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The Social Structure of Democratic Athens’, in Morte E Vida Na Grécia Antiga: Olhares Interdisciplinares, Eds

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The Social Structure of Democratic Athens’, in Morte E Vida Na Grécia Antiga: Olhares Interdisciplinares, Eds D. M. Pritchard 2020 (in press). ‘The social structure of democratic Athens’, in Morte e Vida na Grécia Antiga: Olhares interdisciplinares, eds. M. A. de Oliveira Silva and C. D. de Souza. Teresina (Editora da UFPI). THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF DEMOCRATIC ATHENS David M. Pritchard 1. Introduction: Three Distinct Groups Classical Athens had three distinct groups. 1 The largest, by far, was the Athenian descent group, whose members were the offspring of Athenian fathers and Attic women. The second largest group consisted of metics. It included resident aliens who had registered as such with the Athenian state, as well as their dependants. The smallest group were the slaves. Within the Athenian descent group, gender dictated radically different statuses. Athenian males enjoyed the highest status of Attica’s residents. As classical Athens was a democracy, male citizens equally enjoyed extensive legal and political rights, as well as the obligation to fight in the armed forces. Athenian men had the right to own land and became, usually after their marriages, the masters of households. Their female relatives had a much lower status. As a woman had no share in Athenian democracy, she was never considered ‘a citizen’ or, for that matter, ‘an Athenian’. Instead, she was called an ast ē (‘a woman belonging to the city’) or an Attik ē gun ē (‘an Attic woman’). Free males believed that their female relatives should concentrate on being homemakers. Nevertheless, even within her household an Attic woman was treated as a perpetual minor and was always subordinated to her master, whether he be her father, husband or adult son. I analyse the position of Attic women in democratic Athens elsewhere. 2 This chapter focusses on their male relatives, their foreign neighbours and the douloi (‘slaves’) that both groups of free men, along with the Athenian state itself, owned. In spite of their equal rights, the classical Athenians drew social distinctions among themselves. Before the democracy, Solon had divided them into four income-classes. In classical times, however, this archaic-period division became increasingly redundant. Instead, the most important distinction for classical Athenians was between ‘the rich’ and ‘the poor’. They did not employ these terms vaguely to describe the overall prosperity of some free men relative to others. Rather the terms described two distinct social classes, who, in reality, had different ways of life and civic obligations. A striking feature of legal and social statuses in democratic Athens was that individuals constantly performed them. For their part, rich Athenians demonstrated 1 I finalised this chapter when I was, in 2019-20, a research fellow at L’Institut d’études avancées de l’université de Lyon and an associate member of the Lyon-based HiSoMA. The translations are my own unless it is indicated otherwise. The abbreviations of ancient authors and their works come from the Oxford Classical Dictionary and those of journals from L’Année philologique . For their helpful comments on this chapter I sincerely thank A. M. Downham Moore, E. Paillard and A. E. Zacco. 2 Pritchard 2014. Page 1 their superior social status by practising leisure pursuits that were too expensive and time-consuming for the poor, by wearing distinctive clothing, and by paying taxes and performing civic obligations that they alone could afford. The legal statuses of metics and slaves were no less performative. While resident aliens did not enjoy the same rights as citizens, they had access to metic-only courts and were allowed to make good livings. In exchange, they had to line up regularly to pay a small metic tax, to register an Athenian as a sponsor and to perform metic-specific military roles. While such obligations were not onerous, performing them made abundantly clear who belonged to this lower legal status group. Metics who did not comply could be, if caught, enslaved, as they, it was judged, had been pretending to be citizens. Slaves clearly had the lowest legal status. However, some of them did live independently and so had lives that were not so different socially from poor citizens. Yet, what set douloi apart from all free men was that they faced bodily punishments: their owners could, whenever they wished, assault them physically and sexually. 2. Citizens Of Attica’s residents male Athenians enjoyed by far the highest status. In Aristotle’s view politai (‘citizens’) shared all of a Greek state’s timai (‘honours’).3 Consequently, Athenian citizens could initiate any type of lawsuit and serve as a juror in a law-court. They could vote and even speak in assembly-meetings. In addition, they could volunteer to join the council of five hundred or to be one of the democracy’s seven hundred internal magistrates. 4 They alone were born with egkt ēsis or the right to own land. In terms of civic obligations, every polit ēs (‘citizen’) shared the duty regularly to fight in the armed forces. 5 In classical Athens, citizenship was defined by descent not place of residence. The Athenian dēmos (‘people’) believed that they shared the polis (‘city-state’) because they were direct descendants of Attica’s indigenous population. 6 That every Athenian male was imagined to have this same origin was used by the classical Athenians to justify their political and legal equality (e.g. Eur. Ion 670-5; Pl. Menex. 239a). The dēmos could vote to turn a foreigner into a fellow citizen, but such votes were extremely rare.7 Initially, it was enough for a polit ēs to be the son of a father who was Athenian. 8 In 451/0 Pericles introduced a law that made it necessary for a polit ēs to be born of an Athenian man and an Attic woman. This law was relaxed during the Peloponnesian War. But it was reimposed with the democracy’s restoration in 403/2. M. H. Hansen provides the best estimate of the number of adult citizens living in classical Attica. For the number in the late 430s, Hansen works backwards from the 3 Arist. Pol. 1278a35-8; Kamen 2013: 97-108. 4 In the later fifth century there were also 700 imperial magistrates ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 24.1-3; Pritchard 2015: 63-6). 5 E.g. Aesch. Sept. 10-20, 415-16; Ar. Vesp. 1117-20; Lys. 16.17; Thuc. 1.144.4; 2.41.5, 43.1; Pritchard 2019a: 45. 6 Loraux 1993: 37-71; Parker 1987: 200-2. 7 Loddo 2019: 17; MacDowell 1978: 70-3. 8 MacDowell 1978: 67-70. Page 2 better documented fourth century BC. A variety of recorded figures points to a population of approximately 30,000 adult citizens during the second half of the fourth century. 9 From this total, Hansen deducts the likely population growth for this century’s first 50 years and hence arrives at a figure of around 25,000 adult Athenians at the close of the fifth century. 10 Finally, he estimates how many citizens there needed to be in 432/1 in to order to end up at this figure for 400, while at the same time absorbing the huge losses of population that Thucydides and Xenophon reported for the 3 decades of the Peloponnesian War. The result is approximately 60,000 adult male citizens who were living in Attica in the late 430s.11 Because classical and hellenistic Greeks generally had small families, 12 each polit ēs probably had 3 dependants on average. Table 1 gives my estimate of Attica’s total population in the late 430s. Table 1: The Population of Attica in the Late 430s Citizens Living in Attica 60,000 Dependants of Citizens 180,000 Metics 20,000 Dependants of Metics 60,000 Slaves 50,000 TOTAL 370,000 Public speakers and playwrights drew distinctions between citizens on the basis of, for example, military roles, Solonian tel ē (‘income-classes’), occupation and residence in the country or the city. 13 But the distinction which they judged to be the most important one for their audiences and hence introduced considerably more frequently than the others was between hoi plousioi (‘the wealthy’) and hoi pen ētes (‘the poor’). 14 This distinction clearly played a vital role in determining how citizens interacted socially and what public services they performed. This means that different terms for social differentiation – such as elite and non-elite citizens as well as the upper 9 Hansen 1986; 1991, 90-4. Akrigg 2011 furnishes a valuable re-assessment of Hansen’s demographic work. 10 Hansen 1988: 26-8. 11 Hansen 1991: 55. 12 E.g. Brulé 2018; N. F. Jones 1997: 130. 13 For the drawing of distinctions on the basis of military roles see e.g. Aesch. Pers. 435-71; Ar. Ach. 162-3; Lys. 14.7, 11-12, 14-15; 16.12-13; on occupation see e.g. Ehrenberg 1951: 113-46; Roselli 2011: 111; and on residence see e.g. Ar. Nub. 628; Pax 254, 508-11, 582-600, 1172-90; Eur. Or. 917-22; Dover 1974: 112-14; Vartsos 1978: 242. 14 See e.g. Ar. Eccl. 197-8; Eq. 222-4; Ran. 1006-7; Plut. 29-30, 149-52, 500-3, 1003-5; Vesp. 463-8; Dem. 22.53; 51.11; Eur. Supp. 238-43; Isoc. 20.19; [Dem.] 51.11; Lys. 24.16-17; 26.9-10; 28.102; Galbois and Rougier-Blanc 2014: 40; Hansen 1991: 115-16; Rosivach 2001: 127. Page 3 class and the lower class – need to be used strictly as synonyms for the wealthy and the poor. In the literature of classical Athens this dichotomy always implied much more than the greater prosperity of one group of citizens relative to another; for public speakers and dramatists clearly used it to distinguish between two social classes which, in reality, had different ways of life, pastimes, clothing and types of public service.
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