Interpolis Cooperation and Competition: the Case of Southern Boiotia

Kick-off ERC FeBo

Ancient Greek ethnos states were notoriously unstable creatures. The ties of regional belonging were open to dynamic change, political allegiances often volatile. The lands south of Thebes, across the Asopos river and into the folds of Mt Kithairon provide the curious case of a terrain where the vectors of local and regional interaction converged; ongoing rivalries between Thebes and Plataia are but one example. Hans Beck’s talk delves deep into the lived environment of the Asopos valley, a region that exercised a mythopoetic pull over the ethnos of the Boiotians but that also fueled concupiscence. From there it was only a few kilometers to the borderlands with Attica, which wielded their own impact upon the perfusing force of interpolis cooperation and competition in this core region of mainland Greece.

The inaugural lecture delivered by Hans Beck initiates two distinct series of FeBinars, both organised in the framework of the ERC Project “FeBo: Federalism and Border Management in Greek Antiquity” (ERC 2021 COG PR. Nr. 101043954, P.I. Elena Franchi) and devoted to the topic of border management in Ancient Greece. Since intra-federal and external borders must necessarily be approached from different research perspectives and with divergent questions, each FeBinar series has a different focus, the first one being articulated around the topic of internal borders (The Management of Internal Borders by Federal States), the second one placing external borders at its centre (Crossing Federal Borders: Ancient and Modern). Becks’ lecture initiates both of them since it focuses on a case study involving both intra-federal and extra-federal borders.

Program

18.00 Institutional Greetings and Introduction

• Francesca Demichelis (Vice-rector for Research, University of Trento, host institution)
• Marco Gozzi (Director of the Department of Humanities, host institution)
• Elena Franchi (PI FeBo)

18.30 Opening Lecture by Hans Beck

Deadline for registration to the online event: 7 March, 12 pm.

No registration needed for participation in presence.

Scientific responsibility and organization: Elena Franchi