The Pontic proxenies and the sea routes of the Ancient Greeks in the Euxine

Abstract

Proxenic decrees, which established a proxenos, or representative, of a city’s interests in another city, offer much evidence of relations between Greek states. They usually contain a list of the privileges granted to the honoured person by the state that issued the decree. People who were honoured as proxenoi either lived in these states or visited them regularly for political, diplomatic or commercial purposes. Connections between the two parties were chiefly maintained by land or sea routes, with the latter more common. Among the privileges afforded to foreign citizens was the right to enter and depart harbour in times of both peace and war, with immunity from confiscation and without concluding a special treaty. Most proxenoi were also relieved of the obligation to pay taxes to the polis community. The detail of such proxenic decrees informs the works of scholars researching maritime trade in the Greek world, as it reveals the itineraries and the sea routes used in different periods. A great many proxenic decrees came from the region of Pontus, mainly from its western, northern and southern areas, with a few emanating from the eastern Black Sea coast. They have been carefully studied for content pertaining to politics and trade, but have not yet been researched extensively as evidence for maritime linkages. I have looked at these decrees from this perspective, but only with regard to the seaways used by citizens of the Crimean city of Tauric Chersonesus in various periods.¹ However, the Black Sea coast yields numerous decrees that have yet to be studied from this point of view. My aim here is to use them to examine seafaring, and also political, trading and cultural contacts, along the sea routes.