EXC 2060 B3-33 - Civil War and Amnesty

Basic data for this project

Description

Project section B 3-33 explores the characteristic features of ancient civil war from the Archaic period to Late Antiquity, examining continuities and changes through diachronic comparison. The key focus of the project is the nature, the legitimatory foundations, and the acceptability and enforceability of amnesties as a means of overcoming conflict. Honour, revenge, and retribution shaped perception and determined action in the political communities of the Graeco-Roman world. The obligation of revenge that resulted from an all-determining concept of honour, the pervasiveness and (under certain circumstances) necessity of violence, and its frequent justification, meant that amnesties had to have been regarded as an imposition. It is not surprising, therefore, that the majority then failed. However, analysis of the factors on which the parties involved in civil war based their amnesty agreements, if not to prevent—then to attempt to contain violence—are highly revealing. This is the fundamental question of the third phase of the Münster Excellence Cluster. The use of amnesties resulted from a precarious tension between religious, political, and juridical spheres and exploration of this dynamic interdependence answers the central question of the Cluster—in what ways does religion stimulate, contain, and modify social and political conflict, and on what is its dynamic potency based?