Earliest possible neutral state?

How early in history could a state have declared official, permanent neutrality like Switzerland?

Would it have been conceivable long before the industrial era depending on the right circumstances and diplomatic backing?
 
I guess you need the proper diplomatic situation and way of doing things around said country for the neutrality to be respected.
 
I guess you need the proper diplomatic situation and way of doing things around said country for the neutrality to be respected.
Hence as the only state large enough to enforce such, the Roman Empire declares official neutrality. "Barbarians, please enter into your respective embassy for a calm and cordial discussion of your grievances against the Mare Nostrum"
 
You need something akin to international law to be there. While approximations of that can be said to have existed as early as the Late Bronze Age in Western Asia, and possibly somewhat earlier, I am not aware of an explicit notion of overriding legal, binding, at least loosely codified obligations among states who enjoy something like equal status as such ever emerging before about Renaissance in Western Europe. Without that, declaring "neutrality" is only meaningful in a given diplomatic or military context (which might change) as opposed to a legal one, the latter being what is supposed to be meant by "neutrality" in modern international law as applied to countries like Switzerland. Of course, diplomatic systems had legal structures comparable to international law outside Western Eurasia as well (procedures for war and peace, diplomatic recognition, sometimes semi-permanent embassies, legal frameworks for long range trade, immunities, regulating jurisdiction, layered sovereignties, whatever). But as far as I can tell, legal "neutrality" for a given polity was hard to define in any such structure, unless we are talking about sanctuaries, or otherwise religiously established entities enjoying recognized protection/immunity (more often honored in the breach anyway, ask Delphi).
 
That's a good one.

I wonder if something like Mount Athos could be a neutral state as well, as a monastic entity without significant power and also located in some mountainous area.

Although not too early, because back in the day monks fought and killed each other over Bible copyright.
Well, the problem with Mount Athos is that it is not, and can never be, a state in the full sense. Autonomous neutral area? Sure. A global agreement not touch it in the event of war? Fine. But in the end, it is a monastic community, meaning that it cannot reproduce its society over time without the outside world. In a very basic sense, it is not a self-sufficient society. Unless the framework under which it works is changed, it does not count. Of course, a significant lay community under the monastic jurisdiction would change the game. Also, a Holy See equivalent (the territory is little more than a metophor for the spiritual power of the legal entity in question) might work, but I assume that international law actors without territory are not what the OP has in mind (some of them have neutrality stauts IOTL, such as the Red Cross; I am not sure the Holy See is legally neutral, think not since I think it could still theoretically proclaim holy war under canon war if needed).
 
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