Week four: Resident aliens, and the enslaved

Question 1

What kind of category was citizenship?

Answer 1

Legal, not socio-economic

Question 2

could metics (non-citizens) be wealthy?

Answer 2

Yes, e.g., in Athens Lysias and his borther Polemarchos made a fortune as weapons manufacturer via being socialy well connected within the city

Question 3

Features of citizenship?

Answer 3

1. entitled you to procreate citizen childrem
2. allowed inheritance or purchase of real estate
3. connection with religious practices depending how inclusive or exclusive each cult was
4. in some city-states a child would qualify for citizzen status in one parent was of birth. In others, both had to be of citizen birth.

Question 4

What is atimia?

Answer 4

Similar to Athens for most city-states:

1. Penalty for a range of failures to do ones duty as a citizen: this penalty was called atimia

this could only be imposed on citizens

any citizen who had incurred atimia wasn’t allowed to participate in communal or religious activities.

Question 5

What could a male citizen be punished with atimia? Often this follows Athens law, so we shall recite this

Answer 5

1. not obeying generals orders or for desertion from the army (cowardice)
2. not serving as an arbitrator in ones sixtieth year
3. not bestowing old-age provision on one’s parents
4. dropping a public legal action once one had initiated it
5. not divorcing an adulterous wife
6. non-payment of debts to the state or the gods.

Question 6

Privileges, restrictions and obligations of free resident aliens?

Answer 6

1. Exemption from corporal punishment
2. Torture of a free person was not permitted (at least in Athens, but may differ)
3. In Athens and probably elsewhere, metics could be sold as a slave at a public auction as punishment for serious offences.

Question 7

Restrictions applying to free resident aliens?

Answer 7

1. not allowed to buy or inherit any real estate
2. In city states that required descent from both farther and mother for a child to be citizen, marriage between citizen and non-citizen would often be illegal
3. Male metics would be excluded from all political activity in the city where they lived as immigrants.

Question 8

Obligations of free resident aliens?

Answer 8

1. Must pay same taxes as citizens and additional taxes imposed on metics only
2. If they are wealthy, they must partake on most of the liturgies ‘sponsorships’ that rich citizens were required to perform
3. Must perform military service as conscripted soldiers when required.

Question 9

The unfree and slaves? how common was this?

Answer 9

Very: some Greek city-states e.g., Sparta and Argos comprised large unfree populations.

Although unfree, they couldn’t be sold, appeared to be tied to land and had to hand over a certain proportion of their produce to an ‘absentee lanldord’.

Question 10

Chattel slaves?

Answer 10

1. Widely attested in classical Greece are enslaved people that legally were treated as chattel in most respects
2. Note: killing of an enslaved person would be regarded as homicide legally in some city states they could participate in religious festivals.
3. in other respects, enslaved person would legally be defined as a piece of property that belonged to another human being or to an association or city.