Antecedent: The Classical Greek Proxenos
In Classical Greece, some of the functions of the modern Consul were fulfilled by a Proxenos. Unlike the modern position, this was a citizen of the host polity (in Greece, a city state). The Proxenos was usually a rich merchant who had socio-economic ties with another city and who helped its citizens when they were in trouble in his own city. The position of Proxenos was often hereditary in a particular family. Modern Honorary Consuls fulfil a function that is to a degree similar to that of the Ancient Greek institution.
Read more about this topic: Consul (representative)
Famous quotes containing the words classical and/or greek:
“Against classical philosophy: thinking about eternity or the immensity of the universe does not lessen my unhappiness.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The gothic is singular in this; one seems easily at home in the renaissance; one is not too strange in the Byzantine; as for the Roman, it is ourselves; and we could walk blindfolded through every chink and cranny of the Greek mind; all these styles seem modern when we come close to them; but the gothic gets away.”
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