Page 41 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and political communication

between belligerents under the safe conduct of heralds. 36 Even without
the protection of heralds, however, envoys were usually considered to be
protected from mistreatment by the common consent of all states, though
the origin of this moral force is unknown. 37
The framework within which embassies were carried out in ancient
Greece was ultimately religious and private, not official or governmen-
tal. Though dispatched and received by the general assembly, their tasks
were not undertaken as part of an office. The reception and treatment
of foreign envoys was determined by obligations of hospitality or private
connections, and in times of war the religious sanctions of heralds pro-
tected envoys. There was little involvement of government in facilitating
communications between states.
Elements of this framework continued into later Hellenistic and
Roman times. The moral protection of envoys’ inviolability, considered
to be part of ius gentium in Roman jurisprudence, is evidenced by both
38
Roman and barbarian rulers. Even under the bureaucratic late Roman
state, embassies were performed as special commissions, not as the duties
of an office. But there are few parallels to the private and religious context
of Greek embassies in late antiquity. 39
The conventions governing the selection of envoys and the execution
of their commissions, however, show much greater continuity from clas-
sical to late antiquity. Though any citizen of the democratic Greek states
was theoretically eligible for selection as an envoy, the choice was for the
most part restricted to the wealthiest members of society. Practical con-
siderations played a part in this restriction. Envoys were chosen for their
familiarity and contacts with a foreign state; this implied foreign com-
mercial interests, or other connections generally limited to the wealthy
elite (an occasional exception was made for actors, whose trade carried
them to all parts of Greece). Social patterns were important in other ways.
Leading citizens sought election to an embassy for the prestige associated
with the appointment. Participation in embassies was an important ex-
pression of citizenship by the leading members of the community. A large
proportion of the politically active citizens of Athens served on diplo-
matic missions. A list of some 368 known politically active individuals

36
Mosley, Envoys and Diplomacy, 84–7; Adcock and Mosley, Diplomacy in Ancient Greece, 152–4;
J. Oehler, ‘Keryx 2’, RE xi.1, 349–57; von Geisau, ‘Talthybios 2’, RE iv a.2, 2090.
37
Mosley, Envoys and Diplomacy, 81–92; Adcock and Mosley, Diplomacy in Ancient Greece, 184;
Matthews, ‘Gesandtschaft’, 657.
38
Phillipson, International Law and Custom i, 70–9, 328, 331–4; A. M. von Premerstein, ‘Legatus’,
RE xii.1, 1134–5; Matthews, ‘Gesandtschaft’, 659. In late antiquity: below, chapter 6,atnn.
181–94.
39
The language of guest-friendship, xenia, is used by Procopius, Wars iii, 9.5: guest-friendship of
the Vandal prince Hilderic and Justinian, then still magister utriusque militiae.
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