The immediate ‘post-conflict’ and the construction of peace in the ancient world: three case studies

Abstract

In Antiquity war may be considered a sign of ‘the end of all times’. After a thorough analysis of three case studies taken from the Iron Age Levant, the classical Greece and the Late Republican Rome, conditions for the next war may be detected in postwar. Accordingly, ‘the end of all times’ in Antiquity also means a stage of permanent conflict, in which religion was not only a notorious issue but, on certain occasions, even the key to understand how a new conflict began. Therefore, this paper analyzes the unique symbiotic relationship between war and politics, but also peace and religion, during immediate postwar.