Proxenos

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In Classical Greece a Proxenos ( Πρόξενος ) was a citizen (usually rich) of a particular city state who felt friendship towards another city, and voluntarily took up some of the roles fulfilled in modern states by Consuls - i.e. helping citizens of the other city when in trouble with the authorities in his own city, and sometimes hosting them in his own home at his own expense.

A Proxenos would use whatever influence he had in his own city to promote policies of friendship or alliance with the city he voluntarily represented. For example, Cimon was Sparta's Proxenos at Athens and during his period of prominence in Athenian politics, previous to the outbreak of the First Peloponnesian War, he strongly advocated a policy of cooperation between the two states. Cimon was known to be so fond of Sparta that he named one of his sons Lakedaemonios.^[1].

Being another city's Proxenos did not preclude taking part in war against that city, should it break out - since the Proxenos' ultimate loyalty was to his own city. However, a Proxenos would naturally try his best to prevent such a war from breaking out and to compose whatever differences were threatening to cause it. And once peace negotiations were on the way, a Proxenos' contacts and goodwill in the enemy city could be profitably used by his city.

The position of Proxenos for a particular city was often hereditary in a particular family.

[edit] References

1. ^ de Ste Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War, 172.