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NEW VIEWS ON SYMMACHIA

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. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 447