Hellenistic Ethical Lexicon

Doron Mendels is Max and Sophie Mydans Professor in the Humanities at the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

How might it be possible to frame rules of conduct in an international context that lacks a system of law capable of obliging states to fulfill their obligations and keep their promises? The ancient Hellenistic world, as Professor Doron Mendels masterfully illustrates in this original book, provides important elements for a response to this question. Drawing on three ancient historians and an ancient political thinker, the author retrieves the core doctrines of an ethical code elaborated over the course of a long historical period. This code, as he illustrates, prescribes rules of ethical conduct for political leaders necessary to insure the stability of states through the maintenance of orderly interstate relations. Far from abstract theoretical formulations, Professor Mendels convincingly demonstrates that the different precepts of this code were actively engaged in the political life of the Hellenistic period. Professor Mendels' analyses in this book vibrantly illustrate ways in which ancient political attitudes and concepts retain a vital importance for contemporary understanding in the fields of history and of political thought.

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviationsIntroduction1. The Ethics of Ruling an Empire during Conquest: Ptolemy I (3rd century BCE, Ptolemaic Egypt)2. The Ethics of Interstate Relationships during Imperial Expansion: Polybius (2nd century BCE Greece)3. The Ethics of Interstate Relationships during the rule of an ‘International Regime’ (1st Century BCE Rome)4. An Analysis of the collection of rules of behavior as a newly discovered facet of the Political Science of the Hellenistic Era5. The Jewish Response to the Hellenistic interstate ethical code (2nd-1st Centuries BCE, Palestine)BibliographyIndex