Crisis and Resilience in Ancient Greek Alliances

This is the first book to explore ancient Greek alliances in terms of both crisis and resilience, offering readers a deeper understanding of how such alliances were formed, dissolved and re-established.

The chapters in this volume understand disputes between Greek allies not simply as precursors to alliance breakdown, but as a structural feature of bilateral and federal formations. By analysing their susceptibility to crises from both external (etic) and internal (emic) perspectives, this volume explores how these challenges proved to be catalysts for the transformation and adaptation of alliances. Ancient concepts of crisis were seen as inherent to the system, rather than modern notions of crisis as catalysts for revolution and instability, making resilience and adaptation crucial to the formation of alliances in ancient Greece. The book highlights the creative power and potential of ancient Greek alliances through a range of case studies, which revolve around sections on concepts and historiography, rituals and media, border management and a comparison between the Delian League and NATO. To showcase how the alliances thrived in the face of crises, the views of historiographers like Herodotus, Thucydides and Polybius are discussed. Equally, the actors within alliances are characterised: the Delphic Amphiktyony, powerful poleis like Athens and Sparta and federal states like the Aitolians and the Boiotians. Mainly with a view to Hellenistic kings, the impact of external powers on the texture of Greek alliances also comes into play.

Crisis and Resilience in Ancient Greek Alliances will be valuable for students and scholars working on politics and diplomacy in ancient Greece, as well as those interested in ancient history and politics in the ancient world more broadly.

Elena Franchi is a full professor of Greek History at the University of Trento. She was granted a postdoctoral fellowship (Freiburg i. Breisgau, 2011–2013) and a fellowship at the level of an experienced researcher by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Münster, 2020). In 2022, she was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant with the project FeBo: Federalism and Border Management in Greek Antiquity (ERC 2021 COG PR. Nr. 101043954). She is currently working on border management cultures in Ancient Greece.

Angela Ganter, née Kühr, is professor and chair of Ancient History at the University of Regensburg. Her research focuses on ethnos and polis identity in Archaic and Classical Greece (Als Kadmos nach Boiotien kam. Polis und Ethnos im Spiegel thebanischer Gründungsmythen, 2006), on Roman Social History, on memory studies and on the interconnection between cults and emotion in Ancient Greece and Rome. She is an editor of Studien zur Alten Geschichte and has recently published a Greek History for a wider audience (Griechische Geschichte. Von der Bronzezeit bis zum Hellenismus, 2024).

Felix K. Maier is a full professor of the history of Asia and Europe in the first millennium at the University of Zurich. His research explores Greek and Roman historiography, ancient conceptions of time and space, the structures of the late antique imperial system, the dynamics of military conflict and the digital humanities. He is the author of a monograph on Polybius and another on imperial self-representation in late antiquity. In addition, he serves as co-editor of two volumes on digital classics and is the editor of the digital project Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker V.