War and peace in ancient Greece

This chapter examines the concept of war and peace in ancient Greece. It explains that the Greek word for war, polemos, often retained the physical resonance of fighting, combat or battle and that the Greeks thought of war as an activity that the gods themselves engaged in and approved of. The ancient Greeks invoked a range of justifications for their actions in order to persuade themselves and others to overlook any ties of kinship or any formal agreements that had been made with their erstwhile foes. Internal differences about whether violence was the right option, or even over the causes of conflict, were as common then as they are in today's societies

Ancient Greece · Ancient history · Battle · Economics · Greeks · Kinship · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Law