Ephorus and the Prohibition of Missiles

Wheeler, Everett L.

doi:10.2307/283965

Cited by 33 publications

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“…46 41 Strabo (10.448) and Polybius (13.3.2-4) report that during the War of Lelantine Plain, on the island of Euboea (c. 700 BCE), the belligerents banned projectile weapons. There is some doubt as to the historicity of these reports: Wheeler (1987); Ober (1994, 12-13); Lanni (2008, 471); O'Driscoll (2015, 5). The Second Lateran Council (1179) attempted to ban the use of bows and crossbows in wars between Christians: Concilium Lateranenses II, Canon 29 in Alberigo et al (1973, 203).…”

Section: Treatment Of the Enemymentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding the History of the Just War: The Ethics of War in Ancient Egypt

Cox

2017

International Studies Quarterly

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This article expands our understanding of the historical development of just war thought by offering the first detailed analysis of the ethics of war in ancient Egypt. It revises the standard history of the just war tradition by demonstrating that just war thought developed beyond the boundaries of Europe and existed many centuries earlier than the advent of Christianity or even the emergence of Greco-Roman thought on the relationship between war and justice. It also suggests that the creation of a prepotent ius ad bellum doctrine in ancient Egypt, based on universal and absolutist claims to justice, hindered the development of ius in bello norms in Egyptian warfare. It is posited that this development prefigures similar developments in certain later Western and Near Eastern doctrines of just war and holy war. Kingdom (2055-1650 BCE), and New Kingdom (1552-1069 BCE). 3 During this time the Egyptians suffered and repulsed invasions as well as pursuing imperialist policies of their own in Nubia (modern southern Egypt and northern Sudan), Libya, and Syria-Palestine. 4 At the level of international relations, the Egyptian state engaged in warfare and diplomacy with a variety of states and peoples over the course of its long history. There existed no "international organizations, law codes or jurists" between the third and first millennium BCE, but there did exist "a recognizable international legal community" in the area from the Nile to the Tigris-Euphrates (Ziskind 1967, 202-3). 5 Within this international legal community, Egypt developed its own distinctive ethics of war; yet scholars have given little attention to the emergence of Egyptian just war thought. 6 The ethics of war in ancient Egypt was founded upon three tenets of Egyptian culture that displayed remarkable longevity and consistency: 1) the cosmological role of Egypt; 2) the divine office of the pharaoh; 3) the superiority of the land of Egypt and its inhabitants over all other lands and peoples. These ideological foundations led the Egyptian political elite to develop an ethics of war that possessed elements analogous to later Western concepts of proper authority and just cause: so-called ius ad bellum criteria. The relationship between war and justice in Egyptian culture was so intimate that we can identify an ancient Egyptian just war doctrine. Egyptian pharaohs claimed exclusive possession of legitimate authority and just cause in warfare. In contrast, while the conduct of Egyptian warfare followed a small number of norms, the development of in bello restraints are invisible to the historian. 7 3 Dates should be taken as approximate. The dating of Egyptian dynastic periods and the reign-lengths of pharaohs remains subject to debate: I have followed the date system used in Morkot (2010). 4 See Supplemental Information: Appendix 2 "Note on ancient Egyptian warfare." 5 Munn-Rankin (1956); Ziskind (1967, 43-4, 203). The attempt to reconstruct an ancient Near Eastern legal system goes back to Selden (1640). For subsequent early attempts, see Ziskind (19...

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Section: Treatment Of the Enemymentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding the History of the Just War: The Ethics of War in Ancient Egypt

Cox

2017

International Studies Quarterly

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“…The belief that a ban on the bow held in classical Greece rests in part on a reported agreement between Chalcis and Eretria to refrain from launching “long‐range attacks” and projectiles against one another. Wheeler () has persuasively called the authenticity of this agreement into doubt.…”

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Rewriting the Just War Tradition: Just War in Classical Greek Political Thought and Practice

O’Driscoll

2015

Int Stud Q

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The just war tradition is the predominant western framework for thinking about the ethics of contemporary war. Political and military leaders frequently invoke its venerable lineage to lend ballast to their arguments for or against particular wars. How we understand the history of just war matters, then, for it subtends how that discourse is deployed today. Conventional accounts of the just war trace its origins to the writings of Saint Augustine in the 4th century CE. This discounts the possibility that just war ideas were in circulation prior to this, in the classical world. This article contests this omission. It contends that ideas homologous to a range of core jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum principles were evident in classical Greek political thought and practice. This finding challenges scholars to re‐consider not only the common view that the just war is, at root, a Christian tradition, but also the relation between victory and just war, the nature of the ties binding just war and Islamic jihad, and an innovative approach to the comparative ethics of war.

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Abantes

Priestley

2012

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History

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Ephorus and the Prohibition of Missiles

Cited by 33 publications

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Expanding the History of the Just War: The Ethics of War in Ancient Egypt

Expanding the History of the Just War: The Ethics of War in Ancient Egypt

Rewriting the Just War Tradition: Just War in Classical Greek Political Thought and Practice

Abantes

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