From the fifth century b.c.e. until imperial Roman times proxeny (proxenia) was the most conspicuous and ubiquitous institution of (non-military) inter-polis relationships in ancient Greece. A proxenos was a citizen of a polis who saw to the interests of another polis and its citizens in his own city. All poleis, large and small, proclaimed vast numbers of individuals from other poleis to be their proxenoi, creating a dense, extensive network of proxeny relations throughout the Greek world. Several useful studies of proxenia, notably M.B. Walbank, Athenian proxenies of the fifth century b.c. (1978), C. Marek, Die Proxenie (1984) and E. Culasso-Gastaldi, Le prossenie ateniesi del IV secolo a.C.: gli onorati asiatici (2004), prepared the ground for M.’s monograph, which covers not just Athens, but the entire Greek world, and not just the classical era but the whole life cycle of this important institution. The significance of M.’s study lies not merely in its comprehensiveness, however, but also and perhaps primarily in the interpretative framework he uses to clarify the massive evidence.

In name and as an institution, proxenia had its roots in xenia, the traditional relationship between two individuals and their descendants from different polities (poleis, kingdoms) for mutual hospitality and assistance. Proxenia entailed similar ties of friendship between an individual and a whole polis, whose representative political body proclaimed him to be their proxenos, normally including his descendants. Many, though certainly not all such decisions were inscribed, and the sheer number of proxeny decrees drawn up by the Greek poleis over the five centuries of its existence allows quantitative assessments that are rare for the ancient Greek world. The inscribed texts, reinforced by literary accounts of what individual proxenoi were expected to do and succeeded or failed in doing for ‘their’ poleis, inform us on the values invested in proxeny and on what both the granting polis and the proxenos expected to gain from their relationship.

Introducing his methodology and his conception of proxenia (Chapter 1; pp. 22–89), M. argues that all the salient features of proxenia – the praise for the honorands, the roles they were expected to take on, the benefits the relationship was expected to bring to both proxenos and polis – converge in a ‘proxenos-paradigm’, ‘a set of assumptions which both poleis and proxenoi shared with regard to this role’ (p. 24). The repetitive series of virtues for which proxenoi were praised and ditto honours granted to them in decrees are not hollow phrases, but meaningful signs of a clear set of expectations concerning the role of the proxenos as an intermediary for the polis and of due recognition of his serving their interests. To clarify how this worked, M. derives ideas from New Institutionalism, not a concept to define proxenia qua institution (he seems to take for granted that we recognise it as such), but the notion ‘logic of appropriateness … explaining how proxenoi could be expected to perform particular sorts of function without the necessity of invoking quasi-contractual constraints' (p. 24). The coherence of the proxenos-paradigm also means that in cases where only a few of its features appear explicitly (or, in the case of damaged inscriptions, are legible) we may with some confidence assume that the others were in place as well.

Reciprocity governed the relationship between proxenos and polis: for the euergesia the proxenos bestowed on the polis and its citizens the polis returned honours in due measure. Unlike the generosity of kings, however, the proxenos provided euergesia of services rather than of money (p. 37), and these services materialised abroad, notably in the home polis of the proxenos and its sphere of influence, rather than in the polis itself. Trade comes easily to mind as a context for such services, as do visits for political purposes, such as embassies; perhaps less obvious but equally important were interventions of proxenoi to assist and identify individuals in court, to provide help with ransoms and to secure burial of the dead (pp. 69–76). Taking the initiative in the opposite direction, a proxenos would offer advice, for instance on matters of inter-polis policy, to the polis with whom he held this relationship, enjoying priority access there to the council and assembly. In return, the polis granted the proxenos some honours, the majority of which belonged to the privileges of its citizenship. The commitment a proxenos was expected to feel towards the granting polis made him unsuitable for the role of arbitrator between this polis and another, which required impartiality (p. 207).

In these concrete ways proxenia was meant to benefit the granting polis and to gratify the proxenos in return. But a proxeny relationship was a specific instance of much wider, subtle structures: on the one hand, of polis-internal policies, in the granting polis as well as in that of the proxenos, and on the other, of inter-polis strategies of the granting polis concerning its position in the wider Greek world. The central chapters of the book, elaborating the paradigm set out in the first chapter, provide an in-depth analysis of these two sides of the proxenia coin.

Tracing the polis-internal mechanisms and expectations, M. argues that granting and receiving proxenia were elements in the conduit of honours among the elite of the Greek poleis. Whether or not a proxenos would actually take up the right to own property in the granting polis with which this polis had honoured him, being a proxenos first of all added greatly to his prestige in his own city, marking his position among its elite. Likewise, by successfully proposing to confer the role of proxenos on someone from elsewhere, a citizen showed his standing among his fellow citizens. Given the large numbers of proxenoi, M. observes here ‘an apparent paradox: that the honorific position of proxenos remained prestigious despite being potentially obtainable (and probably held) by a large proportion of the elite’ (p. 112). However, the role of proxenos, with its commitment to the granting polis, became difficult and even dangerous in the case of a conflict between the two poleis involved, the proxenos being vulnerable to charges of bribery or treason.

For his analysis of the inter-polis arrangements, M. adapts the highly quantitative methods of Social Network Analysis to chart a looser version of networks, ‘regions of primary interaction’, of individual poleis (pp. 148–89). Theories from International Relations Studies help to clarify the dealings of the 1,000-plus Greek poleis with each other in the absence of a single over-arching authority, supported by J. Ma's work (P&P [2003], 9–39) on peer-polity interaction and P. Low's study (2007) of reciprocity in inter-polis relationships (pp. 190–200). M. shows in great detail how proxenia operated in a wider system of inter-polis institutions, such as theoriai and pan-Hellenic festivals. The very act of setting up proxenies marked a polis' identity as an autonomous political entity. Lists of proxenoi published on stelai (discussed in a substantial appendix) proclaimed how the polis situated itself among its peers. On the whole this is a convincing approach, especially since it incorporates the perspective of the actors, the Greek poleis, into a conceptual model. Although the Hellenistic kings appear as individual figures on the scene, the impact of Persia in the East until the late fourth and of Carthage in the West until the second century b.c.e. on this peer-polity ‘anarchy’ is curiously absent. The only great power featuring as such is Rome, whose over-arching authority as imperial state M. argues to have caused the demise of Greek proxenia.

The volume deals with a wealth of epigraphical and literary evidence, used with careful methodological judgements; it combines quantitative charts with eloquent case studies, covering five centuries of Greek history. It clearly aspires to be the book to end all books on proxenia, and for the near future that is surely what M. has achieved.