In this book, ‘In the Middle’. The Microphysics of Mediation in the Ancient Greek World, C. explores the role of the intermediary, arbitrator and mediator and of mediation and arbitration in Greek personal, political and diplomatic disputes. This is a far more complex subject than first meets the eye and C. spends much time defining ideas of arbitration and the place of the arbitrator. The Greeks, both in their thinking and terminology, saw such arbitrators as lying in the middle (meson) between antagonists. Similarly, they also understood the significance of judges, judgments and the private and public spheres of disputes. This of course affected the way that they engaged in and with any arbitration. Much Greek literature explores notions of non-violent dispute resolution (Homer's poems for all their military themes are full of it), thus this is an important topic for understanding Greek relationships and ideology. The profound influence that Greek ideas had about such arbitration on our own world view of diplomacy, and especially on modern legal thinking, makes this a very important study. Unsurprisingly, philosophical notions of thought concerning the role of intermediaries and of neutrality provide much food for thought in the volume's opening discussions. C. shows just how complex the place of the mediator was in antiquity and in a world which appears so dominated by notions of Thucydidean realpolitik and of might making right, mediation actually was a common mechanism for dealing with intra- and inter-family and -polis disputes.

The introduction sets out the context for understanding ideas of being ‘in the middle’ rooted in Greek philosophical and mathematical notions that go back to Anaximander. C. then draws on French thinkers Loraux, Detienne and Vernant to locate his work historiographically. The ‘middle’ of course theoretically lay equidistant from all points both physically and metaphysically. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Delphi, religious centre and intermediary between god and man, lay at the centre of the known world.

Chapter 1 explores types of mediation and interpersonal relationships. C. begins this discussion examining the idea of the judge. Judges of course played important and ubiquitous roles in Greek religious festivals in contests of sport and competition themselves in a sense a test of negotiation and mediation between individual aristocrats and, more widely, political states. The process of arbitration might be seen almost as a zero sum game of winners and losers – and to C. this is the way that Greeks saw this debate. C. goes on to discuss the roles of private and public forms of arbitration and the use of force by outside parties at the request of one of those parties in any dispute. The first chapter concludes with an analysis of intra-family disputes and the important role of women in arbitration and third parties in reconciling spouses, parents with children or brothers with each other. In a world dominated by shared inheritance between brothers it was natural that intra-fraternal disputes were not uncommon.

Chapter 2 examines the role of third party arbitration in resolving disputes that occurred within communities. The constitutional history of the Athenians plays a significant role in this section. The chapter begins with a discussion of Solon's legislation (pp. 231–4). Pericles' famous statement in Thucydides (2.40.2) that individuals who mind their own business have no business in Athens shows how the individual and the state mediated their relationships with each other. The role of constitutions and of openness in bringing together the mass and the elite has strong roots in Homer and is a commonplace in the dialogues of Greek city-formation and political divisions between the demos and the wealthy. Indeed, Homer's poems are full of illustrations of disputes conducted in public and the use of intermediaries in their resolution. This is best illustrated by the actions of Nestor and then Nestor and Odysseus in reconciling Achilles with Agamemnon (pp. 269–76). In addition to assessing Greek contexts this chapter spends some time in analysing arbitration and disputes in the city of Rome down to the time of Constantine. Chapter 2 ends by returning to the Greek polis, examining arbitration at the invitation of those within the community (mostly Athens again) and external intervention requested by another community. C. traces the Herodotean evidence for such external interventions notably by oracles like Delphi from the mythical seventh-century stories of Gyges' murder of Candaules and the settlement of his blood-guilt (Hdt. 1.13–4) or how Miltiades the son of Cypselus became a ruler in Thrace through the oracle of Delphi again (Hdt. 6.34–7), as well as sixth-century stories of how Miletus invited the Parians to reconcile their factional strife, which they did by appointing as leaders those men whose farms were best tended. Finally, C. notes the succession of Battus III at Cyrene, which saw Delphi advise inviting a third party from Mantinea in Arcadia to reorganise the state (Hdt. 4.161).

The third and final chapter examines arbitration and mediation between poleis. This is the most practical exposition of how arbitration and mediation worked in the ancient Greek world. It explores in great detail the process of mediation from the inviting in of a third party to the nature of their arbitration between cities. C. asks very good questions of the ancient material concerning how and why third parties might intervene in these external disputes and how their actions might persuade states to accept mediation and its terms rather than resorting to organised violence in order to solve their problems.

This is a very important study. The ancient Greeks are often seen as violently solving their problems either with wars or the threat of wars. The sources of course concentrate on military action and militaristic imperial states like Athens. In this environment, Thucydides holds sway in our thinking that might always makes right. In this book C. traces the process whereby arbitration and mediation moved from ad hoc and informal mechanisms of personal interaction in the world of Homer to more specialised, legalistic and rigid forms of civic judgment in fifth-century Athens.

The conclusions are perhaps salutary. C. states that across a spectrum of Greek cultural phenomena, from Games to courts to international relations, arbitration represented a zero sum game with only winners and losers. This is because first of all Greek mediation pitted contenders against one another competitively, secondly it created negative feelings in unsuccessful contenders towards both their opponents and the intermediaries and, finally, it often led to unhealthy conflict and an escalation of hostilities. Indeed, regularly in Greek contexts the small numbers of arbitrators were easily corrupted and losing sides harboured bad feelings. There is perhaps nothing to surprise in the conclusions. The real world, ancient and modern, was and is a harsh place and the realities of war and politics will always gazump ideals and idealism. The volume illustrates the best and the worst, the ideal and the reality, of Greek social and political exchange.