Inter-States Networks in the Ancient East Mediterranean

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In the Hellenistic period, certain cities, their territories and temples, were declared by foreign states or kings to be ‘sacred and inviolable’. This kind of treaties is called ‘asylia’ by modern scholars. Greek poleis began to record this kind of treaties on the stones the middle of the 3rd century onwards. At first they concluded them for the safety of a certain shrine or temporal truce to hold the festivals. But by the end of the 3rd century the notion of ‘asylia’ began to be exploited for their diplomatic strategy by some Greek poleis and the areas of ‘asylia’ had been expanded from shrines to the cities themselves and their territories. For Hellenistic Greek poleis ‘Asylia’ worked as one of the fundamental means to build the inter-state networks and retain or strengthen them.