Laudator Temporis Acti

Laurent Dubois, ed., Inscriptions grecques dialectales de Sicile (Rome: École française de Rome, 1989 = Collection de l'École française de Rome, 119), pp. 257-262 (number 206), a decree from Nakone concerning the reconciliation of rival factions, tr. Benjamin Gray, "Civil war and civic reconciliation in a small Greek polis: two acts of the same drama?" in Henning Börm et al., edd., Civil War in Ancient Greece and Rome: Contexts of Disintegration and Reintegration (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2016 = Heidelberger althistorische Beiträge und epigraphische Studien, 58), pp. 53-85 (at 60):

In the magistracy of Leukios son of Kaisios and of Philonidas son of Phil-, on the fourth day of Adonios. It seemed good to the assembly as well as to the council: since, fortune having developed in a fine way, the common affairs (l. 5) of the Nakonians have been put in order, and it is beneficial that they should conduct their life as citizens in harmony for the future, and the envoys who came here from Segesta, Apellikos, son of Adeidas, Attikos, son of Piston, and Dionysos, son of Dek-…, deliberated concerning the common good for all the citizens, let it be decided to convene an assembly (10) of the citizens on the fourth day of Adonios. For those among whom there was conflict, as they competed concerning common affairs, let them, having been summoned to the assembly, conduct a reconciliation with each other, a list of thirty members having been written in advance for each side. Let those who were previously adversaries draw up the respective lists, each of the other faction. The (15) magistrates should write the names of each group separately on lots, and put them in two urns, and draw one from each group, and from the rest of the citizens they should draw lots for three more members, excluding those relatives whom the law requires to be absent from trials in court; and those who have been (20) drawn together should be chosen brothers of one another, united in concord with each other with all justice and friendship. When the sixty lots have been drawn, and also the others drawn together with them, let them assign the rest of the citizens by lot to groups of five, not drawing (25) relatives together, as has been written, and those drawn together should be brothers of one another like those previously drawn together. The hieromnamones should sacrifice a white goat for the sacrifice, and the steward should provide whatever is necessary for the sacrifice. And likewise all (30) the succeeding magistrates should sacrifice on this day each year to the ancestors and to Homonoia a sacrificial animal which they have had tested, one for each, and the citizens should all participate in a festival in groups, in accordance with the creations of brotherhoods. Let the archons inscribe this decree on a bronze plaque and set it up in the entry hall of the temple of Olympian Zeus.

Greek here (also in Gray, p. 59).

Comment by Gray (p. 60, footnote omitted):

Some impartial arbitrators from the nearby polis of Segesta had drawn up terms of reconciliation, designed to reconcile two factions, whose members had clearly recently been engaged in intense stasis. Presumably on their recommendation, the assembly prescribed a highly distinctive ritual of reconciliation. The members of the two factions, each thirty-strong, and the remaining citizens were to gather in the assembly. New, artificial civic sub-divisions or 'brotherhoods' of five were then to be formed, cutting across factional lines: lots were to be drawn to select the members of each brotherhood, one from each of the two factions and three from the pool of neutral citizens. Once the members of the factions were all assigned, subsequent brotherhoods were to contain only neutral citizens. Significantly, fellow kinsmen could not be drawn in the same brotherhood: these brotherhoods were to be purely political constructions, which would not rely on any pre-existing bonds of loyalty.

The Nakone settlement offered as a civic ideal a very high degree of civic unity, harmony and solidarity between citizens: 'brotherhood' was invoked as a model for relations between citizens, and it was explicitly stated that the members of the brotherhoods were to live together 'with all friendship and justice'.