15 Alliances a little later in the fourth century were often of philia kai swnmachia (e.g. Tod 11.158). This is likely to be merely a change in linguistic fashion, since a summachia, being a strong military alliance, might be assumed to comprehend the general undefined expectations of philia. The specification of philia on its own is significant; its omission in a summachia need not be. The decree of Aristoteles only specifically mentions becoming a summachos (11. 18–19).

16 Pritchett, W. K., Ancient Greek Military Practices I (Berkeley, 1971), p. 21: ’And this was how mercenaries of the Greek cities must usually have lived in the fourth century, hand to mouth‘.Google Scholar

17 The punishment envisaged is similar to the penalties specified for those who try to alter the decree of Aristoteles, as Tod notes, except that it is even stricter in calling for death rather than atimia: the Athenians clearly wish to demonstrate how seriously they take Eretria′s complaint.

18 Bauslaugh also notes as a literary comparandum for the incidents he cites Aeneas Tacticus, who is roughly contemporary and preserves a specimen of a decree which forbids citizens to hire mercenaries or to serve as mercenaries themselves without the magistrates′ approval (10.7): this, however, is clearly intended to prevent the build-up of armed forces within the polis, and to prevent conspiracy in a time of siege, not as an instrument of external policy or as a long-term measure.