A Most Dangerous Place Finding the Non-Combatant within the Greek Polis

This thesis demonstrates the existence of rules concerning noncombatancy (legal inviolability in inter-state conflict) within ancient Greek international law. By examining three defined groups – kērukes (heralds), presbeis (ambassadors), and proxenoi – their legal inviolability in warfare is used to illustrate that the Greek poleis possessed a widely agreed cultural legal standard of noncombatancy for each of these groups under certain contexts and circumstances. This standard naturally varied for each group. The contexts of each group’s inviolability are brought out in individual chapters, which explores the idea and concept of their noncombatancy over the longue durée from the eighth to the first century BC. Each group’s inviolability is examined in further detail and cross-compared within the final discussion chapter to examine the nature of noncombatancy as a legal idea in Greek inter-state conflict.

This thesis also discusses the status of the larger group of civilians (incapacitated or elderly men, women and children) that resided within poleis, contrasting them with the legal protections afforded to the case-study groups. The conclusion from this examination is that this wider group of civilians did not possesses any customary or positive legal protection during warfare, thus relying on spatial asylia (the inviolability of a certain location) if they wished to have any protection.

The deeper philosophical and sociological implications for this situation are explored in the final chapter, too, which suggests that civilians sensu lato ‘in a wide sense’ never gained protection as they have today because of the economic incentives behind Greek warfare, and its total nature in terms of the culpability of the whole polis community. The conclusion from this is that while the Greeks certainly did have laws of war regarding non-combatants, they were neither the ones we expected, nor the ones we might have wanted to find.