« Partis » politiques, cités, états fédéraux. Le témoignage de l'historien d'Oxyrhynchos

The existence of actual political “parties” in ancient Greece has been widely discussed by scholars. About this problem, the author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia offers a particularly interesting witness, since he employs a highly refined terminology and provide much information on internal politics of Greek cities. Information is particularly wide for Boeotia and permits us to identify, in the peculiar context of a federal state, factions which are characterized by continuity in political programs and leadership, by a certain numerical consistency, by different constitutional ideology and federal policy, by different international alignment, and which can by consequence be considered as “parties”, despite the scepticism of many scholars.