Posts Tagged by fishing

The topic of the present post, maritime borders in Ancient Greece, was inspired by N. Papazarkadas’ comments on my previous post. Most of Attica’s borders, as well as those of many other Greek poleis, were delimited by the sea. What does this mean, concretely? Did the coasts mark the borders, or were the borders offshore? To put it more simply: were there territorial waters in Ancient Greece? The formula κατὰ γῆν καὶ κατὰ θάλατταν, found in some Eretrian proxeny decrees, and offering protection to the city’s benefactors “on land and sea,” [1] would seem to argue for the existence of territorial waters. However, it is likely that protection, in this case, was not granted beyond the harbor, as specified in the fifth-century BC asylia agreement between Oiantheia and Khaleion in Lokris [2]. I tend to believe that only harbours and internal bays were viewed as an extension of the chora. Nowadays, the… more