On The Proxenos In Ancient Greece

In Ancient Greece, where the modern civilization originates from, there is a kind of person who is called proxenos, it is similar to the modern"consul", but they are different in essence. Proxenos is a kind of person who represents another state's (state B) interests in his own state (state A). The interests include political, economic and foreign affairs etc. Proxenos is from the Greek word"provxeno"". Until today, there is not an appropriate English translation which has been recognized by most of scholars.Proxenos originates from the"xenia"in Homeric times. It first appeared in the last half of the sixth century B.C. It had a great influence on Classical Greece, especially in the city-state hegemony. Its influence weakened in Hellenistic times.In this paper, I try to analyze the meaning and origin of proxenos in etymology and find the major premise of proxenos. At last, I want to analyze the basic duty and historical influence of proxenos in political, economic and foreign affairs.I must point out that as lack of enough historical material, and my language ability in Greek and German is limited, there are a lot of questions in my paper. I will correct them in the future.