This book, which constitutes the second half of a ‘dilogy’, the first volume of which (A. Sommerstein and I. Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece) is forthcoming, offers a rich study of the manifold manifestations and uses of oaths within the Greek polis (Part 1) and in relations between poleis or between a polis and another kind of political power, such as foreign monarchs (Part 2). In the valuable insights and particular arguments it offers, this book is far more than a simple survey of the ways in which states employed oaths. At the same time, the book lacks the systematic and coherent argumentative structure or the thematic development of a monograph. It is not generally concerned to synthesise its components into an obviously unified whole or to explore explicitly overarching questions, either within the work or between the present volume and its forthcoming companion. The presentation is lucid; clear, bullet-pointed reconstructions of complex oaths are provided, for example, to aid the reader in understanding their content and following the attendant discussion. Regrettably, though, the Greek text is only rarely supplied.
The book ranges widely, covering in impressive detail a broad array of oath types and offering perceptive and often original engagements with old questions alongside surveys of less familiar material. Since the book comprises numerous, very specific arguments and discussions pertaining to particular texts and issues, I cannot, here, do it justice in summarising or assessing its manifold conclusions which, inevitably, range in originality and persuasiveness. It is at its strongest when offering close analyses of individual texts or rituals. To take one example, S.'s close reading of the literary sources for sunômosia reflects on the shifting vocabulary of conspiracy, suggesting a link between the flourishing of sunômosia language in the 420s and the rhetoric of the politician Cleon, subsequently aped on the comic stage (pp. 122–4).
Throughout, the discussions focus not only on the content of oaths – the details of what was sworn – but also, refreshingly, on their context. The occasion, location, oath-deities, accompanying rituals and practicalities of swearing are all given their due as important for understanding the role and impact of particular oaths. Attention is extended also to the rhetorical value of oaths and of perjury (e.g. pp. 42–3, 100, 105–8) and to accounts of ‘clever swearing’ (pp. 278–9, 283–90, 310–12).
The work ranges broadly too in the material covered. The authors draw on epigraphic texts as well as literary sources and, in places, integrate visual evidence to good effect, as in B.'s discussions of dexiosis (pp. 14–15, 156–8). There are, occasionally, surprising omissions: in the discussion of citizenship oaths, for example, where the absence of non-Athenian material is lamented, the phratry inscription from Tenos (RO 61), which garners five entries in the Nottingham Oaths Database for just two lines of text, remains unmentioned.
Part 1 concerns the civic use of oaths, discussing citizenship oaths, oaths of office, assembly oaths (or their absence), judicial oaths, sworn conspiracies and oaths of reconciliation. In Part 2, B. (with contributions by Kozak) turns to the role and significance of oaths in interstate relations, discussing oaths in alliances, peace treaties and battlefield truces, and offering particularly extensive treatments of the best-known treaties and alliances of the archaic and classical periods. B. focuses particularly on the question of chronology. The role of the oath in interstate relations is argued to be a relatively recent innovation in Greek history, first securely attested in the sixth century (p. 148). The relative chronology of different sorts of oaths of alliance is also discussed and a new assessment of, inter alia, Spartan foreign policy during the Pentecontaetia offered accordingly (pp. 213–34).
Individual chapters explore the power of the oath and of perjury (or suspected perjury) to drive texts and historical events, placing oaths centre stage as a prism through which to view Greek military and political history. So, B. concludes that, without the stability generated by oaths, Greek inter-poleis relations (particularly during the Peloponnesian War) and international relations could not have developed as they did (pp. 323–5).
Torrance's chapter, ‘Oaths and “the Barbarian”’ closes the volume, providing a tour of relevant passages and concluding that the traditional (and increasingly unpopular) ‘polarizing’ view of the Greek attitude to barbarians as an inferior other is not borne out by Greek representations of foreign approaches to oaths, perjury and clever-swearing.
Noticeably, Torrance's is the only chapter which offers a conclusion (pp. 320–2). Though welcome, this serves to highlight the general lack of concern to render the volume stylistically or structurally unified. We are not given an introduction to the volume as a whole, and while a brief conclusion is offered to Part 2 (pp. 323–5), no attempt is made here to tie this in with the first half of the work and integrate the disparate components of the book into a unified whole. The decision to take a case by case commentary-style approach to different types of oath used by the Greek poleis tends to come at the expense of raising and exploring large-scale overarching thematic questions about attitudes to oaths and how their political, social and theological aspects interrelate. In the introduction, for example, S. highlights the difference between oaths sworn between individuals, which are voluntary and may be worded to suit the interests of the swearing party, and those prescribed by the state, where an individual may be compelled to swear and the terms of the oath may be strictly stipulated (pp. 4–5). Further discussion might have explored the social, theological and political consequences of this difference and the implications of using the same religious mechanism in both situations. Instead we are offered some examples of state oaths taken from early poetry (pp. 6–8).
At times, the focus on oaths, and the tendency to assume their presence even when not recorded (pp. 61, 63, 291), leads to the marginalisation of other historical factors (in the broader narrative of interstate relations) or of other, related religious phenomena employed as sanctifying mechanisms. To take one example, although there is no concrete evidence for the swearing of oaths in battlefield truces, B. is strongly of the opinion that without oaths they would never have been respected (pp. 297–9). While I would not wish to argue strongly for the absence of oaths in such agreements, the blithe assertion that ‘the opposing armies will hardly have splashed some wine around and considered the matter closed’ (attributed to a ‘renowned expert on Greek religion’) (p. 291) implies an excessive privileging of the power of the oath at the expense of other sanctifying mechanisms. As B. recognises earlier, it is unlikely that sacred truces involved sworn oaths (p. 246), and yet they were able to command respect none the less. The sanctity of heralds and of suppliants – examples of Parker's ‘unshakeable rules of the gods’ (cited at p. 298) – provides further instances where concerns over divine punishment do not depend on the oath to ensure respect for rules which might impact on interstate relations. It sometimes feels as if S.'s contention that, in the Iliad, ‘perjury is the only wrongdoing the gods can be relied on to punish’ (p. 59) is then taken to represent the attitudes of all Greeks throughout Greek history. One wonders whether this privileging of the oath (with other religious rituals characterised merely as means of adorning and solemnifying these oaths) derives in part from its relative familiarity. Oaths are, after all, still sworn today, hand on the Bible or otherwise, while wine is no longer ‘splashed around’ to encourage trust in our promises.
In what is generally a well-produced work with few typographical errors, the bibliography is a regrettable exception. Some 30 items cited in footnotes are missing from the bibliography, while numerous other works are mis-cited in one place or the other.
Such reservations notwithstanding, this book will offer an authoritative and thought-provoking guide for anyone interested in the many ways in which oaths were used in the administration and international relations of Greek poleis.
