Final Report Summary - EGCHRW (Envoys of the Greek cities and international relationships in the Hellenistic and Roman world)
The final report presented hereby is a comprehensive overview of the results obtained during the first of a two-year grant funded by the European Commission. During this period, the researcher Dr Anna Magnetto Calderini has been recruited by the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa as assistant professor of Greek History on a permanent basis. The new status of the researcher imposed the request of an early termination of the agreement which has been submitted to the European Community by mutual consent with the scientist in charge of the project, prof. D. Rousset.
During this 13-month part of the grant, the research focused on the first objective foreseen by the proposal: the construction of a database of all the envoys of the Greek cities for the selected period (IV century BC - III century AD). As indicated in the proposal, the creation of the database was envisaged to proceed considering homogeneous geographic areas. Ancient Asia Minor, which corresponds to modern Turkey, has been chosen as a suitable starting point. A preliminary survey had shown indeed that about one half of all the envoys attested in the Greek world for the selected period originated from the regions forming ancient Asia Minor (Aiolis, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Caria, Cilicia, Galatia, Ionia, Isauria, Lycia, Lydia, Lykaonia, Mysia, Pamphylia, Paphlagonia, Phrygia, Pisidia, Pontus, Troad). At the same time the sources related to this area, most of all epigraphic materials are not only copious but also particularly complex and rich from the point of view of the goals of the project. Systematically going through the epigraphic documents - about 25 000 inscriptions, quite heterogeneous in typology, length and conservation conditions have been sifted - and performing an accurate terminological research in the literary sources, a first FileMaker database, including about 1 000 envoys, has been created. These people operated as envoys of Greek cities - their mother city but also other civic communities requesting their services - in any kind of public diplomatic missions: the more clearly political ones, the religious ones (oracular consultation, participations in sacred ceremonies or games, request of privileges for a sanctuary, etc.) and the juridical ones (as mediators, arbitrators, or public advocates in case of interstate disputes, as foreign judges invited to celebrate trials between citizens of a same community, whose internal tribunals no longer worked). For each envoy the database collects all the information available to reconstruct not only his diplomatic role/s, but also the social context he belonged to and his political engagement, and it provides reference bibliography. A second FileMaker database includes the Greek and Latin text (the relevant sections) of all the literary, epigraphic, papyrologic and numismatic sources quoted in the first database, a translation and a selected general bibliography related to the historical and political problems posed by the documents. All this information will allow reconstructing the widest and most complete context of the diplomatic episode. In the online publication the two databases will be linked and all the material they contain will be available and searchable through a single web interface. The final product is expected to become a reference tool for any research related to ancient diplomacy, but it will turn out to be quite useful also (and more in general), to all scholars interested in Ancient Greek and Roman World. Of course, the analysis of the diplomatic missions and of their protagonists represents a privileged perspective to investigate any aspects of interstate relationships between Greek communities and between them and external powers like Hellenistic kings, dynasts and Rome. Nevertheless, the database will also provide a valuable amount of information to any scholar interested in the different aspects of civic life. Is a matter of fact that the envoys of the Greek city are usually chosen among leading people of their community and they are often protagonists in all range of public activity within their mother city but also amongst other communities. They held public assignments in the administration of the city, serve in leading role in the army and fill religious offices; they also take the initiative in supplying the community with corn, oil, and other vital goods, they offer their economic support to the local gymnasium and to education of the youth, they use their private fortune to promote the building of public works. A rapid access to sources and bibliography related to these people and their activities will provide a valuable help to all investigations oriented towards social, economic and religious matters.
During the exploratory research through the sources, terms and wordings have been singled out, which recur both in literary and epigraphic documents and which can be considered technical expressions of the diplomatic language. Such a lexicon includes words describing the envoys behavior, their qualities and powers; it also encompasses wordings used to define all kind of relationship between the Greek communities (and between them and the Hellenistic kings and Rome) and their mutual disposition, according to nuances that grade from benevolence to friendship, to kinship based on ancestral ties, to political and military alliance. The analysis of all these terms and wordings, of their meaning and of their usage over the time, represents a necessary prerequisite for the study of the international communication code developed by the Greek cities during the Hellenistic and Roman ages. A first terminological index, equipped by definitions and by a selected bibliography will be linked to the two databases in the online publication and it will be available and searchable through the same web interface.
While analysing Hellenistic and Roman sources to build the database of the envoys, a first analytical essay has been accomplished, which focuses on a crucial issue in the study of ancient diplomacy: the powers and the level of autonomy granted to civic envoys, in particular as far as the 'plenipotentiary' ones are concerned. These figures are already attested in the Classical Age and their study required a complete re-examination of the sources of 5th and 4th cent. B.C. (historians like Thucydides and Xenophon, comedy authors like Aristophanes, orators like Andocides). The testimony of later authors (Polybius and Diodoros) and also of the epigraphic material (interstate agreements) are to be added to their works. Proceeding this way, it is possible to obtain an overall view of the use of such figure made by the Greek cities, of the powers it was endowed with and of possible changes in its institutional profile over the time. The common opinion, which dates back to the work of D. Mosley, Envoys and diplomacy in the Greek world, Oxford 1970, takes into account only the classical period and denies that such envoys could have specific prerogatives, maintaining that their special qualification (autokrator, telos echon, echon ten kyrieian) would have been a merely honorific title. The results attained by the new analysis reveal the methodological limits of the ancient view in approaching the sources and provide new elements that cast serious doubts on the soundness of the traditional thesis. Even taking into account the limits that are integral to ancient sources (even to epigraphic documents), which do not use the existing technical terminology whit the modern coherence and rigour, there can be no doubt that the sources portray a specific institutional figure. Compared to regular envoy, the plenipotentiary is endowed with a broader operational mandate, with a greater autonomy in negotiating international agreements and with a stronger decision-making power. All these prerogatives make him fit to operate in sensitive contexts, like concluding a treaty or negotiating a capitulation. Turning to a plenipotentiary allowed to avoid lengthy debates in the popular assembly and a higher speed in concluding diplomatic operations without depriving the city of her right to endorse or reject the decisions of its envoy. A confirmation of these conclusions comes from the different institutional procedure that is adopted when plenipotentiaries are involved compared to what happens in case of regular (and more common) diplomatic missions.
This essay, presented during an international conference in Rome and already submitted for publication, shows the necessity of a different methodological approach to the analysis of ancient sources and aims at opening the way to further works and new perspectives in the study of ancient diplomacy. Its conclusions are addressed in the first place to scholars interested in ancient history and diplomacy, but for its methodological approach and for the implications deriving from the attained results, such conclusions could be useful also for the study of both the ancient right and the history of the institutions developed by the Greek city.
During this 13-month part of the grant, the research focused on the first objective foreseen by the proposal: the construction of a database of all the envoys of the Greek cities for the selected period (IV century BC - III century AD). As indicated in the proposal, the creation of the database was envisaged to proceed considering homogeneous geographic areas. Ancient Asia Minor, which corresponds to modern Turkey, has been chosen as a suitable starting point. A preliminary survey had shown indeed that about one half of all the envoys attested in the Greek world for the selected period originated from the regions forming ancient Asia Minor (Aiolis, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Caria, Cilicia, Galatia, Ionia, Isauria, Lycia, Lydia, Lykaonia, Mysia, Pamphylia, Paphlagonia, Phrygia, Pisidia, Pontus, Troad). At the same time the sources related to this area, most of all epigraphic materials are not only copious but also particularly complex and rich from the point of view of the goals of the project. Systematically going through the epigraphic documents - about 25 000 inscriptions, quite heterogeneous in typology, length and conservation conditions have been sifted - and performing an accurate terminological research in the literary sources, a first FileMaker database, including about 1 000 envoys, has been created. These people operated as envoys of Greek cities - their mother city but also other civic communities requesting their services - in any kind of public diplomatic missions: the more clearly political ones, the religious ones (oracular consultation, participations in sacred ceremonies or games, request of privileges for a sanctuary, etc.) and the juridical ones (as mediators, arbitrators, or public advocates in case of interstate disputes, as foreign judges invited to celebrate trials between citizens of a same community, whose internal tribunals no longer worked). For each envoy the database collects all the information available to reconstruct not only his diplomatic role/s, but also the social context he belonged to and his political engagement, and it provides reference bibliography. A second FileMaker database includes the Greek and Latin text (the relevant sections) of all the literary, epigraphic, papyrologic and numismatic sources quoted in the first database, a translation and a selected general bibliography related to the historical and political problems posed by the documents. All this information will allow reconstructing the widest and most complete context of the diplomatic episode. In the online publication the two databases will be linked and all the material they contain will be available and searchable through a single web interface. The final product is expected to become a reference tool for any research related to ancient diplomacy, but it will turn out to be quite useful also (and more in general), to all scholars interested in Ancient Greek and Roman World. Of course, the analysis of the diplomatic missions and of their protagonists represents a privileged perspective to investigate any aspects of interstate relationships between Greek communities and between them and external powers like Hellenistic kings, dynasts and Rome. Nevertheless, the database will also provide a valuable amount of information to any scholar interested in the different aspects of civic life. Is a matter of fact that the envoys of the Greek city are usually chosen among leading people of their community and they are often protagonists in all range of public activity within their mother city but also amongst other communities. They held public assignments in the administration of the city, serve in leading role in the army and fill religious offices; they also take the initiative in supplying the community with corn, oil, and other vital goods, they offer their economic support to the local gymnasium and to education of the youth, they use their private fortune to promote the building of public works. A rapid access to sources and bibliography related to these people and their activities will provide a valuable help to all investigations oriented towards social, economic and religious matters.
During the exploratory research through the sources, terms and wordings have been singled out, which recur both in literary and epigraphic documents and which can be considered technical expressions of the diplomatic language. Such a lexicon includes words describing the envoys behavior, their qualities and powers; it also encompasses wordings used to define all kind of relationship between the Greek communities (and between them and the Hellenistic kings and Rome) and their mutual disposition, according to nuances that grade from benevolence to friendship, to kinship based on ancestral ties, to political and military alliance. The analysis of all these terms and wordings, of their meaning and of their usage over the time, represents a necessary prerequisite for the study of the international communication code developed by the Greek cities during the Hellenistic and Roman ages. A first terminological index, equipped by definitions and by a selected bibliography will be linked to the two databases in the online publication and it will be available and searchable through the same web interface.
While analysing Hellenistic and Roman sources to build the database of the envoys, a first analytical essay has been accomplished, which focuses on a crucial issue in the study of ancient diplomacy: the powers and the level of autonomy granted to civic envoys, in particular as far as the 'plenipotentiary' ones are concerned. These figures are already attested in the Classical Age and their study required a complete re-examination of the sources of 5th and 4th cent. B.C. (historians like Thucydides and Xenophon, comedy authors like Aristophanes, orators like Andocides). The testimony of later authors (Polybius and Diodoros) and also of the epigraphic material (interstate agreements) are to be added to their works. Proceeding this way, it is possible to obtain an overall view of the use of such figure made by the Greek cities, of the powers it was endowed with and of possible changes in its institutional profile over the time. The common opinion, which dates back to the work of D. Mosley, Envoys and diplomacy in the Greek world, Oxford 1970, takes into account only the classical period and denies that such envoys could have specific prerogatives, maintaining that their special qualification (autokrator, telos echon, echon ten kyrieian) would have been a merely honorific title. The results attained by the new analysis reveal the methodological limits of the ancient view in approaching the sources and provide new elements that cast serious doubts on the soundness of the traditional thesis. Even taking into account the limits that are integral to ancient sources (even to epigraphic documents), which do not use the existing technical terminology whit the modern coherence and rigour, there can be no doubt that the sources portray a specific institutional figure. Compared to regular envoy, the plenipotentiary is endowed with a broader operational mandate, with a greater autonomy in negotiating international agreements and with a stronger decision-making power. All these prerogatives make him fit to operate in sensitive contexts, like concluding a treaty or negotiating a capitulation. Turning to a plenipotentiary allowed to avoid lengthy debates in the popular assembly and a higher speed in concluding diplomatic operations without depriving the city of her right to endorse or reject the decisions of its envoy. A confirmation of these conclusions comes from the different institutional procedure that is adopted when plenipotentiaries are involved compared to what happens in case of regular (and more common) diplomatic missions.
This essay, presented during an international conference in Rome and already submitted for publication, shows the necessity of a different methodological approach to the analysis of ancient sources and aims at opening the way to further works and new perspectives in the study of ancient diplomacy. Its conclusions are addressed in the first place to scholars interested in ancient history and diplomacy, but for its methodological approach and for the implications deriving from the attained results, such conclusions could be useful also for the study of both the ancient right and the history of the institutions developed by the Greek city.