Greeks Bearing Gifts : The Public Use of Private Relationships in the Greek World, 435–323 BC

This book examines the political role of personal relationships in classical Greece.

Using models from social anthropology as its basis, this book looks at the role of personal relationships in classical Greece and their bearing on interstate politics. It begins with a discussion of what friendship meant in the Greek world of the classical period, and then shows how the models for friendship in the private sphere were mirrored in the public sphere at both domestic and interstate level. As well as relations between Greeks (in particular those in Athens and Sparta), Dr Mitchell looks at Greek relations with those on the margins of the Greek world, particularly the state of Macedon, and with neighbouring non-Greeks such as the Thracians and the Persians. She finds that these other cultures did not always have the same understanding of what friendship was, and that this led to misunderstandings and difficulties in the relations between non-Greeks and Greeks.