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Who ‘Signed’ Treaties in Ancient Greece?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

D. J. Mosley
D. J. Mosley
Affiliation:
Sheffield University
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Extract

Treaties of course did not come into force by the appendage of signatures to documents, but after each of the contracting parties had sent envoys to administer the oaths of ratification to the authorities of the other state. In the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1957 Andrewes and Lewis in an illuminating article on the Peace of Nicias wrote that in the early part of the fourth century B.C. it was the regular practice for Athenian treaties to specify the authorities who were to swear the oath on either side, and that although the fifth-century evidence is more scanty three clear instances suggested the habit was already established by 425.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 7 , 1961, pp. 59 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1961

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References

page 59 note 1 J.H.S. LXXVII (1957), 177 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 59 note 2 In which I am indebted to the managers of the Prendergast Studentship and of the Chas. Oldham Classical Scholarship, and also to the University of Sheffield.

page 59 note 3 Depending on whether arguments for dating (4) to 436 are accepted or not. See Gomme, , Commentary on Thucydides, on IV, 132Google Scholar, 1.

page 59 note 4 Following Segre, , Riv. di Fil. XIII (1935), 497 ff.Google Scholar, in G.H.I. no. 158.

page 60 note 1 Thuc. v, 38, 1; Xen., Hell. V, 3, 26Google Scholar; S.I.G. 3, 588, l.77f.; cited in G.H.I. II, p. 174Google Scholar. Cf. Segre, l.c.

page 60 note 2 Note the lack of precision in Thucydides' list. It should also be borne in mind that the political system of the Thracian communities could not be likened to the city-states of the Corinthians and Megarians or to the federal constitution of the Boeotian League.

page 60 note 3 Perhaps (20) too if the restoration of Dittenberger, , S.I.G.3 181, 40–1Google Scholar, made on the basis of (21), is accepted. A consideration similar to that of (21) would also hold in the case of (20), where Athens was dealing with four other communities which were sufficiently close together to be able to co-ordinate their diplomatic activities.

page 60 note 4 See Historia, X (1961), esp. pp. 174 ff.Google Scholar, where Mattingly suggests the possibility of 426/5.