The book, as B. Legras explains in his foreword, collects the papers presented at the namesake conference held in Paris on 23 November 2013 and edited by C., a recognised expert in the field. It represents the first scientific product of the project ‘Le droit grec et hellénistique. Approches historique et anthropologique’, developed at the laboratory ‘Anthropologie et Histoire des Mondes Antiques’ (ANHIMA). The nine essays are in French, with French and English abstracts at the end of the volume and a bilingual index.
The opening essay, by the editor C., outlines both the main topic and the general interpretative approach that underpins the papers. The reader will find a valuable critical review of the main publications on symmachia since the seventeenth century and a systematic discussion of the concept itself with specific attention to the structure and clauses of ancient interstate agreements, to their juridical significance and to their evolution over time.
E. Scheid-Tissinier takes the same approach in investigating the Achaean alliance described in Homer's Iliad. The core of the analysis is the relationship between the king, the leaders of the allied forces and the troops, exploring the nature and the basis of royal authority and the mechanisms that kept the alliance cohesive and balanced.
J. Boëldieu-Trevet deals with the command of allied forces in Classical Greece, from the second Persian War to 338 b.c. After a close examination of the different typologies of command described in the ancient sources, Boëldieu-Trevet outlines the legal instruments (treaties, agreements, informal relationships) by which the command was established and legitimised. Specific attention is paid to the ways in which command was exerted in accordance with different historical contexts and with shifts in the balance of power among the allies.
Focusing on the Thrace area, A. Rufin Solas investigates the mechanisms governing the Odrisian domination in Thrace in the second half of the fifth century. She identifies a model of hegemonic alliance that the king of Macedonia, Philip II, appropriated and used when he established his control over the region.
Close attention to the legal and institutional aspects of military alliance also permeates the second essay by C., which is devoted to the recruitment of Cretan soldiers as described in the symmachia treaties. The paper presents a number of significant remarks. The agreements could envisage and regulate both the recruitment of mercenaries (xenologia) and the dispatch of allied auxiliary troops, frequently defining the social and ethnic composition of the troops. For indicating the dispatch of troops the ancient documents used the Greek terms symmachia and boetheia, clearly showing their manifold meaning. After tackling the problem, still unresolved, of the Neocretans, the paper analyses the balance of power between the contracting parties and the differences between auxiliary troops and mercenary troops, that appear to be distinguished only by recruitment methods and not by the conditions of service. From a historical point of view, ancient treaties testify to the freedom of the Cretan cities in shaping their international relationships, towards a koinon whose power of action seems, conversely, to be limited.
A different perspective shapes the papers of S. Péré-Noguès and J. Christien, in which symmachia is studied as an indicator of broader political and diplomatic phenomena. Péré-Noguès recalls the history of the alliances made in Sicily in the Classical period investigating their impact on geopolitical events, on the fate of local hegemonies and on the inception of local identities. Christien maintains that the military expeditions led by Spartan kings in the West should not be interpreted as a reflection of personal ambitions, but rather as the effects of a Spartan foreign policy seeking to prove its autonomy from Hellenistic monarchies. After 281 b.c. Areus promoted the creation of a hegemonic alliance led by Sparta and joined by Athens, as the decree of Cremonides (267/8 b.c.) testifies. With the death of the king, the ambitions of Sparta also ended, whose power at that point was a mere trompe l’œil.
The two remaining papers by D. Knoepfler and A. Avram address more specific questions. Knoepfler re-examines the documents related to the treaties of alliance concluded by Athens with the cities of Euboea in the first half of the fourth century b.c., with particular attention to the one signed between Athens and Eretria in 394 b.c. (IG II2 16). The second part of the paper argues for a lower chronology of the proxeny decree for Hegesippos (IG II3 1, 2, 399) that should rather be dated after 343 b.c., against the preference of M. Dreher and S. Lambert for 348 b.c. The final section discusses in detail the dating of another proxeny decree, IG II2 149. According to Knoepfler, the decree was enacted towards 356 b.c., and the Euboeis mentioned in the text are not the members of a koinon, whose existence cannot be postulated at the time. They are just the peoples of the island, with whom Athens was trying to renew old ties of alliance. In the last paper Avram addresses the several problems related to the chronology of the treaty between Pharnaces of Pontus and the Tauric Chersonese. After establishing a new time frame for the reign of Pharnaces (from c. 196 to c. 170 b.c.), Avram rejects the standard dating of the agreement (155 b.c.), arguing in favour of spring 179 b.c. The dating ‘to the 57th year according to Pharnaces’ at the end of the document can be explained if we accept the possibility that Pharnaces was adopting the local chronological system in use at Sinope, the capital of his reign, and starting with the autumn equinox of 336 b.c.
The book is elegantly produced and with few misprints. I note two points: on p. 26 a segment of the Greek text, which is relevant for the discussion, is lost but present in the following French translation. The same thing happens at the bottom of p. 187.
The volume represents a valuable and welcome contribution to the study of Greek symmachia, providing both specific remarks on various aspects of its use and functioning, and more general and challenging views on its historical significance in different political contexts. The papers (in particular those by C., Knoepfler and Avram) present some excellent discussions of details. The methodological approach guiding the whole project (‘étudier en historien les pratiques juridiques du monde grec et hellénistique’, p. 9) can be expected to produce other important contributions in the future.
