How the ancient Greeks tackled treaties

Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement. Though the ancients would have employed oaths, the practical ancient Greeks often ensured there was a flexibility about them: the real world might intervene.

For example, treaties between city-states were agreed between opposing generals. Hostages were exchanged, oaths sworn and the terms of the treaty widely inscribed on stone and bronze pillars, but it was citizens who oversaw the treaty’s maintenance. In a Greek democracy, however, there was no saying how, under the influence of different leaders, policy might change and annul a treaty at a stroke. Then again, though treaties could be sworn to last forever, ‘circumstances’ were very unlikely to remain so accommodating. Finally, there were no such bodies as the UN to take it upon themselves to judge disputes.

As a result, treaties tended to have a certain degree of flexibility about them. While treaties would regularly invoke the gods to oversee them, in one treaty the provision was added ‘unless the gods and heroes should stand in the way’ – and in that particular case, they did. Again, if two states had agreed on the obligation to help each other militarily, it was perfectly legitimate for one state to break that agreement if divine prerogative demanded it.

For example, the Spartans did not send the help they promised to the Athenians fighting the Persians at Marathon, or to their own Spartans under Leonidas fighting the Persians at Thermopylae, because they had to complete the celebration of a religious festival first. Less detailed treaties e.g. ‘to be a faithful ally’ left scope for sins of omission, though not of commission.

But perhaps the most striking clause of any treaty was one that bound two hostile sides together in summakhia, meaning ‘a union between states for defensive or offensive purposes’, often described as ‘having the same friends and enemies’, and so agreeing to fight together against common foes.