The Hellenistic period
The period from the third to the first century BC makes two important contributions to our theme. The first is ta philanthropa, the acts of the ruler which confer benefits on his subjects and ultimately epitomise all relations between ruler and subject.28 Ta philanthropa offers the clearest Greek examples of the legislative entrenchment of philanthropia.
The ruler might be paternalistic, but he still relied on laws. The evidence consists largely of documents from Ptolemaic Egypt. Some of the examples are discouragingly banal. There is nothing particularly inspiring about a decree granting a worthy citizen a crown, a place of honour at the theatre or a commemorative stone, or approving of a city’s plan for its games.29 But sometimes more meaningful values are canvassed. The famous philanthropon of Euergetes II, which put an end to a civil war in Egypt in 118 BC, included an extensive amnesty for criminal offences, tax relief, payment for liturgies, regularisation of property rights, privileges for special groups, and clarification of court jurisdiction as between Greeks and Egyptians.30The other important contribution is the historical work of Polybius and Diodorus. Writing respectively in the mid-second and mid-first centuries BC, their uses of philanthropia—125 by Polybius, 150 by Diodorus31—rank them with Demosthenes as the most important literary sources for Greek human rights.
Polybius supplies invaluable information about brutality-driven violations of human rights. And he draws on his experience as a diplomat in the service of the Achaean Confederacy32 to elevate the basic educated civility of philanthropia to the level of a diplomatic instrument. On the first of these, he gives further information about the brutality of the Carthaginian mercenaries, and it is worth glancing at what he and Diodorus have to say about the background to that episode.
As Polybius presents it, in 241 the Carthaginian Gesco negotiates with the mutinous mercenaries. The latter are led by Spendius, a fugitive Roman slave who fears torture and death if recaptured. Although Gesco meets the complaints about arrears of pay, Spendius arrests him. Eventually Hamilcar defeats the rebels, killing 10,000 and taking 4,000 prisoners, whom he frees. But Spendius dismisses Hamilcar’s philanthropia as a pretext and persuades his men to torture and kill Gesco and the other prisoners.33 Diodorus knew a somewhat different tradition. He says that Hamilcar’s reputation for probity was enhanced by his humane (anthropinos) treatment of Hecatompylus. But the cruelty of the mercenaries forced Hamilcar to abandon his philanthropia, and he threw prisoners to the elephants. Eventually Hamilcar crucified Spendius, but later on another mercenary leader, Matho, nailed Hannibal34 to the same cross. Thus Fortune alternated between two offenders against human nature (ten anthropinen physin).35The episode of the mercenaries produces Polybius’ very first use of the word philanthropia. He uses it again in the immediate aftermath of the Third Macedonian War, when he finds the attitude of the Macedonians impossible to explain. They had received great benefits from Rome, and when fighting for their legitimate king, Perseus, they were defeated. But after that, fighting for the false Philip, they worsted the Romans, displaying great valour despite having seen more of their citizens exiled, tortured and murdered than under any of their real kings. Polybius puts it down to madness sent by the gods (Pol. 36.17.12-15). Even this pales by comparison with his strictures on Charops of Epirus:
Charops was the most brutal and unprincipled men ever. His death (in 157 BC) purged Greece of a curse. But Epirus was still unsettled due to his cruelty and lawless violence. After the Romans had executed or taken to Rome all suspects, Charops committed every kind of crime, murdering citizens in the market-place or in their houses, sending agents to kill others, confiscating properties, and exiling all the wealthy.
The people were terrorised into condemning them as enemies of Rome, and they went into exile.36Polybius is less pessimistic when he looks at philanthropia on the international scene. He takes special pride in the performance of the Achaean Confederacy:
The equality, freedom of speech and democratic constitution of the Achaean Confederacy led to all members being put on the same footing. The instruments in achieving this were equality and philanthropia, as is shown by their response to the Mantinean defection. They were received back with every mark of philanthropia, but they then defected to the Spartans and massacred the Achaean garrison. This breach of the right accorded even to enemies by the common laws of nations [tous koinous ton anthropon nomous] was an act of impiety, a violation of rights common to all men [ta koina ton anthropon dikaia]. They ought to have been sold into slavery with their wives and children, but their only punishment was that their adult males were enslaved and their property was pillaged. And when Aristomachus of Argos defected, instead of being led around the Peloponnese and tortured to death as a public spectacle, he was merely drowned in the sea.37
Polybius has told us that there was no absolute standard of philanthropia; there were grades according to either the gravity of the offence or the instincts of the punisher. Cicero would take up the grading system. Polybius also uncovers an important idea when he describes the Mantinean defection as �impiety’. Although �the rights common to all men’ exist, in embryo, in �the common laws of nations’
(ius gentium), they have to be extracted from that reservoir. That is done by treaties, which involves swearing oaths by the gods (e.g. Pol. 9-32.8); hence breaching a treaty is an act of impiety.
Diodorus philanthropia takes a somewhat different course. Having no personal involvement in public affairs, he is more interested in the ruler’s treatment of his subjects than in diplomacy.38 For example, Gelon of Syracuse is commended for being fair and humane to both neighbours and enemies; slaves who sought asylum were allowed to remain until sure of humane treatment.
Acragas received 2,600 refugees from devastated Selinus with every kindness, reflecting the Acragan tradition of showing strangers old-fashioned philanthropia.39 Diodorus is often anecdotal, but he rises above that level in his account of the Sicilian Slave War of 135-132. The cruelty of the great landed proprietors, including Damophilus and his wife, earned them harsh treatment. But their daughter was spared because of her humanity and compassion towards slaves. This leads Diodorus into an excursus:Kings and magistrates should conduct themselves humanely towards those of humble degree. They should treat their slaves decently, if we are temperate [= humane] people. Harsh arrogance breeds civil strife in public, while in private it brings plots against masters and defections from the state. The greater the injustice and cruelty of the mighty, the more are slaves driven to stubborn madness. Those assigned a humble lot by Fate freely concede honour to their betters, but if deprived of philanthropia they become enemies.40
More on the topic The Hellenistic period:
- For comparison: advocacy at Athens and in the Hellenistic world
- The unpleasant period in Berlin
- Advocacy in the legal order during the Roman period receives plentiful illumination in the traditional literary sources -
- CONTENTS
- Contents
- CHAPTER XX. MANUMISSION DURING THE EMPIRE. FORMS.
- Courts of other magistrates
- Status, pay, the “decline of oratory”, and terminology
- 5.2 The crisis of Roman law
- 4.1 Introduction
- DECLINE AND DECADENCE
- 3.1 A short premise
- Crook J.A.. Legal advocacy in the Roman world. Cornell University Press,1995. — 228 p., 1995
- Introduction
- Court of the emperor
- CHAPTER V PROPERTY
- Structure and scope