ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses on looking into arbitration in Archaic Greece. It begins with the question of how the terminology for an elected tyrant could be confused with that for an international arbiter. According to Aristotle's definition of an aisymnetes as 'an elected tyrant', there would not appear to be a connection. The chapter argues that in the Archaic period, aisymnetes was one of a range of terms used to describe arbiters, both on a domestic level and on the international stage. According to Emerson, who notes that the two types of mechanism can often be confused, arbitration is 'the voluntary agreement of states or persons to submit their differences to judges of their own choice and to bind themselves in advance to accept the decisions of judges, so chosen, as final and binding'. In international arbitration, it follows that outsiders are chosen to occupy a position of great power, responsibility, and opportunity.
