The Autonomy Of Greek Polis In The Fourth Century B.C.

Since the German historian E. J. Bickerman first elucidated the concept of autonomy in 1958, the problem has caught many scholars' attention. In recent years, some important monographs were published. However, most of these focused on the genesis and early history of the concept in the fifth century B.C.. As for the concept in the fourth century B.C., it is only mentioned in the study of the vicissitude of hegemony, the Common Peaces, or the Panhellenism.In the domestic scholarship, Gu Zhun's The Institutions of Greek City States was concerned about the concept of autonomy, but did not make an intensive and comprehensive study of this concept and did not touch the immanent connection between this concept and the decline of Greek polls.Thus this thesis aims to explore the immanent connection between the concept of autonomy and the decline of polls regime and try to probe into the decline of this regime from the aspect of ideology in the fourth century B.C., the special history background. Chapter one explains the concept comprehensively from the aspect of its derivation and historical genesis and by contrast with freedom. Chapter two analyzes the vicissitude of hegemony in the first part of the fourth century B.C., and show that the concept of autonomy penetrated through the pattern of hegemony, which induced the short-lived hegemony to go to its doom. Thus in a sense, it would cause durative turbulence in Greek world, hi chapter three, I explore the genesis and development of Panhellenism and then point out that the Panhellenic program of Isocrates and the other orators always aimed to preserve the autonomy ofpolis and never want to break away the regime ofpolis. In a sense the Panhellenism was a remedy for the illness of the endless warfare between the poleis to preserve the autonomy of polis. In chapter four, I briefly investigate that it is under the smoke screen of preserving autonomy that Greece became a political appanage of Macedon, and subsequently passed under the domination of the Roman Empire.My Conclusion is that in a sense, the concept of autonomy is one of the key themes through which the complicated history of the Greek interstate politics and the fate of the Greek world in the fourth century B.C can be understood much better; it gives an intensive expression of the idolatry of the Greeks to wards polis in the interstate relationships and is the ultimate causation of the tragic destiny of the Greek poleis.