Oath and State in Ancient Greece

Preface

Abbreviations

PART ONE: OATHS IN THE POLIS

1 Introduction

2 Oaths and citizenship

2.1 Initial considerations

2.2 Oaths as stepping-stones to citizenship at Athens

2.3 The Athenian ephebic oath

2.4 The oath of the Spartan sworn bands (enomotiai)

2.5 Citizenship oaths in new states

2.6 Oaths in synoecisms

3 Oaths of office

3.1 Royal oaths

3.2 High officials: archons and generals

3.3 The Athenian bouleutic oath

3.4 Minor officials

3.5 The exomosia for office(s)

4 Assemblies

5 The judicial sphere

5.1 Homer and Hesiod

5.2 Archaic practices and their survival; Gortyn

5.3 Athens: introduction

5.4 The dicastic oath

5.5 Litigants’ preliminary oaths

5.6 Excusing absence

5.7 Oath to avoid irrelevance?

5.8 Oaths and oath-offers during court speeches

5.9 Did witnesses swear?

5.10 Refusing to testify: the exomosia

5.11 Oath-challenges

5.12 The antidosis

5.13 Arbitrators

5.14 Homicide and the Areopagus

5.15 Nomothetai

5.16 Judges of festival competitions

6 Sunomosiai (conspiracies)

7 (Re)uniting the citizen body

PART TWO: OATHS AND INTERSTATE RELATIONS

Introduction

8 The formulation and procedure of interstate oaths

8.1 Rituals

8.2 Gods invoked

8.3 Divine punishment

8.4 Giving and receiving oaths: who swears?

9 Oaths in alliances

9.1 “We will fight together”

9.2 The Oath at Plataea

9.3 Anti-deceit clauses

9.4 Mutual-defence clauses

9.5 Oaths to have the same enemies and friends: the Delian League oaths

9.6 “The Lacedaemonians and their allies” — the oaths of the Peloponnesian League

9.6.1 The origins of the Bündnissystem: “I will follow whithersoever the Spartans may lead”

9.6.2 Sparta and her allies between the Persian Wars and the Thirty Years’ Peace

9.6.3 Sparta and her allies finally defined — the Thirty Years’ Peace

9.6.4 The power of the “full” oath

9.7 Oaths between multiple equals

9.8 “Old” oaths of alliance

10 Oaths in peace treaties

10.1 Pouring the peace libations

10.2 The historical origins of sworn peace treaties

10.3 The first sworn peace treaties

10.4 The Thirty Years’ Peace of 446/5: Sparta’s fear of Athens or fear of the gods?

10.5 The Peace of Nicias

10.6 The King’s Peace of 387/6: reconsidering Sparta’s alleged violation of her oaths

10.7 The Peace of Philocrates: debunking Philip’s reputation as a perjurer

11 Battlefield truces

11.1 Truces for collecting the dead — spondai peri nekron

11.2 Other sworn truces

12 Oaths and “the barbarian”

12.1 The Trojan War

12.2 Ritual and manipulation of language

12.3 Persians: politics, perjury, approbation

12.4 Conclusions

13 Conclusion: the efficacy of oaths

Bibliography

Index of names and topics

Index locorum