FeBo · Federalism and Border Management in Greek Antiquity

"Federation for Peace in Ancient Greece” is the title of a well-known article published by J.A.O. Larsen in 1944 (Classical Philology 39: 145-62). As the world was being ravaged by war, Larsen wondered about the potential of federalism as a means of conflict resolution. The subject of his study was federal organisations in a broad sense in ancient Greece, but the research clearly stemmed from a question that is today becoming increasingly topical: can federal organisations limit or even eliminate intra-federal war? The project ""FeBo: Federalism and Border Management in Greek Antiquity"" starts from the assumption that the question above, which continues to be asked by scholars, no longer makes sense. Despite romantic projections, federalisation processes do not guarantee peaceful coexistence, neither within the constituent federal organisations nor on their external borders. This is true for both ancient Greece and the contemporary world. As far as ancient Greece is concerned (and perhaps not only ancient Greece), the question should focus rather on borders: how did the Greek federal states deal with the problem of internal (intra-federal) as well as external borders? The aim of this project is to demonstrate that (a) Greek federal states implemented precise border management policies