1st Edition

Peace and Reconciliation in the Classical World

Edited By E. P. Moloney, Michael Stuart Williams Copyright 2017
    358 Pages
    by Routledge

    358 Pages
    by Routledge

    Warfare has long been central to a proper understanding of ancient Greece and Rome, worlds where war was, as the philosopher Heraclitus observed, ‘both king and father of all’. More recently, however, the understanding of Classical antiquity solely in such terms has been challenged; it is recognised that while war was pervasive, and a key concern in the narratives of ancient historians, a concomitant desire for peace was also constant. This volume places peace in the prime position as a panel of scholars stresses the importance of ‘peace’ as a positive concept in the ancient world (and not just the absence of, or necessarily even related to, war), and considers examples of conflict resolution, conciliation, and concession from Homer to Augustine. Comparing and contrasting theories and practice across different periods and regions, this collection highlights, first, the open and dynamic nature of peace, and then seeks to review a wide variety of initiatives from across the Classical world.

    1 Introduction: Imagining, Establishing, and Instituting Peace



    E. P. Moloney and Michael Stuart Williams





    PART I IMAGINING PEACE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD



    2 Solon the Peacemaker



    William Allan



    3 Aristotle on Peace: Biological, Political, Ethical, and Metaphysical Dimensions William Desmond



    4 (What’s so Funny ’bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding? Imagining Peace in Greek Comedy



    Ian Ruffell



    5 Reconciliation in Later Classical and Post-Classical Greek Cities: a Question of Peace and Peacefulness?



    Benjamin Gray



    6 Negotiating Ideas of Peace in the Civic Conflicts of the late Republic



    Hannah Cornwell



    7 Peace and Empire: Pacare, Pacatus and the Language of Roman Imperialism



    Myles Lavan



    8 Blessed are the Peacemakers: Visions of Christian Peace from Christ to Constantine David M. Gwynn





    PART II ESTABLISHING PEACE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD



    9 Cyrus the Great: an Unconventional Peacemaker



    Selga Medenieks



    10 International Arbitration in Archaic Greece



    Aideen Carty



    11 Once an Ally, Always an Ally: Sparta’s Approach to Policing the Oaths of her Allies in the late-Fifth and early-Fourth Centuries



    Andrew Bayliss



    12 The Compromise of Kings: Philip II and Macedonian Peace



    E. P. Moloney



    13 Deditio in the Second Century BC: Subjugation and Reconciliation



    John Richardson



    14 How Wars End: Three Thoughts on the Fall of Jerusalem



    John Curran





    PART III INSTITUTING PEACE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD



    15 Identity Building as a Means of Conflict Resolution, or: Thucydides’ Struggle with Hellenic Discourses



    Christoph Ulf



    16 Monuments to Victory and Symbols of Peace and Reconciliation? Re-viewing Post-War Building in Classical Athens and Achaemenid Persia



    Janett Morgan



    17 Peace and Reconciliation, Athenian-Style



    M. J. Edwards



    18 Beyond War, Imperialism, and Panhellenism: Xenophon’s Eirenic Thought



    Joseph Jansen



    19 Punishment and Reconciliation: Augustine



    P. I. Kaufman



    20 Reading Reconciliation in Late Antique Altercationes



    Michael Stuart Williams

    Biography

    E. P. Moloney is Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies at the University of Winchester. Specializing in classical Greek culture and history, with a focus on ancient Macedon, Dr Moloney has published recently on the early history of that kingdom. Building on that work, a monograph on the cultured courts of the Argead kings is now near completion.



    Michael Stuart Williams is lecturer in the Department of Ancient Classics at Maynooth University. His primary research interest is the intellectual history of Christianity, and he has published on ancient biography and hagiography in his book Authorised Lives in Early Christian Biography (2008). He has also edited two volumes under the title Unclassical Traditions (2010 and 2011). He is currently completing a book entitled The Politics of Heresy in Ambrose of Milan.