Panhellenism

[Theodosius the Great]

In short my answer would be that permanent political unity was not advocated, IMO, by Isocrates or anyone else in that period. Wise, just and phillhelenic hegemony/leadership was, where all Greek states would have retained their independence.

Thanks. I had a feeling that was the case. But I forgot to mention Aristotle. He hated the Persians with a passion due to a personal grudge (a friend of his was killed, IIRC) and was in some sense panhellenic in his views. I thought maybe he advocated a long term view of Greek unity.

As a general observation I find it interesting that the March of the Ten Thousand did not inspire a notion of political unity that transcended the hegemony model.

The second strand was more successful, but only periodically and never completely. This was generally at the behest of a strong leader (e.g. Philip or Alexander) seeking a united front to promote personal or state ambitions; or as a quickfire and shakey response to an external threat (Persian Wars)

I suppose Aristotle would fall into this strand. It'd be interesting to know how he positioned himself in the aftermath of Alexander's death. I have to read up on the Diadochi period again to find out.

I don't think so, either. I have been reading a lot of stuff recently regarding the Greeks under the Roman Empire, and especially how they viewed their relationships with each other and with Rome. This isn't your time period, but there are quite a few mentions of historical interactions and beliefs dating back to the Classical era. I've been skimming through, and I don't see anything to suggest there was any real movement for a permanent political union.

Thanks. There seems to be consensus on this point. Now I wonder if any Greek writers expressed regret that such a movement did not exist which might have prevented Greece from falling under Roman rule. I think Greeks like Polybius lamented the current political state of Greek affairs but would that have sparked any reevaluation of the traditional view of independence of the Polis? Did any Greeks retrospectively acknowledge that their localisms/ regionalisms was politically suicidal?

~Theo