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Coercive Diplomacy in Greek Interstate Relations1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Anna Missiou-Ladi
Anna Missiou-Ladi
Affiliation:
Thessaloniki
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Extract

Diplomacy is the corpus of procedures and institutions used in foreign relations by an independent state. It is the method by which a state seeks to attain its objectives in foreign policy, namely to secure for its citizens prosperity and justice through negotiations with other states.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , December 1987 , pp. 336 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1987

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References

2 P. H. Gore-Booth reminds us in his memoirs With Great Truth and Respect (London, 1974), 15, that foreign policy is what you do and diplomacy is how you do it. Also Quincy Wright, The Study of International Relations (New York, 1955), 158, defines diplomacy as ‘the art of negotiation in order to achieve the maximum of group objectives with minimum costs within a system of politics in which war is a possibility’.

3 The history of ancient Greek diplomacy may be traced back to Homer's period when were sent either to claim something or to conclude a treaty: e.g. II. 3.205; 7.381–415; Od. 3.14; 3.82; 21.15–21. For a chronological narrative of Greek interstate relations and a survey of the methods and institutions of Greek diplomacy see Adcock, F. E. andMosley, D. J., Diplomacy in Ancient Greece (London, 1975).Google Scholar

4 See D. Kienast, RE, Suppl. XIII (1973) s.v. ‘Presbeia’.

5 See, for example, Mosley, D. J., Envoys and Diplomacy in Ancient Greece (Historia Einzelschriften 22, 1973), 35;Google Scholarde Ste Croix, G. E. M., ‘The Alleged Secret Pact between Athens and Philip II concerning Amphipolis and Pydna’, CQ N.S. 13 (1963), 116Google Scholar and Andrewes, A., HCT iv. 52.Google Scholar

6 Wade-Gery, H. T., Essays in Greek History (Oxford, 1958), 144 n. 3; also p. 132 n. 1.Google Scholar

7 K. J. Dover, HCTv. 165; see also A. Andrewes, HCTw. 52: ‘Such “full powers” need not amount to much’.

8 Mosley (1973), 32.

9 The other instances of presbeis autokratores are: the Athenian embassy to the Persian king in 449: Diod. 12.4.5; the Athenian embassy to Sparta in 446/5: And. 3.6; the Spartan embassy to Athens in 420: Thuc. 5.45; the Athenian embassy to Sparta in 392: And 3.33; the Spartan embassy to Athens in 391: And. 3.39; the Spartan embassy to Athens in 369: Xen. Hell. 7.1.1; and the Macedonian embassy to Athens in 346: Aiskh. 3.63 (cf., however, 2.18). In all seven instances the state that sent presbeis autokratores was not threatened with total destruction by the state that received the embassy, and for this reason I do not discuss them in the present article.

10 On the famine in Athens see Xen. Hell. 2.2.11, 14, 16 and 21; Diod. 13.107.4; Plut. Lys. 14.3 and Justin. 5.8.1–3

11 On Theramenes' two missions see Sealey, R., ‘Pap. Mich. Inv. 5982: Theramenes’, ZPE 16 (1975), 279–88.Google Scholar

12 Among modern scholars there is doubt about the ‘ancestral constitution’ provision in the peace treaty: see Rhodes, P., A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford, 1981), 427–8; butGoogle ScholarPaul, cf.Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (London, 1987), 280–1.Google Scholar

13 According to Mosley (1973), 32, the Spartans regarded the embassy with Theramenes and the others as being in their interest ‘since they could deal more efficiently with the Athenians in this way’.

14 Xen. Hell. 2.2.15: ‘No one wanted to make any proposal involving the destruction of the walls; and when Archestratos said in the council that it was best to make peace with the Lakedaimonians on the terms they offered he was thrown into prison, [...} and a decree was passed forbidding the making of a proposal of this sort’.

15 See A. W. Gomme, HCT in. 616.

16 Ibid. 583.

17 Ibid. 616.

18 See also Thuc. 8.67; Dover, HCTv. 165; cf. Thuc. 1.126.8 and Gomme, HCT i. 426.

19 Mosley (1973), 31, has conclusively argued this against the compiler of the Suda who interprets . See also HCTv. 165.

20 Brunt, P. A., ‘The Hellenic League against Persia’, Historia 2 (1953/4), 135–63 at p. 136Google Scholar

21 Arist. Ath. Pol. 43.6; And. 3.35; Aiskh. 2.50; Dem. 19.278; Pollux, Onom. 8.96; and Polyb. 23.2.4–5.

22 Bickerman, E., ‘La treve de 423 av. J.-C. entre Athenes et Sparte’, RIDA 1 (1952), 199–213 at p. 207.Google Scholar He has also shown that Thuc. 4.118.1–10 constitutes the ‘aide-memoire’, the written instructions that the Spartan envoys had submitted to the Athenian prytaneis in the negotiations of an armistice treaty in 423. See also Mosley (1973), 21.

23 Comparison may be made with the procedure of the Roman deditio as we know it from an early example, the surrender of Collatia to Tarquin the Elder, which is recorded in Livy's account of the end of the war between Romans and Sabines. While the Spartan ephors asked whether the presbeis were autokratores, independent, the Roman king asked the delegates of Collatia whether the People of Collatia was its own master: ‘Estne populus Collatinus in sua potestate?’ (Liv. 38.1.2).

24 Post, G., ‘Plena Potestas and Consent in Medieval Assemblies’, Traditio 1 (1943), 355–408 at p. 404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Briant, P., ‘La Boule et l'election des ambassadeurs a Athenes au IVe siecle’, REA 70, (1968), 7–31 at p. 20. Contrary to Briant,CrossRefGoogle ScholarMosley, D. J., ‘The Size of Athenian Embassies Again’, GRBS 11 (1970), 35–42, has argued that both small and large embassies were appointed for apparently ‘significant and minor issues alike’ (p. 41). Despite the number of small embassies, mentioned by Mosley, which probably included dissentients, the difference that emerges in the diplomatic practice of Athens and Sparta, discussed below, is of great importance for my analysis.Google Scholar

26 Mosley (1973), 55–7. It is noteworthy that in honouring the Samians in 405 Athens made a provision that if the Athenians should send an embassy, those present from Samos should jointly send any envoy they wished: IG II21 (I3127). There is no doubt that different political interests were represented by the Athenian presbeis autokratores sent to Sparta in 392: some of them had been proposed by Sparta and some had been elected by the Athenian people; Argum. Andok. or. 3: F. Jacoby, FGrHist 3 B, p. 142.

27 Xen. Hell. 6.5.33. Mosley (1973), 50.

28 Cited in Jean Dumont, Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens (1726–31), i( 1), 333–4.

29 One may plausibly infer dissension among the Athenian ambassadors to Sparta in 392: see also above, n. 26.

30 For our discussion it is not important that the envoys asked Agesilaos only to give them safe conduct for going to Sparta nor that Agesilaos, ‘angered because they treated him as one without authority, sent to his friends at home and arranged that the decision about Phleious should be left with him’: Xen. Hell. 5.3.23–4.

31 On the federal state of the ‘Chalkidians’ led by Olynthos see Cartledge (1987), 269ff.

32 Compare 2.2.20 to 2.2.11 and 15 (Athens); 3.2.30–1 to 3.2.23 (Elis); 5.2.5 and 7 to 5.2.1 (Mantineia) and 5.3.25 to 5.3.13 (Phleious).

33 On the Spartan policy see Cartledge (1987), esp. chapters 13 and 14.