Koinon

Greek koina have their own chronological and local particularities, and in spite of the existence of certain analogies, these cannot be followed absolutely or be considered valid in all cases.

The Cretan Koinon as it is considered in the preceding chapters was similar in some respects to other Greek koina.

Other decrees relating to koinons give them security from taxes or from being drafted for military service in foreign states. The koinons were associations of various kinds, groups of worshippers, guilds of craftsmen, federations of states, groups of magistrates. Koinons of Asclepiasts, worshippers of Asclepius, functioned and left monuments in Athens, Colyphon, and elsewhere.

Apart from these village koinons, there were two large koinons in the Karian history that had a national standing.

After their overwhelming victory against the Spartans at Leuktra, the Boiotians likewise found ritual action a powerful means of undergirding the new and hard-won but still compromised participation of the entire region in the koinon.

The cases of the Ionian and Euboian koina serve to further underline how misleading these mainland Greek koina can be as models for reconstructing the institutional structures of koina in the rest of the Greek world.

While some koinons were formed by a military takeover by a dominant community, most were voluntary associations between geographically contiguous communities.

The introduction and continuation of this koinon on a level transgressing provincial boundaries – in addition to the civic and the provincial imperial cult – is clear testimony for the continuing importance of Greek koina in the Roman Imperial period as instruments for Greek cities to embed themselves within the larger framework of the Roman Empire.