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International arbitration in the Greek world, 337-146 BC

University of British Columbia

The subject of this thesis is international arbitration in the Greek world in the Hellenistic period, between 337 and 146 BC. The settlement of a dispute between two states through the intervention of another, a settlement carried out either by conciliatory or judicial methods, was a vital and widespread phenomenon in ancient Greece. The bulk of this work consists of case studies of the individual instances of arbitration, rather than being a general analysis of the phenomenon of Hellenistic arbitration as a whole. The purpose was to produce a work for the Hellenistic period which would correspond to that of L. Piccirilli (Gli Arbitrati Interstatali Greci) for the Archaic and Classical periods. The latter work consisted of a series of case studies of individual instances of arbitration in Greece and its environs from the eighth through the fourth centuries. Evidence for roughly three times the number of cases survives from the Hellenistic period as compared with the Classical period. Clearly international arbitration played an even more important role in diplomatic relations in the years between Alexander the Great and the Roman takeover of Greece. In the Hellenistic world, as in the earlier era, arbitration was quite clearly a Greek institution, one which the Greek states used with far greater ease than Rome. Nevertheless, owing to the historical and political circumstances of the time, Roman intervention necessarily plays a large role in the study of arbitration in the Hellenistic Age. In order to arrive at the evidence for the various case studies which make up this work, research was carried out in both literary and epigraphic fields. The ancient historians, particularly Livy and Polybios, were examined for any evidence of specific instances of arbitration. The epigraphic research consisted of a search through the published corpora of inscriptions in order to uncover evidence of individual cases. Once the evidence was collected, the material was organized under individual case headings. The testimonia, literary and epigraphic, have been cited in full in each instance. Each case is also provided with a specific bibliography and an individual commentary. The end result is intended to be an exhaustive survey of all known cases of international arbitration from the Hellenistic Age. Although this work has concentrated primarily on the case studies, some analysis has also been offered in the final chapter. The conclusion provides a general interpretation of the phenomenon of arbitration in the Hellenistic period.

Text

2010-10-07

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/29001

Classics

University of British Columbia

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