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IV. Bilateral Treaties and the Evolution of Diplomatic Friendship (Philia)
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Despite their rarity, original texts of treaties from archaic Greece provide valuable information about
how specific interstate agreements helped to promote the idea that refusal to take sides in a given
conflict could not be taken automatically as a declaration of hostility toward one or the other of the
belligerents. An important example of such a document is the sixth-century treaty between the
city-state of Sybaris in Southern Italy and an otherwise unknown group, probably immediate
neighbors of the Sybarites, named the Serdaioi.[44] The treaty reads as follows:
[44] Meiggs and Lewis, no. 10 (550?-525); Bengtson, SVA no. 120. The treaty must predate the
destruction of Sybaris in 510 (Hdt. 6. 21; Diod. 11. 90.3; 12. 10.1-2; Strabo 6.1.13 (263); see T. J.
Dunbabin, The Western Greeks: The History of Sicily and South Italy from the Foundation of the Greek
Colonies to 480 B.C . [Oxford, 1948], 364-65); on the role of the proxenoi , see D. J. Mosley, "Bericht
fiber die Forschung zur Diplomatie im klassischen Griechenland, in Antike Diplomatie , Wege der
Forschung 462, ed. E. Olshausen and H. Billet (Darmstadt, 1979), 228.
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The Sybarites and their allies and the Serdaioi united in friendship, faithful, and without guile forever. Guarantors: Zeus
and Apollo and the other gods and the city Poseidonia.
A critical, but ignored, feature of this treaty is the way that it clearly distinguishes between
friendship (philia ), that is, the designated relationship for the Sybarites and Serdaioi, and alliance
(symmachia ), the relationship of other unnamed states to Sybaris. Even though the exact details of
philia are not specified, there can be no doubt that whatever the exact obligations may be, they are
not the same as those required by the symmachia that exists between other states and Sybaris.
This formal distinction between symmachoi and philoi also appears in the reputed sixth-century
treaty between the Carthaginians and Romans. According to Polybius, who gives a Greek translation of
the original archaic Latin text, the treaty begins
On these terms there is to be friendship between the Romans and their allies and the Carthaginians and their allies.[45]
In yet another sixth-century treaty, this time between the northwestern Greek states of Anaitos
and Metapios, the text reads:
This is the treaty between the Anaitoi and the Metapioi. Friendship for fifty years; and whichever party fails to be
steadfast, let the proxenoi and manteis drag them from the altar. Should they break the oath, let the priests at Olympia
give judgment.[46]
[45] Polyb. 3.22.4; Bengtson, SVA no. 121; see F. Walbank, Historical Commentary on Polybius , vol.
1 (Oxford, 1957), 339-45.
[46] Bengtson, SVA no. 111; gnoman might also mean "be informed" or "know of it" (cf. Od . 21. 36);
but the idea of "give judgment" or "decide the matter" seems preferable (cf. esp. Hdt. 1.74.4, 157.3).
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Once again, there are no details provided about exactly what philia represents in formal diplomatic
terms. However, the philia negotiated between the Anaitoi and Metapioi should be contrasted with the
symmachia designated in a roughly contemporary and otherwise very similar treaty between the
Eleans and Heraeans:
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The covenant between Elis and Heraia. There shall be an alliance for a hundred years, and this [year] shall be the first;
and if anything is needed, either word or deed, they shall stand by each other in all matters and especially in war; and if
they stand not by each other, those who do the wrong shall pay a talent of silver to Olympian Zeus to be used in his
service. And if anyone injure this writing, whether private man or magistrate or community, he shall be liable to the
sacred fine herein written.[47]
Given that copies of both treaties were recorded on bronze plaques deposited in the same
Panhellenic sanctuary, there is no reason to doubt that if the Anaitoi and Metapioi had wanted to
become full-fledged allies (symmachoi ), they would have negotiated a symmachia instead of a treaty
of philia .
Yet even if we recognize this distinction, the question remains whether philia between states
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