Lexicon of Citizenship

Here you will find a selection of entries related to the vocabulary of citizenship as it appears in Greek literary, epigraphic, and papyrological sources.

You can browse the lexical entries by clicking on the letter corresponding to the initial of the word.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

A

Apeleutheros (ἀπελεύθερος)

The freed slave obtained the status of apeleutheros or exeleutheros (“freedman”: the former term seems to refer to those born into servitude, the latter to those born free). As Pollux states, freedmen are to be considered metaxy between freemen and slaves (III 83).

Manumissions in Greece were quite rare. The slave could be freed by various procedures. Civil manumission involved the public declaration of the master’s willingness to free the slave, in assembly, in court, at a religious festival, through the drawing up of a document in the presence of witnesses. Hierodoulia (sacred manumission), on the other hand, was a form of consecration to the deity, as a result of which the slave was freed from the master but remained bound to the temple and to the service of the god; over time, sacred manumission turned into a fictitious sale of the slave to the god, the price of which was paid to the master by the slave himself who redeemed himself.

According to some scholars, the freedman would have obtained the status of metic, that is, resident alien. Indeed, in many respects, the apeleutheros seems closer to the metic than to the citizen: both foreigners, freedmen and metics, were united by the need to have the assistance of the prostates and the payment of a residence tax. But in reality, the status of the freedmen seems to come rather closer to that of the nothoi. An account concerning the gymnasium of Cynosarges, reserved for nothoi (taken from Pseudo-Nonnos’ commentary on Gregory Nazianzen’s Fourth Oration, § 60, pp. 126-127 Nimmo Smith = PG XXXVI, p. 1016), states that “the Athenians also called nothoi the apeleutheroi,” because the latter “were nothoi with respect to the freemen by birth.” It appears that in the gymnasium of Cynosarges both nothoi and apeleutheroi were subjected to an evaluation (krisis), the former on paternity, the latter of an unspecified character and supplemented by a dokimasia concerning manumission. One of the goals of this “census” was perhaps military service, which, unlike for the nothoi, is relatively well attested for the freedmen. Performing military service, either in the (hoplite or light) infantry army or in the navy, could certainly facilitate a partial integration of the freedmen.

The freedmen were required to maintain the residence of the master who had become prostates, toward whom they maintained a series of obligations (which the sources do not specify but which can be defined, though only indicatively, on the basis of Plato’s testimony in Book XI of the Laws, 914 ff.). Some obligations could be set out in the act of manumission and are attested in the inscriptions: frequent in manumissions is, for example, the paramone clause, which obliges the freedman to reside with the patron for a fixed period of time or even until his death. If the freedman failed to fulfill his duties, the master could sue him in a dike apostasiou, a lawsuit for “abandonment” of the patron, under the jurisdiction of the polemarchos, as a result of which the freedman, if he succumbed, could fall back into slavery.

The inscriptions on the phialai exeleutherikaí (silver objects, worth one hundred drachmas, dedicated to Athena, attesting to the state of freedom) informs us that freedmen were census-tagged with an indication of residence or oikesis (oikôn en + deme) and that the freedmen’s professions mostly concerned handicraft work in urban area.

• C. Bearzot, Né cittadini né stranieri: apeleutheroi e nothoi in Atene, inM.G. Angeli Bertinelli, A. Donati (a cura di), Il cittadino, lo straniero, il barbaro fra integrazione ed emarginazione nell’antichità (Atti del I Incontro Internazionale di Storia antica, Genova 20-22 maggio 2003), Roma 2005, 77-92
• M. Bertazzoli, I nothoi e la polis: il ruolo del Cinosarge, in Rendiconti dell’Istituto Lombardo 137 (2003), 211-232
• R. Zelnick-Abramovitz, Not Wholly Free. The Concept of Manumission and the Status of Manumitted Slaves in the Ancient Greek World, Leiden-Boston 2005, 248-262

[C. Bearzot]

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Apodemeo (ἀποδημέω)

The verb apodemeo, literally translated as “to be far from the demos,” denotes the condition of one estranged from their homeland and fellow citizens. This term is characterised by significant polysemy: it can signify either a physical absence from one’s community of origin or a deliberate choice to undertake a journey away from the civic environment to which one belongs (demos, in fact). In this context, apodemeo stands in contrast to the verb epidemeo, translated as “to be present in the community” or “to reside.” This opposition reflects the dualism between presence and absence within the civic sphere.

This contrast is vividly illustrated in Xenoph. Cyr. 7.5.69, where Cyrus organizes guards to maintain order in Babylon both in his presence (ἐπίδημῶν) and in his absence (ἀπίδημώς). A similar dichotomy is evident in Thucydides. In 1.70.4, the Spartans are described as those who remain consistently within their own demos (ἐνδημοτάτους), in contrast to the Athenians, who are characterized as apodemeta. Thucydides’ observation underscores two contrasting models of mobility: Spartan stability, marked by a consistent physical presence within one’s own territory, and Athenian propensity for travel and distance, whether motivated by necessity or initiative.

The verb apodemeo can also denote departure with a specific purpose, such as visiting someone, engaging in business, or pursuing knowledge. In Hdt. 3.124.2, the term describes Polycrates’ departure from his residence to visit Oroetes. Lycurgus (1.57) uses it to refer to journeys undertaken for economic or commercial reasons (κατ᾽ ἐμπορίαν ἀποδημοῦντας, manuscript variant ἐπ᾽[ί]). Herodotus (1.29.1) associates the term with Solon, who, after instituting laws in Athens, “departed from the city” (απεδήμησε) in pursuit of “knowledge” (θεωρίης).

The noun apodemia, corresponding to the verb apodemeo, frequently appears in philosophical narratives, particularly in tales of philosophers embarking on journeys in search of wisdom. Philostratus employs apodemia (VA 1.3, 1.18, 3.16) and apodemeo (VA 1.18, 3.33) to describe Apollonius of Tyana’s displacements as a continuous series rather than isolated events. In contrast, Socrates stands out as a notable exception among ancient philosophers. According to Diogenes Laertius (2.5.22), he did not engage in apodemia (ἀποδημίας δὲ οὐκ ἐδεήθη) except under circumstances of military necessity (πλὴν εἰ μὴ στρατεύεσθαι ἔδει). This trait is also reflected in Plato’s Crito, the source of the Diogenian passage (cf. Cri.52b). In this dialogue, Socrates envisions a hypothetical scenario in which individuals choose to reside outside their homeland (ἀποδεδημηκώς), specifically in Thessaly, likening such a decision to a frivolous banquet that lacks seriousness or dignity.

Ultimately, the term apodemeo underscores its remarkable versatility. Beyond conveying absence or travel, it captures the underlying purposes, destinations, and objectives of these journeys, reflecting both practical and intellectual pursuits.

• M. Leigh, From Polypragmon to Curiosus. Ancient Concepts of Curious and Meddlesome Behaviour, Oxford 2013
• H. G. Liddell – R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented by Sir H. S. Jones. with the assistance of R. McKenzie, Oxford 1940
• S. Montiglio, Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture, Chicago – London 2005
• E. Poddighe, L’apodemia di Solone e l’inalterabilità delle sue leggi. La versione di Erodoto, Hormos 12 (2020), 290-329 < https://www.unipa.it/dipartimenti/cultureesocieta/riviste/hormos/.content/documenti/12_Elisabetta_Poddighe_Hormos_12_2020.pdf> (22/01/2025)

[E. Poddighe, M. Deriu]

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Apolis (ἄπολις)

The term apolis, formed from the word polis preceded by the privative alpha, generically indicates a person “without a city”, taking on various semantic nuances. The ancient Greek tragedians use it, for example, to refer to characters dramatically condemned to a fate of isolation. Particularly emblematic are the attestations of the term concerning Philoctetes, abandoned by his companions on the island of Lemnos because of an infected wound (Soph. Ph. 1018), Oedipus, exiled by his son Polynices and forced to a life of poverty (Soph. OC. 1357), and Medea who, betrayed by Jason, finds herself alone, without relatives, in a foreign land (Eurip. Med. 646). Herodotus uses it together with the word ‘phygas’ in reference to the Spartan Demaratus (Hdt. 7.104.2), who took refuge in Persia after being fraudulently deposed from the throne by Cleomenes I and by Leotychides (Forsdyke 2005, 297).

In another famous passage of the Histories, the Corinthian leader, Adeimantos, calls Themistocles ‘apolis aner’, claiming that the Athenians are no longer worth anything after the burning of the city by the Persians. Themistocles is considered a man “without a country” (τῷ μὴ ἐστὶ πατρίς) and “without a city” (ἀπόλι ἀνδρί) who therefore has no right to speak (Hdt. 8.61.1). The Athenian, on the other hand, who exalts the value of the city as a group of fellow citizens, believes that his community – although temporarily without a settlement – ​​is much more powerful than the Corinthian one, since the two hundred Athenian ships would be able to defeat any other Greek polis. Themistocles does not reject the link between space and civic community, underlining that his fellow citizens, even in the current complicated situation, possess “land and city” (καὶ πόλις καὶ γῆ), but he proposes a different conception of the polis, less tied to physical places (Ampolo 1996, 297-300; Ingarao 2023).

The protagonist of the Against Eubulides (Dem. 57) also emphasizes the connection between territory and citizenship. Euxitheos, who has been excluded from the citizenship by decision of the Halimous’s demos, will be sold as a slave, if the judges, after having verified his identity, consider that he does not have the necessary requirements for citizenship, that is, that his parents are both Athenians (cf. Arst. Ath.Pol. 42.1; about ephesis see Poddighe, Loddo 2022). In a final heartfelt appeal, he even threatens to take his own life if he is not given the opportunity to bury his mother in the family tombs and if he is deprived of his family, preferring to die in his homeland rather than become apolis (Dem. 57.70).

In other legal attestations, the term retains the rather generic meaning of ‘without a homeland’, indicating someone who ends up in exile (Antiph. 2.2.9), but also someone who is condemned for atimia (Lys. 20.35). Moving on to the philosophical sphere, Plato states in the Laws that in the ideal city, unlike the real one, the citizen who is disinherited must also suffer forced exile in another state (Pl. Leg. 11.928E). Finally, Aristotle (Arst. Pol. 1253a 1-4), in the famous definition of man as ‘zoon politikon’ by nature, defines apolis as someone who lives in isolation and is therefore either less than a man or superior to him (Kuokkanen 2020, 5).

• C. Ampolo, Il sistema della polis. Elementi costitutivi e origini della città greca, in S. Settis (ed.), I Greci. Storia, cultura, arte, società, II.1: Formazione, Torino 1996, 297-342.
• S. Forsdyke, Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy. The Politics of Expulsion in Ancient Greece, Princeton 2005.
• G. Ingarao, Gli spazi della cittadinanza nella Contro Eubulide di Demostene (Dem. 57), in M.M. Bianco, N. Cusumano, G. Ingarao, Storia, Retorica e Ideologia. Ricerche sul mondo antico, Palermo 2023, 59-75.
• S. Kuokkanen, Ostracism, Inner Change and the Dynamics of Reintegration in Classical Athens, Pallas 112 (2020), 67-91 <https://journals.openedition.org/pallas/21077>.
• E. Poddighe, L. Loddo, Ephesis against Eubulides (Dem. 57): Legal Arguments against the Sykophant’s Game, Dike 25 (2022), 95-150 <https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/Dike/article/view/19927/17743>.

[G. Ingarao]

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Astos (ἀστός)

ἀστός, ἀστή, derived from ἄστυ, the city as a “center,” is already found in Homer in the sense of “fellow citizen” (Hom. Il. 11.242-243; Od. 13.192, used alongside the bride and friends: ἄλοχος … ἀστοί τε φίλοι τε). Employed in the plural, it was originally more common than πολίτης in defining membership of the city community (Aeschylus, Ag. 403-406); only in the mid-5th century the definition of πολίτης and the use of the ethnic term (Ἀθηναῖος), especially in epigraphy, tend to prevail, while ἀστός seems to have fallen within the sphere of private law.

The distinction that defines ἀστός as someone who enjoys civil rights only and πολίτης as someone who also enjoys political rights (LSJ: “astos being one who has civil rights only, polites one who has political rights also”) is based on Aristotle, who, in Politics III, 1278a34 defines polites as “one who participates in τιμαί: λέγεται μάλιστα πολίτης ὁ μετέχων τῶν τιμῶν”.

In reality, such a distinction does not seem entirely satisfactory (the two terms appear to be interchangeable in Hdt. 7.237.2-3). Rather, ἀστός seems to refer to belonging to a ‘family’ type of community, i.e. determined by descent and kinship, with almost aristocratic connotations (Lévy 1985); the idea of belonging to a family community seems to be reflected later in Pericles’ law on citizenship (Blok 2005, pp. 15-22: cf. Eur. Ion 668-675). Πολίτης, on the other hand, has a character more closely linked to the institutional aspect: πολῖται are defined by their right/duty to act in the political sphere (Lévy 1985, p. 66: ‘moins par un statut comme les astoi que par un droit’; cf. lemma πολίτης).

The issue is not always clearly defined. For example, analysis of Plato shows that ἀστός and πολίτης tend to overlap in the author’s usage (Fouchard 1984). Research on Athenian theater (the three great tragedians and Aristophanes) reaches different conclusions: “the term politēs prototypically designates those individuals who actively participate in political life, members of a deliberative body and therefore, by extension, citizens as members of the political community…. the term astos prototypically designates all citizens as inhabitants of the polis, regardless of whether or not they hold political rights” (Falco 2024, p. 156).

With the necessary clarifications, the difference between ἀστός and πολίτης centered on the exercise of political rights does not seem to be abandoned, even considering that the concept of ἀστός includes women and minors, who, although they hold citizenship, do not exercise it in the same way as adult males. In fact, πολίτης is also ἀστός, but not vice versa: “the category of astoi prototypically includes all citizens outside strictly political-institutional or military contexts, and therefore … all those who, in addition to male citizens, are not xenoi, such as women and minors” (Falco 2024, p. 173). The ἀστή nature of women is very important in family law as it defines the legitimacy of marriage (which required the status of daughter of a citizen and of legally promised bride through the procedure of ἐγγύη) and, after the Periclean law, of offspring (Mossé 1985).

The antithetical nature of ἀστός has been underscored in contrast to μέτοικος (Aeschyl. Suppl. 963-965; Eum. 1044-1045; Aristoph. Ach. 508; Ps.-Xen. Ap 1.12, who complains about the granting of equal right of speech (ἰσηγορία) τοῖς μετοίκοις πρὸς τοὺς ἀστούς; Xenoph. Vect. 2.2)and also to ξένος (Pind. Pyth. 3.71-72; Soph. OT 817-818; Th. 2.34.4).

This opposition can be explained by the hereditary link with the community of citizens expressed by the term ἀστός. For this reason, the hypothesis that the ἀστοί also included metics as permanent residents of the city (Cohen 2000, pp. 50-63) appears inadequate: in the definition of citizenship, the question of residence remains irrelevant. Therefore, ἀστός alludes to residence only for those who possess the status of citizen. Noteworthy is Aeschyl. Suppl. 356, in which the Danaids are defined as ἀστόξενοι, i.e., foreigners but with blood ties to the community (ἀσταί as natives of Argos, ξέναι as Egyptians).

There are not many reliable epigraphic attestations of ἀστός. IG I³ 1032, ll. 46, 110, 188, 431, an Athenian naval catalogue from the early 4th century, refers to ναῦται ἀστοί. IG II/III³ 1, 399, from the 40s of the 4th century, ll. 3-7, presents the opposition ξένος/ἀστὸς, provided that the integration is correct (μήτε ξένος μή[τε ἀστὸς).

A regulation of the sanctuary of Athena Alea in Tegea, from the early 4th century BC (IG V 2 3, l. 11) presents the term Ϝαστός. ἀστοί appears in the commemorative inscription of the Megarian citizens who fell in the Persian wars, falsely attributed to Simonides (IG VII 53, probably a late copy of a 5th-century text).

The expression ϝαστίαν δίκαν, which occurs in IC IV 13 (part of a law dated between the 7th and 6th centuries BC) and in the decree for Dionysius (IC IV 64, early 5th century), seems to refer to the role of an ἀστός in legal disputes. IG 12.5.225 (Paros), IG 9.1.333.14 (Locris), IG 9.2.1226 (Phalanna: this is a nomos), all from the 5th century, do not allow for any significant reflection, partly due to their incomplete nature.

• J. Blok, Becoming Citizens: Some Notes on the Semantics of « Citizen » in Archaic Greece and Classical Athens, Klio 87.1, 2005, 7-40
• E. E. Cohen, The Athenian Nation, Princeton 2000
• G. Falco, Politēs/politis, astos e metoikos: il lessico della cittadinanza nel teatro ateniese di V secolo a.C., Hormos 16, 2024, 133-200
• A. Fouchard, Astos, politès et épichôrios chez Platon, Ktèma 9, 1984, 185-204
• É. Lévy, Astos et polites, d’Homère à Hérodote, Ktema 10, 1985, 53-66
• C. Mossé, Ἀστὴ καὶ πολῖτις. La dénomination de la femme athenienne dans les plaidoyers démosthéniens, Ktèma 10, 1985, 77-79

[C. Bearzot]

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Atimia (ἀτιμία)

The antonym of τιμή, ἀτιμία literally indicates the ‘lack or loss of τιμή’. While τιμή is often translated as ‘honour’, the term possesses a richness that the English translation does not effectively convey. It encompasses notions of value, price, dignity, prestige, and deference, sometimes implying a state and the resulting condition—what we translate as ‘honour’—as well as the external recognition of a given condition (Cairns 2011; 2019; Cairns-Canevaro-Lewis 2025). The same mechanisms of recognition underpin the meaning of ἀτιμία, which thus signifies both a condition, the ‘dishonour’ that follows the loss of honour, and the lack of recognition of an individual’s τιμή, the ‘contempt’ that may manifest in the context of social interactions. The language of atimia is employed to illustrate both conative processes, which describe attempts to ‘dishonour’ an individual, and performative processes, which signal the success of an attempt to render an individual atimos (Rocchi 2022, 108). The idea that atimia had an essentially religious nature, however, is debatable (Woram 2022). The presence of the term in the entrenchment clause of a small number of inscriptions, sometimes associated with the payment of a tithe on goods confiscated for the deity (e.g. ML 20, ll. 38-45; IG I³ 40, ll. 33-36; IG I³ 46, ll. 24-29), does not warrant such a conclusion; the payment of the tithe relates to the confiscation of goods, not to atimia, as evidenced by the fact that the same practice is also attested in connection with other penalties, e.g. proscription in And. 1.96 (on ‘sacred fines’ see Jim 2014, 264-266).

An initial distinction in meaning is that which opposes ἀτιμία, used in a non-technical sense, as a term of the moral sphere, and ἀτιμία as a legally defined concept, implying a penalty. However, this distinction should not be taken in absolute terms, as even when used in a technical sense, ἀτιμία retains moral implications, and the two senses—technical and non-technical—seem to mutually inform and illuminate one another. This close association between moral and legal value is well exemplified by a passage from the speech On Peace (43), in which Isocrates states that those in Sparta who are deemed most worthy of dishonour (ἀτιμότεροι) are those who are unwilling to sacrifice their lives in battle, compared to those who throw away their shield. The reference to atimia in this case implies a value judgment rather than a legal concept, but that moral evaluation underpins the penal sanction for military offences to which Isocrates alludes. Conversely, even in the classical era and in a judicial context, the lexicon of atimia does not necessarily imply a penalty. Consider Euxitheos’ admonition not to despise (ἀτιμάζετε) the poor and those engaged in trade who earn their living honestly (Dem. 57.36). In this case, the penalty for someone who had been defeated in court was not atimia, but enslavement (Lib. Hyp. Dem. 57; Dion Hal. Hyp. Isae. 12).

The non-technical sense of ‘dishonour’ is already found in the Homeric poems, where Zeus addresses Poseidon, who complains of not being respected by mortals, that is, of seeing his claim to honour rejected (Od. 13.142). Although ἀτιμία occurs only once in the Homeric poems, the lexicon of dishonour is well represented, as demonstrated by the use of the denominative verbs ἀτιμάω/ἀτιμόω and ἀτιμάζω, used interchangeably to indicate the lack of honour (e.g. Hom. Il. 1.11-12 and 94, cf. Maffi 1983; Joyce 2018, 42; Rocchi 2025a). Ἄτιμος in its etymological sense is found in Cassandra’s prophecy in Aesch. Agam. 1279, where οὐ μὴν ἄτιμοί γ᾽ ἐκ θεῶν τεθνήξομεν means ‘we shall not die unavenged (literally ‘without honour’) by the gods’.

The moral significance of ἀτιμία as dishonour or infamy is particularly relevant in the military context. Tyrtaeus, in praising the heroic sacrifice of the soldier who dies fighting for his homeland, reproaches those who abandon the battlefield and become exiles, needing everything and enemies everywhere, for desertion sullies the lineage with infamy and cowardice (Tyrt. fr. 10 West, l. 10: πᾶσα δ᾽ ἀτιμίη καὶ κακότης ἕπεται; for a similar form of dishonour related to a lack of military valour, see Hdt. 7.231 on Aristodemus of Sparta). Pindar, in celebrating the Olympic victory of the Camarine Psaumis, alludes to how Clymenus’ son, Erginus, managed to avoid the jeers of the women of Lemnos (Λαμνιάδων γυναικῶν ἔλυσεν ἐξ ἀτιμίας) by defeating the swift Zetes and Calais in the race (Pind. Olimp. 4, ll. 19-25). Dishonour is sometimes the consequence of past events or the effect of specific conduct. If Athena rejects the possibility that parity in the vote count in the trial of Orestes could bring dishonour (Aesch. Eum. 796), similarly, the violence against the suppliant Heraklidai is a cause of shame for the city and dishonour for the gods (Eur. Heracl. 72). Atimia can signify absence of status, as in Hes. Theog. 395-396, where it is stated that Zeus would confer honour and rights on those who were ἄτιμος and ἀγέραστος under Cronos. Atimia as dishonour can be a subjective perception. The decision of Chrysothemis not to assist Electra in avenging their mother Clytemnestra evokes in Electra the fear of being subject to dishonour (Soph. Elect. 1035). When used concretely, as in the expression ἀτιμίαν γε παιδὸς ἀμφὶ σώματι ἐσθημάτων κλύουσαν, uttered by Atossa in Aesch. Pers. 847, it indicates the dishonour communicated by the sight of Xerxes’ now torn royal garments (cf. Garvie 2009, 322-324). On the other hand, the social dimension of atimia as dishonour emerges clearly in a fragment from Euripides’ Erechtheus (F 362 Kannicht, ll. 16-18), where poverty is associated with infamy (ἀδοξία) and the dishonour of existence (ἀτιμία βίου). Likewise, physicians who allow themselves to be guided solely by theory, ignoring their natural disposition, clothe themselves in dishonour (Hipp. De decente habitu 4.2). For the conceptual opposition τιμή/ἀτιμία see Hdt. 3.3.2; similarly, τίμιον ἢ ἄτιμον in Plat. Leg. 3.696d; ἀτιμότερον/τιμιώτερον in relation to the value of metals in Xen. Vect. 4.10.

Sometimes ἀτιμία denotes contempt or lack of respect resulting from the denial or lack of recognition of an individual’s τιμή. An emblematic instance is Gelon’s statement in response to the Greek ambassadors’ request for aid, where he contrasts his willingness to contribute to the war with the contempt he had received from the Greeks (ἀτιμίης δὲ πρὸς ὑμέων κυρήσας οὐκ ὁμοιώσομαι ὑμῖν) at the time he had asked for vengeance for the death of Dorieus (Hdt. 7.158). Similarly, among the proposed reforms concerning the metics, Xenophon includes the elimination of those obligations, which, while of no utility to the city, impose tangible marks of contempt (ἀτιμίαι) towards the resident foreign population in Athens (Xen. Vect. 2.2). The ἀτιμίαι are thus conceptualised as unnecessary reductions of the share of honour due to the resident foreign population. What provokes contempt for the metics can be inferred indirectly from the content of the proposals in 2.5-7, where it is advised to grant them the right to serve in the cavalry (cf. Xen. Eq. mag. 9.6), the ownership of land on which they have already built a house, and the establishment of the μετοικοφύλαξ (cf. Whitehead 2019, p. 115). Ἀτιμία as the negation of τιμή is evident in the episode of the killing of Boeotus by Euaeon, presented as a reaction, extreme but understandable (Dem. 21.74), of the latter to the single blow dealt to him by Boeotus. Demosthenes (21.72) clarifies that it was not the blow that provoked Euaeon’s anger, but the lack of respect (οὐ γὰρ ἡ πληγὴ παρέστησε τὴν ὀργήν, ἀλλ᾽ ἡ ἀτιμία, cf. Canevaro 2018, 111-114; Rocchi 2023b, 328). For atimia as contempt, see also Isocrates’ exhortation to Nicocles (2.14): ‘the more energy you put into despising (ἀτιμάσῃς) ignorance in others, the more you will exercise your reason’.

The considerations regarding the relationship of meaning between τιμή and ἀτιμία can also clarify the technical use of ἀτιμία. Since τιμή can refer both to individual condition, in the singular, and to specific prerogatives or rights, indicated as τιμαί in the plural, that a status entails, in legal language, ἀτιμία may imply a penalty concerning both individual status and the rights associated with it. Starting from Swoboda’s famous article (1893) on the decree for Arthmios of Zeleia (Dem. 9.42-44), the so-called evolutionary thesis has emerged, positing that ἀτιμία and its related terms underwent a significant change in meaning between the archaic period and the beginning of the classical age. According to Swoboda, ἄτιμος meant both ‘Ächtung’ (outlawry) and ‘Ehrlosigkeit’ (dishonour). It originally signified ‘with impunity’ and implied that any member of the community declared as such could be exiled or killed without judicial consequences for the murderer. Over time, the term would have acquired a more technical meaning, so that in the classical period, a decree of ἀτιμία would deprive the person it targeted of certain rights. Swoboda argues that the pivotal point for the transition to a milder conception of atimia was represented by Solon’s archonship, based on the law of neutrality in Arist. Ath. Pol. 8.5, but the chronology of this supposed semantic change remains controversial (for the idea that it should be situated around 460 BC, at the time of the affair of Arthmios, see Ruschenbusch 1968). Others, such as Paoli (1930, 307-312), have argued for the persistence, even in the classical era, of the connection between atimia and outlawry, distinguishing between ‘relative atimia’, which involved the loss of certain rights, and ‘proscriptive or absolute atimia’, which entailed banishment (cf. also Piccirilli 1976). The evolutionary thesis has been accepted with minor variations by most commentators. For instance, in his study on the judicial procedures employed in Athens against various types of offenders, Hansen (1976), while endorsing Swoboda’s conclusions, argued that atimia retained the sense of impunity even in the classical age, emphasising that the atimoi often preferred to go into exile rather than live in Athens without legal protection. Others have highlighted the moral dimension of atimia in its origins. Maffi (1983) recognised in the use of the verb ἀτιμάζειν in the Homeric poems the expression of a negative evaluation by the community concerning a dominant code of conduct and distinguished atimia from exile based on a clear differentiation in the use of ἀτιμάζειν and φεύγειν. On this basis, it has been argued that the establishment of Solon’s politeia coincided with the legal definition of the notion of atimia (Poddighe 2001; 2006). Although the evolution of the meaning of atimia is widely accepted, the idea has emerged that the legal and extralegal meanings of atimia were not distinct even in the classical era. Thus, van’t Wout (2011) emphasised the survival of the moral meaning of atimia based on epigraphic documentation, and Dmitriev (2015) defended the thesis that exile and the death penalty were implied by atimia as a penalty even in the classical age (contra Joyce 2018).

However, the interpretation of atimos as ‘one who does not suffer the penalty’ is indefensible, as noted by Vleminck (1981, 293), since such a meaning refers not to the recipient of atimia but to the individual who kills him (a concept expressed, rather, with ἀθῷος in Syll.³ 141, l. 13). Following Vleminck’s essay, the idea that atimia never entailed proscription has gained traction. This thesis first took shape in the aforementioned essay by Maffi (1983) and later in the studies of Youni (2001; 2018; 2019), which demonstrated that atimia and proscription have always been distinct concepts.

In the history of scholarship, the term ἀτιμία, in its penal sense, has primarily been associated with the concept of citizenship, with the consequence that it has been understood as the ‘disenfranchisement’. However, the exclusivity of this connection has recently been called into question (Rocchi 2023b). In particular, Rocchi has highlighted the flexibility of the notion of atimia in relation to the subjects involved and their differing prerogatives. In this context, atimia does not manifest as a penalty directed exclusively at adult free males, that is, those who constitute the entirety of full citizens and the politically active body. Since each individual possesses a time, atimia can affect both men and women, citizens and foreigners alike. The form of atimia that affected women, for example, deprived them of typically female prerogatives. Aeschines (1.183) states that Solon punished the woman caught with a seducer (moichos) with atimia by forbidding her to adorn herself or participate in public sacrifices, and if she violated the imposed restrictions, ordering anyone who encountered her to strike her (cf. [Dem.] 59. 85-86). A similar argument can be made regarding the metics if one accepts Meyer’s thesis (2010, 75-76), according to which the few repetitions in the names of the accusers in the ‘phialai inscriptions’, which certainly include some metics, are attributable to the fact that those who lost the case were struck by atimia and deprived of the ability to pursue criminal actions of the same kind. Similar considerations can be formulated for foreigners, as in the already mentioned case of Arthmios of Zeleia, but also for Euticrates of Olynthos (Suid. δ 415 Adler, s.v. Δημάδης; π 2539 Adler, s.v. πρόξενος), individuals from whom atimia had likely removed prerogatives related to their status as proxenoi. For the imposition of atimia on foreigners in the context of relations between Athens and the allies of the Delian League, see the decree for Chalcis (IG I³ 40) and the decree on weights and measures (IG I³ 1453).

We are informed about the various forms of atimia that could be imposed as a penalty in Athens from what is reported by Andocides in a lengthy section of his speech On the Mysteries (1.73-76). He recounts the content of the decree of Patrokleides, by which the Athenians restored the citizenship status of those whose rights and responsibilities had been limited by atimia in various ways and degrees. This measure is presented as a restorative act that made the atimoi once again epitimoi (ἔδοξεν ὑμῖν τοὺς ἀτίμους ἐπιτίμους ποιῆσαι, cf. Canevaro 2013, 203). Among these are those whom Andocides defines as deprived of rights: debtors to the state, namely magistrates found guilty after their accounts at the end of their term, those condemned in dikai exoules or graphai, or recipients of unpaid monetary penalties; those who had acquired tax collection rights from the treasury and failed to pay; and those who had acted as guarantors for others who proved to be in default. Andocides proceeds by enumerating other atimoi who had been deprived of rights (σώματα ἄτιμα, 1. 74) but continued to possess and control their property. These were individuals condemned for theft or corruption, whose status as atimoi extended to their descendants (regarding the possibility that this may duplicate what has been said about magistrates condemned during the accounting, see MacDowell 1983, 70-71); a similar fate applied to deserters, those who had evaded military service or were condemned for cowardice, those who deserted a naval battle, or those who had thrown away their shield, or who had been condemned three times for perjury or mistreatment of parents. Finally, Andocides cites a type of partial atimia, whereby an individual suffered limitations on their rights in specific domains (κατὰ προστάξεις; on the term, see Novotný 2014). Such restrictions concerned specific citizen prerogatives, such as the inability to speak in the Assembly or serve on the Council; the prohibition on initiating legal proceedings, navigating to the Hellespont or Ionia; and exclusion from the Agora.

Even outside of Athens, atimia was imposed as a penalty. In Delphi, within the phratry of the Labiades, as well as in Samos, failure to pay a fine was punished with atimia (CID 1.9, B, ll. 40-5; IG XII 6 1 172 A, ll. 79-80; cf. I.Kyme 11, ll. 8-12). Atimia is a sanction often imposed on negligent magistrates. It is prescribed in cases of violations of the safeguard clause contained in laws and decrees, for showing or supporting a proposal contrary to the provisions of the people, or for the admission of such a proposal to the Assembly as a magistrate (e.g. ML 20, ll. 38-45 from Naupactus; IG XII 8 264, from Thasos; I.Adramytteion 34 B, ll. 39-58; IG XII 9 191, ll 29-33, from Eretria). It may be imposed in cases of repeated magistracy, as occurred in Erythrae (I.Erythrai 1) and perhaps in Dreros, if the adjective ἄκρηστος is interpreted as synonymous with ἄτιμος, ‘deprived of political rights’ (Gagarin – Perlman Dr1, l. 3). At other times, atimia is prescribed when promoting or admitting a legal case in violation of popular deliberations, as in Arkesine of Amorgos (IG XII 7 3, ll. 38–46), or reconciliation agreements, as in the amnesty of Dikaia (SEG 57.576, ll. 41–3). Finally, atimia is configured as a “panhellenic” penalty imposed in the context of anti-tyrannical laws (cf. Rocchi 2025b, forthcoming): thus, in Athens, both in the earliest anti-tyranny law (Arist. Ath. Pol. 16.10) and in the law of Eukrates (RO GHI 79, ll. 16-22), in Ilium (IMT Skam/NebTäler 182 = I.Ilion 25, ll. 97-107, 132-152), and in Eretria (IG XII 9, 190, ll. 4-5).

• D.L. Cairns, Honour and Shame: Modern Controversies and Ancient Values, Critical Quarterly 53, 2011, 23-41
• D.L. Cairns, Honour and Kingship in Herodotus: Status, Role, and the Limits of Self-assertion, Frontiers of Philosophy in China 14.1, 2019, 75-93
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• M. Canevaro, The Documents in the Attic Orators: Laws and Decrees in the Public Speeches of the Demosthenic Corpus, Oxford 2013
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• S. Dmitriev, Athenian Atimia and Legislation against Tyranny and Subversion, CQ 65.1, 2015, 35-50
• A.F. Garvie, Aeschylus, Persae with Introduction and Commentary, Oxford 2009
• M.H. Hansen, Apagoge, Endeixis, and Ephegesis against Kakourgoi, Atimoi, and Pheugontes, Odense 1976
• T.S.K. Jim, Sharing with the Gods: “Aparchai” and “Dekatai” in Ancient Greece, Oxford 2014
• C.J. Joyce, Atimia and Outlawry in Archaic and Classical Greece, Polis 35, 2018, 33-60
• D.M. MacDowell, Athenian Laws about Bribery, RIDA 30, 1983, 57-78
• A. Maffi, Ἀτιμάζειν e φεύγειν nei poemi omerici, in P. Dimakis (ed.), Symposion 1979. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte, Vienna 1983, 249-260
• E. Meyer, Metics and the Athenian Phialai-Inscriptions: A Study in Athenian Epigraphy and Law, Stuttgart 2010
• M. Novotný, Andocides on ἀτιμία and the Term πρόσταξις, Eirene 50, 2014, 61-88
• U.E. Paoli, Studi di diritto attico, Firenze 1930
• L. Piccirilli, Aristotele e l’atimia (Athen. Pol., 8, 5), ANSP 6.3, 1976, 739-761
• E. Poddighe, L’atimia nel διάγραμμα di Cirene: la definizione della cittadinanza tra morale e diritto alla fine del IV secolo a.C., Aevum 75/1, 2001, 37-55
• E. Poddighe, Ateniesi infami (atimoi) ed ex Ateniesi senza i requisiti (apepsephismenoi): nuove osservazioni in margine al fr. 29 Jensen di Iperide sulle diverse forme di esclusione dal corpo civico di Atene, AFLC n.s. 24, 2006, 5-24
• L. Rocchi, Atimia: Dishonour, Disfranchisement, and Civic Disability in Archaic and Classical Athens, Dissertation, University of Edinburgh 2022
• L. Rocchi, From (Apt) Contempt to (Legal) Dishonor: Two Kinds of Contempt and the Penalty of Atimia, Emotion Review 15.3, 2023a, 200-206
• L. Rocchi, Identity, Status, and ‘Dishonour’: Was Atimia Relevant only to Citizens?, in J. Filonik, C. Plastow, R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds.), Citizenship in Antiquity. Civic Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean, Abingdon-New York 2023b, 327-340
• L. Rocchi, Denominative Verbs From Atimia in the Attic Orators and Beyond, CQ 75.1, 2025a, 1-16
• L. Rocchi, Citizenship and Active Participation: Timē, Atimia, and Epitimia in Ancient Greek Legislation against Tyranny, Erga/Logoi 12.2, 2025b (Atti del Convegno internazionale “Teoria e prassi della cittadinanza nel mondo greco”, Milano, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 1-2 luglio 2024), in cds.
• E. Ruschenbusch, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des athenischen Strafrechts, Cologne 1968
• H. Swoboda, Arthmios von Zeleia, Archaeologisch-epigraphische Mitteilungen, 16.1, 1893, 49-68
• E.P. van ’t Wout, From Oath-swearing to Entrenchment Clause: The Introduction of ἀτιμία-Terminology in Legal Inscriptions, in A. Lardinois, M.H. Pierre, J.H. Blok, M.G.M. Van der Poel (eds.), Sacred Words: Orality, Literacy, and Religion, Leiden-Boston 2011, 143-160
• S. Vleminck, La valeur de ἀτιμία dans le droit grec ancien, LEC 49, 1981, 251-265
• D. Whitehead, Xenophon, Poroi (Revenue-Sources), Translated with Introduction and Commentary, Oxford 2019
• K. Woram, Archaic and Classical Atimia: Citizenship, Religious Exclusion, and Pollution, TAPA 152.2, 2022, 303-344
• M.S. Youni, The Different Categories of Unpunished Killing and the Term ἄτιμος in Ancient Greek Law, in E. Cantarella, G. Thür (eds.), Symposion 1997. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte, Vienna 2001, 117-137
• M.S. Youni, Outlawry in Classical Athens: Nothing to Do with Atimia, in G. Thür, U. Yiftach-Firanko, R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds.), Symposion 2017. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte, Vienna 2018, 137-155
• M.S. Youni, Atimia in Classical Athens: What the Sources Say, in L. Pepe, L. Gagliardi (eds.), Dike. Essays in Greek Law in Honor of Alberto Maffi, Milan 2019, 361-378

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Chiliastys (χιλιαστύς)

The term translates to ‘group of a thousand’; however, like other civic subdivisions based on numerical criteria, the figure of a thousand is conventional and reveals a significant degree of artificiality. The chiliastys is documented in various locations within the Greek world, being characteristic of the cities along the Anatolian coast and some adjacent islands: Mithymna, Erythrae, Ephesus, Samos, Cos, and Miletus. The origins of this institution do not appear to be attributable to an ethnic foundation, especially considering that groups of a thousand are found in cities of Ionian, Doric, and Aeolian origin, nor to a phenomenon of dissemination from an original context. Debord (1984) has suggested that, following a general demographic increase, the ancient divisions of citizenship, which were not entirely adequate to meet the renewed civic needs, were supplemented by new subdivisions in the Hellenistic period, possibly influenced by the Persian model of chiliarchy of a military nature (cf. Sardis VII 1, 1), adopted through Macedonian mediation.

In Methymna, where the form χέλληστυς is attested, the names of four chiliastyes (Πρωτεῖς, Σκυρεῖς, Ἐρυθραῖοι, Φωκεῖς) are known from honorary decrees issued by the assembly (koinon) of each respective chellestys. The oldest document from Mithymna in this regard, dating to the reign of Ptolemy Philopator (circa 229 BC), is a decree issued by the koinon of the Proteis in honour of Prassikles for his diligent care in performing the communal sacrifices as president of the chellestys (χελληστυάρχας, IG XII 2, 498, l. 6). In Erythrae, two chiliastyes are attested: the Chalkideis (I.Erythrai 1, 41, 2nd century BC) and the Peproioi (I.Erythrai 1, 81, 1st century BC). The latter are also known from a law from the classical period (5th-4th century BC) that establishes restrictions on the reiteration of a magistracy; however, in the document in question, the Peproioi are not designated as chiliastys (I.Erythrai 1, 17; for the idea that it was a personal association controlling marshy lands, see Jones 1987, 305; Liddel 2021, 81 n. 21). It is difficult to ascertain whether the Erythraean chiliastyes were territorial units. The very connection of the chiliastys of the Chalkideis with a Chalkis tribe, based on the mention of a port of the Chalkideis in I.Erythrai 151, ll. 17-18, is uncertain, and it would be imprudent to conclude that membership in the chiliastys was determined by geographical basis or residence.

In Cos, the chiliastyes appear in a civic regulation for the festival of Zeus Polieus (IG XII 4, 278, mid-4th century BC). The document provides little reliable information: the chiliastyes are involved in civic rites; the hieropoioi and karykes administering the rite advance in the procession according to their respective chiliastys; the chiliastyes must provide suitable sacrificial animals, should those supplied by the enatai (ἔνατα literally means ‘the ninth part’) fail to meet ritual requirements. The relationship between chiliastyes and enatai remains uncertain: some scholars consider the two terms synonymous (Sherwin-White 1978, 160-161; Debord 1984, 205; Jones 1987, 237-238), but the existence of two distinct names and the fact that enatai is mentioned only in Cos, alongside the previously cited lex sacra differentiating the roles of chiliastys and enata, makes it more likely that they are distinct groups, created at different times and not perfectly overlapping (Marre 2018, 61).

In Samos, following the expulsion of the Athenian cleruchy, the return of the exiled Samians, and the reorganisation of the administrative apparatus, a reference to registration in the chiliastys appears in the formula for granting citizenship, after the tribe and before the hekatostys and genos. Although a relatively substantial number of decrees exists, only in two instances is the name of the chiliastys which the citizenship beneficiary is assigned to preserved (IG XII 6, 1 24, where it reads Εγ[…..]ν; IG XII 6, 1 56, Οἴνωπες). Additionally, in the lex frumentaria from Samos (IG XII 6, 1 178), the chiliastyes play a pivotal role emerging as “primary operational units” of the Samian administration (Fantasia 1998, 224): they assess the real and personal guarantees of those borrowing capital intended for the purchase of public grain (ll. 11-13); they elect the curators (μελεδωνοί) who manage the capital (ll. 1, 16-17); concerning the management of capital, the chiliastyes are required to respond directly if borrowers do not pay the interest on the capital, so much so that they must sell the real guarantees and pay any excess to the officials ἐπὶ τοῦ σίτου, under penalty of exclusion from grain distribution (ll. 64-71); the chiliastys forfeits its right to the grain ration to which it is entitled even if the curator it elected fails to pay interest on the capital to the officials ἐπὶ τοῦ σίτου (ll. 79-81). Also the registration of distributions considered the civic subdivision, as the lists retaining the names of beneficiaries were organised by the chiliastys.

In Ephesos, 51 chiliastyes are known as subdivisions of the five tribes. Engelmann (1996) demonstrated that the number of chiliastyes comprising each tribe varied from 5 to 8 units; a chiliastys could belong, at least in classical and Hellenistic times, to only one tribe. As in Samos, chiliastyes recur in the citizenship form in various naturalisation decrees. In some of these documents, the priests of Artemis (Ἐσσῆνες) draw lots for the chiliastys and phyle in which the new citizen must be registered (e.g. I.Ephesos 1433; 1447; 1451), while the νεωποιοί, responsible for guarding the Artemision, were required to publish the names of new citizens on the walls of the temple.

• R. Brock, Civic Subdivisions and the Citizen Community, in J. Filonik, C. Plastow, R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds.), Citizenship in Antiquity: Civic Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean, Abingdon – New York 2023, 226-239
• P. Debord, Chiliastys, REA 86.1, 1984, 201-211
• H. Engelmann, Phylen und Chiliastyen von Ephesos, ZPE 113, 1996, 94-100
• U. Fantasia, Distribuzioni di grano e archivi della polis: il caso di Samo, in La mémoire perdue. Recherches sur l’administration romaine. Actes des tables rondes de Rome (mai 1994 – mai 1995), Rome 1998, 205-228
• N.F. Jones, Public Organization in Ancient Greece: A Documentary Study, Philadelphia 1987
• P. Liddel, The Discourses of Identity in Hellenistic Erythrai: Institutions, Rhetoric, Honour and Reciprocity, Polis 38.1, 2021, 74-107
• S. Marre, Phylétika: divisions et subdivisions civiques en Ionie, en Carie, à Rhodes et dans les îles proches du continent de la mort d’Alexandre le Grand à l’arrivée des Romains, Diss. Université Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux 2018
• M. Piérart, Modèles de répartition des citoyens dans les cités ioniennes, REA 8, 1985, 169-190
• S.M. Sherwin-White, Ancient Cos: An Historical Study from the Dorian Settlement to the Imperial Period, Göttingen 1978

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Dēmopoiētos (δημοποίητος)

As elucidated by Imperial and Byzantine lexicographers (see the relevant entry in Harp., Phot., and Suda), the term denotes a naturalised citizen, “made by the δῆμος” insofar as this status was conferred upon him by popular decision – a notion similarly conveyed by expressions such as πολίτης ποιητός (“created citizen”; see e.g. Arist., Pol. 1275a) and κατὰ ψήφισμα πολίτης (“citizen by decree”; see e.g. [Dem.] 53, 18). Conversely, hereditary citizenship is at times designated through expressions such as γένει vel φύσει πολίτης (“citizen by birth”; see e.g. infra, [Dem.] 45, 78).

While the expression πολίτην ποιεῖν (“to make [someone] a citizen”) is well attested in decrees granting citizenship (see e.g. IG II² 653; Syll.³ 529; IG XII 4, 5 3964), in δημοποίητος the semantic field of the verb ποιέω acquires an additional and more specific nuance, namely “to adopt”. Drawing on the technical sense of ποίησις in the sphere of family law, the grant of politeia is thus conceived and articulated as an “adoption” of its beneficiary by the civic community (see esp. Müller 2023, 490-1; cf. Velissaropoulos-Karakostas 2011, vol. I, 334).

Attested with relative frequency in Imperial Greek literature (see e.g. Plut., Sol. 24, 4; Luc., Scyth. 8; Aristid., Or. 1, 26 and 29 Lenz – Behr [13, 103 Dindorf]), δημοποίητος exhibits a significantly more limited usage in earlier periods. The term is not attested before the second half of the 4^th century BCE, when Hyperides is said to have composed a speech On Behalf of a Naturalised Citizen (Ὑπὲρ δημοποιήτου; fr. 94 Jensen = Harp., s.v. ἕρκειος Ζεύς) – however, the authorship of the speech was already considered uncertain in antiquity, and its title’s authenticity has recently been called into question (see Guo 2025, p. 231). As for fr. 146 Jensen, pertaining to another speech attributed to the same author, it remains uncertain whether the occurrence of δημοποίητος is original or should instead be attributed to the source transmitting the passage (Harp., s.v. συμμορία).

Subsequently, δημοποίητος is attested as the title of a comedy by Timostratos (see CAF, p. 355), who was active in the 2^nd century BCE, and occurs in a pseudonymous letter attributed to Aeschines (Ep. 12, 13), traditionally assigned to the Second Sophistic but possibly dating instead to the Hellenistic period (see Guo 2025, p. 205). An inscription from the Coan damos of Isthmos, dating to approximately 180 BCE, enumerates the citizens of the phyle Melainadai eligible to hold the office of monarchos – the island’s eponymous magistracy – dividing them into groups, the third of which is introduced by the phrase ἀπεγράψαντο δὲ καὶ τοὶ δα̣|μοπόητοι τοίδε (“these naturalised citizens have also been registered”; IG XII 4, 2 461, ll. 271-2). The term does not reappear in the epigraphic record until the 2^nd century CE, when it is used by Marcus Aurelius and Commodus in a letter to the Athenians (IG II² 1108; cf. AIO 3644). In contrast, expressions such as οἵδε ἐγένοντο πολῖται κατὰ ψήφισμα τοῦ δήμου (“these became citizens by decree of the people”) – a formula employed at the heading of several Milesian lists of naturalised citizens (e.g. I. Delphinion 45-50; elsewhere, see e.g. I. Ephesos 2001 and Robert, Claros, 63-6, col. I) – are comparatively better attested in Hellenistic inscriptions.

Naturalisation could result from either individual or collective grants of citizenship and could concern foreigners resident in the issuing polis or living elsewhere (for a more fine-grained typology, see e.g. Osborne 1981-1983, vol. IV, 186-7). It remains a subject of debate whether these grants automatically and immediately entitled the beneficiaries to (all or part of) the rights inherent in the politeia, or whether further steps – such as relocating to the granting community and renouncing previous citizenship – were required for them to take effect. Such questions do not necessarily admit a single answer valid for the entire Greek world (see Aresi, s.v. Isopoliteia).

Even after fulfilling any potential requirements for the ‘activation’ of their citizenship, demopoietoi and – over some generations – their descendants could remain subject to restrictions in the exercise of certain civic prerogatives (see esp. Savalli-Lestrade 1985, 423-7; cf. Magnetto 2025, 137-8). Such limitations concerned above all access to specific public offices: in Classical Athens, for instance, naturalised citizens were excluded from the archonship and the priesthoods (see [Dem.] 59, 92 with Osborne 1981-1983, vol. IV, 173-6), while a 3^rd-century BCE decree from Halikarnassos setting out the contractual terms for the sale of the priesthood of Artemis Pergaia stipulates that its holder must be “a female citizen, descendant of citizens for three generations on both sides, her father’s and her mother’s” (ἀστὴν ἐξ ἀστῶν ἀμφοτέρων ἐπὶ | [τρε]ῖς γενεὰς γεγενημένην καὶ πρὸς πατρὸς καὶ πρὸς | [μη]τρός; LSAM 73, ll. 6-8; cfr. CGRN 118). Milesian decrees issued between the 3^rd and 2^nd centuries BCE, both to establish ties of isopoliteia (I.Delphinion 143 A, 146 A, and 150) and to naturalise Cretan mercenaries employed by the city (I. Delphinion 37), further attest a particular concern with offices related to the defence of the territory, stipulating that the beneficiaries of such grants could become phylakes and phrourarchoi only ten or twenty years after their enrollment in a phyle. Members of at least one of the two groups of Cretans benefiting from these politographies were also bound by a deferral period with regard to the possibility of “alienating the land given to them” (τὴ̣[ν] δεδομένην χώραν ἀποδόσθαι; I. Delphinion 33e, ll. 6-7), i.e. of exercising full freedom in a domain – namely property rights – traditionally associated with citizenship.

The caution reflected in such provisions in assigning demopoietoi key positions in the political and religious life of the community, as well as in the safeguarding of its security, invites further reflection on the social standing accorded to them, and suggests in particular that their assimilation to citizens by birth was not complete, even – or (as argued by Kamen 2013, e.g. 84) above all – in this respect. With reference to Athens, for instance, a passage from the first speech Against Stephanus is particularly explicit in this regard: asserting his commitment to public affairs, Apollodorus, the son of a naturalised former slave, emphasises that “while for you citizens by birth it is sufficient to perform liturgies in accordance with the prescriptions of the laws, for us created citizens it is appropriate that we appear to discharge them as an act of gratitude” (τοῖς μὲν γένει πολίταις ὑμῖν ἱκανόν λῃτουργεῖν ὡς οἱ νόμοι προστάττουσι, τοὺς δὲ ποιητοὺς ἡμᾶς, ὡς ἀποδιδόντας χάριν, οὕτω προσήκει φαίνεσθαι λῃτουργοῦντας; [Dem.] 45, 78; on Apollodorus, see Deene 2011). For demopoietoi, that is to say, social recognition was not automatic, but rather had to be earned through an exemplary exercise of the citizenship granted to them (cf. Savalli-Lestrade 1985, 427).

It therefore appears that ποιητός could at times carry a broadly negative connotation, conveying a perception of naturalised individuals as ‘artificial’ citizens, somehow less authentic than the others. In light of the sporadic nature of the relevant evidence, however, this observation should not be generalised or unduly amplified – for instance, by going so far as to posit a form of ‘segregation’ of demopoietoi from other citizens (as argued by Müller 2023, 491 on the basis of the categorisation of politai in the Coan inscription IG XII 4, 2 461 mentioned above). After all, Athens itself provides multiple examples of naturalised individuals who achieved distinguished political careers (cf. Osborne 1981-1983, vol. IV, 139-40).

In any case, various sources (most explicitly SEG 41.1003 II) suggest that, for the Greeks, naturalisation entailed a moral obligation on the part of the beneficiary to act in the interests of the granting polis, now regarded as his homeland. Consequently, the grant of politeia could be deployed as an instrument of interstate politics, serving to establish advantageous ties both with influential foreign individuals (e.g. the Thracian king Sitalces, whose son was made an Athenian citizen at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War: see Thuc. 2, 29, 5 and 67, 2; Ar., Ach., 145-7) and – especially in the Hellenistic period, in the form of so-called isopoliteia (see Aresi, s.v.) – with entire communities. In the former case, citizenship assumed a function analogous to proxenia, vis-à-vis which it could either be conceived as a hierarchically superior honor or take on a complementary role, reinforcing the bond established through their joint bestowal – two models exemplified by Athens, on the one hand, and by cities such as Samos and Iasos, on the other (cf. Mack 2015, 45).

• M. Deene, “Naturalized Citizens and Social Mobility in Classical Athens: The Case of Apollodorus”, Greece & Rome 58/2, 2011, 159-75.
• Z. Guo, Commentary on the Pseudonymous Letters of Aeschines, Tübingen 2025.
• D. Kamen, Status in Classical Athens, Princeton 2013.
• W. Mack, Proxeny and Polis. Institutional Networks in the Ancient Greek World, Oxford 2015.
• A. Magnetto, “Lo statuto dei neocittadini negli accordi di sinecismo, sympoliteia e isopoliteia”, Erga-Logoi 13/2, 2025, 115-42.
• C. Müller, “The Making of the Citizen in Hellenistic Poleis”, in J. Filonik, C. Plastow, R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds.), Citizenship in Antiquity. Civic Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean, London 2023, 487-502.
• M.J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, I-IV, Brussels 1981-1983.
• I. Savalli-Lestrade, “I neocittadini nelle città ellenistiche. Note sulla concessione e l’acquisizione della politeia”, Historia 34/4, 1985, 387-431.
• J. Velissaropoulos-Karakostas, Droit grec d’Alexandre à Auguste (323 av. J.-C. – 14 ap. J.-C.). Personne – Biens – Justice, I-II, Athènes 2011.

[G. Aresi]

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D

Demotes / damotas (δημότης/δαμότας)

The term exhibits a broad semantic range. In a strictly Athenian context, dēmótēs designates a member of one of the 139 demes into which the territory of Attica was divided (e.g. [Demosth.] 57.9; Soph. OC 78). The term bears the same meaning in the context of Cos, which was likewise divided into demes (e.g. IG XII.4 1.99, ll. 20, 32).

Dēmótēs may also more generally denote a member of the entire polis, i.e. a citizen: see Tyrt. fr. 4 West, 5 (the citizens of Sparta as a constitutional body distinct from the gerousia and the kings); Pi. N. 7.65 (the citizens of Aegina); Eurip. Supp. 895 (in opposition to xenos); IG VII 235, ll. 9, 15 (the citizens of Oropus during the period of independence from both Athens and Thebes, 386–374 BC); SEG 39.1243, col. IV, ll. 1–2 (the citizens of Colophon in the public sphere, as opposed to the idiōtai of ll. 5–6, i.e. the citizens considered individually in the private sphere); IG XII.6 1.128, l. 21, where the term may instead denote the less affluent citizens of Samos rather than all holders of citizenship (designated as politai in l. 20).

Indeed, dēmótēs frequently carries connotations tied to a specific sociopolitical context, denoting the body of citizens in opposition to the ruling elites (Hdt. 2.172.4, 17; 5.11.8; Soph. Aj. 1071; Ant. 690; Eurip. Alc. 1057; fr. 362), and, by extension, the poor in opposition to the wealthy (Xen. Mem. 1.2.59; Aen. Tact. 11.11.4; Ath. 12.26.13), or supporters of democratic factions in opposition to oligarchs (Plut. Lys. 21).

[G. Falco]

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Dromeus (δρομεύς)

The term dromeus occurs five times in the Great Code of Gortyn (Gagarin – Perlman, Laws of Crete G72). In three of these instances, it appears as a requirement for witnesses in the context of private disputes or simple legal acts, such as the division of property among heirs or the pledging of such property by the heirs themselves. In the first case (I, 39–44), the legislator sets out the procedure to be followed when a slave whose ownership has been determined by a judicial decision has sought asylum in a temple. In such an event, the losing party (or someone acting on his behalf) is required, in the presence of two witnesses described as dromeis eleutheroi, to indicate the slave in the temple where he resides. In the second case (III, 17–22), it is laid down that a widow may remarry, taking with her from the marital home her own property and any goods bestowed upon her by her deceased husband, in the presence of three witnesses who are likewise dromeis eleutheroi. The third case (V, ll. 44–54) provides that the division of property among heirs is to take place before three witnesses, once more defined as dromeis eleutheroi.

In the fourth case, the term dromeus qualifies the sons whose consent is required for a widowed father to sell property inherited from their deceased mother. In the fifth and final case (VII, ll. 41–47), it refers to the male relative entitled to marry an heiress of marriageable age.

The precise meaning of the term has been the subject of scholarly debate. What appears certain is that it is connected with the noun dromos (“race”), which refers both to the athletic contest itself and to the venue where it took place, namely the gymnasium (Suid. s.v. δρόμοις· τοῖς γυμνασίοις κατὰ Κρῆτας). It thus seems clear that dromeis designated those entitled to take part in races and to train in the city gymnasia. The antonym is apodromos, denoting one who had not yet met the requirements to enjoy the privileges of a dromeus (Guarducci 1950, 150; Willetts 1967, 10–11). The term can therefore be confidently linked to the rigid age-class system characteristic of the military-oriented educational cursus of aristocratic societies such as Crete and Sparta (Tzifopoulos 1998, 164–165, who compares the Cretan system with its Spartan and Athenian counterparts).

What remains unclear is whether dromeus applied exclusively to full citizens or could also be attributed to other categories. Tzifopoulos (1998, 154–155) argues that dromeis were young adults not yet fully integrated into the citizen body, and that the occurrence of the adjective eleutheros in three of the five cases under consideration should lead us to posit the existence of dromeis who were not eleutheroi. These, according to Tzifopoulos, would be identifiable with one of the intermediate groups between slaves and full citizens (so also Gagarin – Perlman 2016, 78, who, however, define the dromeus in question as “a legally competent adult”). By contrast, Maffi (2003, 163–167) contends that the term refers to adults in full possession of their civic rights, and that the expression dromeus eleutheros denotes adult citizens who had not suffered any deminutio resulting in their demotion below the rank of full citizen. In particular, with regard to the witnesses, the requirement that they be dromeis—therefore of full age—would be explained by the fact that the legal cases in question were especially sensitive, and thus called for witnesses whose age would guarantee both reliability and the authority of the act.

A middle position, and perhaps a potentially conclusive one, is that of Guizzi (2018, 102), according to whom the dromeus is an individual who had passed from one age-class to the next, thereby completing the process of acquiring full civic status.

• M. Gagarin, P. Perlman, The Laws of Ancient Crete c. 650-400 BCE, Oxford 2016
• M. Guarducci, Inscriptiones Creticae IV. Tituli gortynii, Roma 1950
• F. Guizzi, Gortina (1000-450 a. C.). Una città cretese e il suo codice, Napoli 2018
• A. Maffi, Studi recenti sul codice di Gortina, Dike 6, 2003, 161-226
• H. van Effenterre, F. Ruzé, Nomima. Recueil d’inscriptions politiques et juridiques de l’archaïsme grec, vol. 2, Roma 1995
• Y. Tzifopoulos, ‘Hemerodromoi’ and Cretan ‘Dromeis’: Athletes or Military Personnel? The Case of the Cretan Philonides, Nikephoros 11, 1998, 131-170
• R. F. Willetts, The Law Code of Gortyn, Berlin 1967

[G. Falco]

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E

Engye / engyesis (ἐγγύη/ἐγγύησις)

In classical Athens, the terms engye and engyesis referred to the formal and preliminary act preceding the gamos, through which the kyrios (father, grandfather, or brother) pledged a woman under his guardianship to a future husband. However, this act alone was not sufficient to constitute a marriage, which was only realized through the ekdosis, namely the actual delivery of the bride to her new household. The ekdosis did not necessarily coincide with the engye, and typically occurred at a later stage. Within the Athenian matrimonial context, the engye was a compulsory step—except in the case of epikleroi, who followed the procedure of epidikasia—and constituted the legal prerequisite for the validity of the marriage and, consequently, for the birth of “legitimate children” (paides gnesioi).

In this way, the engye safeguarded both the continuity of the oikos and the transmission of citizenship, especially following Pericles’ law of 451/0 BCE, which restricted citizenship to children born of two Athenian parents. This aspect gained increasing relevance in the courts of the fourth century BCE, where proof of a legitimate marriage was often required to establish the legitimacy of children ([Demosth.] 59.16). In this regard, two passages from the speech Against Euboulides (Demosth. 57.41 and 57.54) clearly illustrate the probative function of the engyesis: Euxitheos claims Athenian citizenship partly by appealing to the fact that his mother had been given in marriage through a proper engye witnessed by credible individuals. In Demosth. 57.41 (ἐγγυᾶται ὁ πατὴρ τὴν μητέρα τὴν ἐμὴν παρὰ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτῆς Τιμοκράτους Μελιτέως), the verb engyan is used in the middle voice to indicate the father’s act of accepting the bride.

The verb, in its core meaning, carries the sense of “to plight,” “to betroth” (LSJ, s.v.). Etymologically, it evokes the gesture of handing something over or sealing an agreement with a handshake—a ritual act interpreted by Wolff (1944) as indicative of a material “delivery.” Gernet (1968), by contrast, interpreted it not as a transfer in the strict sense, but as the mark of a solemn promise made by one member of the family (typically the kyrios) on behalf of another, independently of the physical presence of the object or person promised.

Moreover, the earliest known occurrence of the term is not linked to marriage but still seems to allude to a solemn form of guarantee. In Odyssey 8.351 (δειλαί τοι δειλῶν γε καὶ ἐγγύαι ἐγγυάασθαι), Hephaestus refuses the engyai, that is, the “pledges” or “solemn promises” made by Poseidon on behalf of Ares, emphasizing the futility of assurances given by dishonourable men. The use of the term already hints at a solemn form of commitment, perhaps sealed by a ritual handshake. In Herodotus (6.130 τῷ δὲ Ἀλκμέωνος Μεγακλέι ἐγγυῶ παῖδα τὴν ἐμὴν Ἀγαρίστην νόμοισι τοῖσι Ἀθηναίων.’ φαμένου δὲ ἐγγυᾶσθαι Μεγακλέος ἐκεκύρωτο ὁ γάμος Κλεισθένεϊ), the term engye explicitly appears in a matrimonial context, in the account of how Cleisthenes, between 576 and 572 BCE, issued a public proclamation to offer his daughter Agariste in marriage to the most worthy among the Greeks. Once the suitor had been selected, Cleisthenes gave Agariste in marriage to Megacles, in accordance with Athenian law. The act of bestowing Agariste as a bride is expressed using the verb engyan, in the first-person singular form. Megacles’ acceptance of her is conveyed through the same verb, now conjugated in the middle voice.

That the engye alone was insufficient to establish a marriage is confirmed by cases in which it occurred many years before the actual union, or never led to marriage at all. Particularly significant is the case of Demosthenes’ sister, who was promised in marriage to Demophon by her father when she was only five years old. Despite the engye, the marriage was never celebrated (Demosth. 27.15–17; cf. Is. 6.22–24).

A crucial component of the procedure was the presence of credible witnesses from both families (Is. 3.18–20; Demosth. 30.21, 39.22). These witnesses validated the agreement and the amount of the dowry, while their absence could invalidate or cast doubt upon the act. The two aforementioned passages from Against Euboulides (Demosth. 57.41 and 57.54) explicitly attest to the importance of witnesses in demonstrating the regularity of the marriage. Euxitheos calls upon his uncles and other unnamed individuals to confirm the engyesis of his mother and support his claim to citizenship.

Thus, although the engyesis was not formally recorded in writing, it could serve as legal proof in court cases concerning citizenship (as in Euxitheos’ case) or inheritance (Demosth. 44.49, 46.18). All of this confirms that, in Athenian law, marriage was not conceived as an emotional union, but rather as a contract aimed at producing legitimate heirs. Through the engye, the kyrios protected the legal and patrimonial interests of the oikos by selecting a husband of equal social status and good reputation (Aeschin. 1.182–183; Demosth. 40.57, 44.49; [Demosth.] 59.65).

In conclusion, the engye should not be understood as the actual transfer of a woman from one oikos to another—that role was fulfilled by the ekdosis. Rather, it was a solemn commitment that ensured a woman would become the legitimate mother of a particular man’s children. Its function was thus civic and reproductive, not emotional or relational: although the wife bore children for her husband’s oikos, she was not integrated into his anchisteia (the kinship group linked by blood and charged with legal and ritual duties), and remained, both legally and symbolically, a xene—a “stranger”—within her husband’s household. Through the engye, the boundaries of citizenship and the oikos were defined and protected, marking one of the key moments in the juridical and symbolic cycle of being Athenian.

• M. Broadbent, Studies in Greek Genealogy, Leiden 1968
• P. Cox, Household Interests: Property, Marriage Strategies, and Family Dynamics in Ancient Athens, London 1998
• L. Gernet, Anthropologie de la Grèce antique, Paris 1968
• A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens. The Family and Property, Oxford 1968
• W. R. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece, London 1968
• C. Leduc, Comment la donner en mariage? La mariée en pays grec (IXe‑IVe s. av. J.‑C.), in G. Duby, M. Perrot (eds), Histoire des femmes en Occident, Paris 2002, 309-382.
• G. Nenci, Erodoto. Le storie,Libro VI, La battaglia di Maratona, Milano 1998
• S. Patterson, Marriage and the Married Woman in Athenian Law, in S. B. Pomeroy (ed.), Women’s History and Ancient History, Chapel Hill 1991, 48-72
• K. L. Phelan, A Social and Historical Commentary on Demosthenes’ Against Euboulides, Diss. National University of Ireland, Maynouth 2016
• R. Sealey, Women and Law in Classical Greece, Chapel Hill 1990
• J.-P. Vernant, Le mariage en Grèce archaïque, La Parola del Passato 28 (1973), 51-74
• R. Wolff, Marriage Law and Family Organization in Ancient Athens, Traditio 2 (1944), 44-95

[E. Poddighe – M. Deriu]

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Enktēsis (ἔγκτησις)

According to a legal principle which is ubiquitously attested in the Greek world (Hennig 1994), enktēsis, the right to acquire (and own) real estate, was one of the privileges organically associated with citizenship (politeia). The territory of a polis was in other words conceptualized as the property, private or collective, of its citizens and, conversely, in performative terms, ownership of land often identified the politēs and symbolised full membership in the civic community (Ampolo 1996, 320; Faraguna 2024, 126-32; Müller 2026, 63-64). Although generally taken for granted, and for this very reason hardly ever defined in the sources (see however Dem. 36.6, where the banker Phormion, not having yet acquired Athenian citizenship, is said to have been legally unable to foreclose on land and buildings offered as security for loans for the total amount of 11 talents), such principle clearly emerges from the theoretical constructions of the ideal city in Plato’s Laws (737e) and in Aristotle’s Politics (1265a18-20; 1329a17-20, b36-37) as well as from the provisions of decrees where, to quote an example, enktēsis of a house, land and/or other real properties is granted to foreigners καθὰ καὶ τοῖς πολίταις (Jacobsen, Smith 1968, 189, ll. 32-33; Kimolos, second half of the third century BCE; cf. also I.Magnesia 7b, ll. 14-19: ἐὰν δέ τις Φωκα[ιέων ἐ]νοικῆι ἐμ Μαγνησί[αι, εἶναι] αὐ]τῶι γῆς καὶ οἰκίας ἔ[γκτησιν κ]αὶ τῶν ἄλλων αὐ[τῶι μετεῖναι π]άντων ὧν καὶ τ[οῖς Μάγ]νησιν). In this framework, it is no surprise that the intervention of public institutions in regulating land tenure and property relations within the territory of the polis is amply documented at least since the sixth century (Faraguna 2024; Canevaro 2026, 78-82, 94-97).

The occurrences of the term in the literary sources being remarkably scarce (for an analysis of the few attestations see Stelzer 1971, 3-5; for the meaning of enktēsis see also Méndez Dosuna 2007), enktēsis, as already noted, is especially known through a very large number of honorific decrees which bestowed the right to own real property to non-citizens as part of a wider package of honours most often associated to the grant of proxeny (Marek 1984, 8-118; Mack 2015, 122-27; for the case of Athens see Faguer 2021, 69, 71 and 87-91). In these decrees, which in the case of Delos, Delphi and Oropos come in the hundreds (Hennig 1994, 307-9 with notes; Habicht 2002; Grzesik 2021), other dialect forms, such as ἴμπασις (IG V 2, 394, ll. 13-18: γᾶς ἴμπασις καὶ οἰκίας), ἴνπασις (IG V 2, 17: ἴνπασιν γαῦ, οἰκίαυ) and, more frequently, ἔμπασις (IG IX 1² 4, 786, ll. 8-9: γᾶς καὶ οἰκίας ἔμπασιν) are well attested, although such variants tend to be replaced by enktēsis during the Hellenistic period (Hennig 1994, 307 n. 9; Rubinstein 2026, 20-21).

There is hardly any secure attestation of the legal concept of enktēsis before the late fifth century. Although the earliest examples are from Athens (IG I³ 227, ll. 19-21; 81, ll. 22-23; 102, ll. 30-31, with the unparalleled formula [καὶ ἔγκτεσι]ν εἶναι αὐτοῖς μπερ Ἀθεναίοις, [καὶ γεπέδο]ν καὶ οἰκίας), it is nonetheless possible that enktēsis is already implied both in Nomima I.44 = OR 126, B, ll. 23-25, the dossier regulating the relations between the adjacent cities of Knossos and Tylissos in Crete (second quarter of the fifth century), where the verb ἐμπιπάσκομαι, an hapax, is possibly the equivalent of ἐγκτάομαι, and in Nomima I.18 = I.dial. Sicile 219, ll. 2-3, an even more tantalising document – a late archaic bronze plaque from Kasmenai in Sicily – which, if correctly restored, provides the earliest (and somewhat unexpected) use of the term (Faraguna 2024, 143-44).

As for Athens, the corpus of decrees granting the honorand permission to acquire real estate consists of 62 inscriptions (a full updated list in Faguer 2021, 87-91; a survey of the evidence also in Henry 1983, 204-261, and, for the second half of the fourth century, Lambert 2012, 93-183). They span from the end of the fifth century to the mid-second century BCE and allow us to trace the evolution of the political, social and economic significance of enktēsis, as well of the changing profiles of the grantees, over three centuries.

As underlined by J. Faguer, enktēsis was no doubt an important privilege conferred on the honorands but it was at the same time granted rather sparingly and, above all, was subject to limitations of various sorts that never made it equal to the right of ownership enjoyed by citizens. In the first place, for instance, Xenophon proposed in his Poroi that selected metics should be awarded the right to acquire (ἐγκεκτῆσθαι) vacant oikopeda on condition that they built houses on the plots thus obtained and that they filed an application and underwent judicial scrutiny (2.6: οἳ αἰτούμενοι ἄξιοι δοκῶσιν εἶναι) (Gauthier 1976, 66-8; Whitehead 2019, 120-24). Based on the epigraphical evidence, metics were in fact not the most obvious grantees of enktēsis, which was mostly reserved for non-resident aliens who, under normal conditions, were unlikely to make use of their privilege (Niku 2007, 115-16; Faguer 2021, 69-71). Enktēsis could even be awarded on a temporary basis, as in the case of political exiles, who could possess houses for the time until they were able to return home (IG II³ 1, 316 = RO 77, ll. 24-26). In the second place, the award did not have unrestricted validity but, as a rule, was apparently limited to one single purchase of land and a house (γῆς καὶ οἰκίας ἔγκτησις) or a house only (οἰκίας ἔγκτησις). The legal consequences of such limitations, alongside the fact that the grant often applied to the beneficiary but was not hereditary, are a matter of discussion (compare Faraguna 2012, 173-75 with Faguer 2021, 67-69; Hennig 1994, 317-18, is still fundamental). Likewise, in the early 320s (most probably between 329 and 325) references to a law regulating the grant of enktēsis begin to appear in the inscriptions, although without a regular and consistent pattern, through the formula κατὰ τὸν νόμον (Stelzer 1971, 213-25; Henry 1983, 214-15). The contents of the nomos remain unclear. As maintained by Stelzer, such law was with some likelihood “ein…positives Gesetz…, das vielleicht die Voraussetzungen der Verleihung der Enktesis geregelt hatte, wie uns vom goldenen Kranz und vom Bürgerrecht Bestimmungen über die Zulässikgeit der Verleihung und das Verleihungsverfahren bekannt sind” (219). A clause possibly introduced a ban on the legal capacity of grantees to acquire communal or sacred land (IG II³ 1, 324, ll. 44-46, with Lambert 2012, 119 with n. 66). Whether such law moreover set limits to the value of the properties to be acquired is a plausible assumption (see Henry 1983, 214-15; Faguer 2021, 72-73) but, in my opinion, altogether unlikely (see n. 14 in my contribution to this volume). From the mid-third century the specification of maximum values both for the land and the house is nevertheless indeed encountered in a number of decrees, which, together with the dokimasia of the honorand and his merits (Feyel 2009, 236-42) and the requirement that the potential recipient should formally file an αἴτησις, an application, for the enktēsis to be conferred which begins to be attested in the early second century (IG II³ 1, 1356, ll. 8-9: δεδόσθαι δὲ αὐτῶι καὶ γῆς καὶ οἰκίας ἔγκτησιν αἰτησαμένωι κατὰ τὸν νόμον), clearly reveals that the restriction that made ownership of real property contingent on the status of citizen was never relaxed until after 130 BCE, when enktēsis disappears from the record and there are indications that the institutional and social dynamics underlying the award of citizenship were in the process of changing, in other words “que la politeia…a eu tendance à être accordée plus fréquemment” (Faguer 2021, 75; cf. Osborne 1983, 160-1 and 185, with important qualifications in Oliver 2010).

On the controversial issue whether the privileges, including enktēsis, connected to isopoliteia listed in a significant number of Hellenistic bilateral agreements provided just a specification of the benefits pertaining to citizen status or are to be interpreted as “fragments of citizenship” that could be enjoyed even without activating political enrollment compare, most recently, the opposing views of Gagliardi 2026 and Müller 2026 (see also Müller 2023; Maffi 2023).

The problem of enktēsis in federal states must in turn be left open-ended: while from Xen. Hell. 5.2.19 we learn that all citizens of the Chalkidian League qua citizens of the federal state automatically possessed the right to own real property in any other polis of the koinon (Bearzot 2004, 45-56), it can hardly be proved that this was a universal rule that applied to all federations (Hennig 1994, 323-9; Beck, Funke 2015, passim; Manning 2024, 525). For the case of the Achaian League, where there is some evidence that in the second half of the third century ownership of land was permitted in the territory of all its members, even those that had newly joined the koinon, cf. IG V 2, 344, ll. 11-13, with Müller, Priol 2025, 233-4 (see also Sisov 2021).

• C. Ampolo, “Il sistema della polis. Elementi costitutivi della civiltà greca”, in S. Settis (ed.), I Greci. Storia, cultura, arte, società, II.1: Formazione, Torino 1996, 297-342.
• H. Beck, P. Funke (eds.), Federalism in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge 2015.
• M. Canevaro, L’Atene dei diritti, Roma-Bari 2026.
• J. Faguer, “Statuts et propriété foncière dans l’Athènes des III^e et II^e siècles av. J.-C.: la question de l’enktésis”, in S. Maillot, J. Zurbach (eds.), Statuts personnels et main-d’oeuvre en Méditerrannée hellénistique, Clermont-Ferrand 2021, 61-91.
• M. Faraguna, “Società, amministrazione, diritto: lo statuto giuridico di tombe e periboloi nell’Atene classica”, in B. Legras, G. Thür (eds.), Symposion 2011, Wien 2012, pp. 165-85.
• M. Faraguna, “Land and Citizenship in the Greek Polis: Real Property, Public Control and Institutionalisation”, Dike 27, 2024, 121-74.
• L. Gagliardi, “Contributo all’inquadramento dogmatico dell’isopoliteia dei trattati bilaterali ellenistici”, in M. Faraguna (ed.), Symposion 2024, Wien 2026, 459-83.
• Ph. Gauthier, Un commentaire historique des Poroi de Xénophon, Genève-Paris 1976.
• D. Grzesik, Honorific Culture at Delphi in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, Leiden-Boston 2021.
• Chr. Habicht, “Die Ehren der Proxenoi. Ein Vergleich”, MH 59.1, 2002, 13-30.
• D. Hennig, “Immobilienerwerb durch Nichtbürger in der klassischen und hellenistischen Polis”, Chiron 24, 1994, 305-44.
• A.S. Henry, Honours and Privileges in Athenian Decrees. The Principal Formulae of Athenian Honorary Decrees, Hildesheim-Zürich-New York 1983.
• S. Lambert, Inscribed Athenian Laws and Decrees 352/1 – 322/1 BC. Epigraphical Essays, Leiden-Boston 2012.
• W. Mack, Proxeny and Polis. Institutional Networks in the Ancient Greek World, Oxford 2015.
• A. Maffi, review of S. Saba, Isopoliteia in Hellenistic Times (Leiden-Boston 2020), Dike 26, 2023, 294-307.
• J. Manning, “Property”, in C. Humfress, D. Ibbetson, P. Olivelle (eds.), The Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law, Cambridge 2024, 512-64.
• J.V. Méndez Dosuna, “En torno al significado de enktasthai, enktesis y enktema”, Estudios Clásicos 131, 2007, 29-44.
• Chr. Müller, “Περ τῶν συμβολῶν. La question de l’isopoliteia chez Philippe Gauthier”, Dike 26, 2023, 163-93.
• Chr. Müller, “Contribution to the Theoretical Framing of Isopoliteia in Hellenistic Bilateral Agreements: Response to Lorenzo Gagliardi”, in M. Faraguna (ed.), Symposion 2024, Wien 2026, 485-93.
• Chr. Müller, La fabrique du citoyen. Les Grecs et la politeia d’Aristote à Auguste, Paris 2026.
• Chr. Müller, é. Priol, “How to Be a Citizen in a Koinon? Practices of ‘Common Citizenship’ in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods”, in L. Cecchet, C. Lasagni (eds.), Citizenship Practiced, Citizenship Imagined. Multiple Ways of Experiencing Citizenship in the Greek World, Stuttgart 2025, 225-44.
• M. Niku, The Official Status of the Foreign Residents in Athens 322-120 B.C., Helsinki 2007.
• G.J. Oliver, “Foreign Names, Inter-Marriage and Citizenship in Hellenistic Athens”, in R.W.V. Catling, F. Marchand (eds.), Onomatologos: Studies in Greek Personal Names Presented to Elaine Matthews, Oxford 2010, 158-67.
• M.J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, III-IV, Brussel 1983.
• L. Rubinstein, “Aegean Networks: Dissemination of Legal Culturefrom the Archaic to the early Hellenistic Period”, in M. Faraguna (ed.), Symposion 2024, Wien 2026, 19-44.
• S.K. Sisov, “Federal Citizenship and the Right of ΕΓΚΤΗΣΙΣ in the Achaian Koinon”, ZPE 217, 2021, 105-18.
• E. Stelzer, Untersuchungen zur Enktesis im attischen Recht, München 1971.
• D. Whitehead, Xenophon: Poroi. Revenue Sources, Oxford 2019.

[M. Faraguna]

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Enteles (ἐντελής)

The meaning of the term is rarely straightforward. In certain cases, it appears to refer with reasonable certainty to the enjoyment of full rights: e.g. SEG 46.167, l. 9, an honorific decree from Athens dating to ca. 281 BC, referring to Tarentine mercenaries who augmented the ranks of the Athenian cavalry and are described as enteleis—thus holders of full rights and probably assimilated to citizens. By the mid-second century BC, Tarentine cavalrymen are attested as full Athenian citizens under the command of two Athenian tarantinarchoi (IG II² 958, l. 55). In the same sense of “possessing full rights,” but in a Roman context, entelḗs must be understood in D.S. 34.2.31, where the adjective qualifies equites.

Less clear is the meaning of the term in a Milesian decree of ca. 330 BC (Milet I.3 136): at l. 10 it is stipulated that if a citizen of Miletus wished to join the board of timouchoi in the city of Olbia, he had to appear before the local boulē, have his name registered, and from that moment he would be considered entelḗs. The mention, a few lines earlier (l. 6), of ateleia as a privilege granted to Milesians in Olbia makes it difficult to determine whether entelḗs here is to be interpreted in terms of the possession of civic rights (in particular, eligibility for public office) or in fiscal terms, i.e. “subject to the same taxation as citizens” (so e.g. Müller 2022, 337–338).

The meaning of enteleia is likewise uncertain in several honorific decrees from Acarnania and Epirus (e.g. Cabanes, L’Épire, no. 3, ll. 4–5; no. 16, l. 6; IG IX.1² 2, 209, ll. 14, 21): it could refer either to rights or to fiscal obligations. In all these texts, however, enteleia is mentioned together with ateleia, which suggests that ateleia denoted exemption from taxes normally owed by foreigners, whereas enteleia might refer to the levying of those taxes regularly paid by citizens. Chaniotis (1986) proposes interpreting enteleia as the obligation to pay those taxes not covered by the ateleia—that is, taxes related to economic activities carried out by the honorands in the city granting them the privilege. It should be noted, however, that the texts mentioning the honor of enteleia provide no evidence as to whether the honorands were actually engaged in commerce or pursued other professions.

• P. Cabanes, L’Épire de la mort de Pyrrhos à la conquête romaine, Paris 1976
• A. Chaniotis, Ἐντέλεια. Zu Inhalt und Begriff eines Vorrechtes, ZPE 64, 1986, 159-162
• C. Müller, Migration et mémoire: Milet et ses apoikiai à l’époque hellénistique in G. R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Ionians in the West and East, Leuven-Paris-Bristol (CT) 2022, 333-360

[G. Falco]

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Entimos (ἔντιμος)

The first occurrence of the term in an institutional context is found in an inscription preserving the text of a law, dating to the late sixth or the first quarter of the fifth century BC, by which the Locrians of Hypoknemis regulated their relations with the epoikoi of Naupactus (IG IX.1² 3 718, ll. 34–35). The term is used in provisions concerning judicial disputes between the Locrians and the epoikoi, specifically regarding the appointment of a guarantor (prostatas). Scholarly opinion has been much divided on the precise meaning of the term in this context. Some have taken it to mean “in full possession of civic rights” (e.g. Koerner 1993, 175: im Besitz der bürgerlichen Rechte; Nomima I, 43: parmi les citoyens jouissant de leurs droits), thus qualifying the prostatas; others have suggested interpreting it as “in office” (Meiggs–Lewis, GHI 20: “whoever are in office for the year”), in this case referring to the magistrates charged with appointing the guarantor.

Still within the sphere of the possession of rights, but with a more precise nuance, Gauthier (1972, 355) interprets the term as synonymous with ἐπίτιμος, thus designating citizens in possession of their rights (i.e. not atimoi), but more specifically citoyens actifs recrutés parmi les aristoi. This interpretation is particularly persuasive, both for contextual reasons (there is no evident reason why magistrates should appoint the parties’ guarantors) and for syntactic ones (the relative clause containing the term cannot serve as the subject of the preceding infinitive), as well as in light of the essentially aristocratic character of the Locrian koinon.

A possible connection with the full enjoyment of rights, specifically with reference to eligibility for public office, may also be seen in Pl. Resp. 564d, where τὸ μὴ ἔντιμον εἶναι is defined as τὸ ἀπελαύνεσθαι τῶν ἀρχῶν—i.e. exclusion from public office—although in this Platonic passage the adjective could also simply mean “honoured,” “esteemed” (cf. e.g. Pl. Resp. 555c; Arist. Rh. 1388b 4–5; Demosth. 3.29; Plut. Artax. 14.2.2; SEG 26.1214, l. 5).

Éntimos must certainly be understood in terms of the enjoyment of full rights in two decrees from Aeolian Cyme, one dating to the mid-third century BC, the other to the early second century BC (I.Kyme 4, l. 12; I.Kyme 5, l. 8: καὶ Κυμαῖον ἔμμεναι καὶ α[ὐ]τὸν καὶ ἐκγόνοις ἐντίμοις εὐθύς). In both, benefactors of the city are granted citizenship, with the provision that they be éntimoi euthýs (or eutheōs), an expression then clarified in the following lines by reference to the specific prerogatives conferred with citizenship: eligibility for public office, the right to own land and a house on Cymaean soil, and priority in cases to be heard before the courts. The emphasis in both decrees on the immediate enjoyment of full rights upon the granting of politeia is explained by the fact that citizenship was not usually accompanied automatically by the immediate and complete granting of the prerogatives enjoyed by other citizens, as shown also by the case documented in I.Ephesos 8 (86–85 BC), ll. 40–41. There, as an incentive to full participation in the Mithridatic War and thus as an extraordinary measure, it is expressly stipulated that those who had been registered as new citizens up to the moment of the decree’s issue (πεπολιτογράφηνται μέχρι τῶν νῦν χρόνων) should be éntimoi, i.e. enjoy full rights.

• Ph. Gauthier, Symbola. Les étrangers et la justice dans les cités grecques, Nancy 1972
• R. Koerner, Inschriftliche Gesetzestexte der frühen griechischen Polis, Köln 1993
• R. Meiggs, D. Lewis, A selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, Oxford 1969
• H. van Effenterre, F. Ruzé, Nomima. Recueil d’inscriptions politiques et juridiques de l’archaïsme grec, Vol. 1, Rome 1994

[G. Falco]

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Epigamia (ἐπιγαμία)

In Greek law epigamia refers to the right to enter into a legitimate marriage with a person of a different status: for example, the right for a metic to marry a citizen, or of an Athenian to marry a foreigner in the context of Pericles’ law of citizenship. This right included that of begetting legitimate children and granting them full citizenship.

Epigamy was, of course, included in the grant of citizenship: such was the case with the Plataeans, whose epigamy, acquired in 427 along with Athenian citizenship after the destruction of the city, is recalled by Isocrates (Plat. 51).

Epigamy could be granted individually to foreigners and metics in exceptional cases: see, for example, the grant by the city of Kotyrta to the Spartan Aratus son of Nicias of proxenia and a number of privileges, including epigamy (IG V,1 961, ca. 150-100 BCE).

Epigamy could also be granted to an entire civic body of another state: Lysias (34, 3) recalls the granting of epigamy to the Euboeans by the Athenians in an unspecified context, but one that seems to refer to the existence of a still firm Athenian empire; it is possible that the concession should be linked with the growing importance of Euboea in securing supplies for Athens after 413.

Some international treaties provided for the granting of epigamy: cf. the case of the Aetolians and Acarnanians (IG IX,1² 1:3, c. 262) and the Cretan city of Hierapydna and the Arcadians (Chaniotis, Verträge 14, c. 227-221 BCE).

In the context of federal states it is debated whether epigamy was always expected among the member states, as would seem to be suggested by Cligenes of Acanthos’ speech in Xenophon (Hell. V, 2, 19): he regards epigamic relations as a necessary consequence of the formation of the Chalcidian federal state under the aegis of Olynthos. There are cases, however, such as the granting of a number of privileges, including epigamy, to a citizen of Larissa by the city of Gonno (Gonnoi II 30, ca. 180-170 BCE), that seem to suggest that situation were not the same in all federal states, perhaps in relation to the varying degree to which local communities were integrated into the federation.

• H. Beck, Polis und Koinon. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Struktur der griechischen Bundesstaaten im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr., Stuttgart 1997
• A. Chaniotis, Die Verträge zwischen kretischen Poleis in der hellenistichen Zeit, Stuttgart 1996
• A.R.W. Harrison, The Law of Athens, I-II, Oxford 1968-1971 (trad. it. Il diritto ad Atene, Alessandria 2001)
• A. Oranges, La concessione dell’epigamia agli Eubei, in C. Bearzot, F. Landucci (eds.), Tra mare e continente: l’isola d’Eubea, Milano 2013, 173-189
• S. Saba, “Epigamia” in Hellenistic Interstate Treaties: Foreign and Family Policy, AncSoc 41 (2011) 93-108

[C. Bearzot]

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Epitimos (ἐπίτιμος)

In Attic sources, epitimos designates citizens in full possession of their rights, often implicitly or explicitly contrasted with the atimoi (e.g. Thuc. 5.34.2; Dem. 21.61; Aeschin. 1.160; cf. also Xen. Hell. 2.2.11; [Arist.] Ath. 39.1; Plut. Sol. 19.4). The term appears with the same meaning in I.Ilion 25 (ca. 280 BC), ll. 31–32, where it is stipulated that if the tyrant were killed by a slave, the latter would become epitimos and take part in the politeia κατὰ τὸν νόμον—a formulation that seems to indicate that epitimos here means “in full possession of the rights of citizenship,” though scholarly opinion is divided on this interpretation (for discussion, see Teegarden 2014, 184 n. 18).

Reference to the full enjoyment of political rights is also inherent in the noun epitima (ἐπιτιμά), attested in roughly thirty Delphic honorific decrees for proxenoi issued between the early fourth and the mid-third century BC. In these, it denotes the granting of full political rights; the term is accompanied by the formula καθάπερ Δελφοῖς (e.g. F.Delphes III 1, 314, l. 3; F.Delphes III 4, 380, l. 11, where the form ἐπιτιμία occurs: Δελφοὶ ἔδωκαν…ἐπιτιμίαν καθάπερ Δελφοῖς), from which it is clear that the epitima placed the honorands on the same footing as Delphian citizens with respect to civic rights. More complex is the determination of its meaning when the epitima was granted by the Amphictyonic Council or by Delphi itself to outgoing Amphictyonic hieromnemones (see Sanchez 2001, 320).

• P. Sanchez, L’amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes. Recherches sur son rôle historique, des origines au II^e siècle de notre ère, Stuttgart 2001
• D. A. Teegarden, Death to Tyrants! Ancient Greek Democracy and the Struggle against Tyranny, Princeton 2014

[G. Falco]

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Etes/(w)etas (ἔτης/(F)έτας)

The term can first of all denote, in a general sense, a member of a civic community: see Pi. fr. 52f, 10, where the noun designates the citizens of Delphi (or of Aegina) to whom Pindar’s paean was addressed.

In addition, étas / étēs can also refer to a private citizen, a notion which itself may be understood in two ways:
a) in opposition to those holding power (Aesch. Supp. 247: étēs contrasted with póleos ágōs; Eurip. fr. 1014: étēs opposed to árchos; Thuc. 5.79.4, where the ἔται are the citizens of Sparta and Argos who might find themselves judged as private citizens before the courts; Syll.³ 141, l. 12: étas opposed to árchōn);
b) in opposition to the civic community as a whole (Aesch. fr. 281a: étēs vs. dēmos; IG IX.12 573, l. 9, where, notably, the noun is partially restored).

Particularly significant is IvO 9, in which (W)étas denotes a private citizen who holds no magistracy (and is thus not a telestēs), considered separately from the people assembled in the ekklēsia (and/or from the civic body as a whole: damos).

In a rather late document (1st–3rd c. AD) from Nubia, finally, étēs occurs with the meaning of “free citizen” in opposition to “slave” (Bernand, Inscriptions métriques 167, l. 9: καὶ ἔτας καὶ δμόας).

[G. Falco]

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Gēs anadasmos (γῆς ἀναδασμός)

Anadasmos, or less frequently anadaithmos (Himera, SEG 47.1427, l. 14, γέε̄ς ἀναδαιθμο̂), or daithmos (δαιθμὸν, IG IX 1².3 609, l. 10; cf. also l. 13 γαδαισίας), in combination with gē or, more rarely, chōra, denotes a civic process involving the total or partial redistribution of privately held land within a polis among its citizens. Agrarian redistribution programs are attested across the Greek world from the Archaic period through the late Hellenistic age.

A variety of circumstances could prompt a polis to revise its existing agrarian structure and undertake a new division and allocation of land. These were often internal dynamics, such as demands—frequently attributed in the sources to the demos—for a more equitable distribution of land allotments, episodes of civil strife (staseis), or the incorporation of new citizens into the civic body; in the case of apoikiai, the settlement of new colonists (epoikoi) within the civic territory. Such measures always carried significant political weight, as they directly engaged the central issue of the relationship between the polites and landownership (see Faraguna 2024; Malkin 2023). In modern scholarship, the phenomenon has been discussed in connection with the principle of the inalienability of the klēros, and, by extension, with the preservation of the original system of land distribution within the polis (Asheri 1966; Finley 1968; Malkin in Malkin, Blok 2024, 260-264).

Asheri (1966) distinguished between primary distributions and those implemented at a later stage, as well as between total and partial redistributions. However, when both literary and epigraphic evidence are considered from the standpoint of the historical and political motivations underlying agrarian reform, two broad tendencies emerge across the history of the Greek poleis from the Archaic period to the fifth century BCE.

The first tendency shows the polis resorting to gēs anadasmos at the instigation of the demos in contexts of economic crisis and marked inequality. Such measures were typically imposed by individuals invested, for various reasons, with full powers—most notably lawgivers and, above all, tyrants (Brandt 1989). These political experiences presuppose specific conditions of social pressure: at Sparta under Lycurgus (Plut. Lyc. 8.1; Arist. Pol. 1306b 37–1307a 2); or shortly thereafter, in the first half of the 7th century BCE: Arist. Pol. 1306b 37–1307a 2 (Cecchet 2009); at Athens, in connection with a redistribution that Solon declined to implement: Plut. Sol. 16.1; Arist. Ath. Pol. 12.3 (Rosivach 1992); and at Cumae under the tyrant Aristodemos: Dion. Hal. 7.8 (Orth 1986).

All these cases are transmitted by sources much later than the events they describe, and these sources appear to reflect a conservative view of gēs anadasmos as a practice at odds with democracy, insofar as it was thought to facilitate the transition from a democratic system to radical democracy and ultimately to tyranny (Schol. Dem. 24.299: ἀναδασμὸν] οἷον ἀναμερισμόν· τοῦτο γὰρ εἴωθε γίγνεσθαι ἐν ταῖς ἀτακτούσαις δημοκρατίαις). Within this framework, agrarian redistribution tends to carry negative connotations and is almost invariably associated with debt cancellation (chreōn apokopē; cf. Rosivach 1992). The report of a redistribution of land (together with debt remission) attributed to Lycurgus at Sparta is clearly a retrojection to the age of the patrioi nomoi of the agrarian reforms carried out in the third century BCE by Agis IV and Cleomenes III (Plut. Agis and Cleomenes).

The second tendency, attested in both literary and epigraphic sources, concerns demands for the redistribution of land (total, though more often partial) driven by the need for land under specific circumstances, such as the admission of new citizens into a polis—for instance, epoikoi arriving from the metropolis and settling in a colonial territory, or exiles resettled as new citizens after expulsion from their own communities. Poleis, and especially apoikiai, were frequently confronted with the need to assign land to new citizens, returning exiles, or new segments of the civic body originating from the metropolis.

Since the right to private property had to be guaranteed to all politai, both old and new, this issue was addressed in different ways: for example, by allocating to new citizens portions of land that had remained undivided and reserved for such contingencies—an arrangement that presupposes a certain degree of land availability on the part of the polis; or by assigning new plots drawn from the eschatia or from eremos chora (Asheri 1966, with examples). However, when none of these options was feasible—i.e. when land resources were insufficient to meet the minimum requirements for access to citizenship—it became necessary to plan a redistribution of both urban and extra-urban land.

The evidence from the colonial world is both predominant and remarkably homogeneous. To this context belongs the clause prohibiting redistribution after a certain period in the Locrian apoikia attested in the so-called Pappadakis bronze (IG IX 1².3 609, l. 10: Zurbach 2017, 549; Erdas forthcoming), as well as the proposal—ultimately not implemented—of Arkesilas III at Cyrene (Hdt. 4.162–164). Far from representing an exception within the broader documentation on land redistribution, colonial cases in fact constitute its most substantial core (Lombardo 2001; Dreher 2007; Malkin 2023; Erdas 2025; forthcoming; contra Link 1991). Particularly numerous are proposals for agrarian redistribution from Siceliote poleis: probably at Himera in the early fifth century BCE (SEG 47.1427, although the law concerns the allocation of urban land; see Lombardo 2001; De Vido 2023; Erdas forthcoming); at Syracuse under Gelon (Diod. Sic. 11.25.5); and at Leontini in 424–422 BCE (Thuc. 5.4.2; for further cases see Asheri 1979). The documentation spans from the late Archaic period to the Hellenistic age, the latest example being the decree of the apoikia of Kerkyra Melaina in Croatia, dating to the early third century BCE (Syll.³ 141 +; see Lombardo 2002). This text contains provisions for the allocation of urban plots to the first settlers, as well as additional kleroi to be assigned to newcomers (ll. 9–10: τοὺς ἐφέρποντας). Once these allocations had been completed, the decree stipulates that no further gēs anadasmos was to take place (ll. 10–13).

More generally, this second group of documents shows that there existed rules aimed at avoiding recourse to the redistribution of urban and extra-urban land. These rules, however, were grounded in practical concerns—such as the risk of disrupting a functional and well-organized system of land allocation relative to the number of citizens—rather than in any principled objection to redistribution itself. In essence, there was no inherent prejudice against agrarian redistribution: poleis resorted to it only in serious and exceptional circumstances, always connected with the admission of new citizens into the community.

In none of the cases belonging to this second group is land redistribution proposed or rejected as a means of equalizing citizens’ property holdings, as is instead characteristic of the first group of evidence, which reflects various forms of social injustice. In those cases, land redistribution, together with the closely associated slogan of debt cancellation, serves to alleviate the political tensions generated by economic inequality within the polis. It follows that this latter group of testimonia—preserved in literary sources—is shaped by the rhetorical and philosophical discourse on radical democracy and tyranny that developed from the late fifth century BCE onward. This discourse, largely negative in tone, established a sharp distinction regarding the political appropriateness of land redistribution and influenced the interpretation of gēs anadasmos even in relation to Archaic contexts.

The defining features of this ideological construct, as already noted, are the close association between land redistribution and debt cancellation, and the interpretation of both measures as symptoms of stasis, which in turn leads to the linkage of gēs anadasmos with radical democracy and tyranny. Thus, Isocrates (Panath. 12.59) identifies gēs anadasmos and chreōn apokopē as the first signs of civil upheaval, while Plato (Leg. 684d) characterizes them as political measures of the demagogue aspiring to tyranny; elsewhere he assigns to the agronomoi the task of punishing anyone who attempts to remove boundary markers (horoi) from the land, treating such an act as a form of gēs anadasmos. See also Plat. Resp. 565e–566a; Arist. Pol. 5.1305a 4 ff.; 5.1307a 1; 1309a 14; Ath. Pol. 40.3. One of the earliest testimonies to this line of thought appears in [Arist.], Rhet. ad Alex. 2.17 (fourth century BCE), where the enactment of strict laws is recommended in order to prohibit land redistribution and the confiscation of property from those who have served the polis well. The prohibition of gēs anadasmos as an anti-democratic measure also appears in the oath of the Athenian heliastai preserved in Demosthenes’ Against Timocrates (Dem. 24.149), although this passage is almost certainly interpolated (Canevaro 2013, 174–178).

On a practical level, the negative view of agrarian redistribution—often associated with debt remission—begins to appear, in the form of sanction clauses, in official documents addressed to the citizens of a polis. This is the case at Delphi in the law of Kadys regulating loans at interest (Choix Delphes 28, col. VII, ll. 2-6, early fourth century BCE). Even more significant, with regard to the relationship between the polites and land rights on the one hand, and between the citizens collectively and the preservation of democracy (in an anti-tyrannical sense) on the other, is the presence of a clause prohibiting the redistribution of land and houses and the cancellation of debts in the oath of the citizens of Itanos in Crete (IC III iv 8, ll. 21–24: οὐ|[δὲ γᾶς] ἀναδασμὸν οὐδὲ οἰκιᾶν | [οὐδὲ] οἰκοπέδων, οὐδὲ χρεῶν ἀ|[ποκ]ο̣π̣ὰν ποιησέω). Here gēs anadasmos and chreōn apokopē function as ideological markers associated with the risk of civil strife, and citizens are bound by oath not to pursue such measures precisely because they might lead to the dissolution of the polis.

The association between the prohibition of gēs anadasmos and the degeneration of radical democracy into tyranny—rooted in anti-tyrannical ideology—is also evident in certain Siceliote cases reported by literary sources far removed from the events they describe. These include the agrarian reforms implemented by Dionysius I at Syracuse after the peace treaty with Carthage in 405 BCE (Diod. Sic. 14.7.4–5), and the proposal by Heracleides—opposed by Dion—for land redistribution, which was voted on but never carried out (Plut. Dion 37.5; 48.6–9; see Fucks 1968). Taken as a whole, the evidence discussed above shows that the ideological framing of gēs anadasmos and chreōn apokopē as signs of political subversion and indicators of the emergence of authoritarian rule had, by this stage, become fully integrated into Greek political thought.

• D. Asheri, Distribuzioni di terre nell’antica Grecia, Torino 1966.
• D. Asheri, “Rimpatrio di esuli e redistribuzione di terre nelle città siceliote, ca. 466–461 a.C.”, in Philias charin. Miscellanea di studi classici in onore di Eugenio Manni, I, Roma 1979, 143–58.
• H. Brandt, “Γης αναδασμός und ältere Tyrannis”, Chiron 19, 1989, 207–34.
• M. Canevaro, The Documents in the Attic Orators: Laws and Decrees in the Public Speeches of the Demosthenic Corpus, Oxford 2013
• L. Cecchet, “Γῆς ἀναδασμός: a real issue in the archaic and classical poleis?”, Athenaeum 55, 2009, 185–98.
• S. De Vido, “Spazio civico e spazio urbano. Ancora sulla lamina di Imera”, Kokalos 60, 2023, 33–51.
• M. Dreher, “Das Bürgerrecht im griechischen Sizilien zwischen Recht und Politik”, in E. Cantarella (ed.), Symposion 2005.Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Salerno, 14.–18. September 2005), Wien 2007, 57–78.
• D. Erdas, “Protezioni legali sulla terra nelle clausole di accesso alla cittadinanza: osservazioni preliminari”, in S. De Vido, A. Esposito, A. Pollini, C. Weber–Pallez (eds.), TeMAES I. Territoires multiples. Espaces, définitions, expériences dans le monde grec (VII–Ie siècle av. J.Chr.), Bordeaux, forthcoming.
• D. Erdas, “Redistribuzioni di terre nei giuramenti di cittadini tra aspirazione all’uguaglianza e protezione della politeia”, Erga/Logoi 13.2, 2025, 143–65.
• M. Faraguna, “Land and Citizenship in the Greek Polis: Real Property, Public Control, and Institutionalisation”, Dike 27, 2024, 121–74.
• M.I. Finley, “The alienability of land in ancient Greece”, Eirene 7, 1968, 25–32, poi in The Use and Abuse of History, London 1975, 153–60.
• A. Fucks, “Redistribution of Land and Houses in Syracuse in 356 B.C., and Its Ideological Aspects”, CQ n.s. 18, 1968, 207–33.
• S. Link, Landverteilung und sozialer Frieden im archaischen Griechenland, Stuttgart 1991.
• M. Lombardo, “La documentazione epigrafica”, in Problemi della chora coloniale dall’Occidente al Mar Nero. Atti del XL Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia (Taranto, 29 settembre – 3 ottobre 2000), Taranto 2001, 73–114.
• M. Lombardo, “I Greci a Kerkyra Melaina (Syll.³ 141): pratiche coloniali e ruolo degli indigeni”, in Grčki utjecaj na istočnoj obali Jadrana – Greek Influence along the East Adriatic Coast. Proceedings of the International Conference held at Split from september 24th to 26th 1998, Split 2002, 121–40.
• I. Malkin, “Lottery and Mixture in the Greek Polis”, in V. Pirenne–Delforge, M. Węcowski (eds.), Politeia and Koinōnia. Studies in Ancient Greek History in Honour of Josine Blok, Leiden 2023, 179–87.
• I. Malkin, J. Blok, Drawing Lots. From Egalitarianism to Democracy in Ancient Greece, Oxford 2024
• W. Orth, “Die Frage einer umfassenden Grundbesitzumverteilung im Meinungsstreit des griechischen Altertums”, in Siegfried Lauffer zum 70. Geburstag am 4 August 1981 dargebracht von Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern, II, Rom 1986, 717–41.
• V.J. Rosivach, “Redistribution of Land in Solon, Fragment 34 West”, JHS 112, 1992, 153–7
• J. Zurbach, Les hommes, la terre et la dette en Grèce c. 1400 – c– 500 a.C., II, Bordeaux 2017

[D. Erdas]

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Hekatostys (ἑκατοστύς)

The term ἑκατοστύς, meaning ‘group of a hundred’ or ‘centuria’, appears in two contexts: military and purely institutional. In the military lexicon, hekatostys denotes an infantry unit of approximately one hundred men. Arrian refers to this kind of hekatostys (Anab. 7.24. 4) when describing Alexander’s last days: after receiving a sacred embassy from Siwah concerning the granting of heroic worship to Hephaestion, Alexander is said to have distributed wine and meat from a recent sacrifice to the troops, who were divided into lochoi (cavalry units) and hekatostyes (Bosworth 2010; Contra Sekunda 2010, who believes that hekatostys replaced lochos to indicate a division of the cavalry corps or ἴλη to avoid confusion with the infantry lochos). Alexander had previously distributed pack animals and camels to the centuries during his  passage through Gedrosia (Arr. Anab. 6.27.6).

Hekatostys also denotes a numerical civil subdivision attested in Megara and its colonies (Byzantium, Chalcedon, Heraclea Pontica, Selymbria) and in the Ionian region (Samos and Lampsacus). The only ancient definition of hekatostys is found in an entry by Hesychius (Ε 85 Latte, s.v. ἑκατοστύς), where he first compares it to chiliastys – another numerical subdivision of the polis – and then considers it synonymous with syngheneia (a kinship group). However, it remains controversial whether hekatostys should be considered a kinship group. It is likely that Hesychius’ passage reflects the influence of the theoretical elaborations on the smaller units of the polis by Hellenistic philosophical thought and antiquarian research, rather than providing reliable information on the hekatostys.

More useful information comes from epigraphic documentation. In the Megarian area, hekatostys is mentioned in an inscription recording financial transactions between the Epidaurians and the Elisfasioi (IG IV² 1, 42): at ll. 18-20, the onomastic formula of one witness to the transaction, the Megarian Dionysius, includes the mention of the hekatostys Κυνοσουρίς. In Byzantium, where documentation dates to the 2nd century BC, hekatostys appears in the set of  formulas for granting citizenship, allowing the new citizen to register with the hekatostys of their choice (IK Byzantion 1, 2, 3). Hekatostys must have existed also in Heraclea Pontica, although it has not left traces in the epigraphic documentation. An institutional reform, datable to around 370 BC, reportedly increased the number of hekatostyes from 12 to 60 (Aen. Tact. 11.10bis-11); it remains uncertain whether this increase altered the nature of the institution from a kinship group to a territorial unit. It is possible that the new hekatostyes also had a military function.

In Samos, hekatostys appears in 58 citizenship decrees spanning from the 4th century BC to the 2nd century AD. While nothing definitive can be said about the functions of hekatostys, it played a certain role in the registration of new citizens; it is included in the set of formulas regulating the allocation of the neopolites in the civic subdivisions: phyle – chiliastys – genos (with which hekatostys is often associated, sometimes even sharing the same name). On two occasions, the name of the hekatostys to which the citizen was assigned is recorded, immediately after the mention of the drawing of lots for the registration of the neopolites in the civic units of the polis: Elandridai, IG XII 61 56, ll. 18-20; -αρνικίδαι, IG XII 61 24, ll. 27-29, 35-39 (both inscriptions are dated after 306 BC). The documentation from Lampsacus also shows the need for neopolites to register in the hekatostys (IK Lampsakos 6 and 9). Notably, IK Lampsakos 9 (ll. 39-40) mentions a register in which citizens were enrolled based on hekatostys.

• A.B. Bosworth, The Argeads and the Phalanx, in E. Carney, D. Ogden (eds.), Philip II and Alexander the Great. Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives, Oxford 2010, 91-102
• R. Brock, Civic Subdivisions and the Citizen Community, in J. Filonik, C. Plastow, R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds.), Citizenship in Antiquity: Civic Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean, Abingdon – New York 2023, 226-239
• F. Ferraioli, L’Hecatostys: analisi della documentazione, Tivoli 2012
• N.F. Jones, Public Organization in Ancient Greece: A Documentary Study, Philadelphia 1987
• N.V. Sekunda, The Macedonian Army, in J. Roisman, I. Worthington (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, Chichester 2010, 446-471

[L. Loddo]

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Homopoliteia (ὁμοπολιτεία)

The only occurrence of this term, translatable as ‘sharing the right of citizenship’, is found in an epigraphic document reporting an agreement between the poleis of Cos and Calymna, dated to 201/200 BC (IG XII 4.1, 152 = Tit. Cal. XII, ll. 16 and 18). This document does not actually contain the text of the convention of homopoliteia; rather, it is a civic oath in which the citizens of Cos and Calymna pledge to uphold, among other things, the democracy and ancestral laws of Cos, as well as the restoration (apokatastasis) of homopoliteia. The original treaty, variably dated between 215 and 205 BC, was likely annulled due to the hostile actions of Philip V following the Battle of Lade. The agreement of homopoliteia sanctioned the incorporation of Calymna, reduced to the status of a deme, into the territory of Cos, indicating a process of unilateral assimilation different from the sharing of citizenship rights or sympoliteia. New lists of citizens, dating to twenty years after the unification, can be associated with the agreement on homopoliteia (cf. Tit. Cal. 88-96).

• P. Baker, Cos et Calymna, 205-200 a.C.: Esprit civique et défense nationale, Québec 1991
• S. Saba, Cittadinanza e archivi nel Mediterraneo antico: qualche postilla esegetica, Historika 11, 2021, 83-94
• A. Sherwin-White, Ancient Cos. An Historical Study from the Dorian Settlement to the Imperial Period, Göttingen 1978
• A.V. Walser, Sympolitien und Siedlungsentwicklung, in A. Matthaei – M. Zimmermann (eds.), Stadtbilder im Hellenismus, Berlin 2009, 135-155

[L. Loddo]

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Isopoliteia (ἰσοπολιτεία)

The term associates the notion of πολιτεία with the specific ἴσος (“equal”), and can be translated as “equal citizenship”; similarly, the less frequent ἰσοπολίτης refers to a “citizen on equal terms” (for the feminine equivalent ἰσοπολῖτις, see App., B. Civ. 1, 10 [41], where it refers to the Roman municipia; cf. Gabba 1958, 29). In the sources, the two terms are mostly attested in contexts referring to the admission of foreigners into the civic body of a polis or a koinon.

If it is original – i.e. not traceable to a later phase of tradition – the oldest attestation of ἰσοπολιτεία occurs in a fragment of the Constitution of the Samians attributed to Aristotle (fr. 575 Rose = Phot., Lexicon, s.v. Σαμίων ὁ δῆμος; see Gawantka 1975, 166 and n. 7): the passage reports that, at an unspecified point in time, the Samians “granted isopoliteia to the slaves upon payment of five staters” (ἐπέγραψαν τοῖς δούλοις ἐκ πέντε στατήρων τὴν ἰσοπολιτείαν). Subsequently, from the 3^rd century BCE onwards, though appearing also in literary works – mainly from the Roman and Byzantine periods (with the exception of Memnon, FGrHist 434 F 1, part. 6, 2 = Phot., Bibl. 224, part. 225b and Polyb. 16, 26, 9) – the term is documented, like ἰσοπολίτης, primarily through inscriptions.

These attest to three uses of ἰσοπολιτεία (and ἰσοπολίτης), relating respectively to: (1) the granting of citizenship by a community to one or more deserving foreigners on an individual basis; (2) the granting of the same right not to individuals, but to an entire community; (3) the mutual recognition, by two communities, of each other’s citizenship (also for the following, see above all Gawantka, 24-7; according to Saba 2020, 25-7, in ancient usage both terms could also express the mutual recognition of polis status between two communities, without specific relevance to citizenship; contra Savalli-Lestrade 2021).

Of these uses, the first is the most widely attested, though apparently limited to mainland Greece and Crete (see e.g. Helly, Gonnoi II 5; F.Delphes III 3 120; IG IX 1, 314; I.Cret. II iii 9), while the others, less frequent in the sources, are also documented elsewhere in the Aegean, Asia Minor, and Sicily (see e.g. IG XII 4, 1, 222 and 223; IG XII 6, 1, 6; I.Magnesia 103; Milet I 3, 150; SEG 30.1121-1123). The juxtaposition, in the first two cases, of the use of ἰσοπολιτεία with that of the simple πολιτεία as well as of expressions such as πολιτεία ἐφ’ ἵσηι καὶ ὁμοίαι (“citizenship in conditions of parity and equality”) indicates that the term did not designate a legal institution distinct from ‘ordinary’ citizenship: on the contrary, the prefix ἰσο- emphasises the identity of the two rights (note, however, that naturalised citizens could be subject to limitations with regard to their prerogatives in comparison with citizens by birth: see Aresi, s.v. Demopoietos). In the third case, ἰσοπολιτεία assumes a more specific meaning; however, this does not imply that the term is used systematically in epigraphic contexts relating to the mutual recognition of citizenship between two communities.

Partly deviating from the picture emerging from the sources (see e.g. Gawantka 1975, 1-2 and Müller 2023, 172-3), the notion of isopoliteia – or ‘isopolity’ – has acquired a narrower, more technical meaning in scholarship. Specifically, it is now used in connection with either the unilateral granting of citizenship by one community to members of another – which the latter may reciprocate with a similar concession – or the mutual extension of citizenship between two communities formalised through a treaty. 

This phenomenon predates the appearance of ἰσοπολιτεία in the Greek institutional lexicon (though Saba 2020, 253-4 argues otherwise). Modern studies have identified its earliest manifestations in the granting of Delphic citizenship to the Lydians at the time of Croesus (cf. Hdt. 1, 54; Gawantka 1975, 169-70), or in similar initiatives undertaken by the Athenians in favour of the Plataeans, either in the early years of the Peloponnesian War or before (see Thuc. 3, 55, 3 and 63, 2; Isoc., Or. 12, 94; [Dem.], Or. 59, 104 with e.g. Ostwald 1977, 94-5), as well as in favour of the Samians in 405/4 BCE (IG I³ 127 with e.g. Mack 2019, 67). However, it was during the Hellenistic period that this practice became more widespread. There are more than seventy identifiable cases distributed throughout the Greek world, particularly in the poleis of Asia Minor and Crete (see Saba 2020, with Savalli-Lestrade 2021 and Guizzi 2023, 714).

Isopoliteia is generally regarded as a legal and diplomatic instrument designed to strengthen or establish positive relations between two communities. Unlike sympoliteia – of which it has sometimes been considered a prelude (contra Gawantka 1975, 81-91) – and synoecism it did not lead to their union (for the commonalities and differences among these situations, see Magnetto 2025, esp. 116-7; cf. also Aresi, s.vv. Sympoliteia and Synoikismos). Compared to other methods of establishing interstate ties, it has been suggested that the defining feature of isopoliteia was the moral obligation it created for granting communities to treat citizens of beneficiary communities with the same favour reserved for their own citizens (see Gawantka 1975, 119-33, with particular emphasis on SEG 41.1003 II; Thuc. 2, 29, 5 e 67, 2; Ar., Ach. 145-7; cf. Mack 2019, 67, referring to IG XII 5, 1 594). Against this backdrop, some critics have identified specific objectives –economic or military, for instance (see e.g. Guizzi 1999, 236 and Saba 2020, 8 and 21, both with reference to the Cretan context) – that the use of this institution would have been aimed at, depending on the circumstances.

The diplomatic value of isopoliteia has sometimes led to the citizenship it conferred being undervalued, in terms of both the granting communities’ actual intentions and the recipients’ enjoyment of the concession (see Gawantka 1975, 78-80; similarly Saba 2020, 11 e 22). Other scholars (e.g. J. e L. Robert in BE 1976, no. 95 and Gauthier 1977-1978, 377) have instead emphasised how the increased mobility that characterised the Hellenistic period likely generated a ‘demand for citizenship’, to which isopoliteia may have responded, whether programmatically or not. It has also been suggested that this concession could be envisaged by the granting communities as a remedy for problems of oliganthropy – or, when mutual, overpopulation (according to Chaniotis 1996, 104).

The implications of isopoliteia in terms of the legal status and rights actually granted to its beneficiaries remain debated. According to the traditional view, isopolitai would have been – as such, and like those who received similar concessions individually – holders of ‘potential’ citizenship: in principle identical to that acquired by birth, this citizenship would only become effective following a process that involved moving to the granting community and becoming part of its civic structures, which in turn would have entailed renouncing one’s previous citizenship (see e.g. Gauthier 1972, 347-8). In practice, isopoliteia would therefore have consisted in granting members of a community the possibility of changing citizenship (see Saba 2020, 1-2).

In accordance with Aristotle’s definition of polites (Pol. 3, 1274b-1275a), the latter view identifies the essence of civic status with participation in judicial and governmental functions, for which the completion of the aforementioned procedures is generally recognised as a prerequisite (Mack 2019, 73 is less clear on this point; see also Maffi 2023, 306). However, in recent years (at least since Müller 2015), scholarship has tended to emphasise other aspects of Greek citizenship, such as enktesis and epigamia. The enjoyment of these rights is believed not to have required membership of a community’s civic structures or the renunciation of previous citizenship: individuals could have held multiple citizenships simultaneously, with the one acquired by concession being partially valid immediately, without further formalities. Isopoliteia would thus have granted proper civic status to its beneficiaries (see esp. Mack 2019 and Müller 2023).

These issues are intertwined with the problem of interpreting isopoliteia measures – and individual concessions – in which the granting of citizenship is accompanied by that of rights that are, in principle, inherent to it, such as the aforementioned enktesis and epigamia (see e.g. IG V 2, 419 and SEG 29.1149). The sources do not specify whether the latter represented concessions in their own right or illustrated (some) aspects of citizenship. In keeping with the traditional view of Greek citizenship, this distinction paves the way for hypothesising that, in the absence of an actual change of citizenship, the isopolitai could make use of such ‘additional concessions’ either as privileged foreigners, in the first scenario (thus implicitly, Saba 2020, 17, based on Chaniotis 1996, 103), or through the ‘partial activation’ of their potential civic status, in the second scenario (for this perspective and its difficulties, see Gawantka 1975, 29-39). The alternative view according to which isopoliteia would have automatically implied effective citizenship instead suggests that the rights mentioned alongside it inherently derived from its grant (cf. Mack 2019, 71-2 and Müller 2023, pp. 184-5). The question would remain, however, as to whether these were the only rights to which the isopolitai could have access without further procedures, and what implications this would have for cases in which similar provisions are absent (cf. Maffi 2023, 299 and, more generally, 296-300).

Finally, a more general question emerges: to what extent should the approach to isopoliteia be considered uniform across the Greek world, and whether the effort to infer general legal principles from individual cases should be complemented by an increased focus on their specific characteristics (cf. Mack 2019, 78; Maffi 2023, 307).

• A. Chaniotis, Die Verträge zwischen kretischen Poleis in der hellenistischen Zeit, Stuttgart 1996.
• E. Gabba, Appiani Bellorum civilium liber primus, Firenze 1958.
• P. Gauthier, Symbola. Les étrangers et la justice dans les cités grecques, Nancy 1972.
• P. Gauthier, Épigraphie grecque et institutions grecques, Annuaire de l’École pratique des hautes études. Section des sciences historiques et philologiques 1977-1978, pp. 373-8.
• W. Gawantka, Isopolitie. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der zwischenstaatlichen Beziehungen in der griechischen Antike, München 1975.
• F. Guizzi, Private Economic Activities in Hellenistic Crete: The Evidence of the Isopoliteia Treaties, in A. Chaniotis (ed.), From Minoan Farmers to Roman Traders. Sidelights on the Economy of Ancient Crete, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 235-45.
• F. Guizzi, rec. a Saba 2020, Gnomon 95/8 (2023), pp. 711-5.
• W. Mack, Beyond Potential Citizenship: A Network Approach to Understanding Grants of Politeia, in M. Dana, I. Savalli-Lestrade (éds.), La cité interconnectée dans le monde gréco-romain, Bordeaux 2019, pp. 61-82.
• A. Maffi, rec. a Saba 2020, Dike 26 (2023), pp. 294-307.
• A. Magnetto, Lo statuto dei neocittadini negli accordi di sinecismo, sympoliteia e isopoliteia, Erga-Logoi 13/2, 2025, 115-42.
• C. Müller, De l’époque classique à l’époque hellénistique: la citoyenneté des Grecs, une citoyenneté en mutation? Réflexions sur la question de l’appartenance multiple, Studi ellenistici 29 (2015), pp. 355-70.
• C. Müller, Περὶ τῶν συμβολῶν. La question de l’isopoliteia chez Philippe Gauthier, Dike 26 (2023), pp. 163-93.
• M. Ostwald, rec. a Gawantka 1975, AJPh 98/1 (1977), pp. 90-5.
• S. Saba, Isopoliteia in Hellenistic Times, Leiden – Boston 2020.
• I. Savalli-Lestrade, rec. a Saba 2020, BMCRev 30.03.2021 (https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2021/2021.03.30/).

[G. Aresi]

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Isoteles/isoteleia (ἰσοτελής/ἰσοτέλεια)

The terms isoteles/isoteleia (subject to equal taxation/equality of taxation) indicate a privilege that a Greek state (e.g. Tanagra, Boeotia: IG VII 517; Priene: I.Priene 5), including federal states (e.g. the Boeotian koinon: IG VII 2861, IThesp. 29, etc.), could grant to non-citizens and that put them at the same level as citizens in terms of financial obligations. Isoteleia was occasionally granted together with citizenship to emphasise the recipient’s complete equality with citizens (e.g. Lamia, Thessaly: IG IX 2, 69; Mesambria, Thrace: IGBulg I² 309; Opuntian Locris: IG IX 1, 276; Andros: IG XII Suppl. 245; Kalymnos: IG XII 4, 5.3948; Chalcedon: I.Kalchedon 4). The lexicographers define the isoteles as a privileged metic who enjoys fiscal equality with citizens (Hsch. s.v. ἰσοτελεῖς; Bekker, Anecd. Gr. 1. 267. 1, ἰσοτελεῖς), in some cases with the specification that this is a ‘deserving’ (axios) metic (Harpocr. and Phot. s.v. ἰσοτελής καὶ ἰσοτέλεια). At Athens isoteleis were exempt from the metoikion, an annual poll tax paid by resident foreigners. From the available evidence it is not entirely clear whether the granting of isoteleia consisted solely in the exemption from payment of the metoikion or if it entailed an equation with the condition of citizenship, except for the possibility for metics to be appointed to command roles (e.g. Moer. 199.27-28: ἰσοτελής ὁ ξένος ὁ μετέχων τῶν νόμων καὶ τῶν πραττομένων πάντων πλὴν ἀρχῆς; Sch. Demosth. 20.73.1-2: ἰσοτελεῖς μὲν λέγει τοὺς ξένους τοὺς τετυχηκότας τῆς ἴσης τιμῆς τοῖς πολίταις). The rare instances of occurrence of the terms isoteleia and isoteles in 4th-century BCE literary sources do not prove helpful in this respect (Xenoph. Hell. 2.4.25; Demosth. 20.29; 34.18; [Demosth.] 35.14; [Arst.] Ath. 58.2). Only in Xenophon’s Poroi (4.12) is the term isoteleia used to indicate a fiscal privilege –unfortunately impossible to determine– which was equally enjoyed by citizens and foreigners who took out concessions to exploit the Laurion mines. At Athens the term isoteles could be associated to the name of an individual to specify their status (e.g. Demosth. 34.18; IG II³ 1 1011, l. 100). This practice is attested above all epigraphically from the early 4th century BCE (SEG 18.112) to the 1st century BCE (e.g. IG II² 7866). The fact that in these cases the term isoteles did not supplement but replaced the indication of the ethnicity or citizenship demonstrates the importance of such social markers for foreigners in Athens. Epigraphically attested grants of isoteleia in Athens are rather scarce and almost entirely limited to the 4th century BCE. The earliest known case occurs in the proxeny decree IG II² 83, l. 7-8 (ante 387/6?), where isoteleia is granted together with the right to own land and a house (enktesis ges kai oikias). The infrequency with which isoteleia was apparently granted in Athens seems to be confirmed by the limited number of isoteleis attested in funerary inscriptions (about 30 in total). The vast majority of epigraphic evidence relating to isoteleia in other parts of the Greek world consists of decrees granting proxeny and other honours and belongs to the Hellenistic period (e.g. Haliartos, Boeotia: IG VII 2849 + SEG 44.409 – ante 168 BCE; Larissa, Thessaly: IG IX 2, 519 – late 2nd century BCE; Istiaia, Euboea: IG XII 9, 1186 – 232-220 BCE).

• R. Guicharrousse, Athènes en partage: les étrangers au sein de la cité (Ve-IIIe siècle avant notre ère), Paris 2022, 51–54, passim
• A.S. Henry, Honours and Privileges in Athenian Decrees, Hildesheim 1983, 246–249
• M.J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, vol. 2, Brussels 1982, 32–35
• D. Whitehead, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic, Cambridge 1977, 11–13

[I. Bultrighini]

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Katoikeo/katoikountes/katoikoi (κατοικέω/κατοικοῦντες/κάτοικοι)

In the earliest literary attestations available to us, provided by Herodotus’ Histories, the verb occurs with the meaning “to be settled” and, by extension, “to reside” (Hdt. 3.35.6; 91.3; 4.5.1; 4.116.1, 79 α.1). The fact that in these cases it is almost invariably used in the perfect tense, with a resultative value, implicitly conveys the notion of a settlement established in the past but still perceptible in the present. Indeed, in most of the passages where the verb appears, even when it is conjugated in the present tense and simply denotes residing in a given place, it often points to a context in which residence is the outcome of displacement, migration, flight, or exile (Thuc. 8.6.1; Eur. Andr. 1244; Hel. 1651, 1677; fr. 696 v. 10; Plut. Thes. 16.2; Tim. 23.3; Isoc. Pan. 204–205; Phil. 19, 127; Pl. Leg. 850b–c; Xen. An. 5.3.7; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 39.5). The verb also appears in contexts where emphasis is placed on the very act of transfer—of settling, establishing oneself in a place, and thereby making it one’s residence (Thuc. 3.34.2; 8.108.4; Aristoph. Av. 153–154; Eur. Ion 1586; Isoc. Archid. 16, 17; Pl. Leg. 969c; Xen. Hell. 2.4.38; Arist. fr. 485 Rose; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 22.8, 40.4). Nevertheless, there are also passages in which the verb simply denotes residence, with no reference to any previous relocation (Isoc. Nic. 41; Paneg. 27; Plut. Tim. 22.6; Thes. 24.1).

The epigraphic record reflects the same dichotomy of nuances: on the one hand, a generic notion of dwelling; on the other, residence obtained or chosen at a specific moment. In the first sense, the verb may encompass without further distinction the various civic-status categories within a given polis, including the politai themselves (IG V.1 1427, l. 7; IG V.1 1432, ll. 23, 33; IG XII.3 104, ll. 9–10, here contrasted with the parepidemountes, i.e. temporary foreigners, see s.v.; I.Mylasa 109, l. 13; I.Stratonikeia 256, l. 9; IK Priene 28, l. 14; IK Priene 42, l. 17; I.Didyma 345, l. 24). It may also refer to resident non-citizens, specified as the “other” (loipoi / alloi) katoikountes (IvP 1.249, l. 27; MDAI I 29, 1979, 249–71, II B, l. 29; OGIS 339, ll. 28–29; IC IV 168, ll. 9–10; I.Magnesia 98, l. 18; I.Mylasa 306, l. 7). This suggests that katoikein could, in principle, also apply to politai. In other cases, the verb refers to specific segments of the citizen body, indicating that they reside within a particular territorial subdivision of the polis (IG XII.4 1.98, ll. 7, 11–12: those inhabiting the chōra of Alasarna; cf. IG XII.4 1.99, ll. 9–10). That these were citizens, rather than non-citizen natives such as the Anatolian paroikoi (see s.v.), is shown by the fact that both decrees praise their respective honorands for services rendered to the dēmos of Alasarna (Hallof–Habicht 1998, 120). The verb may also describe situations in which citizens reside outside the territory of their polis as cleruchs or colonists. This is attested, for instance, in Athens (IG II² 1006, l. 73; IG II² 1008, l. 23; IG II² 1009, l. 39), and a particularly significant case is that of post-167 Delos (ID 1643, l. 1; IC I viii 12, ll. 47, 50–51; IG XII.5 271, l. 2). Similar instances occur at Miletus (IG XII.4 4 3868, l. 4; 3870, ll. 7–8; 3872, l. 3) and Samos (IG XII.7 231, ll. 29–30; 237, l. 38; 239, ll. 1–2). The verb also appears with reference to citizens in exile or refuge (Maiuri, NSER 1, ll. 5–6; IG XII.6 1 17, l. 18; SEG 27.245, ll. 3–4; on the latter case, see Papazoglou 1997, 220–221, with earlier bibliography). Another instance concerns citizens stationed in another city hosting a garrison from their homeland (I.Ephesos 1408, ll. 4–5). In all such cases, the katoikountes continue to describe themselves by means of the ethnic or the formula “dēmos + genitive of the city’s ethnic.” This indicates that even in documents produced far from the homeland, emphasis was placed on the citizenship rights retained, and that the perspective remained, in a sense, that of the mother polis (Cardinali 1908, 188, 192–193). Cardinali, though including these documents among those in which katoikeō denotes domicile in a place where full civic rights were not held, rightly observes that “in katoikeō that which is the distinctive feature of its meaning […]—the indication of the absence of full civic rights—tends to fade, and instead the sense of dwelling in a land not one’s own or of one’s ancestors prevails.”

In a considerable number of attestations, the verb—and especially the substantivized participle hoi katoikountes—designates exclusively non-citizen residents, who are thereby clearly distinguished from the politai (IG II² 505, l. 11, referring to metoikoi explicitly separated from the dēmos ho Athēnaiōn; IG II² 715, l. 5; IG XII.4 1 215, IV ll. 37–38: Phaleōn kai tōn Phalēi katoikeontōn; FD III 1.451, ll. 9–10: hoi te Delphoi kai hoi en Delphois katoikeontes; IG IX².1 2 417, l. 10: Stratiōn kai tōn en Stratiōi katoikeontōn; for further examples, see Cardinali 1908, 189–191). In such cases, however, the term does not necessarily or exclusively denote foreign non-citizens: it may also include categories of indigenous non-citizens, such as those inhabiting the chōra of Ephesus (OGIS 437, ll. 11–12; *Syll.*³ 742 II, ll. 22–23), who were more precisely referred to as paroikoi (see s.v.). It may likewise designate the inhabitants of villages subordinate to a polis, as in the case of those near Naulochon, itself incorporated into the territory of Priene as a dependent city, either through synoecism or by a sympoliteia treaty (IK Priene 1, ll. 11–12; cf. Briant 2006; Thonemann 2013, 28; Faraguna 2020, 252–258).

As for the noun katoikos, a distinction must be made, since the term bears two different meanings depending on context. In Ptolemaic Egypt (OGIS 128, l. 4; Pol. 5.65.10), Attalid Pergamon (OGIS 338, l. 16), and the Seleucid domains of Asia Minor (OGIS 229 I, ll. 14, 21; II, ll. 35, 36, 47, 49, 59, 71, 73, 74, 84; III, 92, 101), the katoikoi were military settlers—Greek-Macedonian soldiers and mercenaries, but also men of other ethnic origins (on the ethnic composition see Walbank 1957, 591; Cohen 1978, 30–33; Billows 1995, 148–157; Fingerson 2007; 2014, 69–72). They were granted plots of land as incentives to ensure their loyalty to the ruling regimes, to secure and guard conquered territories, and, probably, to provide continuity in replenishing the royal armies from generation to generation. The precise relationship between landholding and military obligations, however, remains debated (cf. Cohen 1978, 51–52; 1991; Billows 1995, 172–178). The term katoikos, however, takes on a different meaning in certain contexts. In first-century Prienean documents, it appears alongside terms such as politai, paroikoi, and xenoi parepidemountes (IK Priene 68, l. 79; 69, ll. 39, 43, 77, 83; 72, l. 13). This suggests that the word referred to resident foreigners, to be distinguished not only from the politai but also from the indigenous non-citizen inhabitants of the chōra (paroikoi) and from transient foreigners (Gagliardi 2006, 143; 2009/2010, 319–320).

• R. A. Billows, Kings and Colonists. Aspects of Macedonian Imperialism, Leiden-New York-Köln 1995.
• P. Briant, L’Asie Mineure en transition in P. Briant, F. Joannes (eds.), La transition entre l’empire achéménide et les royaumes hellénistiques (vers 350-300 av. J. C.), Paris 2006, 309-350
• G. Cardinali, Note di terminologia epigrafica, RAL 17 (1908), 157-200.
• G. M. Cohen, The Seleucid Colonies. Studies in Founding, Administration and Organization, Wiesbaden 1978.
• G. M. Cohen, Katoikiai, Katoikoi and Macedonians in Asia Minor, Ancient Society 22, 1991, 41-50.
• M. Faraguna, Alexander the Great and Asia Minor. Strategies of Legitimation in K. Trampedach, A. Meeus (eds.), The Legitimation of Conquest. Monarchical Representation and the Art of Government in the Empire of Alexander the Great, Stuttgart 2020, 243-262.
• K. J. Fingerson, Persian Katoikoi in Hellenistic Smyrna, Ancient Society 37, 2007, 107-120.
• K.J. Fingerson, Smyrnean-Magnesian Katoikoi at the conclusion of the Third Syrian War. 246-241 BC, The Ancient World 45.1, 2014, 61-78.
• L. Gagliardi, Mobilità e integrazione delle persone nei centri cittadini romani, Milano 2006.
• L. Gagliardi, I paroikoi delle città dell’Asia minore in età ellenistica e nella prima età romana, Dike 12/13, 2009/2010, 303-322.
• L. e K. Hallof – C. Habicht, Aus der Arbeit der «Inscriptiones Graecae» II. Ehrendekrete aus dem Asklepieion von Kos, Chiron 28, 1998, 101-142.
• F. Papazoglou, Laoi et paroikoi. Recherches sur les structures de la société hellénistique, Beograd 1997.
• P. Thonemann, Alexander, Priene and Naulochon in P. Martzavou, N. Papazarkadas (eds.), Epigraphical Approaches to the post-classical polis, Oxford 2013, 23-36.
• F.W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius. Vol. 1, Oxford 1957.

[G. Falco]

Koinopoliteia (κοινοπολιτεία)

The term, a hapax in the epigraphic sources, appears in an Aetolian inscription comprising two inscribed texts dated to the late 3rd century BC, namely a request from the kosmoi of the Cretan city of (V)Axos presented in the form of a letter to the koinon of the Aetolians (Choix Delphes 120 = Syll.³ 622B), and the subsequent response of the koinon in the form of a decree (IG IX² 1 178 = Syll.³ 622A). In the letter, the kosmoi assert their recognition of one Epikles, who resided in Amphissa at that time, as their fellow citizen, whose status, however, must have appeared to be controversial. They request that the Aetolians ensure that he and his children receive the benefits of the isopoliteia agreements existing between the Aetolian koinon and (V)Axos (cf. StV III 585 = Saba 45, confirming that such an agreement was in effect). This case indicates the potential for enjoying federal citizenship, which is referred to here, perhaps with a neologism, as koinopoliteia.

In literary sources, the term koinopoliteia is found solely in the writings of Theodore Metochites, a 14th-century Byzantine scholar (Semeioseis gnomikai 1.192 and 194; 22.2; 71.8; Byzantion vel Laus Constantinopolitana 35.46; 45.24), as meaning ‘state community’ (LBG s.v. κοινοπολιτεία).

• L. Boffo – M. Faraguna, Le poleis e i loro archivi. Studi su pratiche documentarie, istituzioni e società nell’antichità greca, Trieste 2021
• Ph. Gauthier, Symbola. Les étrangers et la justice dans les cités grecques, Nancy 1972
• S. Saba, Isopoliteia in Hellenistic Times, Leiden – Boston 2020

[L. Loddo]

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Lexiarchikon grammateion (ληξιαρχικὸν γραμματεῖον)

The lexiarchikon grammateion (sometimes also referred to as koinon grammateion: [Demosth.] 57.60 with Hondius 1922; Faraguna 1997, 16) is known to us from Classical sources as well as from the lexicographers. It consisted of the registers associated with each deme of Attica, containing the list of the demesmen belonging to it. In order to be enrolled, once a boy had reached the age of eighteen, he had to be brought by his father before the assembly of the demesmen (apparently in conjunction with the election of local magistrates: [Demosth.] 44.39–40; Isae. 7.27–28) and request registration ([Arst.] Ath. Pol. 42.1). Since no other means existed to certify chronological age, it was up to the demesmen themselves to determine empirically whether the youth had in fact reached the age of eighteen. Moreover, it was likewise the demesmen who had to establish whether the candidate was free and legitimately born ([Arst.] Ath. Pol. 42.1).

Once this scrutiny had been successfully completed, the individual was entered into the grammateion; the Council (Boule), however, was in turn required to examine those enrolled and to sanction the demesmen should it be found that a new enrollee was under eighteen years of age ([Arst.] Ath. Pol. 42.2). The same procedure was followed in the case of adoptions: the adopted son was required to register in the same deme lists as his adoptive father ([Demosth.] 44.35).

Through enrolment in the grammateion, an individual became a member of the civic community, but until the age of twenty he could exercise his political rights only in a limited fashion. For instance, he was not permitted to initiate lawsuits except those relating to inheritance matters ([Arst.] Ath. Pol. 42.5; a well-known example is that of Demosthenes, who brought a lawsuit against his guardians immediately after passing the scrutiny of the demesmen: Demosth. 30.15), nor, in all likelihood, was he allowed to participate in the assemblies, as may be inferred from Xenophon (Mem. 3.6.1). This circumstance would also help to account for the existence of a separate demotic register, the pinax ekklēsiastikos, which contained the names of those demesmen authorized to attend the assemblies and whose primary function was probably connected with the distribution of the assembly misthos instituted in the 390s ([Demosth.] 44.35 with Rhodes 1972, 173 n. 4; Whitehead 1986, 104).

The management and supervision of the registers were entrusted to the demarch, the highest authority at the deme level ([Demosth.] 57.60; Harpocr. s.v. δήμαρχος; schol. ad Aristoph. Nub. 37). From this fact two rather important implications follow. The first is that the lexiarchikon grammateion was an important official document of the deme, but not a public register in the sense of a record that was inscribed, freely accessible, or visibly displayed to the civic community as a whole. This suggests that, as a rule, the demesmen did not perceive an urgent need to mark their membership in the civic subunit in an exclusive manner vis-à-vis other groups (Osborne 1985, 73). Indeed, we are not aware of regular and systematic checks of the lists, but only of occasional revisions (late sixth century: [Arst.] Ath. Pol. 13.5; 445/4: Plut. Per. 37; schol. ad Aristoph. Vesp. 718; 346/5: Harpocr. s.v. διαψήφισις with Carusi – Fantasia 2004).

The second important implication concerns the role of the demarch as an administrative intermediary between the demes (periphery) and the polis (centre), since the lexiarchikon grammateion, while neither a centralized register nor one that was freely accessible, nevertheless played a fundamental role in the overall administration of the polis. From several sources it may be inferred that the lexiarchikon grammateion constituted a valuable source of information about the demesmen that the demarch supplied to the central administration, and that such information was of crucial importance, since it was from these registers that the personal and property data necessary for conscription, taxation, and the distribution of subsidies were derived (see Faraguna 1997, 14–21; Pébarthe 2013, 116–23; Pritchard 2019, 46–48).

This emerges with particular clarity from an inscription dated to the 440s, which also constitutes the earliest secure attestation of the lexiarchikon grammateion, given the problematic nature of another epigraphic source in which the term occurs, the so-called Decree of Troezen, whose dating to the age of Themistocles has long been and remains a matter of debate (see most recently Bearzot 2017). The inscription in question is IG I³ 138, which refers to the levying of a tax probably deducted from the misthos (the term is restored in the text) allocated to cavalrymen, hoplites, and archers (see Faraguna 2021, 160–161). The document indicates that the levy was to be carried out by the demarch on the basis of the lexiarchikon grammateion, while the toxarchos was responsible for collecting it from the archers (ll. 1–7).

On this basis, some scholars have inferred that the thētes, many of whom were in fact archers, were not registered in the lexiarchika grammateia (e.g. Toepffer 1895; Busolt – Swoboda 1920–1926, 966; Habicht 1961, 5–6; Vidal-Naquet 1968, 164–165 n. 16). There are, however, no compelling reasons to exclude the possibility that the thētes were registered in exactly the same manner as the members of the other three Solonian census classes. If the registers fulfilled an important function for military mobilization (see Hansen 1981, 24–29; 1986, 83–89; and more generally, against the hypothesis that conscription lists were drawn up on the basis of a central archive, Bugh 1988, 55; Christ 2001, 400–401; Crowley 2012, 29–30), it is reasonable to suppose that the demarch and the generals, who were responsible for compiling the conscription lists and assigning military roles, needed to have before them information concerning the property status of all demesmen (rightly so Pébarthe 2013, 117; on the inclusion of the thētes see also Meritt 1962, 25–26 n. 34; Jameson 1963, 400; 1980, 216–223; van Effenterre 1976, 9–13; Whitehead 1986, 35 n. 130; van Wees 2018, 140 n. 105).

If one accepts that the thētes were also recorded in the lexiarchika grammateia, it follows that the documentary ‘centralization’ of the data contained therein—through the publication of the names of new citizens on the ephebic lists located, at the time of the Athenaion Politeia, in front of the Old Bouleuterion near the statues of the ten Eponymous Heroes (Ath. Pol. 53.4)—prior to 335 concerned only the members of the first three census classes. This conclusion is the logical consequence of the assumption that, with the reform of the ephebeia in 335, the thētes too were required to undergo the two-year military training previously denied to them (thus e.g. Faraguna 1992, 276–277; on the complex relationship between thētes and the ephebeia see now Friend 2019, 23, 98–99, 103, 110 n. 66, 140 n. 17).

The property criterion—and thus the problem of the inclusion or exclusion of the thētes from the lexiarchika grammateia—is also closely connected with the question of the origin of the institution, on which hypotheses have been advanced since ancient lexicography on the basis of the etymology of the term. Some lexicographers linked the term to lēxis understood as an inheritable property share, deriving the adjective lexiarchikos from lēxeōs archein, to be interpreted as the faculty or right to dispose of one’s property (Harpocr. s.v. ληξιαρχικὰ γραμματεῖα; Phot. s.v. ληξιαρχικὰ γραμματεῖα = λ 275; schol. ad Aeschin. 1.18). It is easy to see how, if this reconstruction is accepted, the view that regards property as the discriminating criterion for inclusion in the lexiarchikon grammateion gains plausibility—although, if lēxis is understood here as an acquired right to dispose of property, nothing would prevent a previously propertyless thēs from inheriting assets in one way or another (for reasonable linguistic objections to this interpretation see van Effenterre 1976, 11–12).

Alternatively, lēxis has been interpreted with reference to the allotment of public offices, and thus to the ‘eligibility by lot’ of the new citizen for magistracies (Phot. s.v. ληξιαρχικὰ γραμματεῖα = λ 276; but for convincing linguistic objections see Toepffer 1895, 391–392). A third possible solution, first proposed by Toepffer (1895, 399–400) and later developed by van Effenterre (1976), is based on a different interpretation of lēxis drawing on the entry epōnymoi in the Etymologicum Magnum, which glosses the term as epōnymoi tōn lēxeōn, with a clear reference to what must have been age-classes. We would thus be dealing with the forty-two eponymous officials of the age-classes from eighteen to sixty mentioned in the Athenaion Politeia (53.4), which defined the temporal span of the active citizen.

If, moreover, the adjective lexiarchikos is appropriately derived from the noun lexiarchos attested by Pollux (8.104), referring to an otherwise unknown magistrate board composed of six lexiarchoi, assisted by thirty attendants and by archers, who in the Classical period were entrusted with supervising assembly meetings (see Tuci 2007), one might conclude that these lexiarchs were originally a body that in some way oversaw the lēxeis, that is, the age-classes into which the citizens were divided, on the basis of specific registers naturally kept by the lexiarchs themselves, whose primary function would have been to provide lists for military recruitment.

If, on the other hand, lēxeis are understood rather as social groups (as already suggested by van Effenterre 1976, 14), or more precisely as census classes, it is alternatively possible to hypothesize that the lexiarchs ensured that each class obtained what was due to it in terms of prerogatives and rights and fulfilled the duties assigned to it, which makes it plausible that their registers—the forerunners of the Classical lexiarchika grammateia—also contained information about citizens’ property status (see van Wees 2018, 140, who directly links the lēxeis to the Solonian census classes). Finally, given that the lexiarchs were six in number (like the thesmothetai), and that this number fits poorly with the number ten that underpinned the Cleisthenic reform, it is reasonable to suppose that their institution (and, by extension, that of the grammateia) must date back to well before the age of Cleisthenes and the centrality assumed by the demes as the basic units of his administrative and territorial reform (see van Effenterre 1976, 13–14; Faraguna 2021, 162–163).

• C. Bearzot, Il ‘decreto di Temistocle’, in C. Antonetti, S. De Vido, Iscrizioni greche. Un’antologia, Roma 2017, 250‑255, nr. 57.
• G.R. Bugh, The Horsemen of Athens, Princeton 1988.
• G. Busolt – H. Swoboda, Griechische Staatskunde, voll. 1–2, München 1920-1926.
• C. Carusi, U. Fantasia, Revisioni e controlli delle liste dei cittadini: la diapsephisis ateniese del 346/5 a.C. in S. Cataldi (ed.), Poleis e politeiai: esperienze politiche, tradizioni letterarie, progetti costituzionali, Alessandria 2004, 187-216.
• M.R. Christ, Conscription of Hoplites in Classical Athens, CQ 51, 2001, 398-422.
• J. Crowley, The Psychology of the Athenian Hoplite: The Culture of Combat in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2012.
• M. Faraguna, Atene nell’età di Alessandro: problemi politici, economici, finanziari, Memorie della classe di scienze morali e storiche dell’Accademia dei Lincei, s. 9 v. 2, 1992, 165–447.
• M. Faraguna, Registrazioni catastali nel mondo greco: il caso di Atene, Athenaeum 85, 1997, 7–33.
• M. Faraguna, Dall’età arcaica al IV secolo in L. Boffo – M. Faraguna, Le poleis e i loro archivi. Studi su pratiche documentarie, istituzioni e società nell’antichità greca, Trieste 2021, 61–367.
• J. L. Friend, The Athenian ephebeia in the Fourth Century BCE, Leiden –Boston 2019.
• C. Habicht, Falsche Urkunden zur Geschichte Athens im Zeitalter der Perserkriege, Hermes 89, 1961, 1-35.
• M.H. Hansen, The number of Athenian hoplites in 431 BC, SO 56, 1981, 19–32.
• M.H. Hansen, Demography and Democracy:  The Number of Athenian Citizens in the Fourth Century B.C.,Herning 1986.
• J.J.E. Hondius, Quid sit τὸ κοινὸν γραμματεῖον, Μnemosyne 50, 1922, 87-90.
• M.H. Jameson, The Provisions for Mobilisation in the Decree of Themistocles, Historia 12, 1963, 385-404.
• M.H. Jameson, Apollo Lykeios in Athens, Archaionosia 1, 1980, 213-235.
• R.G. Osborne, Demos. The discovery of Classical Attika, Cambridge 1985.
• C. Pébarthe, Cité, démocratie et écriture: histoire de l’alphabétisation d’Athènes à l’époque classique, Paris 2006.
• C. Pébarthe, Les archives de la cité de raison. Démocratie athénienne et pratiques documentaires à l’époque Classique in M. Faraguna (ed.), Archives and Archival Documents in Ancient Socities, Trieste 2013, 107–125.
• D. M. Pritchard, Athenian Democracy at War, Cambridge 2019.
• P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule, Oxford 1972.
• J. Toepffer, Das attische Gemeindebuch, Hermes 30, 1899, 391–400.
• P. Tuci, Polluce VIII 104 e i funzionari addetti al controllo della partecipazione assembleare, in C. Bearzot et alii (eds.), L’Onomasticon di Giulio Polluce. Tra lessicografia e antiquaria, Milano 2007, 103‑137.
• R. van Effenterre, Clisthène et les mesures de mobilsation, REG 89, 1976, 1–17.
• P. Vidal Naquet, Problèmes de la guerre, Paris 1968.
• H. van Wees, Citizens and Soldiers in Archaic Athens in A. Duplouy – R. Brock (eds.), Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece, Oxford 2018, 103–143.
• D. Whitehead, The demes of Attica, Princeton 1986.

[G. Falco]

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Metecho (μετέχω; Aeol. πεδέχω)

Related terms: meteinai (μετεῖναι), metadidonai (μεταδιδόναι), metalambanein (μεταλαμβάνειν), metousia (μετουσία), metochē (μετοχή).

The verb metechein (from meta, “with/among”, and echein, “to have”) fundamentally denotes the act of “having a share” in a divisible entity, whether concrete or abstract, rather than full ownership. Together with its cognates – the impersonal metesti (expressing a claim or right to a share), metadidonai (granting a share), and metalambanein (receiving a share) – it forms a semantic field rooted in the concept of distribution and partition (“to have a share in” – “to partake of” – “to participate in”). In most classical uses it governs the genitive (often with an explicit object), and it readily serves to articulate both status (belonging) and practice (taking part). The same semantic resources make it a natural vehicle for civic language: a polis, politeia, offices, courts, “common affairs” (ta koina), or “the affairs” (ta pragmata) can all be construed as shareable goods, burdens, or spheres of action.

The earliest attestations of μετέχειν in surviving literature show a wide, largely non-political spectrum. Lyric and early poetry apply the verb to sharing in sympotic contexts (e.g. Sapph. fr. 70.3 Voigt: πεδέχων συμποσίῳ), in fortunes and misfortunes (Thgn. 1.81; 351–359), or in socially marked dispositions and experiences (Pind. Pyth. 2.81ff.), while Attic drama uses it for shares in grief, land, fate, toils, plans, and other concrete or abstract “portions” (e.g. Aesch. Pers. 540, Ag. 507, Eum. 869; Soph. El. 1168, OT 1465). Cultic applications occur but are comparatively sparse and contextual in the early corpus (e.g. Hdt. 1.171; 2.178; cf. 2.81). Alongside μετέχειν, Greek regularly employs the cognate idiom μετεῖναι (impersonal μέτεστι(ν), often μέτεστί μοι τινος) to express “there is a share in X for Y”, i.e. a claim, right, or portion that belongs to someone, without necessarily implying enacted participation. In classical drama and prose the impersonal construction becomes a flexible way of articulating entitlement or membership (e.g. Soph. OT 630 κἀμοὶ πόλεως μέτεστιν; Eur. Hcld. 185–189, Thuc. 2.37.1). Allusions to legal and political contexts appear in comedy (Ar. Av. 1649–68, Lys. 651–2). Because this idiom can overlap with μετέχειν in civic contexts – especially where the object is πόλις/πολιτεία – they can be treated as a family of participation/entitlement vocabulary.

More clearly political colouring begins to surface in late fifth-century and early fourth-century texts, where “sharing” can be used for civic claims or loss of standing (e.g. Isoc. 20.20, 16.36–39) or political rule (Eur. fr. 912.8), and Thucydides’ Pericles makes “sharing in public matters” a marker of civic usefulness (Thuc. 2.40.2; cf. 2.37.1). The same idiom is used for political “shares” by Athenagoras in Sicily (Thuc. 6.39–40). Thucydides elsewhere applies the same lexis to the extension of full franchise to colonies (1.27.1, 28.2, 4.105.2), to equal military leadership among city-states in joint expeditions (5.47.7; cf. OR 165, l. 26), and to the giving or receiving of a share in benefits (8.21) and citizen rights (3.55.3: πολιτείας). These early uses underline that the later, quasi-technical civic collocations (πόλις, πολιτεία, ἀρχαί, τὰ πράγματα, etc.) represent a specialisation of an older and much broader idiom of “having a share” in Greek language (Baumert 2003; Filonik 2025).

A particularly pointed civic sense is “to have a share in the polis” (μετέχειν/μετεῖναι τῆς πόλεως), where the city is construed as a collective whole to which one either belongs or from which one is excluded. A classic formulation appears in the Solonian stasis-law as transmitted by the Athēnaiōn Politeia: the person who takes neither side in civil conflict is to be deprived of civic standing, “not sharing in the polis” ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 8.5). It marks a language of membership-as-share: civic inclusion is conceptualised as a portion in the common body, forfeitable under certain conditions. The same language is used in the paraphrases of Pericles’ citizenship law (Ath. Pol. 26.4, 42.1).

With πολιτεία as object, μετέχειν commonly foregrounds constitutional inclusion and political rights: “sharing in the politeia” can denote access to the regime’s entitlements and (implicitly or explicitly) to the institutional life that embodies them. This idiom becomes especially salient in the late fifth and fourth centuries – above all in Athens after 404/3 – where disputes over reintegration, exclusion, and the legitimate distribution of civic standing repeatedly invite “sharing” language (e.g. Lys. 34.2–3, 25.3; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 36–37). Isocrates similarly employs it to describe the proper distribution of political power, arguing that in a democracy, citizens should “share equally” in the constitution (Isoc. 16.39).  In such contexts, μετέχειν does not merely label a status: it lends itself to normative claims about the proper share – who deserves inclusion, who seeks more than an equal share, and who may justly be denied any share at all. This usage underscores that political “sharing” retained the distributive logic of its archaic origins: the polis was conceived as a common entity in which citizens held shares (Filonik 2023; 2025).

Offices and adjudication supply Aristotle’s canonical institutional formulation focused on participation: the citizen is (in one influential definition) the one who “shares in judgment and office” (Arist. Pol. 1275a22–23: μετέχειν κρίσεως καὶ ἀρχῆς). In Aristotle the verb becomes a key tool for analysing inclusion, exclusion, and distributive justice within constitutions. For Aristotle, the nature of this “share” defines the constitution itself: democracy is where the free and poor share in power; oligarchy is where the wealthy do (Fröhlich 2016 [2017]; Filonik 2025).

In democratic–oligarchic polemic, “sharing” can be tied to who holds office and who is barred from it, as in the Old Oligarch’s sketch of democratic principle and its opponents’ critique ([Xen.] Ath. pol. 1.2–3: τῶν ἀρχῶν μετεῖναι), or in fourth-century forensic and deliberative rhetoric that treats exclusion from “the common things” or “public affairs” (τὰ κοινά) as a hallmark of civic deprivation (Filonik 2023).

A particularly context-sensitive collocation is μετέχειν τῶν πραγμάτων, broadly “to have a share in the affairs (of state).” In stable conditions it may denote engagement in civic business; under crisis it can shade toward participation in factional action, plotting, or extra-legal agency – precisely because the phrase allows a speaker to indicate involvement while leaving its legitimacy to be inferred from the surrounding narrative. Thucydides already exploits this flexibility (e.g. Thuc. 4.74.2; 8.89.2 and related passages), and fourth-century oratory can intensify the effect by aligning “sharing in affairs” with responsibility or entitlement. An early instance where μετέχειν already shades toward “conspiratorial participation” is Hdt. 8.132, where οἱ μετέχοντες designates those implicated in a covert plan (“the participants” = “the accomplices”), anticipating later uses in which the participle can function as a compact label for politically involved actors (Filonik 2025).

Modern debate has asked how far civic metechein language should be anchored in institutional politics versus broader communal belonging. Blok has urged that Athenian citizenship is not adequately captured by an Aristotelian office-holding model, and has emphasised the importance of civic cult and “sharing in hiera and hosia” (the community’s sacred and sanctioned sphere), not least because such sharing can be articulated in ways that are not reducible to participation in male political institutions (Blok 2017).

A contrasting emphasis, developed in different ways in recent work, is that formulas like τῆς πόλεως μετέχειν/μετεῖναι (and much fourth-century political usage with πολιτεία, τὰ κοινά, offices, courts, τὰ πράγματα) are most naturally read through the lens of civic standing and rights, even if civic life is inseparable from religious practice (Joyce 2023 [2024]). While citizens certainly participated in religious rites, the specific locution metechein tōn hierōn is surprisingly rare in classical texts as a definition of citizenship compared to political formulations. Priesthoods and civic rites in such sources seem secondary to citizen status. The lexicographical point is not to deny “rites”, but to avoid letting cultic sharing override the semantic signals supplied by object, genre, and pragmatic setting – especially in legal – constitutional and institutional contexts (Faraguna 2025a; 2025b; Filonik 2025).

In inscriptions, a clearly participatory met– idiom is securely attested from the mid-fourth century onward. Later the civic collocations of μετέχειν/μετεῖναι become increasingly visible in documentary Greek, especially in citizenship grants and isopoliteia / sympoliteia arrangements, where “having a share” can be used to articulate (i) admission to the politeia, (ii) eligibility to participate in civic institutions, and (iii) limits on dual participation. Thus, a Hellenistic honorific decree can combine the grant of politeia with the right to “have a stake” in all the affairs in which the community itself has a share (e.g. SIG³ 426; early 3rd c.), while an isopoliteia treaty can formulate dual civic standing as permission “to have a share in the politeia in both cities” and penalise those “sharing in the politeia” contrary to the agreement (e.g. SIG³ 633 = I.Milet. 3.150; 2nd c.). Comparable formulae can even echo the institutional specification familiar from classical political theory, as in clauses allowing those who are active as citizens (πολιτεύονται) elsewhere to “share in offices and lawcourts” there (RO 93; late 4th c.). In Pergamum, the granting of citizenship is explicitly framed as metechein tēs politeias, and the registered genē are required to “have a share in the politeia” (OGIS 338, ll. 8–9; 133 BCE). In this epigraphic afterlife, μετέχειν and μετεῖναι function as a durable, easily extensible idiom for defining civic membership and participatory entitlements across the Hellenistic and later polis-world (Saba 2020; Müller 2023; Filonik 2023; 2025).

• Baumert, N. (2003), Koinōnein und metechein – synonym? Eine umfassende semantische Untersuchung, Stuttgart.
• Blok, J.H. (2017), Citizenship in Classical Athens, Cambridge, esp. 47–99.
• Faraguna, M. (2025a), “Aristotele, la polis, il cittadino: prospettive storiche e filosofiche”, in M. Canevaro – C. Zizza (eds.), Aristotele. La Politica. Guida, Roma 2025, 215–46.
• Faraguna, M. (2025b), “Citizenship in the Greek Polis: An Institutionalist Approach”, in M. Barbato – M. Canevaro – A. Esu (eds.), Rediscovering Greek Institutions: New Institutionalist Approaches to Greek History, Edinburgh 2025, 111–31.
• Filonik, J. (2023), “Sharing in the Polis: Conceptualizing Classical Greek Citizenship,” in J. Filonik – Ch. Plastow – R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds), Citizenship in Antiquity: Civic Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean, London – New York, 264–80.
• Filonik, J. (2025), “The Concept of Sharing in the Polis: Its Origins and Early Developments,” Erga-Logoi 13.2, 2025, 9–43.
• Fröhlich, P. (2016 [2017]), “La citoyenneté grecque entre Aristote et les modernes,” CCG 27, 2016 [2017], 91–136.
• Joyce, Ch.J. (2023 [2024]), “Civic Rights, Not Civic Rites: The Meaning of τῆς πόλεως μετέχειν/μετεῖναι and the Language of Participation in Democratic Athens,” Rivista di Diritto Ellenico 13, 2023 [2024], 1–44.
• Müller, C. (2023), The making of the citizen in Hellenistic poleis, in J. Filonik – Ch. Plastow – R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds), Citizenship in Antiquity: Civic Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean, London – New York, 487–501.
• Saba, S. (2020), Isopoliteia in Hellenistic Times, Leiden – Boston 2020.

[J. Filonik]

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Metoikion (μετοίκιον)

The metoikion (scil. telos) was a residence tax paid by metics in Athens (cf., e.g., Xen. Vect. 2.1; Demosth. 57.55; Schol. Aristoph. Pax296b; Harpocr., Phot., Suda s.v. μετοίκιον; Bekker, Anec. Gr. 1.298.27). It was a poll tax that amounted to twelve drachmas a year for men and six drachmas a year for women (Harpocr., Phot., Suda s.v. μετοίκιον). Regarding the metoikion payment by women, lexicographical sources specify that, “if a woman has a son who pays the tax, she is exempt from it; but if her son does not pay the tax, she must pay it” (τοῦ υἱοῦ τελοῦντος ἡ μήτηρ οὐκ ἐτέλει· μὴ τελοῦντος δ’ ἐκείνου αὐτὴ τελεῖ). It is therefore implied that those subject to the metoikion were unmarried women; these, however, were exempt from it in case they had an adult male child who acted as their guardian (kyrios) and paid the tax for them. It should be noted that all other taxes in Athens – e.g. taxes on commerce – were indirect; the only forms of direct taxation were either individual services, such as liturgies, or extraordinary levies, such as the eisphora. Even though the metoikion does not appear to have been particularly financially burdensome, imposing a direct and regular tax on metics was a powerful statement of their subordinate status. This tax set metics apart not only from Athenian citizens, who were not subject to any regular direct taxation, but also from non-resident foreigners, who by law were regarded simply as visitors. The metoikion was one of the distinctive features of metic status. It was added to other financial obligations to which metics were usually subject in Athens, such as liturgies and eisphorai (IG II² 141, ll. 30–36). Failure to pay the metoikion could result in enslavement (Demosth. 25.57; Diog. 4.14; Harpocr., Phot., Suda s.v. μετοίκιον). The date of introduction of the metoikion is not mentioned in the sources and therefore cannot be determined precisely. According to Whitehead (1977, 152–153), it may have been established during the Peloponnesian War. It is also not known for how long the tax remained in force. Its most recent attestation is in a decree from around 321/0 BCE granting some Thessalian exiles a series of privileges including exemption from the metoikion (IG II² 545, l. 12). The persistence of the tax at least until the first half of the third century BCE is indirectly attested by a few honorific decrees from this period which include the granting of isoteleia. Niku (2002, 51–54) speculates that the metoikion may have remained in force beyond this period and was eventually abolished in the second half of the second century BCE. With a total of eleven occurrences, epigraphic evidence for the metoikion is rather scarce and almost exclusively limited to the fourth century BCE (IG II² 61; 141; 245; 545; IG II³ 1 316; 470; 503; Agora XVI 51; Agora XIX P 26). Epigraphic evidence consists mostly of honorific decrees; an exception is Agora XIX P 26, an account of the poletai that records the selling off of a house belonging to one Meixidemos of the deme of Myrrhinous. Meixidemos stood surety for a number of individuals including one Philistides of the deme of Aixone, who under the archonship of Pythodotos (343/2) had contracted to raise the metoikion (ll. 470-471: μετασχόντα τέλους μετοικίου) but failed to produce the cash. The other exception, Agora XVI 51, records an agreement between Athens and a Cretan city (perhaps Kydonia) that comprises the granting of exemption from the metoikion to members of the Cretan community who resided in Athens, “under the same conditions as the citizens of Knossos” (ll. 11-12: μετο[ικίο δὲ ἀτέλειαν (τοῖς)]-[Κυδωνιάταις(?) δίδοσ]θαι καθάπερ Κνωσ[ίοις — —]). Fifth-century evidence includes two fragmentary decrees dating to 409/8 BCE and around that year, respectively, which probably conferred honours on some exiles (IG I³ 106 and 107). In both cases the term metoikion was restored, yet on entirely plausible grounds. The earliest certain occurrence of to metoikio in epigraphic sources is a fragmentary honorific decree for a Siceliot individual attributable to before 378/7 BCE (IG II² 61, ll. 8–12). A metoikion – presumably an analogous residence tax which Athenian sources refer to with this name – is attested for Oropos (Lys. 31.9), Megara (Demosth. 29.3) and Aegina (Demosth. 23.211). In Plato’s ideal city of Magnesia, metics would not have paid “even the smallest residence tax except good behaviour” (μετοίκιον μηδὲ σμικρὸν τελοῦντι πλὴν τοῦ σωφρονεῖν; Plat. Leg. 9.850B). It is thus plausible to assume that a tax imposed on foreign residents existed in other Greek cities in addition to Athens.

• F. Luppa, Die ansässigen Fremden im klassischen Athen, Stuttgart 2023, passim.
• E.A. Meyer, Metics and the Athenian Phialai-Inscriptions: A Study in Athenian Epigraphy and Law, Stuttgart 2010, passim (spec. 29–30).
• M. Niku, ‘Aspects of the Taxation of Foreign Residents in Hellenistic Athens’, Arctos 36 (2002), 80–85.
• S.C. Todd, The Shape of Athenian Law, Oxford 1993, 197–198.
• M. Valente, “L’imposta del metoikion ad Atene: uno strumento per il controllo dell’immigrazione?”, Historika 11 (2021), 95–114.
• D. Whitehead, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic, Cambridge 1977, 75–77 e passim.

[I. Bultrighini]

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Metoikos (μέτοικος)

The term generically indicates a foreigner, an immigrant. Etymologically, metoikos seems to refer to someone who “moved oikos” (meta with the accusative) – an immigrant who left his home and moved to a new city. According to another interpretation, a metoikos is someone who “lives with” (meta with the genitive) the members of the civic body where he settled. Some lexicographical and scholiastic sources use metoikos as a generic term referring to servile populations who lived in the territory of a civic community (Paus.Gr., Phot., Suid. s.v. Κλαρόται: μέτοικοι, ὡς Μαριανδυνοὶ ἐν Ἡρακλείᾳ τῇ Ποντικῇ καὶ Εἵλωτες ἐν Λακεδαίμονι καὶ ἐν Θετταλίᾳ Πενέσται καὶ Καλλικύριοι ἐν Συρακούσαις). In most cases, however, a metic is defined as a foreigner who has taken up residence in a city, with reference mainly to Athens, which is the context we are best informed about (Ar.Byz. fr. 38 Nauck; Harp., Phot., Suid. s.v. μετοίκιον; Ammon. s.v. ἰσοτελὴς καὶ μέτοικος; Schol. Pl. Leg. 8.850, etc.). According to these sources, a metic differs from a simple visitor (parepidemos) by the longer duration of his stay, by having established his residence in the city, and by the payment of the metoikion, a poll tax paid by resident foreigners. The status of metoikos is defined as superior to the status of xenos but inferior to that of polites (Ptol. ἰσοτελὴς καὶ μέτοικος. Cf. Eust. Comm. Hom. Il. 10.59). According to Aristotle, whilst metics share their place of residence with citizens, they do not participate in courts and magistracies (κρίσεως καὶ άρχῆς) (Arst. Pol. 1275a 5-23). In addition to not being eligible to hold archai (Demosth. 57.48), metics were required to pay the metoikion and other contributions (eisphora: Isoc. 17.41; IG II² 141), had the obligation to perform liturgies (Demosth. 20.18; Lys. 12.20-21; Schol. Ar. Pl. 593), needed to have an Athenian citizen as their patron (Isoc. 8.53; Arst. Pol. 1275a 7-14; Harp. s.v. προστάτης), had to serve in the army (Th. 2.13.7; 2.31.1-2; Xenoph. Vect. 2.2-4), could not own real estate (Arst. Oec. 1347a; Xenoph. Vect. 2,6; Poll. 7. 15) nor take possession of properties pledged as security for a loan (Demosth. 36.6), and they were only allowed to participate in a very limited way in public rituals and sacrifices (e.g. IG I³ 82; 244). Certain laws applied exclusively to metics (Hyp. Ath. 29, 33; [Arst.] Ath. 57.3). According to some sources, metics did not enjoy full freedom of speech (Men. fr. 191 K; Zen. Paroem. 5.93; Plu. Prov. 12). However, the anonymous author of the Constitution of the Athenians, who opposes the democratic regime, points out that the city granted metics full freedom of expression before citizens, due to the indispensable role that metics played in the economy and in the navy ([Xenoph.] Ath. Pol. 1.12). Likewise, although some evidence seems to indicate that metics in general did not enjoy a good reputation (e.g., [Xenoph.] Ath. Pol. 1.10; Lys. 22.5; Aesch. 1.195; Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 418; Sch. Il. 16.59; Luc. 24.27; Eust. Comm. Hom. Il. 9.648), there is no doubt that some of them –such as the Syracusan Cephalus, father of the orator Lysias– moved in the most elite circles of Athenian society (Lys. 12.4; Pl. R. 328b). Xenophon’s Poroi, too, reflects the view that the presence of metics constituted an indispensable source of income for the city and as such it had to be encouraged and valued (Vect. 2). Metics could be granted various privileges, including isoteleia. The term metoikos appears for the first time in the form metaoikos around 500 BCE in the funerary epigram of Anaxilas of Naxos found at Ceramicus, where it has the generic meaning of “immigrant”, who is being praised for his wisdom (sophrosyne) and his virtue (arete) (IG I³ 1357, l. 3. Contra Ginestí Rosell 2012, 240, who believes that the term metaoikos should be interpreted as metic in the technical sense). The earliest epigraphic attestation of the status of metic –i.e. a free foreigner who resides permanently in Athens– is probably found in an inscription dating from 475-450 BCE and containing sacrificial regulations of the urban deme Skambonidai (IG I³ 244, C l. 8). The metoikoi who are assigned sacrificial portions here appear to be foreign residents, even though the social and legal status of this group of immigrants cannot be determined. Beyond Athens, the term occurs in the form μεταϝοικέοι in a treaty between Chaleion and Oiantheia (Opuntian Locris), which can be dated approximately between 475 and 450 BCE (IG IX 1² 3, 717, l. 6). The text includes the provision that citizens of one of the two communities who emigrate (μεταϝοικέοι) to the other and stay there for longer than a month will be subject to the judicial system of the host city. As in the case of the metoikoi of Skambonidai, it is plausible to identify the μεταϝοικέοι of Chaleion and Oiantheia with resident foreigners rather than with generic “immigrants” (cf. Cataldi 1983, 65). In The Suppliants, at the end of the 60s of the fifth century, Aeschylus may have alluded to the status of metic (vv. 609-614). From the last quarter of the fifth century onwards, the term metoikos appears with increasing frequency in epigraphic and literary sources, mostly with the meaning of “metic”. Literary sources refer predominantly to the Athenian context and range across different genres, from tragedy to comedy, to historiography, with a particular frequency of attestations in oratory (e.g., Lys. 31.28-29; And. 1.15, 144; Aeschin. 1.195; Demosth. 24.166, 35.51). The most recent mention of metics in literary sources is by Athenaeus (6.272c) in dealing with the census carried out by Demetrius of Phaleron in the 10s of the fourth century. Epigraphic occurrences, from various areas of the Greek world, date between the fifth century BCE and the second/third century CE. As mentioned, the earliest attestations originate from Athens and in one case from Locris. As far as Athens is concerned, in addition to the inscriptions referred to above it is worth mentioning a decree from 421/0 BCE concerning the celebrations in honour of Hephaestus, where metics are remembered as recipients of sacrificial allocations (IG I³ 82, l. 23). Yet another significant inscription from Athens is an account of the poletai that records the sale of property confiscated from those individuals who were condemned for mutilating the Herms and profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries in 415 BCE, which reports the sale of at least sixteen slaves belonging to the metoikos Kephisodoros, ἐμ Περα[ιεῖ οἰκο͂ντος] (IG I³ 421, col. 1 l. 33). The formula composed of proper name, οἰκῶν ἐν, and name of the deme of residence, is used in official Athenian documents to identify metics (e.g., IG I³ 475, ll. 101-102; Agora XIX L6, ll. 6-7; Agora XIX P26, l. 478; I.Eleusis 177, l. 56). This way, metics are distinguished from citizens, who are identified by their demotic. Beyond Athens, the largest number of epigraphic attestations of the term metoikos are found on Delos, on Rhodes, and at various locations in Asia Minor, with a concentration of occurrences in the Hellenistic period (e.g., IG XI 2 106-116; ASAA 8-9 (1925-26) 322, no. 5; 17-18 (1939-40) 156, no. 18; I.Kaunos 38; AJP 1935, 359-372, no. I, 377-79, no. III; SEG XXXIX 1244). Among the earliest examples is a document detailing the perquisites of the priest of Zeus Megistos at Iasos, which has been dated on paleographical grounds to ca. 425-375 BCE. The text mentions sacrifices performed by citizens (astoi) as well as by metics (metoikoi) and foreigners (xenoi) (CGRN 42). A list of contributions from Rhodes from the late second century BCE records the names of over twenty women, both citizens and foreigners. The onomastic formula of foreigners includes the ethnic and the mention of metoikos status for those who had gained the right to settle on Rhodes (SEG XLIII 526). In addition to metoikos, other terms are attested, such as epoikos, pedoikos, and synoikos, which indicate the condition of individuals of free status who had moved from their homeland and resided permanently in another polis, where they did not enjoy citizen status (see Whitehead 1977, 4-5).

• M. Adak, Metöken als Wohltäter Athens. Untersuchungen zum sozialen Austausch zwischen ortsanssässigen Fremden und der Bürgergemeinde in klassischer und hellenistischer Zeit (ca. 500-150 v. Chr.), München 2003
• J. Blok, Citizenship in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2017, 265–275
• S. Cataldi, «Symbolai» e relazioni tra le città greche nel V secolo a.C., Pisa 1983
• M. Clerc, Les métèques athéniens: étude sur la condition légale, la situation morale et le rôle social et économique des étrangers domiciliés à Athènes, Paris 1893
• Ph. Gauthier, Symbola: les étrangers et la justice dans les cités grecques, Nancy 1972, cap. 3
• A. Ginestí Rosell, Epigrafia funerària d’estrangers a Atenes (segles VI-IV aC), Tarragona 2012
• R. Guicharrousse, Athènes en partage: les étrangers au sein de la cité (Ve-IIIe siècle avant notre ère), Paris 2022
• F. Luppa, Die ansässigen Fremden im klassischen Athen, Stuttgart 2023
• M. Niku, The Official Status of the Foreign Residents in Athens, 322-120 B.C., Helsinki 2007
• D. Whitehead, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic, Cambridge 1977
• D. Whitehead, ‘Immigrant communities in the classical polis: some principles for a synoptic treatment’, L’Antiquité Classique 53 (1984), 47-59

[I. Bultrighini]

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Nautodikai (ναυτοδίκαι)

The Athenian office of the nautodikai is mentioned in fragmentary sources (IG I³ 41, ll. 76–77; Cratin. fr. 251 K-A; Aristoph. fr. 237 K-A; Crater. FGrHist 342 F4a) as well as in ancient lexica (Harpocr. s.v. ναυτοδίκαι; Poll. 8.126). The earliest attestations date to the 440s BC, and the nautodikai appear initially to have been involved in cases concerning the verification of citizenship status (graphai xenias), at least until the final decades of the fifth century BC.

The office was likely established in response to the increasing number of fraudulent attempts to obtain Athenian citizenship after the restrictions introduced by Pericles’ citizenship law of 451/0 BC, which limited citizenship to those born of two Athenian parents. The sources emphasize the short interval between summons and hearing, which took place on the last day of the month. This may explain why the nautodikai were often forced to dismiss cases without referring them to the appropriate court, thereby earning the derogatory nickname hybristodikai (“insolent judges”), and rendering their role essentially ineffective (Erdas 2021).

By the early fourth century BC, the function of the nautodikai appears to have changed. In Lysias’ On the Property of Eraton (Lys. 17.5), they are found acting as judges in cases involving emporoi (merchants; cf. Cohen 1973, pp. 158–198; Maffi 2016). This judicial role, confirmed by lexicographical sources (Harpocr. ad loc.; Suda ν86 s.v. Ναυτοδίκαι), may have been assigned to the nautodikai because many merchants were foreigners. The structural incapacity to deliver swift justice in cases involving emporoi was likely a key factor in the office’s abolition, which had ceased to exist by the mid-fourth century BC.

• E. Cohen, Ancient Athenian Maritime Courts, Princeton NJ 1973
• D. Erdas, I nautodikai. Note su una magistratura ateniese tra cause di xenia e giurisdizione sugli emporoi, Dike 24, 2021, 33-62
• A. Maffi, Riflessioni su dikai emporikai e prestito marittimo, in D. Leão, G. Thür (eds.), Symposion 2015. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Coimbra, 1‒4. September 2015), Wien 2016, 199-208

[D. Erdas]

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Νοthos (νόθος)

The Greek term nothos/nothe denotes the person of illegitimate birth, either because of birth outside of a lawful wedlock or because of the lack of other requirements necessary for legitimacy. These prerequisites may vary according to different social contexts: in Athens, for example, a distinction must be made between the status of nothos ex xenes and nothos ex astês. The nothos ex xenes was the child of a foreign parent (patroxenos/metroxenos) and therefore, after Pericles’ citizenship law of 451/0, which restricted citizenship to children of parents who were both Athenians, no longer legitimizable and consequently ineligible for citizenship rights (whereas in the past illustrious Athenians such as Themistocles and Cimon, given the habit of Athenian aristocrats of contracting marriages with women of great foreign lineages, had been metroxenos, sons of non-Athenian mothers). The nothos ex astês, on the other hand, was such because he was born out of legitimate wedlock, but was still the son of a citizen: the situation of those in this category is difficult to pin down

The nothoi were undoubtedly of free status, but in an inferior situation with respect to the enjoyment of citizenship rights. Those who were nothoi because patroxenoi or metroxenoi tended to maintain residence in Athens, where there was a gymnasium reserved for them, the Cynosarges, dedicated to the nothos Heracles. All the more so were those who were nothoi to remain in Athens because, for various reasons, they had not been legitimized by their father (for example, because they were born of irregular relationships), although they were the children of free Athenian women and therefore in good standing under the law of citizenship: there is very little evidence about them.

Although the positions of critics are divided in this regard, it is not ruled out that nothoi ex astês were legitimizable, at least under certain conditions: first of all, that of not prejudicing the expectations of legitimate heirs, defined by a law of Solon (Dem. 43, 51; cf. Aristoph. Av. 1651 ff.); however, since the law did not provide for the right to inheritance for nohoi, cases, must have been rather rare because of the difficulty of obtaining the heirs’ consent.

In any case, the position of a nothos is that of a metaxy, of one who “stands in between”: he is neither citizen nor foreigner. The nothoi do not have access to full citizenship, but neither can they be considered tout court foreigners or metics, as has also been assumed, being at least partially Athenian or even fully Athenian: so much so that, in emergency situations, the nothoi can be made accessible again to full citizenship status, as happened during the Peloponnesian War, with the suspension of Pericles’ law. They are thus “potential” citizens, as can be inferred from Aristotle, who states that in some democracies not only legitimate children or gnêsioi, but also nothoi are citizens (Politics III, 1278 a 26 ff.; VI, 1319 b 6 ff. ) and appears with this “well aware of the peculiar position of those who, although excluded from political activity, are nonetheless not assimilated to foreigners because they can in theory be admitted among the politai in the event of a broadening of the criteria for access to the polity” (Gallo 2004, 225). In many non-Athenian contexts it appears from the epigraphic record that the nothoi, though inferior to citizens, are placed in an intermediate position between citizens and foreigners.

It is significant that the nothoi would have access, as has been said, to a gymnasium reserved for them, the Cynosarges, where they were subjected to an evaluation (krisis) and perhaps “registered”; it is possible that access to the Cynosarges procured them some forms of integration, on a religious level but also, probably, on a civil and military level. Since the gymnasium is an institution intended for the military training of free young men, access to the Cynosarges could in fact indicate the inclusion of the paides nothoi in a specific social “class” and their military destination; evaluation and census replaced the inclusion in the lists of the demes, to which the nothoi had no right, and made available to the city the data relating to an integrative military potential. The nothoi were thus guaranteed a sort of inclusion in the community and those limited rights that perhaps belonged to them; but it also allowed the city the necessary control over the residents and the different legal situations that characterized them.

The nothoi, in short, constitute an intermediate category that leads one to believe that the rigid opposition between citizens and non-citizens does not account for the complex nature of Athenian society. Nothoi (patroxenoi and metroxenoi), nothoi ex astes, xenoi, metics, apeleutheroi contribute to constituting, alongside the politai, a complex social reality, within which the different statuses had to be distinguished with greater accuracy than is usually done. It is no coincidence that Athens kept, alongside the registers of citizens drawn up in the demes and phratries (which were also subject to periodic diapsephismoi), a list of those entitled to access the assembly (the pinax ekklesiastikos) that did not have to coincide with the demotic lexiarchikon grammateion; it kept, in the demotic sphere, lists of metics drawn up on the basis of residence; it probably registered, through the inclusion in the Cynosarges, the nothoi patroxenoi and metroxenoi.

• M. Bertazzoli, I nothoi e la polis: il ruolo del Cinosarge, RIL 137 (2003), 211-232
• M. Bertazzoli, Giuste nozze e filiazione legittima da Dracone agli oratori, Mediterraneo Antico 8 (2005), 641-686
• L. Gagliardi, Per un’interpretazione della legge di Solone in materia successoria, Dike 5 (2002), 5-59
• L. Gallo, I cittadini “passivi” nelle poleis greche, in Poleis e politeiai. Esperienze politiche, tradizioni letterarie, progetti costituzionali (Atti del Convegno, Torino 29-31 maggio 2002), Alessandria 2004, 217-227
• C. Joyce, Citizen nothoi? The cases of Phile (Isaeus 3) and the two ‘Mantitheuses’ (Dem. 39 and [Dem.] 40), Dike 28 (2025), cds.
• S.C. Humphreys, The Nothoi of Kynosarges, JHS 94 (1974), 88-95
• D. Ogden, Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Period, Oxford 1994
• V. Saldutti, Temistocle e i nothoi del Cinosarge. Il ginnasio tra integrazione ed esclusione, in Essere sempre il migliore. Concorsi e gare nella Napoli antica, Napoli 2022, 321-336

[C. Bearzot]

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Parepidemeo/parepidemia/parepidemos (παρεπιδημέω/παρεπιδημία/παρεπίδημος)

Neither the verb nor the corresponding nouns are attested in sources from the Classical period. The earliest secure occurrences of these terms date to around the second half of the third century BC, and are found in epigraphic documents from Calymna (IG XII.4 5 3987, ll. 3–4: πα[ρεπ]ιδαμεύντων), Pharos (SEG 41.545 fr. B, l. 9: παρεπιδημ[ῶσι]), Histria (SEG 51.934, ll. 18–19: παρε[πιδημίαν]), and, in literary sources, in Callixenus of Rhodes (FGrHist 627 F 2 = Ath. Deipn. 5.25: παρεπιδήμων) and the comic poet Machon (frr. 15 Gow v. 232; 17 Gow v. 333: παρεπιδημήσας). The only explicit definition available is provided by Aristophanes of Byzantium (fr. 98 Nauck), who distinguishes the παρεπίδημος from the μέτοικος: any foreigner would be regarded as a παρεπίδημος within one month of arrival, after which he would be considered a μέτοικος and thus liable for payment of the μετοίκιον. The difference between the two terms—and thus between the two statuses—was determined solely by the length of the stay and the liability to taxation, regardless of whether the foreigner in question intended to reside in the city. This conclusion, upheld among others by Whitehead (1977, 8–11), is reinforced, at least with respect to Classical Athens, by IG II² 141—a decree recently dated with a high degree of plausibility to 388/7 or shortly thereafter, on the basis of the lapicide’s hand and several formulaic details (AIUK 11, 2.2, 13–14). One of its additional clauses, proposed by a certain Menexenos, stipulated that Sidonians visiting Athens for business should be exempt from the μετοίκιον (ll. 29–36). This shows that the μετοίκιον was not levied exclusively on resident foreigners, but also on those who came to Athens for commercial purposes and remained there longer than the period fixed by law to mark the boundary between a simple ξένος and a μέτοικος.

In several literary sources, the participle παρεπιδημῶν occurs attributively with ξένος (Mach. frr. 15, 17 Gow; Diod. 4.27.3; Ath. Deipn. 10.52; 13.44). Alternatively—both in literary and epigraphic sources—the substantivized participle appears alongside the partitive genitive τῶν ξένων (Plut. Tim. 38.2), in which case it denotes a category juxtaposed, in epigraphic evidence, on the one hand to πολῖται, and on the other to other groups of non-citizen residents. These may be generically referred to as οἱ ἄλλοι τῶν κατοικούντων τὴν πόλιν (OGIS 339, ll. 29–30) or οἱ οἰκοῦντες (IG XII.7 389, ll. 14–15), or enumerated individually: μέτοικοι, πάροικοι, κάτοικοι, and ἀπελεύθεροι (cf. IG XII.7 515, ll. 72–73; IG XII.5 1 721, ll. 19–20; IK Priene 69, ll. 43–44; SEG 39.1243). Assigning precise and constant meanings to these terms is not always straightforward, as their usage appears to be determined by specific chronological and geographical contexts (Papazoglou 1997, 174–177 and passim). It is nevertheless important to stress that these sources do not present a strict dichotomy between παρεπιδημοῦντες and resident foreigners, as presupposed in Aristophanes of Byzantium’s definition (πάροικοι, for instance, especially in the Hellenistic Asia Minor context, do not necessarily denote foreigners; see s.v. πάροικος). The more accurate contrast appears to be between settled/resident categories (citizens and non-citizens alike) and foreigners in transit.

In some sources, moreover, παρεπιδημοῦντες are juxtaposed—and thus implicitly opposed—solely to πολῖται (IG XII.5 818, ll. 10–12; IG XII.5 864, ll. 12–13; IG XII.5 865, ll. 20–21; IG XII.9 236, ll. 40–41). Since it is inconceivable that resident foreigners could be included among πολῖται in such a contrast, the expression ξένοι παρεπιδημοῦντες in all likelihood encompassed them as well—a point corroborated by Poll. 3.55, where παρεπιδημῶν occurs as a synonym for μέτοικος, and in Roman-period contexts (Plb. 30.4.10; 32.6.4–6; Diod. 1.4.3), where παρεπιδημῶν denotes the status of a resident foreigner. Further clarification is provided by IG XII.7 22, ll. 10–11, where the citizens of Arkesine, designated by their ethnicon, are opposed to ξένοι οἱ ἐνδημοῦντες, seemingly a category encompassing both resident and transient foreigners (Papazoglou 1997, 226–227; for semantic equivalence of ἐνδημία and παρεπιδημία, see IG XII Suppl. 200, ll. 9, 11). This aligns with the idea that even the stay of resident foreigners was, in principle, conceived as temporary and that they too might one day return to their homeland (Luppa 2023, 172–181). In other words, metoikia was by no means thought to preclude an esprit de retour. That the notion of transience was inherent in παρεπιδημία is further confirmed by the metaphorical use in the pseudo-Platonic Axiochus ([Pl.] Ax. 365b: παρεπιδημία τίς ἐστιν ὁ βίος, “life is but a temporary sojourn”).

A narrower use of παρεπιδημέω / παρεπιδημία / παρεπίδημος thus served to distinguish the “unregistered” and non-resident foreigner from the registered and/or resident foreigner, as well as from resident non-citizens of indigenous origin; while a broader use referred to the stay of a non-native in a city other than their own, without distinctions as to duration or fiscal-administrative status. Even the element of duration, however, is not necessarily decisive in determining the application of these terms: there are numerous instances in which παρεπιδημέω is accompanied by temporal qualifiers indicating a relatively long stay (IG IX.2 11, ll. 19–20: χρόνον καὶ πλείονα; IG XI.4 789, ll. 6–7: πλείω χρόνον; IG XI.4 790, ll. 3–4: πλείω χρόνον; Syll.³ 707: ἔτη πλείω; Plb. 4.4.2: πάλαι). In all such cases, however, the stays are connected to diplomatic or military missions, or to specific professional services requested by the host city—all situations in which lengthening of the stay was often inevitable. Indeed, the verb παρεπιδημέω and the noun παρεπιδημία frequently refer to the stay of ambassadors (Plb. 28.19.2; Diod. 32.15.3; SEG 23.489 b1, l. 9), foreign judges (IK Priene 119, l. 15; IG VII 21, l. 7; IG XII Suppl. 139, ll. 74–75), theōroi (IK Priene 72, ll. 14–15; SEG 39.1243, ll. 38–40), artists (Diod. 5.5.1), physicians (IG IX.2 11, ll. 19–20; IG V.1 1145, l. 21; IG IX.12 3 370, l. 18), and garrisons (OGIS 139, ll. 4–5). In these instances, the difference between resident foreigners and παρεπιδημοῦντες is clear: the former were those who, of their own volition and initiative, stayed in a city for a given period or relocated there permanently for business or professional purposes, without being summoned by the host city or performing an official mission on behalf of their home city or a third party (Gauthier 1988, 37; Niku 2007, 153–174; Coskun 2014, 104).

A particular usage of παρεπιδημέω is found in Delian inscriptions from the period after 167, when the island reverted to Athenian control. In these texts, the verb is employed quite consistently to denote sojourn without residence (as opposed to κατοικέω, which indicates permanent settlement on the island), regardless of the legal status of the individuals or groups in question. Accordingly, Athenians—who, as citizens of the metropolis, also enjoyed citizenship rights on the island—could be counted among both the κατοικοῦντες and the παρεπιδημοῦντες, exactly as Romans and other ξένοι (cf. ID 1508, l. 6; ID 1645, l. 3; ID 1646, l. 4). In the context of Athenian-controlled Delos, therefore, παρεπιδημοῦντες do not constitute a category necessarily opposed to πολῖται, as elsewhere, but rather one that could also overlap with citizenship.

• A. Coşkun, Griechische Polis und Römisches Reich: Die politische und rechtliche Stellung Fremder in der Antike in A. Coşkun, L. Raphael (Hgg.), Fremd und rechtlos? Zugehörigkeitsrechte Fremder von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Ein Handbuch, Köln-Weimar-Wien 2014, 85-120
• Ph. Gauthier, Métèques, perièques et paroikoi: bilan et points d’interrogation in R. Lonis (éd.), L’étranger dans le monde grec. Actes du colloque organisé par l’Institut d’Études Anciennes (Nancy, may 1987), Nancy 1988, 23-46
• J. Hatzfeld, Les Italiens résidant à Délos, BCH 36, 1912, 1-208.
• J. Hatzfeld, Les trafiquants italiens dans l’Orient hellénique, Paris 1919.
• F. Luppa, Die ansässigen Fremden im klassischen Athen, Stuttgart 2023.
• C. Müller, Les Athéniens, les Romains et les autres Grecs»: groupes et phénomènes de recomposition sociale dans la “colonie” athénienne de Délos après 167 av. J.-C. in A.D. Rizakis, F. Camia, S. Zoumbaki (eds.), Social Dynamics under Roman Rule Mobility and Status Change in the Provinces of Achaia and Macedonia Proceedings of a Conference Held at the French School of Athens, 30-31 May 2014, Athens 2017, 85-118
• M. Niku, The Official Status of the Foreign Residents in Athens, 322-120 B.C., Helsinki 2007
• F. Papazoglou, Laoi et paroikoi. Recherches sur les structures de la société hellénistique, Beograd 1997.
• N. K. Rauh, The Sacred Bonds of Commerce. Religion, Economy and Trade Society at Hellenistic Roman  Delos. 167-87 BC, Amsterdam 1993.
• P. Roussel, Délos, colonie athénienne, Paris 1916.
• D. Whitehead, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic, Cambridge 1977.

[G. Falco]

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Paroikeo/paroikos (παροικέω/πάροικος)

The term πάροικος takes on different meanings depending on the chronological and geographical context in which it is used, as well as the type of source in which it occurs. In literary sources, it generally carries a non-technical, generic sense, referring to a condition of proximity or “dwelling beside” (Soph. Ant. 1155; Men. Dysc. 445; Str. 1.2.24; Paus. 5.14.8; Poll. 6.113; 9.37). In epigraphic sources, by contrast, it is more often employed with various technical-legal meanings to denote distinct civic categories. For a long time, scholarship regarded πάροικος as the Hellenistic–Roman equivalent of μέτοικος (for an excellent bibliographical survey, see Papazoglou 1997, 144–155). A smaller but persuasive body of scholarship has shown that the term began to acquire a technical-legal value in the cities of the Asia Minor littoral from the early third century onwards, designating indigenous populations (ἔθνη) inhabiting parcels of βασιλικὴ χώρα annexed to the chōra of the poleis. These individuals were granted civil rights but not political rights (Svenstiskaja 1959, 146–153; Gauthier 1988, 23–46; Papazoglou 1997, 235–248; Bertrand 2005).

This is, in all likelihood, the sense of the term in a number of documents where it appears alongside other categories of non-citizens that already seem to convey the meaning of resident foreigners (cf. e.g. OGIS 338, ll. 10–20, where the “metics” are in all probability οἱ κατοικοῦντες; IK Priene 69, ll. 38–39, 42–43, where πάροικοι are clearly distinguished from κάτοικοι, who may well be resident foreigners). Moreover, when πάροικοι are mentioned as a homogeneous group possessing some degree of collective decision-making capacity, the term cannot possibly denote resident foreigners, who, as a rule, could not form such a corporate body (cf. Annuario 1921–1922 no. 33, ll. 8–13).

That said, in a number of documents where no category appears that can plausibly be identified as resident foreigners, it is difficult to determine whether πάροικος is used as a synonym for “metic” or solely in the sense of an indigenous non-citizen resident (Syll.³ 742 II, ll. 22–26; IG XII.4 1 175, ll. 7–12; SEG 32.1243, ll. 16–18, 36–38, 42–45). In these cases, it is unclear whether the category of ξένοι encompassed resident foreigners or only transients. Conversely, when the term occurs alongside πολῖται alone (IG XII.1 1033, ll. 8–11) or alongside πολῖται and ξένοι παρεπιδημοῦντες, it seems beyond doubt that it also encompassed resident foreigners (IG XII.5 1 721, ll. 16–19, 25–27; IG XII.7 515, ll. 55–57, 71–74).

If we accept that the specific sense of πάροικος as “indigenous non-citizen dwelling in the rural territories of the polis” developed in Asia Minor—whose cities, such as Ephesos or Priene, possessed extensive chōrai—it becomes understandable that the term was exported to other Greek poleis lacking the same geomorphological and administrative configuration, where it came to designate resident foreigners on the basis of their exclusion from the civic body, a condition common to both categories. This is, without doubt, the meaning the term assumes in documents from Macedonia and mainland Greece (IG VII 1862, ll. 1–3; IG VII 190, ll. 15–16; IG VII 2712, ll. 27–28; Hatzopoulos – Leukopoulou 1992–1996 I, no. A2), as well as—according to Gagliardi 2017, 391–397—in some inscriptions from the Aegean islands, even if in these latter contexts the meaning cannot be established with certainty (cf. e.g. Syll.³ 398, ll. 34–38 with Papazoglou 1997, 184–185; SEG 33.675, ll. 5–7 with Papazoglou 1997, 186). Gagliardi proposes to understand here the participles οἱ ἐνδαμεῦντες / οἱ ἐπιδαμεῦντες, mentioned alongside πολῖται and πάροικοι, as referring exclusively to transients.

The term acquires a distinct meaning in Attic inscriptions from the late third century. These are documents from Rhamnous issued by what must have been the community formed by former Macedonian soldiers belonging to the garrison stationed in Athens by Antigonos Gonatas prior to 229. These veterans were designated as πάροικοι. The ad hoc term was likely adopted to distinguish them from metics (even though the term μέτοικος disappears from Attic sources after the late fourth century) and to avoid repeating the politically charged designation ἰσοτελεῖς, which would have recalled to Athenians the period of Macedonian occupation (cf. SEG 15.1958, 113, ll. 1–2; Pouilloux 1954 no. 19; Petrakos 1999 no. 43). The term πάροικος would have seemed particularly apt for these veterans, as they, too, represented a homogeneous community of non-citizens settled in an area distant from the urban centre—precisely like the πάροικοι of the Asia Minor coastal cities.

• J.M. Bertrand, “À propos des πάροικοι dans les cités d’Asie Mineure”, in P. Fröhlich, C. Müller (éds.), Citoyenneté et participation à la basse époque hellénistique, Genève 2005, 39-49.
• L. Gagliardi, I πάροικοι di Grecia e Macedonia in età ellenistica e nella prima età romana in A.D. Rizakis, F. Camia, S. Zoumbaki (eds.), Social Dynamics under Roman Rule Mobility and Status Change in the Provinces of Achaia and Macedonia Proceedings of a Conference Held at the French School of Athens, 30-31 May 2014, Athens 2017, 389-406
• Ph. Gauthier, Métèques, perièques et paroikoi: bilan et points d’interrogation in R. Lonis (éd.), L’étranger dans le monde grec. Actes du colloque organisé par l’Institut d’Études Anciennes (Nancy, may 1987), Nancy 1988, 23-46
• M. B. Hatzopoulos, L.D. Loukopoulou, Recherches sur les marches orientales des Téménides (Anthémonte, Kalindoia), I-II, Athènes 1992-1996.
• D. Kah, Paroikoi und Neubürger in Priene, in L.M. Günther (Hg.), Migration und Bürgerrecht in der hellenistischen Welt, Wiesbaden 2012, 51-71.
• F. Papazoglou, Laoi et paroikoi. Recherches sur les structures de la société hellénistique, Beograd 1997.
• B.C. Petrakos, Ὁ Δῆμος τοῦ Ῥαμνοῦντος: Σύνοψη τῶν ἀνασκαφῶν καὶ τῶν ἐρευνῶν (1913-1998), II, Οἱ ἐπιγραφές, Athens 1999.
• J. Pouilloux, La forteresse de Rhamnunte, Paris 1954

[G. Falco]

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Phratria (φρατρία)/ Phrater (φράτηρ)

The terms phratēr and phratria, etymologically linked to the Indo-European root *bhrater (“brother”), do not denote biological kinship in the Greek context, but rather an ancient association of individuals. The debate regarding the origins of the phratry remains highly contentious; while some scholars suggest it may date back to the Mycenaean period, it is already attested in the Homeric epics as a fundamental division of the community. In the Iliad, for instance, the phratry appears alongside the tribe (phylon) as a constituent unit of military organization (Hom. Il. 2, 362-363). According to Nestor, a paragon of wisdom, a man who delights in civil strife is “lawless, hearthless, and without phratēres” (aphrētōr), effectively existing outside the bounds of human civilization (Hom. Il. 9, 63-64: ἀφρήτωρ ἀθέμιστος ἀνέστιός ἐστιν ἐκεῖνος ὃς πολέμου ἔραται ἐπιδημίου ὀκρυόεντος).

Following Homer, the earliest reference to the phratry is found on a bronze tablet from Himera, dating between the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. This document records a law concerning the allocation of oikopeda, likely to a group of exiles from Zancle (SEG 47, 1427 = IGDS II, 15). Although the text is fragmentary, it prescribes the formation of new tribes “as soon as the phratries had displayed the written provisions” (ℎαι φρατρίαι ἀ[ν]έδειξαν τὰ καταγεγραμένα). While the exact nature of these provisions remains uncertain, it is evident that phratries were entrusted with the preliminary operations for establishing new civic subdivisions. Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that ta katagegramena referred to lists of new citizens, considering the role of phratries in Athens as repositories for registers of those entitled to citizenship.

Chronologically close to this is the epigraphic evidence from Camarina, another Siceliot city, where phratries appear as artificial units created on a numerical basis within a broader reorganization of the citizen body (SEG 42, 846). Over 150 lead tablets discovered near the temple of Athena Polias contain records which likely served to verify civic identity for public activities.

The existence of the phratria is also documented elsewhere in the Greek world, such as Argos. A mid-5th-century bronze plaque identifies Argive citizens by name, patronymic, and phratry, the latter serving as a mode of population division. However, more comprehensive information regarding its role within the polis pertains to Attica from approximately 450 to 250 BC, prior to its decline. In Athens, the phratry functioned as an association fulfilling essential familial and religious roles, among others. For instance, it intervened in family law, specifically in the prosecution of homicides. According to Draco’s law—dating to the late VII century and still in force in Classical Athens (republished in 409/408 BC, IG I³ 104)—the perpetrator of involuntary homicide could receive a pardon from the victim’s closest relatives; should no such relatives survive, the decision devolved upon specific members of the phratry.

Beyond a substantial corpus of inscriptions and numerous attestations in the judicial orations of Isaeus and Demosthenes, one must consider occasional references in tragic, historical, and philosophical works, as well as epigraphic evidence such as the “Demotionidai decrees” of 396/5 BC (IG II² 1237). This inscription, found near Decelea, provides a detailed account of phratry admission procedures. The heading invokes Διὸς Φρατρίο, a deity who, alongside Athena Phratria, presided over the activities and decisions of these citizen associations (cf. IG II² 2344). The Demotionidai decrees also mention two introductory rites celebrated during the Apaturia, the annual festival of Athenian phratries: the meion, likely performed near birth, and the koureion during adolescence. Existing documentation suggests these practices were largely reserved for males, as the introduction of women is rarely mentioned.

Various sources frequently reference the dēmos and the phratria in tandem. In Aeschylus’ Eumenides, the chorus questions which altars of the dēmos Orestes might use for sacrifice and which phratry would grant him lustral water after the murder of his mother (Aesch. Eum. 655-656: ποίοισι βωμοῖς χρώμενος τοῖς δημίοις; ποία δὲ χέρνιψ φρατέρων προσδέξεται;). Similarly, a fragment of Cratinus ironically depicts Chiron, long absent due to war, struggling to find kinsmen or members of his dēmos and phratria, eventually “enrolling” in a drinking club (Cratin, Cheiron fr. 9 Kock: πολλοστῷ δ’ ἔτει ἐκ τῶν πολεμίων οἴκαδ’ ἥκων, ξυγγενεῖς καὶ φράτερας καὶ δημότας εὑρὼν μόλις, εἰς τὸ κυλικεῖον ἐνεγράφην· Ζεὺς ἔστι μοι ἑρκεῖος, ἔστι φράτριος, τὰ τέλη τελῶ). Isocrates complains that during the Peloponnesian War, oversight of citizenship became lax, leading to the illicit inclusion of unqualified individuals in public tombs, phratries, and demotic registers (Isoc. 8, 88: τελευτῶντες δ᾽ ἔλαθον σφᾶς αὐτοὺς τοὺς μὲν τάφους τοὺς δημοσίους τῶν πολιτῶν ἐμπλήσαντες, τὰς δὲ φρατρίας καὶ τὰ γραμματεῖα τὰ ληξιαρχικὰ τῶν οὐδὲν τῇ πόλει προσηκόντων).

In oratory, the introduction to a phratry—often denoted by the verb eisago—is invoked to substantiate rights in trials concerning citizenship (e.g., Dem. 57, 54), inheritance, and adoption, or conversely, to challenge opponents in cases of alleged wrongful enrollment (e.g., Isae. 6, 21-24). In some instances, to prove a legal union between citizens, the gamelia—rites celebrated within the phratry upon marriage—are cited (e.g., Isae. 3, 76; Isae. 8, 18; Dem. 57, 43).

Furthermore, enrollment in a phratry is mentioned in several citizenship decrees (see Osborne; e.g., IG II² 25; II² 103). A decree issued in Athens following Pericles’ citizenship law of 451/0 BC, recorded by Craterus (FGrHist 342 F4a-b), declares it illegal for anyone born of two non-citizen parents to “act as a phratry member” (’Εὰν δέ τις ἐξ ἀμϕοῖν ξένοιν γεγονὼς ϕρατρίζῃ, διώκειν εἶναι τῷ βουλομένῳ ’Αθηναίων, οἷς δίκαι εἰσὶ). This passage also attests the verb phratrizō, which, like phratriarchos (“head of the phratry”), reflects the internal functioning and structure of the association (see related webpage at https://politeia.unimi.it).

For these reasons, it is generally maintained that all citizens in the Classical period were enrolled in a phratry, and that this institution, compared to the dēmos, was primarily responsible for verifying the requirements for citizenship (Lambert 1993). Conversely, a more recent interpretation suggests that phratry membership was invoked less for citizenship rights than for legitimate succession (Joyce 2019): only those duly enrolled in a phratria were entitled to paternal inheritance, whereas nothoi, excluded from such associations, still enjoyed other civic rights.

• L. Boffo, M. Faraguna, Le poleis e i loro archivi. Studi su pratiche documentarie, istituzioni e società nell’antichità greca, Trieste 2021.
• F. Cordano, Le istituzioni delle città greche di Sicilia nelle fonti epigrafiche, in M. I. Gulletta (a cura di), Sicilia Epigraphica. Atti del convegno internazionale (Erice, 15-18 Ottobre 1998), Quaderno 7 Pisa 1999, 149-158.
• S. De Vido, Spazio civico e spazio urbano. Ancora sulla lamina di Imera, Kokalos 60, 2023, 33-51.
• M. Guarducci, L’istituzione della fratria nella Grecia antica e nelle colonie greche d’Italia, Roma 1937.
• C.W. Hedrick, Phratry Shrines of Attica and Athens, Hesperia 60, 1991, 241-268.
• S.C. Humphreys, Kinship in Ancient Athens: An Anthropological Analysis (2 vols.), Oxford-New York 2018.
• P. Ismard, La cité des réseaux. Athènes et ses associations, VI^e-I^er siècle av. J.-C., Paris 2010.
• C. Joyce, Citizenship or Inheritance? The Phratry in Classical Athens, in Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought 36, 3, 2019, 466-487.
• J. Kierstead, S. Letteri, Appeals to Associations and Claims to Citizenship in Athenian Oratory, in J. Filonik – C. Plastow – R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds.), Citizenship in Antiquity, London-New York 2023, 387-399.
• S.D. Lambert, The Phratries of Attica, Michigan 1993.
• M. J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, Brussel 1981.
• M. Piérart, Phratries et « Kômai » d’Argos,  Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 107, 1, 1983, 269-275.
• M. Polito, I decreti dei Demotionidi/ Deceleesi ad Atene, IG II² 1237, Testo, traduzione e commento, Milano 2020.
• D. Roussel, Tribu et Cité. Études sur les groupes sociaux dans les cités grecques aux époques archaïque et classique, Paris 1976.
• D. Russo, Le ripartizioni civiche di Atene. Una storia archeologica di tribù, demi e fratrie (508/7-308/307 A.C.), Annuario della Scuola archeologica di Atene e delle missioni italiane in Oriente, Supplemento10, Roma-Atene 2022.
• O. Tribulato, La legge tardo-arcaica di Himera (SEG 47, no 1427; IGDS II n° 15). Un riesame linguistico ed epigrafico, in Pallas 109, 2019, 167-193.

[G. Ingarao]

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Phylē (φυλή)

The term, normally rendered in translation as “tribe” (for a critique of this usage, see Roussel 1976, 163), is among the most attested in the Greek world as a designation for a category of civic subdivisions – i.e. smaller units within (or ‘segments’ of) a political community to which every citizen, by virtue of his status, belonged or had the exclusive right to belong (see generally Hansen 2004 and Brock 2023).

Consistently with the term’s derivation from the verb φύω / φύομαι (“to generate / to be born”; note, however, that the designations of civic subdivisions do not always provide a reliable guide to their nature and functions: see, e.g., Davies 1996, 599-600), the phylai were, at least originally, conceived as groupings of a genealogical character. The question of the timing and manner of their formation remains a matter of debate. Until the 1970s, scholars predominantly regarded the phylai as an evolution of kinship-based groupings predating the polis – a view later superseded by the notion that their emergence was contemporaneous with, and closely interconnected to, that of the polis itself (for a history of scholarship, see Grote 2016, 11-5). This scenario is consistent with the prolonged absence of attestations of phylai in contexts organised according to institutional arrangements other than the polis; at the same time, it poses challenges with respect, for instance, to the broad dissemination and uniform designation of the traditional Dorian and Ionian tribes, whose presence in colonial contexts (e.g. in Corinthian and Milesian foundations respectively: see Jones 1987, 11-2) points to an origin no later than the 8^th century BCE (cf. Hansen 2004, 96).

The occurrence of the noun φῦλον in the Homeric poems is also relevant to this debate. The term is closely related to φυλή and can refer to human groups in general (cf. e.g. Od. 8, 481: φῦλον ἀοιδῶν, “class of bards”), military units (cf. e.g. Il. 2, 362-3), and subsets of larger communities. As the latter usage appears in passages containing information on the locations and/or settlement patterns of these communities (e.g. Il. 2, 668-9, 840-1; 17, 220), it has recently been suggested that, in such cases, the phyla should be understood as “settlement communities” (Siedlungsgemeinschaften): potentially rooted in pre-existing identity-based groupings, these communities would have subsequently evolved into phylai in response to increasing political and social structuring (see Grote 2016, 226-35; by contrast, Roussel 1976, 161-3 sharply distinguished between phyla and phylai). Despite being based on limited evidence and occasionally advancing bold arguments, this reconstruction highlights certain limitations of the previous ‘orthodoxy’ (Brock 2023, 227) and has prompted renewed debate on the subject (see the different assessments by Kierstead 2017; Ulf 2017; Zurbach 2020).

Between the 6^th century BCE and the early Classical period, the tribal systems – and, more generally, the segmentations of the civic body – of several poleis were subject to reforms (see Jones 1987 and, with often differing views, Grote 2016; cf. also Cecchet 2017). These developments were driven by a variety of factors, including: the need to resolve internal tensions within a community – as in the Theraean colony of Cyrene following a significant inflow of immigrants in the decades after its foundation; the political agenda of the ruling regime – for instance at Sicyon under the Orthagorid Cleisthenes; the reconfiguration of civic structures in the aftermath of political upheaval – a dynamic attested at Athens and (as suggested by Nic. Dam., FGrHist 90 F 60) perhaps at Corinth after the fall of their respective tyrannies. The extent of the implemented changes – the specifics of which are often uncertain – also varied considerably, ranging from modifications to existing frameworks, as at Sicyon (with the renaming of the three Dorian phylai and, possibly, the introduction of a fourth, whose prior existence remains debated), to the creation of entirely new tribal systems, like that of Corinth, structured around the number eight (see Suda, s.v. Πάντα ὀκτώ).

The latter category also includes the best-known of the tribal reforms of the period, sponsored by Cleisthenes at Athens in 508/7 BCE. In this case, the four traditional Ionian tribes persisted – performing religious functions – alongside ten new phylai, which established an additional organisational framework for the Athenians. These tribes were constituted by aggregating smaller units – the demes and the trittyes – to which citizens were assigned according to their place of residence, following a territorial criterion. Subsequently, given that membership in the demes – the elementary components of this segmentation – was transmitted hereditarily, regardless of changes of residence, the system developed in a more person-based sense (a dynamic not unique to the Athenian case: cf. Brock 2023, 226).

Measures aimed at the restructuring of civic bodies were not confined to the earliest phases of Greek history, but rather accompanied the major transformations of the communities throughout its course (cf. Hansen 2004, 97; pace Jones 1987, 13). For instance, it was most likely in connection with its refoundation, around the mid-4^th century BCE, that the insular polis of Tenos adopted a system of ten territory-based phylai, perhaps inspired by the Cleisthenic model (see Étienne 1990, 45-7, with Reger 2004, 777 for the date of the reform). Civic reorganisation was also prompted by forms of interstate integration involving the merger of multiple civic bodies (on which see Aresi, s.vv. Sympoliteia and Synoikismos; cf. Magnetto 2025, 128). The citizens of Cos, established by synoecism in 366 BCE, were organised into newly created subdivisions, including three phylai named in accordance with Dorian tradition and various units that were at least nominally structured – as is also the case elsewhere in the Greek world (cf. Jones 1987, Index I, with Brock 2023, 227) – on a numerical basis and were only partly integrated into the tribal system (thus the chiliastyes, likewise attested as subdivisions of the phylai, for example, at Ephesus; by contrast, the Coan triakades and the pentekostyes do not appear to have been further components of the same segmentation); instead, the Coan damoi and the (additional) local phylai into which at least some of them were subdivided (see Jones 1987, 236-42), were surely independent of this framework. With regard to the so-called bilateral sympoliteia, in which one of the contracting cities was effectively absorbed by the other, a variety of practices can be observed (for the following, see Boffo – Faraguna 2021, 703-6). For instance, when Cos incorporated nearby Calymna – which became a damos – the latter’s citizens were distributed among the three Coan phylai without these undergoing structural modifications. This was not the case, however, in the union between Heraclea at Latmos and Pidasa: the Pidaseans were only partially assigned to the Heraclean phylai, while the remainder formed, together with some citizens of the larger community, a new one.

As for the functions of the phylai – and, more generally, of civic subdivisions (on which see e.g. Hansen 2004, 95) – these are well illustrated by the above-mentioned Athenian case. First, the Cleisthenic phylai served as wards for the formation of the Boule of Five Hundred and of various boards of magistrates. The tribal system thus came to form the backbone of the city’s institutional structure, in a way that ensured that each subset of the citizen body was represented within it (for parallels elsewhere, see Jones 1987, Index II; on the role of the phylai in enabling an embryonic form of political representation, see Grote 2016, 243-51). The phylai (and demes) also provided arenas for political (and religious: see Brock 2023, 233) participation additional to those pertaining to the polis as a whole – of which they partly reproduced the logics and forms. Especially in cities of significant size, this enhanced the integration of each citizen into the polis. Furthermore, the phylai functioned as units of military organisation, thereby contributing to cohesion within the civic army.

Civic subdivisions were central to citizenship not only because they provided additional opportunities for exercising the prerogatives inherent in the status of polites, but also – and more substantially – because membership in them was itself a consequence (and a certification) of that status. This connection is well illustrated, for instance, by the glandes and identification plaques of citizens from certain Siceliot communities, which record alongside the individual’s name the indication of one or more units of affiliation – φυλά, φράτρα, and others – and which were likely used when exercising prerogatives associated with the politeia (for an overview, see Cordano 2018; on the tablets from Camarina, the largest corpus of this documentation, see most recently Del Monaco 2025, esp. 109-58).

At Athens, the intersection between citizenship and membership in civic subdivision occurred primarily at the level of the demes to which the politai belonged, in whose registers – the ληξιαρχικὰ γραμματεῖα (see Loddo, s.v.; for citizen registers in other communities, see Boffo – Faraguna 2021) – they had to be enrolled (however, see Blok 2017, 122-3 on the non-use of these registers in judicial contexts). As the demes constituted subunits of the phylai, affiliation with the former reflected at the level of the latter. Furthermore, Athenian citizenship decrees specified the enrolment of beneficiaries in both types of subdivision, as well as in a phratria (cf. Osborne 1981-1983, vol. IV, 158-60 and Ingarao, s.v.). In the case of analogous provisions in other communities, in accordance with their broad dissemination in the Greek world, phylai are among the most frequently cited civic subdivisions in this context.

The clauses pertaining to the registration of new citizens in the phylai (and in other civic subdivisions) show that the enrolment unit could be determined in diverse ways and at different times (see esp. Savalli-Lestrade 1985, 387-92 and Jones 1991, 87-100). At Athens (cf. Osborne 1981-1983, vol. IV, 155-83) and in approximately twenty other poleis, the beneficiary of the citizenship grant was permitted – at least formally, and with only rare restrictions – to select the subdivisions in which he would be enrolled. The newly naturalised citizen was thus actively involved in the process of integration into the civic community, which took place after the decree’s approval and whose outcomes were therefore generally not recorded therein. In most cases, however, the assignment was determined by lot, occasionally ‘tempered’ to align with the preferences and/or interests of the beneficiary of the grant or the granting community. This procedure was apparently automatic and almost contemporaneous with the conferral of citizenship, so that the relevant decrees often record its outcomes. Finally, new citizens could be assigned to subdivisions designated by the polis according to criteria such as numerical balance – favouring smaller units – or political expediency – as when royal philoi were enrolled in phylai or demes named after members of the dynasties to which they were connected. The tendency to direct enrolment processes, whether through direct assignment or controlled sortition, is more often associated with collective grants of citizenship – which were more likely to create imbalances between their beneficiaries and longtime politai, while at the same time providing greater scope for addressing pre-existing size disparities among civic subdivisions.

The procedures for enrolling new citizens in civic subdivisions are relevant to the debate on the ‘potential’ or ‘actual’ nature of the politeia conferred upon them (see Aresi, s.v. Isopoliteia). Assuming that such enrolment was a prerequisite for participation in political and judicial functions, and if the latter is regarded as the defining prerogative of the polites, procedures such as those in Athens are consistent with the idea that citizenship granted by decree was not immediately effective; instead, it would have been ‘activated’ only if and when the beneficiaries chose the civic subdivisions in which to register and completed the associated procedure. Conversely, the fact that a majority of poleis proceeded to immediate enrolment of new citizens appears to support the perspective of a politeia which was effective (in whole or in part: cf. Mack 2019, 64-5; Savalli-Lestrade 1985, 392) from the moment of conferral. The heterogeneity of the documented practices may thus reflect a plurality of local approaches to citizenship, and therefore urges caution in reducing them to a single, unified Greek model.

• J. Blok, Citizenship in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2017.
• L. Boffo, M. Faraguna, Le poleis e i loro archivi. Studi su pratiche documentarie, istituzioni e società nell’antichità greca, Trieste 2021.
• R. Brock, “Civic Subdivisions and the Citizen Community”, in J. Filonik, C. Plastow, R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds.), Citizenship in Antiquity. Civic Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean, London 2023, 226-39.
• L. Cecchet, “Re-shaping and Re-founding Citizen Bodies: The Case of Athens, Cyrene and Camarina”, in L. Cecchet, A Busetto (eds.), Citizens in the Graeco-Roman World. Aspects of Citizenship from the Archaic Period to AD 212, Leiden 2017, 50-77.
• F. Cordano, “Registrazioni anagrafiche nella Sicilia orientale”, MedAnt 21, 2018, 111-8.
• J.K. Davies, “Strutture e suddivisioni delle «poleis» arcaiche. Le ripartizioni minori”, in S. Settis (a cura di), I Greci. Storia, cultura, arte, società, 2. Una storia greca, I. Formazione, Torino 1996, 599-652.
• L. Del Monaco, Camarina. Organizzazione pubblica di una città greca di Sicilia, Tivoli 2025.
• R. étienne, Ténos, II. Ténos et les Cyclades du milieu du IVᵉ siècle avant J.C. au milieu du IIIᵉ siècle après J.C., Paris 1990.
• O. Grote, Die griechischen Phylen. Funktion – Entstehung – Leistungen, Stuttgart 2016.
• M.H. Hansen, “Civic Subdivisions”, in M.H. Hansen, T.H. Nielsen (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis, Oxford 2004, 95-7.
• N.F. Jones, Public Organization in Ancient Greece, Philadelphia 1987.
• N.F. Jones, “Enrollment Clauses in Greek Citizenship Decrees”, ZPE 87, 1991, 79-102.
• J. Kierstead, rec. a Grote 2016, BMCRev 09.2017.
• W. Mack, “Beyond Potential Citizenship: A Network Approach to Understanding Grants of Politeia”, in M. Dana, I. Savalli-Lestrade (éds.), La cité interconnectée dans le monde gréco-romain, Bordeaux 2019, 61-82.
• A. Magnetto, “Lo statuto dei neocittadini negli accordi di sinecismo, sympoliteia e isopoliteia”, Erga-Logoi 13/2, 2025, 115-42.
• M.J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, I-IV, Brussels 1981-1983.
• G. Reger, “The Aegean”, in M.H. Hansen, T.H. Nielsen (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis, Oxford 2004, 732-93.
• D. Roussel, Tribu et cité. Études sur les groupes sociaux dans les cités grecques aux époques archaïque et classique, Paris 1976.
• I. Savalli-Lestrade, I neocittadini nelle città ellenistiche. Note sulla concessione e l’acquisizione della politeia, Historia 34/4, 1985, pp. 387-431.
• C. Ulf, rec. a Grote 2016, Sehepunkte 15.12.2017.
• J. Zurbach, rec. a Grote 2016, Gnomon 92/3, 2020, 278-81.

[G. Aresi]

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Politeia (πολιτεία); politeuo (πολιτεύω)

The term belongs to the same lexical family as the denominative verb πολιτεύω, first attested in the form πολιατεύω in a law from Gortyn dating to the first half of the fifth century BCE, where it refers to young men who have passed puberty and are therefore able ‘to act as citizens’ and to swear an oath before the gods (Gagarin–Perlman G51, l. 7). The verb is attested with the same meaning in the Great Inscription (Gagarin–Perlman G72.9, l. 33, mid-fifth century BCE) and, in Elis, in a federal context, in the decree granting citizenship to thirteen (or more) individuals issued by the koinon of the Triphylians (Minon, IED 28, 399–369 BCE). In lines 3–8, the decree states that ‘if anyone deprives [them] of politeia and removes from public offices those who act as citizens (πολιτειομένοις) justly and according to the law, he is impious toward Athena.’ Particular attention should also be drawn to the verbal expression οἱ πολιτευόμενοι, which may be used either to denote the civic body as a whole, that is, all those who share in political rights, or those who most actively exercise citizenship and thus, in essence, ‘those who govern’ (cf. e.g. Isoc. 15.132–133).

Like the verb πολιτεύω, πολιτεία also displays a considerable variety of meanings and a high number of attestations; nevertheless, its semantic core consistently refers to the political and collective dimension of the polis, never to its physical or spatial aspect. The noun begins to be used from the fifth century BCE onward and is characterized, from its earliest attestations, by marked polysemy. Despite this, ‘citizenship’ and ‘the right of citizenship’ constitute its primary and most widespread meaning. This is first attested by Herodotus, in connection with the seer Tisamenos’ request for citizenship from the Spartans (Hdt. 9.33.5–34.1 – link to texts and documents), as well as by Thucydides, with reference to the citizenship of the father of Gylippus, and by Xenophon, regarding the grant of citizenship by Ephesus to the Selinuntians after the destruction of their city (Thuc. 6.104.2; Xenoph. Hell. 1.2.10; see also Arist. Ath. Pol. 54.3).

It is therefore not surprising that the term appears – and is widely attested – with this meaning in honorary inscriptions granting citizenship (and civic rights) to foreigners, as well as in other epigraphic documents from the final years of the fifth century BCE onward, both in Athens (Canevaro 2025) and in the rest of the Greek world. The grant of politeia is normally accompanied by other honors, such as enktesis (see the entry enktesis), isoteleia, and the like. In particular, politeia may refer both to the civic status of the individual and to citizenship understood in a collective sense. In this latter sense – and especially with the meaning ‘right of citizenship’ – the term is used for the first time in epigraphic evidence in the first of the decrees of the Athenian dossier concerning the Samians, published in 403/2 but already passed in 405/4 BCE. This is the psephisma granting Athenian citizenship en bloc to the Samian democrats (IG I³ 127, ll. 19–20, περὶ τῆς πολι|[τ]είας, ‘concerning the right of citizenship’). It is noteworthy that in the same document the verb πολιτεύεσθαι is used with the meaning ‘to adopt a constitution’ (IG I³ 127, ll. 12–13: Σαμίος ’Αθηναίος εἶναι, | πολιτευομένος ὅπως ἂν αὐτοὶ βόλωνται, ‘that the Samians be Athenians, adopting whatever constitution they themselves wish’).

Politeia is already employed in this latter sense in the treaty between Athens and Selymbria of 408/7 BCE (IG I³ 118, ll. 10–12), which states: καταστέσασθαι δὲ Σελυμ]β̣ριανὸς τὲμ πολι|[τείαν αὐτονόμος τρόποι Η]ότοι ἂν ἐπίστοντ|[αι, ‘that the Selymbrians establish their constitution autonomously, in whatever way they wish.’ With this meaning, politeia is also used by Thucydides in the opening of the most famous section of Pericles’ Funeral Oration (Thuc. 2.37.1: Χρώμεθα γὰρ πολιτείᾳ οὐ ζηλούσῃ τοὺς τῶν πέλας νόμους, ‘For we have a political system that does not seek to imitate the laws of our neighbours’).

By contrast with the earliest Gortynian occurrences, which preserve – both in the noun and in the verb – the meaning connected with the status of the citizen (polites), the earliest Athenian epigraphic attestations already employ both values from the outset: on the one hand ‘citizenship’ and ‘the granting of citizenship,’ on the other ‘constitution’ and ‘the establishment or adoption of a constitution.’ It is therefore reasonable to assume that the elaboration of the concept of politeia as ‘citizenship’ first took place in Crete, whereas the evolution of the use of the term and of the verb – and their resulting polysemy – developed at Athens, which from the second half of the fifth century BCE became the centre of elaboration on the term and the concept of politeia. Evidence for this is provided by the further meaning of government” ‘or ‘administration of the city,’ derived from that of ‘constitution,’ attested in Aristophanes’ Knights (Aristoph. Eq. 219: ἔχεις ἅπαντα πρὸς πολιτείαν ἃ δεῖ, ‘you have everything required for governing’), but also found in Thucydides, with reference to Pericles and the government of Athens (Thuc. 1.127.3), in Aeschines (Aeschin. 3.37), and in Lycurgus (Lyc. 1.79). With the meaning of ‘constitution of a state,’ and thus ‘form of government,’ the term underwent further development – again in an Athenian context – from the final decades of the fifth century BCE onward, eventually coming to denote the ensemble of laws and shared social and cultural practices of the polis. This is the sense found, for example, in Aristotle (Pol. 1295a40), where politeia is described as ‘the way of life of the polis,’ or in Isocrates’ Panathenaicus, where politeia is said to be ‘the soul of the city’ (Isoc. 12.138).

Of particular significance is the emergence and diffusion of politeia as an autonomous literary genre. Its earliest attestation is the anonymous Constitution of the Athenians, whose much debated dating may go back to the 420s BCE. The use of the term in the sense of ‘form of government’ subsequently found extensive development in Platonic philosophical thought (see e.g. Plato, Resp. 562a and 544a–b) and, above all, in Aristotle, with the publication of the Constitutions of the Greek poleis. The literary genre of the Politeiai appears in a wide variety of forms, some of which focus not – or not primarily – on the institutional aspects of the polis, but rather on the way of life of a political community. This is partly the case for the Aristotelian politeiai (Erdas 2017), but also for Xenophon’s Lakedaimonion Politeia, where attention is directed to the customs of the community. From this usage also derives the meaning of politeia as a ‘system’ or ‘way of life’ (Dem. 20.122).

At a theoretical level, the term is instead subjected to systematic analysis in Aristotle’s Politics. Here politeia is employed across the full range of the semantic nuances discussed above, including the sense – derived from its original meaning – of “body of citizens” (Arist. Pol. 1292a34; see Bordes 1980). In Aristotle’s elaboration of its multiple meanings, several aspects are particularly significant: the use of the term to denote a specific form of government, according to the well-known definition at Pol. 1278a37–39; the relationship between politeia and the civic body, politeuma (Lévy 1993; Maffi 2018, on the role of laws); the use of politeia as an expression of the unity of the city and as a principle guiding the actions of citizens toward a common purpose (Poddighe 2022); and, above all, the inquiry into the very definition of politeia that permeates Book III, especially Pol. 1274b38–41, which has given rise to differing interpretations concerning the meaning of ‘citizen’ itself and the parameters of inclusion within the polis (Blok 2017; Faraguna 2025; see the entry polites).

Alongside philosophical reflection, the reconsideration of the Athenian constitution, arising from the codification of the patrios politeia in the last years of the 5th century BCE, exerted a strong influence on the usage and dissemination of the term (Loddo 2025). From the first occurrence of the expression in a fragment of the sophist Thrasymachus of Chalcedon (D-K 85 B1), the nebulous character of the ancestral constitution allowed individuals with different political orientations to invoke the past to mask institutional changes, presenting them under the guise of continuity between past and present. This discourse applies both to the poleis (Xen. Hell. 3.4.2) and to federal entities (Xen. Hell. 5.2.14), without interruption from the Classical age (Thuc. 8.76.6; Arist. Ath.Pol. 29.3, 34.3) to the Hellenistic period (Nikouria: IG XII 7, 506, ll. 11–15; Miletus: Milet VI 3, 1049, ll. 10–12; Ios: IG XII (5) Suppl. 168, ll. 1–5).

From the intensive efforts of research, expansion, and systematization of ancestral laws that took place in Athens, the concept of politeia emerges more clearly defined; at the same time, it gradually diverges from its original meaning of ‘citizenship’ and acquires an increasingly political connotation, as evidenced by the sense of ‘democratic government’ that began to spread in the early decades of the 4th century BCE (see, in addition to Arist. Pol. 1279a 39, for example, Isocr. 4.125 and Demosth. 6.21; 1.5).

At the same time, however, reflection on the citizen and his participation in the polis emerges and develops also through the use of the expressions μετέχειν or μεταδοῦναι τῆς πολιτείας (see lemma metechein tes politeias; Filonik 2025), a theme explored in depth in Aristotle’s Politics (e.g., Arist. Pol. 1290a7–13), but already present in Lysias (Lys. 12.77) and in the works of Isocrates, particularly in the Panegyricus, the Areopagiticus, and the Panathenaicus. In fact, Isocrates delineates in some passages of these works the figure of a sort of archomenos polites (cf. Arist. Pol. 1277a20; see lemma polites), which entails a significant limitation of the rights of citizens who do not belong to the beltistoi and of participatory engagement: the people may elect magistrates and hold them accountable, but they do not enjoy passive suffrage; they may exercise judicial power, but they apparently have no access to deliberative authority. Concerning himself, Isocrates conceives the exercise of his own role as a citizen not so much as a frequent attendee of assemblies and courts, but rather as a counselor and teacher (σύμβουλος […] καὶ διδάσκαλος: 15.95; cf. Ep. 8.7) of the more politically active fellow citizens.

The consolidation of the concept of politeia in historical-political reflection, and its presence in honorary decrees from the 4th century BCE onwards, gradually led to the specialization of the term into two main meanings: that of ‘citizenship,’ attested in epigraphic documentation as an honorary grant, and that of ‘constitution’ or ‘form of government,’ documented, for example, in the sixth book of Polybius’ work dedicated to constitutional forms (see, e.g., Pol. 6.3.5; 6.9.10). Elsewhere, this second sense takes on a more general meaning, which is also widely attested in Hellenistic sources, namely ‘state’ (Pol. 12.25g.1; 22.4.2).

• J. Bordes, La place d’Aristote dans l’évolution de la notion de politeia, «Ktema», 5, 1980, 249-256
• J. Bordes, Politeia dans la pensée grecque jusqu’à Aristote, Paris 1982
• M. Canevaro, Honour(s) for Citizens: Egalitarianism and Social Distinction, in L. Cecchet – C. Lasagni (eds.), Democratic Athens, in Citizenship Practised, Citizenship Imagined: Multiple Ways of Experiencing Citizenship in the Greek World, Stuttgart 2025, 89-127
• D. Erdas, Frammenti sulle costituzioni, costituzioni di frammenti. Ipotesi per una struttura delle politeiai aristoteliche, «PdP», 72, 2017, 45-74
• M. Faraguna, Citizenship in the Greek Polis: An Institutional Approach, in M. Canevaro, M. Barbato (eds.), Rediscovering Greek Institutions. New Institutionalist Approaches to Ancient Greek History, Edinburgh 2025, 111-131
• J. Filonik, The concept of sharing in the polis, its origins, and development, «Erga/Logoi» 12.2, 2025 cds.
• M. Gagarin – P.J. Perlman, The Laws of Ancient Crete, c. 650-400 BCE, Oxford 2016
• E. Lévy, Politeia et Politeuma chez Aristote, in M. Piérart (éd.), Aristote et Athènes, Paris 1993, 65-90
• L. Loddo, The Discourse of the Ancestral Constitution in the Early Hellenistic Period, in M. Canevaro, M. Barbato, A. Esu (eds.), Rediscovering Greek Institutions. New Institutionalist Approaches to Ancient Greek History, Edinburgh 2025, 65-90
• A. Maffi, Politeia, politeuma e legislazione nella Politica di Aristotele, «Teoria Politica» 8, 2018 online (http://journals.openedition.org/tp/286)
• E. Poddighe, Politeia and the historical account of the polis in Aristotle, in F. Pezzoli, E. Poddighe (eds.), «Monográficos de Araucaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Política, Humanidades y Relaciones Internacionales», 1, 2022, 1-29

[C. Bearzot, D. Erdas, L. Loddo, P.A. Tuci]

Polites (πολίτης)

The term πολίτης (πολιάτας, πολιήτης) primarily refers to citizens as members of the political community and holders of political rights. In its earliest attestations, the term is always used in the plural and it is employed generically to refer to the «inhabitants of the city» (e.g., Hom. Il. 15.557-558; Od. 7.131), while in some instances the community of πολῖται is expressly linked to the authority of a leader, particularly in the military sphere (e.g., Hom. Il. 2.806). The political dimension of the actions of the πολῖται, notably in the context of bitter rivalry between factions, comes to the fore in archaic lyric poetry. For example, Alcaeus laments in his rustic and wild exile that he is unable to hear the convocation of the assembly and the council, which his father and grandfather enjoyed, growing old among πολῖται ἀλλαλόκακοι, «who hurt each other» (fr. 130 Lobel-Page). Along the same lines, Theognis offers Cyrnus advice with overt political undertones, suggesting that he should not concern himself with «citizens embroiled in disputes» (ταρασσομένων πολιητέων), but instead take the middle path (ll. 219-220) (Lévy 1985). While there was a wider range of terms referring to politically active citizens in the archaic period (Davies 2004), from the 5th century onwards, πολῖται increasingly appear as members of the city’s political community, whether they are subject to the power of a tyrant (e.g., Hdt. 3.45.4; 7.155.1; Aesch. Ag. 1638-1639; Soph. Ant. 78-79, 907-908) or unequivocally hold decision-making power themselves (e.g., Hdt. 6.85.2; 8.46.3; Aesch. Eu. 693; Eurip. Or. 756). This political and institutional function is associated with a military dimension, with πολῖται being identified as members of both the city’s army and the political community (e.g., Aesch. Th. 1-35) (Falco 2024). Even the earliest secure epigraphic evidence from late archaic Crete, refers to a context in which the πολιάται are those who participate in political life, as in the section of the Gortyna code that stipulates that adoptions must be announced «in the agora when the citizens are gathered, from the stone from which one speaks» (Gagarin – Perlman, Laws of Crete G72, X, ll. 34-36; see also G72, XI, 10-14; L2, l. 5; Lyktos1A, l. 1-2, where ἀλοπολιάταν signifies «citizen of another city») (Faraguna 2025). In the sense outlined here, πολῖται tend to differ from ἀστοί in attestations from the Classical Age, despite some cases of semantic overlap (e.g. Hdt. 7.237.2-3; Eurip. Or. 746, 871-878). In fact, starting from this period, the term ἀστοί seems to indicate mostly citizens as inhabitants of the polis, regardless of their political rights (see entry). As the status of ἀστός originally implied belonging to the community by birth (e.g. Hom. Il. 11.242-243; Aesch. Ag. 403-406), it is unsurprising that, in the Classical period, it was πολίτης that was used when a citizen or citizens were ‘created’ (e.g., Hdt. 1.150.2; 5.57.2; 9.33.4), while ἀστός occurs in contexts where citizenship by birth is mentioned (e.g., Hdt. 1.173.5; Arst. Ath. Pol. 26.4). Although the ethnic term is used more frequently in epigraphic formulas for granting of citizenship (e.g., εἶναι αὐτὸν ’Αθηναῖον), in one of the oldest Athenian examples, the decree in honor of Sthorys of Thasos (IG II² 17, 394/3), the previous granting of citizenship, along with the titles of proxenoi and benefactors of the city already held by his ancestors, is recalled precisely with the clause αὐτὸν δὲ καὶ πο]λίτην ἐποιησάντο Ἀθηναῖοι (ll. 7-8). In light of the above, it follows that ἀστός is most frequently contrasted with ξένος and μέτοικος (see entry) to highlight the dichotomy between a citizen and a foreigner (e.g., Soph. OT 813-819; Th. 2.34.4; Xenoph. Oec. 6.17), as well as between a citizen and an immigrant or a resident alien (e.g., Aesch. Eu. 1044-1045; Aristoph. Ach. 508; Xenoph. Vect. 2.2). However, as πολίτης became more prevalent from the height of the Classical period onwards, alongside the decline in the use of ἀστός, the often tripartite contrast between πολίτης, ξένος, and μέτοικος became more common (e.g., And. 1.144; Arst. Pol. 3.1277b.39-40; Demosth. 23.23). Similarly, while ἀστοί can include men, women, and children belonging to the citizenry by birth, in the Classical Age πολίτης generally refers to an adult male citizen who is not subject to ἀτιμία (see entry), so much so that the feminine πολῖτις (see entry) is relatively uncommon compared to ἀστή. Nevertheless, in everyday language the meanings of the two terms could overlap, as seen in Plato’s works, where πολῖται often refers to all members of the civic community bound by solidarity (Fouchard 1984). On the other hand, the political content of the term is strongly emphasized by Aristotle, who, while recognizing that, in current usage, a πολίτης is someone born to two citizen parents, defines it in his analysis as «someone who has the possibility of exercising deliberative and judicial offices» (Pol. 3.1275b17-24). Through this overview, it is more difficult to see the πολῖται of the Classical Age as members of a community to which one belongs on the basis of common descent, whose membership implies generic participation in civic life – of which the political component would be only one aspect (as Blok 2017, 149-156 would have it). Secure epigraphic attestations of πολίτης remain rare in the 5th century. In addition to the aforementioned cases and the anthroponyms attested in IG I³ 1162, l. 23 (ca. 447) and 1186, l. 66 (ca. 411), examples can be found in Athens, in IG I³ 91 (ca. 420) and 1453B (ca. 414), and in Thasos, in I.Thasos III 1 (late 5th-early 4th century). Their number increases significantly from the end of the 4th century and into the Hellenistic period, in parallel with the proliferation of public epigraphy in the Greek world. In Hellenistic and Hellenistic-Roman documents, the only term used to unequivocally refer to a citizen is πολίτης, which designates individuals who hold political rights. This category is often juxtaposed with, and contrasted against, a variety of others, including foreigners passing through (παρεπιδημοῦντες: see entry), resident aliens (κάτοικοι/παροικοῦντες/πάροικοι: see entries), and, in cities whose urban centers were associated with vast χῶραι (as in the case of the Greek poleis of Asia Minor), a special category of non-citizen natives (πάροικοι).

• J. Block, Citizenship in classical Athens, Cambridge 2017.
• J.K. Davies, The concept of the ‘citizen’, in S. Cataldi (ed.), Poleis e politeiai. Esperienze politiche, tradizioni letterarie, progetti costituzionali, Alessandria 2004, 19-30
• G. Falco, Politēs/politis, astos e metoikos: il lessico della cittadinanza nel teatro ateniese di V secolo a.C., Hormos 16, 2024, 133-200
• M. Faraguna, Citizenship in the Greek polis: an institutional approach, in M. Canevaro, M. Barbato, A. Esu (eds.), Rediscovering Greek institutions. New institutionalist approaches to ancient Greek history, Edinburgh 2025, 111-131
• A. Fouchard, Astos, politès et épichôrios chez Platon, Ktema 9, 1984, 185-204
•  É. Lévy, Astos et polites, d’Homère à Hérodote, Ktema 10, 1985, 53-66

[C. Carusi]

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Politeuma (πολίτευμα)

As far as can be ascertained from the extant evidence, the noun πολίτευμα appears for the first time in the mid-fourth century BCE, with attestations in Isocrates, Demosthenes and Plato. It is, however, Aristotle who offers the most substantial and systematic contribution to the semantic delineation of the term, particularly in its conceptual and terminological relationship to πολιτεία (on politeia and politeuma in Aristotle’s Politics, see recently Maffi 2018; cf. Ruppel 1927; Bordes 1982, 450-51; Lévy 1993; Hansen 1994). As he observes (Pol. 3.1278b8-11), in every polis sovereignty resides in the governing body (κύριον […] πανταχοῦ τὸ πολίτευμα τῆς πόλεως), and the constitution – defined as the ordering of a state with respect to its magistracies (πόλεως τάξις τῶν τε ἄλλων ἀρχῶν καὶ μάλιστα τῆς κυρίας πάντων) – is itself identified with the government (πολίτευμα […] ἐστὶν ἡ πολιτεία), a formulation pointing to a marked convergence in meaning between the two terms (Pol. 3.1279a25-26: πολιτεία μὲν καὶ πολίτευμα σημαίνει ταὐτόν). A perspective closely aligned with that of Aristotle on the intertwining of πολιτεία and πολίτευμα is offered by a passage from Plato’s Laws (12.945d Burnet) which discusses the proper conduct of the examination of magistrates (τὰ περὶ τὰς εὐθύνας τῶν ἀρχόντων), stating that, should the euthynai be carried out by examiners inferior to the officials under scrutiny, the bond of justice that holds together all political elements is dissolved (λυθείσης τῆς τὰ πάντα πολιτεύματα συνεχούσης εἰς ἓν δίκης). A comparable association between πολίτευμα and the ἀρχαί is also attested in Polybius (4.23.9), with reference to Sparta (on πολίτευμα in Polybius, see Lévy 1990), whereas in Isocrates’ Areopagiticus (7.78), when discussing the consequences of a change of regime, the term gravitates towards a more abstract meaning, denoting the underlying principles of governance (as Liou 1990, 6 puts it).

Both terms, in fact, encompass a set of concurrent meanings, namely: (1) ‘constitution of the state’, or ‘form of government’ (Staatsform, Verfassung), and, more generally, (2) the ‘state’ and ‘government’ (Staatswesen); (3) ‘the status, condition, and rights of a citizen’, or ‘citizenship’, and, more concretely, (4) the ‘body of citizens’. Eloquent evidence of this semantic convergence between πολιτεία and πολίτευμα is provided by expressions such as πάτριον πολίτευμα – attested, for instance, in Polybius in connection with the revolutionary initiative of Cleomenes of Sparta (4.81.14; see also 5.9.9) – or μετέχειν τοῦ πολιτεύματος, which occurs, inter alia, in the second of the two letters addressed by Philip V to the Larisaeans, IG IX.2 517, l. 29 (cf. Arist. Pol. 4.1293a15-16, 1297b9-10; but compare 6.1321a26-27, where μετάδοσις τοῦ πολιτεύματος denotes “the bestowal of a share in the government”). A similar pattern emerges in Aristotle (Pol. 5.1308a3-7), where it is observed that certain aristocracies and oligarchies endure insofar as those who hold office (οἱ ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς γινόμενοι) treat well both those excluded from the political community and those belonging to it (οἱ ἔξω τῆς πολιτείας καὶ οἱ ἐν τῷ πολιτεύματι); for a further instance of concurrent usage of the two terms, see Plb. 6.43.1, where πολίτευμα designates the political systems of the Lacedaemonians, Cretans, Mantineans and Carthaginians, while πολιτεία refers to the constitutions of the Athenians and the Thebans.

With respect to sense (1), which ranges from (1a) ‘form of government’ or ‘constitution’, through (1b) ‘political regime’ (e.g. Plb. 4.84.5), to (1c) ‘system of government’ (cf. Plb. 3.118.12, on the improvement and correction [διορθώσεις] of politeumata), representative attestations include, for instance, [Dem.] 17.7; Aeschin. 2.172 (Athens’ democratic constitution [τὸ τῆς δημοκρατίας πολίτευμα] in the aftermath of the battle at Salamis); D.S. 12.11.3 (the democratic form of government established at Thurii); Plb. 3.8.2 (Hasdrubal’s attempt to convert [περιστῆσαι] the Carthaginians’ politeuma to monarchy); and 6.3.11 (general reference to ὀλιγαρχικὰ and ἀριστοκρατικὰ πολιτεύματα). In epigraphic usage, the same sense is attested in Laches’ request (aitēsis) that the highest honours (megistai timai) be awarded to his father Demochares in 271/0 BCE, preserved in the documentary appendix to Pseudo-Plutarch’s Lives of the Ten Orators (Mor. 851F), where Demochares is praised for his role in safeguarding Athenian democracy (τὴν πατρίδα κινεῖν ἑτέρῳ πολιτεύματι ἢ δημοκρατίᾳ). Such formulations reverberate in Hellenistic civic oaths, notably in that sworn by the Telians in the reconciliation dossier from Cos, IG XII.4.1 132 (ca. 300 BCE), ll. 128-129 (ἐμμενέω ἐν τῶι πολιτεύματι τῶι καθεστακό|τι καὶ διαφυλαξέω τὰν δαμοκρατίαν). The most significant inscriptional occurrence in this respect is provided by Alexander the Great’s diagrammata addressed to Chios, Bencivenni, Riforme costituzionali 1 (Rhodes – Osborne, GHI 84: ca. 332 BCE), in which the king explicitly prescribes that the constitution be democratic (A, ll. 3-4: πολίτεομα δ’ ε[ἶ]|ναι ἐν Χίωι δῆμον).

Regarding sense (2), it is noteworthy that politeuma is applied to political configurations of widely differing scope and character, ranging from specific civic communities – such as the Rhodians (Plb. 3.3.7) – through federal states such as the Achaean League (Plb. 4.1.4), to the Romans (3.90.14, 118.9), as well as to paradigmatic institutional formations, most notably the Spartan political system attributed to Lycurgus (6.3.8), presented as an example of a politeuma capable of maintaining long-term balance and stability (6.10.7: ἰσορροποῦν καὶ ζυγοστατούμενον […] κατὰ τὸν τῆς ἀντιπλοίας λόγον). In this sense, the term further extends to states more generally, insofar as they are liable to praise or blame (3.4.1; 6.10.6). A comparable usage of the term is found in Diodorus Siculus’ depiction of Thurii as a blessed state (12.12.2), on account of its being freed from sycophants through the laws of Charondas (τὸ πολίτευμα μακάριον εἶχε βίον τῆς τοιαύτης κακίας ἀπηλλαγμένον). Particularly instructive on the epigraphic side is the fragmentary treaty of alliance between Rome and the Aetolian League from Thyrrheum (Acarnania), IG IX.1² 241 (ISE II 87: 212 or 211 BCE), ll. 15-20, which stipulates that the Aetolians are permitted to admit to their politeuma – that is, their koinon – those men and cities that had joined or come over to the side of the Romans or the Aetolians (εἰ δέ τινάς κα ταυτᾶν τᾶμ | [πο]λίων ποτὶ Ῥωμαίους ἢ ποτ’ Αἰτωλοὺς ποθί|[στ]ανται ἢ ποτιχωρήσωντι, τούτους τοὺς | [ἀνθ]ρ[ώ]πους καὶ τὰς πόλιας καὶ τὰς χώρας ἕ|[νεκεν τοῦ δ]άμου τῶν Ῥωμαίων τοῖς Αἰτωλοῖς | [εἰς τὸ αὐτῶν] πολίτευμα ποτιλαμβάνειν). Another telling inscriptional example of this usage is provided by a passage of the Pergamene decree granting divine honours to Attalus III (138-133 BCE), OGIS 332 (Virgilio, Regalità ellenistica² 14), in which the king is urged, inter alia, always to be the cause of some benefit, with the support of the dēmos, so that “the public affairs of the state” may prosper still further (ll. 54-56: [ἀ]εί τινος ἀ̣γα[θ]οῦ | παραίτι̣ον γίνεσθαι αὐτὸν δ̣[ι]ὰ τὸν δ̣ῆ̣μον, ὅπως εἰς βελτίονα καὶ εὐδαιμο|νεστέραν πα̣ραγίνηται κατά̣στασ[ι]ν τὰ κοινὰ τοῦ πολ̣[ι]τεύματος).

The core sense in the Greek lexicon of citizenship is that in which πολίτευμα denotes the polity understood as a community of politai (3) and, by extension, the civic body as a whole (4). This usage is clearly found in Polybius, where the term occurs in reference to the most prominent citizens across political contexts as diverse as Byzantion (4.47.5), Carthage (3.8.3: πρώτους […] ἐπὶ τοῦ πολιτεύματος), and Rome (3.85.7: οἱ προεστῶτες τοῦ πολιτεύματος). The same sense emerges even more clearly in expressions such as κύριος τοῦ πολιτεύματος, used to designate those enjoying full civic status, as in Athens after the introduction of the timocratic regime imposed by Antipater in 322 BCE, when only those meeting the relevant property qualifications were allowed to remain within the citizen body (D.S. 18.18.4: τοὺς μὲν κεκτημένους πλείω δραχμῶν δισχιλίων κυρίους εἶναι τοῦ πολιτεύματος καὶ τῆς χειροτονίας).

In a more restricted sense, however, πολίτευμα may denote the governing class specifically. This usage is well attested in Aristotle (Pol. 5.1301b24, 1303b25-26, 1308a13-14, 6.1321a30-31, 7.1332b31-32), where expressions such as εἶναι ἐν τῷ πολιτεύματι and οἱ ἐν τῷ πολιτεύματι are used to refer precisely to this group. A collateral development of this sense – and, more broadly, of the close entanglement between political participation and πολίτευμα as citizenship right – is its occurrence to denote the policies undertaken by individual politai. A particularly instructive example is provided by Demosthenes’ remark in On the Chersonese (8.72), where he maintains that “the city must prosper through the policies proposed by its good citizens” (συναυξάνεσθαι δεῖ τὴν πόλιν τοῖς τῶν ἀγαθῶν πολιτῶν πολιτεύμασι). This usage, further illustrated by the figura etymologica πολίτευμα πολιτεύεσθαι, finds close parallels in other passages in Demosthenes (18.108-110, esp. 109 [ἔν τε τοῖς κατὰ τὴν πόλιν πολιτεύμασιν καὶ ἐν τοῖς Ἑλληνικοῖς], 122, 136, 257, 297, 303 [τοῖς ἐμοῖς ψηφίσμασιν καὶ τοῖς ἐμοῖς πολιτεύμασιν]; 22.47; 26.16), and the Attic orators (Aeschin 1.86; 2.8, of Eubulus; 3.79, 105, 230, 254, of Demosthenes), but also in epigraphic evidence: see e.g. SEG XLVI 1721 (Curty, Gymnasiarchika 33: 196 BCE), recording cultic honours granted by the neoi of Xanthos to their gymnasiarch Lyson, ll. 16-18 (τοῖς ἐν τῶι πολιτεύ|ματι πεπραγμένοις αὐτῶι καλοῖς καὶ ἐνδόξοις ἀκό|λουθος).

The notion of πολίτευμα as a polity conceived as a community of citizens is closely connected with its use as a designation for the citizen body itself. One clear example is provided by Aristotle (Pol. 5.1305b34), who refers to cases in which the jury courts are not drawn from it (ὅπου τὰ δικαστήρια μὴ ἐκ τοῦ πολιτεύματός ἐστιν). Among the earliest epigraphic attestations of the term in this sense is Ptolemy’s diagramma for Cyrene (320 BCE), which prescribes a numerically defined civic body of 10,000 individuals (IG Cyrenaica² 010800, l. 6: [πολί]τευμα δ’ ἔστω οἱ μύριοι). A closely related configuration emerges from Diodorus’ account of the property-based qualifications introduced by the timocratic constitution imposed at Athens after its defeat in the Lamian War (18.18.4: προσέταξεν ἀπὸ τιμήσεως εἶναι τὸ πολίτευμα), a point reinforced by his subsequent remark (18.18.8) that Antipater was honoured by a number of Greek cities for his prudent reforms, specifically for the reduction and reorganisation of their citizen bodies (τὰ πολιτεύματα συναγαγὼν καὶ καλῶς καταστήσας): see Poddighe 2002. This development is further clarified by evidence preserved in Philodemus (Acad.Ind., P.Herc. 1021, col. VIII, ll. 3-4 Fleischer), which records that Demades was entrusted with the compilation of the list of those meeting the requisite census (ὅτε τὸ πολίτευμα συνέστησεν).

The epigraphic record offers a further point of reference in the first letter of Eumenes II in the dossier of Toriaion (after 188 BCE), where πολίτευμα is used to denote the civic body of a community still in the process of formation, to which the king grants the requested politeia: “I grant both you and those with you to organize yourselves into one polity and to make your own laws” (I.Sultan Daği I 393, ll. 26-28: συνχωρῶ καὶ ὑμῖν καὶ τοῖς μεθ’ ὑμῶν συνοι|κ̣οῦσιν̣ ἐν̣χωρίοις εἰς ἓν πολίτευμα συνταχ[θ]ῆναι καὶ νό|μοις τ̣ε χρῆσθαι ἰδίοις): on the question of whether ἐν̣χωρίοις should be read rather than ἐν̣ χωρίοις, see L. Jonnes at I.Sultan Daği I 393, 88-89, ad locum (for comparable uses of ἐγχώριος meaning ‘indigenous’ in the Hellenistic period, albeit in areas different than Asia Minor, cf. e.g. Anello 2005; Litinas 2008). In other cases, the term is employed in contexts relating to the reconciliation of the civic body undertaken by foreign judges, as in IG XII.4.1 168 (Cos: ca. 167-150 BCE), ll. 13-15 (καὶ προαιρούμενοι ἐφ’ ὅσον ἦ|[σαν δ]υνατοὶ ἐν ὁμονοίᾳ κατεστηκὸς ἀπολι|[πεῖν τὸ π]ολίτευμα), and IG XII.5 870 (Tenos: second century BCE), ll. 10-11 (βουλό|μενοι τὸ πολίτευμα κατ̣[αστῆσαι ε]ἰς [ὁ]μ[ό]νοιαν).

In this connection, the term frequently occurs in expressions denoting the expansion of the civic body (προσγράφειν πρὸς τὸ πολίτευμα, καταχωρίζειν εἰς τὸ πολίτευμα, συναύξειν τὸ πολίτευμα, τὸ πολίτευμα ἀναπληροῦν), which function as equivalents of πολιτογραφεῖν (see Savalli 1985, 397, note 94; Lonis 1992). A clear illustration of this usage is provided by the letter addressed to the people of Iasos in Caria, in which Laodice, wife of Antiochus III, declares her intention to favour the city in accordance with her husband’s policy (I.Iasos 4, ll. 1-32: ca. 196/5), given that, after its conquest at the beginning of the second century BCE – at a time when Iasos was experiencing severe difficulties, possibly as a result of an earthquake – Antiochus had restored its laws and expanded the citizen body, thereby improving the condition of the community (ll. 8-11: τήν τε ἐλευθερίαν ὑμῖν | ἀπέδωκεν καὶ τοὺς νόμους καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ προτέθει|ται συναύξειν τὸ πολίτευμα καὶ εἰς βελτίονα δι|άθεσιν ἀγαγεῖν).

The same usage also emerges in a number of agreements of isopoliteia and sympoliteia (cf. Boffo, Faraguna 2021, 700-701; Magnetto 2025). The former include, for instance, the treaty between Xanthos and Myra, SEG XLIV 1418 (Saba 2020, no. 8: ca. 150-100 BCE), ll. 15-16, 24-25, 34-35, as well as the agreement between Miletus and Heraclea at Latmos, I.Delphinion 150, where it is stipulated that any Heraclean who has not resided either in his native city or in Miletus for a prescribed period is not to be admitted to registration within the Milesian citizenry. For a closely comparable provision, cf. the Milesian decree establishing isopolity with Mylasa, I.Delphinion 146A (Saba 2020, no. 6: 215/4 BCE), ll. 29-30: ⟨ὑπάρχειν τούτοις καὶ τὴν παρ’ ἡμῖν πολιτείαν⟩ νείμασι πρότερον πατρίδα καὶ πόλιμ Μύλασα ἔτη δέ|κ̣α ἀπὸ τῆς πρὸς τὸ πολίτευμα προσγραφῆς.

As for sympoliteia agreements, notable examples are the treaty between Smyrna and Magnesia ad Sipylum, I.Magnesia Sipylos 1 (Bencivenni, Riforme costituzionali 8: ca. 246), where the verb καταχωρίζω denotes both admission to the citizen body (ll. 60, 71-72, in the oath sworn by the Smyrnaeans: ἐμμενῶ ἐν ταῖς συνθήκαις αἷς συντεθείμεθα πρὸς τοὺς [ἐμ Μ]αγνησίαι κατοίκους, τούς τε κατὰ πόλιν ἱππεῖς καὶ πεζοὺς καὶ τοὺς ἐν τ[οῖς] | ὑπαίθροις τασσομένους καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους τοὺς καταχωριζομένους εἰς τὸ [πολί]τευμα) and registration within the civic subdivisions (ll. 74-75: καὶ ποιήσομαι αὐτοὺς | πολίτας πάντας καὶ τοὺς ἐκγόνους αὐτῶν ἐφ’ ἵσηι καὶ ὁμοίαι τοῖς ἄλλοις πολί[ταις κ]αὶ εἰς φυλὰς αὐτοὺς ἐπικληρώσας καταχωριῶ εἰς ἣν ἂν ἕκαστοι λάχωσιν), as well as the treaty between Miletus and Pidasa, I.Delphinion 149 (after 188 BCE), ll. 39-40 (Πιδασέων τοῖς προσγραφησομένοις | πρὸς τὸ πολίτευμα καὶ ἐνεκτημένοις ἐν τῆι Εὐρωμίδι). The formulation προσγράφεσθαι πρὸς τὸ πολίτευμα, as applied to those Pidasaeans who were to be enrolled in the Milesian citizen body, presupposes the formal drawing up of a list of new citizens following the oath-taking procedure (cf. ll. 12-15 of the document), a mechanism aimed at civic integration and at the regulation of newly enfranchised politai (see Gauthier 2001).

Both the institutional implications and the procedural dimension of καταχωρίζειν emerge with particular clarity in a provision of the Antigonid regulation concerning military service from Drama, SEG XLIX 855 (late third or early second century BCE), ll. 21-23 (τῶν δὲ μὴ κατακε[χ]ωρισμένων [πρό]τερον ἐν τοῖς πολι|τεύμασιν μήτε οἱ ἐπιστάτα̣[ι] μ[ηδέν]α προσγραφέτωσαν | τῶ̣ν̣ τ̣[οι]ο̣ύ̣τ̣ω̣ν̣ [ἐ]ν̣ [ταῖς] π̣[υροκαύσε]σ̣ι̣ν̣), which, according to Hatzopoulos (2001, 91-98, esp. 97), “vise à empêcher l’inscription de non enregistrés en tant que citoyens dans les cadres de base de recrutement que sont les “feux”, qui, étant donné la règle prescrivant le prélèvement d’un seul homme par maisonnée, pourrait être tentée par des citoyens désireux de réduire les risques de se voir mobilisés” (see also Boffo, Faraguna 2021, 696).

Finally, mention should be made of Hellenistic uses of πολίτευμα to denote an independent ethnic or political group. Of particular importance in this respect is the adoption of the term by the Ptolemies to designate a specific form of association, apparently devised for organised groups of individuals residing within an urban area and identified by an ethnic designation (notably at Alexandria): see recently Sänger 2021; for the Jewish πολίτευμα at Heracleopolis and the papyrological evidence relating to it in the period 144/3-133/2 BCE (P.Polit.Jud.), see Kruse 2010; 2015; Oakes 2019, on Paul’s claim that Christians had a politeuma “in heaven” (Ep.Phil. 3.20).

• P. Anello, “Barbaros ed enchorios in Diodoro”, in C. Bearzot, F. Landucci (eds.), Diodoro e l’altra Grecia. Macedonia, Occidente, Ellenismo nella Biblioteca storica, Milano 2005, 223-37.
• A. Biscardi, “Polis, politeia, politeuma” in Atti del XVII Congresso internazionale di papirologia, Napoli 1984, 201-15 (= Scritti di diritto greco, eds. E. Cantarella, A. Maffi, Milano 1999, 221-38).
• L. Boffo, M. Faraguna, Le poleis e i loro archivi. Studi su pratiche documentarie, istituzioni e società nell’antichità greca, Trieste 2021.
• J. Bordes, Politeia dans la pensée grecque jusqu’à Aristote, Paris 1982.
• Ph. Gauthier, “Les Pidaséens entrent en sympolitie avec les Milésiens: la procédure et les modalités institutionnelles”, in A. Bresson, R. Descat (eds.), Les cités d’Asie Mineure occidentale au II siècle a.C., Bordeaux 2001, 117-27.
• Polybios-Lexikon, Band II, Lieferung 2 (ποίημα–πως), bearbeitet von G. Glockmann, H. Helms, Berlin 2005.
• M.H. Hansen, “Polis, Politeuma and Politeia. A Note on Arist. Pol. 1278b6–14”, in D. Whitehead (ed.), From Political Architecture to Stephanus Byzantius: Sources for the Ancient Greek Polis, Stuttgart 1994, 91-98.
• M.B. Hatzopoulos, L’organisation de l’armée macédonienne sous les Antigonides. Problèmes anciennes et documents nouveaux, Athènes 2001.
• T. Kruse, “Zwischen Integration, Assimilation und Selbstbehauptung: Das Politeuma der Juden von Herakleopolis in Mittelägypten”, in A. Pülz, E. Trinkl (eds.), Das Eigene und das Fremde, Wien 2015, 73-81.
• D.F. Leão, “The Use of Politeuma and other Polis-related Terms as ‘Conceptual Iconography’ in Plutarch’s An seni respublica gerenda sit”, in S. Amendola, G. Pace, P. Volpe Cacciatore (eds.), Immagini letterarie e iconografia nelle opere di Plutarco, Madrid 2017, 125-32.
• E. Lévy, “Politeia et politeuma chez Polybe”, Ktèma 15, 1990, 15-26.
• E. Lévy, “Politeia et politeuma chez Aristote”, in M. Piérart (ed.), Aristote et Athènes, Fribourg-Paris 1993, 65-90.
• J.-P. Liou, “Aperçus sur Isocrate à la lumière de l’emploi de quelques termes du vocabulaire politique”, Ktèma 15, 1990, 5-14.
• N. Litinas, “‘Of the country’, ‘Local’ and ‘Foreign’ in the Greek papyri: The Use of Adjectives ἐπιχώριος, ἐγχώριος, ἐντόπιος, ξενικός”, MBAH 26, 2008, 159-64.
• R. Lonis, “L’anaplérôsis ou la reconstitution du corps civique avec des étrangers à l’époque hellénistique”, in R. Lonis (ed.), L’étranger dans le monde grec II, Nancy 1992, 245-70.
• A. Magnetto, “Lo statuto dei neocittadini negli accordi di sinecismo, sympoliteia e isopoliteia”, Erga-Logoi 13/2, 2025, 115-42.
• A. Maffi, “Politeia, politeuma e legislazione nella Politica di Aristotele”, Teoria politica 8, 2018, 35-62.
• J.I. McDougall, Lexicon in Diodorum Siculum, Hildesheim et al. 1983.
• P. Oakes, “The Christians and their Politeuma in Heaven: Philippians 3:20 and the Herakleopolis Papyri”, in K. Berthelot, J. Price (eds.), In the Crucible of Empire: The Impact of Roman Citizenship upon Greeks, Jews, and Christians, Leuven-Paris 2019, 141-63.
• E. Poddighe, Nel segno di Antipatro. L’eclissi della democrazia ateniese dal 323/2 al 319/8 a.C., Roma 2002.
• W. Ruppel, “Politeuma. Bedeutungsgeschichte eines staatsrechtlichen Terminus”, Philologus 82, 1927, 268-312, 433-54.
• P. Sänger, “Contextualizing a Ptolemaic Solution: The Institution of the Ethnic politeuma”, in C. Fischer-Bovet, S. von Reden (eds.), Comparing the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires: Integration, Communication, and Resistance, Cambridge-New York 2021, 106-26.

[D. Amendola]

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Politis (πολῖτις)

The term is comparatively rare when set against the other noun used to designate a female citizen, ἀστή (astē), especially in Attic sources (for a recent overview of the particularly problematic concept of female citizenship in the Athenian context, see Joyce 2023). In certain cases, the use of polîtis seems to reflect the writer’s intention to emphasise a more specifically political dimension—rather than the domestic or familial sphere—in which the woman or women in question are mentioned. Such is the case, for example, in Soph. El. 1227, where the polîtides are the women addressed by Electra to announce Orestes’ return, an event foreshadowing the onset of a new political regime after that of Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus (cf. Eur. El. 1137 with Joyce 2023, 350). Operating within a similar political-ideological framework is the orator in [Demosth.] 57.30 and 43, where he uses polîtis, alongside astē, to qualify his mother’s status, in parallel to his father, who is described in the speech both as astos and polîtēs (cf. Mossé 1985, 78).

In a context that is not political but military, Plato in Leg. 814c envisages a law requiring both politai and polîtides to concern themselves with war. Here too, the term is situated in a sphere distinct from the strictly private and domestic, which would seem to explain the use of polîtis rather than astē.

More problematic is the occurrence of the term in [Demosth.] 59.107, where it is stated that Neaera was neither an astē (as she was not Athenian by birth) nor a polîtis (as she had not been granted citizenship by the demos). Although the Greek world of poleis and koina yields examples of citizenship being granted by decree to women (e.g. SEG 15.384; 18.264, 370/68 BC; IG IX.1² 1.9, l. 6, 300–250 BC), we have no such case for Classical Athens (the only reference to the granting of citizenship to a woman by the Athenian demos appears in a funerary epigram of the first century AD: IG XII.5 307, ll. 7–8). It is therefore likely that here we are dealing with a rhetorical device applying a typically male contrast to a female individual, in order to underscore further the impossibility of considering Neaera an Athenian citizen (see Kapparis 1999, 399–400).

In other cases, polîtis appears interchangeable with astē, being used simply to indicate descent from a citizen mother (Isoc. 14.51; Demosth. 23.213; Is. 8.43; cf. Arist. Pol. 1275b 33; 1278a 28). Outside the Athenian context, the term often designates female citizens who, together with politai, form a group clearly distinguished from other categories inhabiting the same city: IG XII.4 1.75 A, ll. 9–10 (Cos, 202/1 BC: politai and polîtides distinguished from nothōi, paroikoi and xenoi); IG XII.4 1.320, ll. 11–12 (Cos, late second century BC: politai and polîtides distinguished from others who katoikousi the city); IG XII.7 386, ll. 17–18, 21–22 (Amorgos, third century BC: politai and polîtides distinguished from douloi and exeleutheroi).

The term also appears in religious and cultic contexts: IG XII.4 1.304, l. 19 (Cos, 200–150 BC) and IG XII.4 1.326, l. 24 (Cos, 100–50 BC), where the priestess of Dionysos Thyllophoros was entitled to appoint a polîtis as hyphiereia; cf. Milet VI.2 733 (third–second century BC), which mentions the Bacchai polietides of Miletus greeting the priestess of Dionysos.

• C. Joyce, Could Athenian Women be counted as citizens in Democratic Athens in J. Filonik, C. Plastow, R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds.), Citizenship in Antiquity. Civic Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean, London – New York 2023, 342-354
• K. A. Kapparis, Apollodoros. Against Neaera, Berlin – New York 1999
• C. Mossé, Ἀστὴ καὶ πολῖτις. La dénomination de la femme athénienne dans les plaidoyers démosthéniens, Ktèma 10, 1985, 77-79

[G. Falco]

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Politographeo (πολιτογραφέω)

The verb πολιτογραφέω denotes sensu stricto the act of admitting an individual to the civic body – that is, of granting citizenship (by extension, ‘to naturalise’) – whereas the noun πολιτογραφία designates the procedure by which such admission is effected (cf. Kiessling 1952; Asheri 1966, 26, who speaks of “conferimento della cittadinanza [πολιτογραφία] ad un determinato numero di persone”). The notion expressed by both the verb and the noun has been understood in modern scholarship in a range of closely related ways, extending from the collective enrolment of new citizens (Asheri 1980, 145; cf. Müller 2023, 494: “a term that should be reserved for group enfranchisements”) to a formally defined process of civic registration, variously described as “schriftliche Eintragung in Bürgerlisten” (Dreher 2007, 66; cf. Péré-Noguès 2022, 77: “enregistrement des nouveaux citoyens sur les listes civiques”), “revision of citizenship lists” (Lomas 2006, 106), and, ultimately, “archiviazione in un registro generale di cittadinanza” (Savalli 1985, 408; on citizen registers in the ancient Greek world, see Boffo, Faraguna 2021, 151-75). In this light, πολιτογραφεῖν and πολιτογραφία should be situated within that cluster of terms and phrases denoting the expansion or reconfiguration of the civic body, including in particular ἀναπληροῦν / ἀναπλήρωσις, προσγράφειν πρὸς τὸ πολίτευμα, καταχωρίζειν εἰς τὸ πολίτευμα, and the like (see Savalli 1985, 397, note 94; cf. Lonis 1992).

Although politographies were by no means an exclusively Hellenistic phenomenon, the earliest attestation of the term itself in both documentary and literary sources appear, insofar as can be ascertained, in the third century BCE. It first occurs in the Dikaiomata papyrus, P.Hal. 1 (TM 5876: after 259 BCE), ll. 156-161, where πολιτογραφέω is used with reference to individuals enrolled in the army who had been admitted to Alexandrian citizenship (τῶν δὲ | {τῶν δὲ} ἐν τ[ῶι] στρατ[ι]ωτικῶ[ι] τεταγμένων ὅσο[ι] ἂν | ἐν [Ἀλ]εξα[ν]δρεία[ι] πεπο[λ]ιτογραφημένοι) and who lodged complaints concerning salaries and grain allowances, as well as credited sums of money and grain (ἐν[κα]λῶσ[ιν π]ερὶ σιτ[α]ρχιῶν καὶ σιτομε[τ]ριῶν καὶ | πα[ρ]αγρα[φῶν] τῶ[ν ἐ]ξιτ[α]ρχίας (lege ἐ]κ σιτ[α]ρχίας) ἢ σι[τ]ομετρίας | γινομένω[ν). Significantly, these πεπο[λ]ιτογραφημένοι do not appear to have enjoyed the full range of civic rights, since a case in which both accuser and defendant belonged to this category would have fallen under the jurisdiction of the courts for foreigners (ll. 161-164: ἐ]ὰν καὶ οἱ ἀντ[ίδ]ικοι ἐν τῶι [σ]τρατιω|τικῶι ὄντ[ες π]επολιτογ[ρ]αφημένοι ὦ[σ]ιν, λα[μ]|βαν[έτ]ωσαν τὸ δ[ί]καιον [κ]αὶ ὑπεχέτω[σ]αν ἐν [τοῖς] | ξεν[ι]κοῖς δικαστη[ρί]οις): on this passage, see Savalli 1985, 394-95.

In the epigraphic record, the term occurs in the second of the two letters addressed by Philip V to the Larisaeans (see recently Mari, Thornton 2016, 149-58) – dated by Christian Habicht to 215 BCE, the very year in which the king concluded his treaty with Hannibal – where it is employed in the context of an appeal to earlier precedents (most notably that of the Romans) that treated the expansion of the civic body as a viable response to demographic decline (IG IX.2 517, ll. 31-32: ἔξεστι δὲ καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς τοὺς ταῖς ὁμοίαι|ς πολιτογραφίαις χρωμένους θεωρεῖν ὧν καὶ οἱ Ῥωμαῖ|οί εἰσιν). In Thessaly, comparable instances of politography are attested around the same period by inscriptions from Pharsalus, IG IX.2 234 (Moretti, ISE II 96: cf. e.g. Decourt 1990; Lonis 1992, 258-59; Ducat 1994, 107-13) and Phalanna, IG IX.2 1228 (Moretti, ISE II 108: cf. Lonis 1992, 259-61), where the procedure is explicitly associated with a dokimasia undergone by newly enfranchised politai (see Savalli 1985, esp. 413-14; Feyel 2009, 354-55; Mari, Thornton 2016, 159-65). This feature is attested not only at Larisa (IG IX.2 517, l. 35: τοὺς μὲν κεκριμένους ὑπὸ τῶν πολιτῶν ἀποκαταστῆσαι [scil. παρακαλῶ ὑμᾶς] εἰς τὴν πολιτείαν), but also in certain Hellenistic citizenship decrees from Athens, which mention a δοκιμασία τῆς πολιτογραφίας held before the thesmothetai (cf. IG II³.1 1219, ca. 210 BCE; 1283, ca. 186 BCE; 1384 and 1385, ca. 175 BCE; 1393, ca. 170 BCE). Further instances of civic expansion are documented in inscriptions from, among others, Thebes (IG VII 2433: cf. e.g. Marchand 2010), Dyme (Rizakis, Achaïe, III 4: 219/8 BCE), and Tritaia in Achaia (Rizakis, Achaïe, III 94), as well as from Miletus (e.g. I.Delphinion 33-35: 234/33 BCE; 36-38: 229/28; cf. Baker 2013) and Ilion (I.Ilion 64: cf. Brulé 1990), which, although not precisely datable, may nonetheless be assigned to the same phase.

As for the extant literary sources, πολιτογραφέω is first employed by Polybius – only in a single passage (32.7.3: cf. Savalli 1985, 419-20), preserved through Constantine’s Excerpta – and, more extensively, by Diodorus Siculus. On the basis of several passages from his Bibliotheca historica relating to Sicilian history, further support may nonetheless be adduced for Pollux’ claim (3.56 Bethe) that πολιτογραφεῖν was coined by Philistus of Syracuse, which would place its emergence as early as the fourth century BCE (see Amendola in this volume). A particularly illustrative instance of Diodorus’ use of πολιτογραφία is found in his account of the situation at Syracuse in 454 BCE (11.86.3), on the eve of the abortive tyrannical attempt by Tyndarides, where the noun, in describing the consequences of the koinon dogma of 461/0 BCE, denotes the mass enrolment of new citizens alongside the redistribution of land following the return of exiles previously expelled by tyrants and the definitive regularisation of the civic status of individuals earlier admitted to citizenship under those regimes. As already noted by Asheri 1966, 25-27, land reallocation, together with the broader reorganisation of landholding, appears as a necessary counterpart to politographies (see further Mari, Thornton 2016, 149).

A particularly valuable perspective on both the meaning and the use of the term is afforded by the ancient lexicographers, albeit limited to Hesychius and Pollux (in the passage mentioned above). Hesychius glosses the verb as πολιτικὰ γράφει (Π 2794, s.v. πολιτογραφεῖ Hansen), a lemma now regarded as corrupt, though Moritz Schmidt’s conjecture εἰς πολίτας ἐγγράφει accords well with the term’s predominant meaning. Pollux, by contrast, adopting the synonymic clustering typical of onomastic lexicography (see Radici Colace 2006; Tosi 2007), groups πολιτογραφεῖν with δημοποίητος and νεοπολίτης (cf. Arist. Ath. 21.4), treating all three as denoting admission to citizenship by decree (οἱ δὲ δημοποίητοι, ὁπόσοι ἐκ δόγματος κοινοῦ πολιτείας τύχοιεν· […] τάχα δ’ ἂν οἱ τοιοῦτοι ὀνομάζοιντο νεοπολῖται ὑπὸ τοῦ Πλάτωνος).

The equivalence with δημοποίητος is further corroborated by the remaining attestations of the adjective, both in the epigraphic record – where it occurs only in the registration of the citizens of the Coan dēmos of Isthmos eligible for the eponymous office of monarchos (IG XII.4.2 461 [ca. 180 BCE], ll. 271-72) – and in the lexicographical tradition, which consistently construes it as referring to naturalised citizens. Harpocration, for instance, explains δημοποίητος as “one who, though a foreigner by birth, has become a citizen by decision of the dēmos” (Δ 29, s.v. δημοποίητος Keaney: ὁ ξένος μὲν ὢν τῇ φύσει, ὑπὸ δὲ τοῦ δήμου πολίτης γεγενημένος), a definition echoed by Hesychius (Δ 873, s.v. δημοποίητον Cunningham: ὁ κατὰ ψήφισμα δήμου γεγονὼς πολίτης, ξένος ὢν φύσει). As for the expression κατὰ ψήφισμα δήμου γεγονὼς πολίτης (or similar formulations), it is attested in several inscriptions, including the decree of the tribes of the Coan dēmos of Halasarna concerning the reconstitution of the damaged lists of citizens participating in the cult of Apollo and Heracles, IG XII.4.1 103 (ca. 180 BCE), ll. 37-41 (οἷς | ⟨δὲ⟩ δέδοται ἁ πολιτεία, κα|τὰ τίνα νόμον ἢ δόγμα | κοινὸν τοῦ παντὸς δά|μου), as well as the isopoliteia agreement between Miletus and Seleucia-Tralleis, I.Delphinion 143 (Saba 2020, no. 5: 218/7 BCE), in a clause specifying the residency requirement for this category of politai prior to the change of citizenship (A, ll. 19-22: εἰ δέ τινες κατὰ δόγμα τοῦ δήμου πολῖται | γεγένηνται, μὴ ἔνεμον δὲ τὴν Σελευκείων πόλιν ἢ ἐάν τισιν μετὰ ταῦτα | δοθῆι παρ’ αὐτοῖς πολιτεία, ὑπάρχειν τούτοις καὶ τὴμ παρ’ ἡμῖν πολιτείαν νεί̣|μασι πρότερον πατρίδα καὶ π̣όλιν Σελεύκειαν ἔτη δέκα ἀπὸ τῆς πρὸς τὸ | πολίτευμα προσγραφῆς); cf. the Milesian decree accepting the offer of isopoliteia from Heraclea at Latmos, I.Delphinion 150 (Saba 2020, no. 7: 186-182/1 BCE), which employs πολιτογραφέω in a comparable context (ll. 63-65: καὶ ἐάν τινες ὕστερον πολιτογραφηθῶσιν ἐμ Μιλήτωι ἢ ἐν Ἡρακλείαι, τούτοι[ς] | μετεῖναι τῆς παρ’ ἑκατέροις πολιτείας οἰκήσασιν πρότερον ἐν ἧι ἂν π[όλ]ε̣ι προσγραφῶσιν | ἔτη{ι} δέκα).

On this basis, the association drawn by Pollux makes it clear that the πεπολιτογραφημένοι constitute a distinct civic category, coextensive with the δημοποίητοι (or ποιητοὶ πολῖται, in Aristotle’s terms: cf. Pol. 3.1275a1-6), a category that must be interpreted against the opposition between politeia by birth and politeia by conferral. This opposition is particularly prominent in fourth-century literary sources, notably in a number of passages from the Demosthenic corpus, most of which derive from speeches traditionally attributed to Apollodorus (cf. D. 23.65; [D.] 45.78; [D.] 53.18; [D.] 59.89-90: see Osborne 1981-83, IV, 139-40). A comparable distinction between the two kinds of citizenship is reiterated in post-Classical inscriptional evidence, such as the first honorary decree from Priene for the benefactor Aulus Aemilius Zosimus, I.Priene B – M 68 (after 84 BCE), ll. 15-17, where he is praised for displaying the zeal expected of a citizen by birth (στέρξας μὲν τὴν πόλιν ὡ[ς πατρί]δα, γνησίου δὲ παρεχόμενος πολίτου κηδεμονίαν), despite having himself acquired citizenship by decree (γενόμενο̣[ς ψηφίσμ]α̣τι πολείτης). As noted by Müller 2023, 490, “[i]f the family is the main place where citizens are made under the control of civic subdivisions, the second set of ‘made’ citizens, poiētoi, includes on the side of the city all the foreigners to whom the cities grant the honour of the politeia for their diverse and varied merits”.

The existence of the πεπολιτογραφημένοι as a civic category in its own right is particularly evidenced by their occurrence in lists of newly enfranchised citizens – recorded on both perishable and durable materials – in which they are explicitly designated as such (see Savalli 1985, 396-400). This is exemplified by the epigraphic dossier containing the two letters of Philip V and the Larisaeans’ decrees responding to them (IG IX.2 517, ll. 20-21: τὸς ταμίας ἐσδό|μεν ὀνγράψειν αὐτὸ ἐν στάλλας λιθίας δύας καὶ τὰ ὀνύματα τοῦν πολιτογραφειθέντουν, 26-27: πυνθάνομαι τοὺς πολιτογραφηθέντας κατὰ | τὴν παρ’ ἐμοῦ ἐπιστολὴν καὶ τὸ ψήφισμα τὸ ὑμέτερον καὶ ἀναγραφέντας εἰς τὰς στήλας ἐκκεκολάφθαι, 41-42), where the appended catalogue of names carries the heading οἱ πεπολιτο|γραφειμένοι κάτ τε τὰς ἐπιστολὰς τοῖ βασιλεῖος καὶ κὰτ τὰ ψαφίσματα τᾶς πόλιος (ll. 46-47). Comparable attestations are found in documents such as the Triphylian citizenship grants, I.éléennes dial. 28 (Rhodes – Osborne, GHI 15: ca. 400-370 BCE), ll. 1-3 (ἔδοξε τοῖρ Τριφυλίοιρ. ὅσσοι ἐν τι | πίνακι ἐνηγράφενται, Μακιστί|οιρ ἦμεν), and the honorary decree from Bargylia in Caria for a judge from Teos, Syll.³ 426 (270-261 BCE), ll. 29-31, which refers to a stele listing proxenoi, benefactors and pepolitographemenoi. Cf. further I.Ephesos 1449 [ca. 302 BCE], ll. 6-8; IG II³.1 846 [301-295 BCE], ll. 22-23; Macr. 1.11.33 Kaster (Borysthenitae obpugnante Zopyrione servis liberatis dataque civitate peregrinis et factis tabulis novis hostem sustinere potuerunt).

A systematic analysis of the attestations of πολιτογραφία and its cognates suggests that, although the phenomenon denoted by the term should prima facie be understood as “the collective side of the citizenship grant” (Müller 2023, 495), πολιτογραφέω – especially in the passive voice – may also extend to individual cases of enfranchisement, in the sense of ‘being enrolled among the politai’, and thus function as a synonym of πολιτεύεσθαι (‘to be granted citizenship’), particularly in contexts of honorary politeia (cf. e.g. EM 654.37, s.v. παρεγγεγραμμένος Gaisford: δημοποίητος δὲ, ὁ ὑπὸ δήμου προῖκα πολιτευθείς). It should not be overlooked, however, as rightly noted by Savalli (1985, 422, with note 218), that in Greek citizenship grants the distinction between collective and individual cases proves of limited analytical value, insofar as the procedures involved appear to be fundamentally identical.

This apparent extension of the primary meaning of πολιτογραφέω to include individual cases may be explained not simply as a matter of semantic drift, but rather as the outcome of a functional reorientation already identified by Louis Robert (1933, 494-95) with regard to ἐπικληρόω, another key term in the Greek lexicon of citizenship. As Robert observed, in decrees issued by different communities – including Temnos, Magnesia on the Maeander, and Amorgos – the verb does not primarily denote the operation of allotment, but more generally the act of directly enrolling the honorand in a specific civic subdivision. Additional support for the view that a comparable semantic extension may also have occurred in the case of πολιτογραφέω can be drawn from parallels such as D.L. 5.84 Dorandi (δωδέκατος [scil. Demetrius] γραμματικὸς Ἐρυθραῖος, πολιτογραφηθεὶς ἐν Τήμνῳ), SEG XXXI 576 (ca. 150 BCE), ll. 8-10 (Ἀντίπα|τρος Ἀντ̣ιπάτρου Ἱεροπολίτης τῆ̣ς Σελευκί|δος, πεπολιτογραφημένος [δὲ] ἐν Ὁμολίῳ), and Ath. 4.81 Olson (ἦν δ’ ὁ Ἐπίγονος φύσει μὲν Ἀμβρακιώτης, δημοποίητος δὲ Σικυώνιος), to be compared with Poll. 4.59 Bethe (ὁ δ’ Ἐπίγονος ἦν γένει μὲν Ἀμβρακιώτης τιμῇ δὲ Σικυώνιος). Taken together, these passages point to a substantial overlap between πολιτογραφηθείς / δημοποίητος and κατὰ ψήφισμα δήμου / τιμῇ  γεγονὼς πολίτης, indicating admission to citizenship in an honorary capacity. This interpretation is further corroborated by two complementary loci concerning the honours bestowed at Athens upon the murderers of the Thracian ruler Kotys in 360/59 BCE, who were granted citizenship in recognition of their act (see Zaccaria 2019): cf. Phld. Ind.Acad., P.Herc. 1021, col. VI, 15-20 Fleischer (Πύθων καὶ Ἡρα[κ]|λί[δης] ο̣[ἱ] Κ̣ότυν ἀποκτ̣εί̣|ναντε[ς κ]αὶ διὰ τοῦθ’ ὑπ’ [Ἀ|θη]ναί[ων] πολιτογραφη[θέν]|τε[ς, εἶ]τα δὲ χρυσῶι στ[ε]φά|[νωι τιμηθέντες], Αἴνιοι); D.L. 9.65 Dorandi (Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ καὶ πολιτείᾳ αὐτὸν [i.e. Python, misidentified as Pyrrhon] ἐτίμησαν, καθά φησι Διοκλῆς, ἐπὶ τῷ Κότυν τὸν Θρᾷκα διαχρήσασθαι).

Among the relatively few occurrences of πολιτογραφία from the Imperial period, particular interest attaches to the Latin loanword politographia, attested in a Hadrianic caput ex testamento inscribed on a limestone stele from Nacolea in Phrygia, I.Asia Mixed 59 (ILS 7196; MAMA V 202; FIRA III² 53), where it is employed as a near-equivalent of civium recensus. By means of a testamentary disposition in the form of a fideicommissum, the Imperial freedman Publius Aelius Onesimos bequeathes to the city a sum of 200,000 sesterces, to be lent at interest (faeneratio), with the proceeds for a period of three years earmarked for the purchase of public grain (sitonicum). After the expiry of this term, the interest accrued (usurae) was to be distributed, on the occasion of the birthday of Hadrian, among Onesimos’ fellow-citizens, following verification of the civic registers (ll. 7-9: et peṛacṭo tṛịẹṇṇio uolo eius omnis p̣ẹ|cuniạẹ usuras quodquọd anṇis ciuibuṣ meis diuidi, [p]oliṭọgrạp[h(ia)] | f̣ạcta): see recently Kantor 2013, 166-67, with earlier bibliography.

• D. Asheri, Distribuzioni di terre nell’antica Grecia, Torino 1966.
• D. Asheri, “Rimpatrio di esuli e ridistribuzione di terre nelle città siceliote, ca. 466-461 a.C.”, in Φιλίας χάριν. Miscellanea di studi classici in onore di Eugenio Manni, 6 vols., Roma 1980, I, 143-58.
• P. Baker, “Mère-patrie et patrie d’adoption à l’époque hellénistique: réflexions à partir du cas des mercenaires crétois de Milet”, in S.L. Ager, R.A. Faber (eds.), Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World, Toronto 2013, 268-91.
• L. Boffo, M. Faraguna, Le poleis e i loro archivi. Studi su pratiche documentarie, istituzioni e società nell’antichità greca, Trieste 2021.
• P. Brulé, “Enquête démographique sur la famille grecque antique. Étude de listes de politographie d’Asie mineure d’époque hellénistique (Milet et Ilion)”, REA 92, 1990, 233-58.
• J.-C. Decourt, “Décret de Pharsale pour une politographie”, ZPE 81, 1990, 163-84.
• M. Dreher, “Das Bürgerrecht im griechischen Sizilien zwischen Recht und Politik”, in E. Cantarella (ed.), Symposion 2005. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte (Salerno, 14.–18. September 2005), Wien 2007, 57-78.
• J. Ducat, Les pénestes de Thessalie, Paris 1994.
• C. Feyel, Δοκιμασία. La place et le rôle de l’examen préliminaire dans les institutions des cités grecques, Nancy-Paris 2009.
• G. Kantor, “Law in Roman Phrygia: Rules and Jurisdictions”, in P. Thonemann (ed.), Roman Phrygia: Culture and Society, Cambridge 2013, 143-67.
• E. Kiessling, “Politographein”, RE XXI/2, Stuttgart 1952, 1403.
• K. Lomas, “Tyrants and the polis: migration, identity and urban development in Sicily”, in S. Lewis (ed.), Ancient Tyranny, Edinburgh 2006, 95-118.
• R. Lonis, “L’anaplérôsis ou la reconstitution du corps civique avec des étrangers à l’époque hellénistique”, in R. Lonis (ed.), L’étranger dans le monde grec II, Nancy 1992, 245-70.
• F. Marchand, “The Philippeis of IG VII 2433”, in R.W.V. Catling, F. Marchand (eds.), Onomatologos. Studies in Greek Personal Names presented to Elaine Matthews, Oxford 2010, 332-43.
• M. Mari, J. Thornton, “Città greche tra conservazione e modelli rivoluzionari. Megalopoli, Larisa e i re macedoni nel III secolo a.C.”, Studi Ellenistici 30, 2016, 139-95.
• C. Müller, “The Making of the Citizen in Hellenistic Poleis”, in J. Filonik, C. Plastow, R. Zelnick-Abramovitz (eds.), Citizenship in Antiquity: Civic Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean, London-New York 2023, 487-502.
• M.J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, 4 vols., Brussels 1981-83.
• S. Péré-Noguès, “Citoyenneté et mercenariat en Sicile du V^e au III^e siècle avant J.-C.”, in P. Sänger, S. Scheuble-Reiter (eds.), Söldner und Berufssoldaten in der griechischen Welt. Soziale und politische Gestaltungsräume, Stuttgart 2022, 75-88.
• P. Radici Colace, “La sinonimia nell’Onomasticon di Polluce”, in M.G. Adamo, P. Radici Colace (eds.), Synonymie et «differentiae»: théories et méthodologies de l’époque classique à l’époque moderne, Messina-Napoli 2006, 59-68.
• L. Robert, “Inscriptions d’Aiolide”, BCH 57, 1933, 492-504 (reprint in Robert, OMS, I, 436-48).
• S. Saba, Isopoliteia in Hellenistic Times, Leiden-Boston 2020.
• I. Savalli, “I neocittadini nelle città ellenistiche. Note sulla concessione e l’acquisizione della politeia”, Historia 34, 1985, 387-431.
• R. Tosi, “Polluce: struttura onomastica e tradizione lessicografica”, in C. Bearzot, F. Landucci, G. Zecchini (eds.), L’Onomasticon di Giulio Polluce. Tra lessicografia e antiquaria, Milano 2007, 3-16.
• P. Zaccaria, “The Murderers of Kotys the Thracian: From Demosthenes to Diogenes Laertios”, Mnemosyne 72, 2019, 66-83.

[D. Amendola]

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Prostates (προστάτης)

The term prostates (προστάτης) has a multiplicity of meanings: it can be employed to identify a political leader, notably on the democratic side (προστάτης τοῦ δήμου), the president of a board (e.g. προστάτης προβούλων in IG IX 12.4 798, ll. 116-117, an inscription from Corcyra, 2nd cent.), more generally a role of leader or chief (e.g. Xenophon in HG 3. 1.3 defines the Spartans as τῆς Ἑλλάδος προστάται) or the one who stands as a defender of something (Demosth. 15.30: προστάται τῆς πάντων ἐλευθερίας); in the context of citizenship issues, it designates the warrant that metics and freedmen were required to have in order to reside in the host city.

The prostates of metics, for whom we possess information almost exclusively from the Athenian context (outside of it, see e.g. Lys. 31.9; Lycurg. 1.21; Gauthier 1972, 128-136), was the citizen who acted as guarantor for a resident foreigner. The metic freely chose his prostates (Isocr. 8.53), possibly based on prior acquaintance, and the latter was present when the metic’ name was transcribed in the registers of the demos in which he would reside.

Regarding his duties, a metic had to pay the residence tax (μετοίκιον), under the supervision of the prostates (see e.g. Demosth. 25.56-58; Suid. s.v. νέμειν προστάτην); it is likely that the latter accompanied his client before the officials in charge and that, in case of dispute, in order to avoid the ἀπαγωγή of the allegedly insolvent metic, he was entitled to guarantee before the polemarch that the contribution had been regularly made.

Lexicographic sources attest that the prostates assisted the metic περὶ πάντων τῶν ἰδίων καὶ τῶν κοινῶν (see e.g. Harp. s.v. ἀπροστασίου). Regardless of the vagueness of the reference, scholars have wondered whether, as would seem to emerge mainly from lexicographical sources, the prostates was a permanent figure during the Athenian residence period of the metic and what role it specifically played in the judicial sphere. With regard to the first issue, although some scholars believed that the prostates was a mere “godfather” who intervened only at the time of the metic’s registration (e.g. Wilamowitz 1877, 232), it is perhaps more likely that the warrant was a continuous presence in the foreigner’s life (e.g. Gauthier 1972, 126-136; Whitehead 1977, 89-92; Tuci 2023, 103 ff.), as suggested both by fourth-century sources (such as Isoc. 8.53) and authors such as Haprocration, who was certainly very well documented on Athenian legal system.

Concerning specifically the role of the prostates in the judiciary field, the main source is a passage from Aristotle’s Politics (1275a11-13), in which, attempting to define the concept of the citizen, the author states that in several cases the metics do not participate fully in judicial life, but are required to resort to a guarantor (πολλαχοῦ μὲν οὖν οὐδὲ τούτων τελέως οἱ μέτοικοι μετέχουσιν, ἀλλὰ νέμειν ἀνάγκη προστάτην). Moreover, numerous lexicographical sources attest to the existence of a γραφὴ ἀπροστασίου (cf. also Arist. Ath. Pol. 58.3) that affected the resident foreigner who did not have a prostates, who did not pay the μετοίκιον, or who had illegally enrolled as an ἀστός (cf. e.g. Harp. s.v. ἀπροστασίου). It is likely that in the 5th and up to the middle of the 4th century the guarantor was necessary in all cases in which the metic had to appear before the polemarch, in order to attest, at the stage of the ἀνάκρισις, the legal status of his client and that afterwards, in the case of the δίκαι ἐμπορικαί, the metic, just like the ξένος, no longer needed to be introduced by his prostates because in this case the magistrates acted ratione rei and not ratione personae (Gauthier 1972, 132 ff. ). The role of the guarantor must therefore have gradually declined, as is also shown by the fact that at the beginning of the 3rd century Dinarchus of Corinth, brought a private lawsuit in Athens against his friend Proxenus and appeared in person in court (Dion. Hal. Din. 3.1; [Plut.] Mor. 850e). However, the figure was probably not entirely suppressed, since the prostates also had competences beyond those related to the judiciary; moreover, a series of φιάλαι from the second half of the 4th century seem to attest cases of γραφὴ ἀπροστασίου in which metics were acquitted (Meyer 2010, 11-80), which would lead to confirm the persistence of an active role for the prostates.

On the prostates of the freedmen (ἀπελεύθεροι or, if they were freemen who had become slaves and then freed, ἐξελεύθεροι: cf. Et. Gud. s.v. ἀπελεύθερος καὶ ἐξελεύθερος) we possess little information: it is possible that the freedman was obliged to have as prostates his former master, whose role was protected by the δίκη ἀποστασίου (Harp. s.v. ἀποστασίου), but the issue is debated (Sosin 2016, 8 ff.). In the theoretical speculation of Plato’s Laws (915a) we read that, among the various obligations of the freedman, there was also to appear three times a month before his prostates, thus showing, at least in the Platonic conception, a continuity in the relationship between the two.

• M. Adak, Metöken als Wohltäter Athens. Untersuchungen zum sozialen Austausch zwischen ortsansassigen Fremden und der Burgergemeinde in klassischer und hellenistischer Zeit (ca. 500-150 v. Chr.), München 2003
• P. Gauthier, Symbola. Les étrangers et la justice dans les cites grecques, Nancy 1972
• E.A. Meyer, Metics and the Athenian Phialai-Inscriptions: A Study in Athenian Epigraphy and Law, Wiesbaden 2009
• J.D. Sosin, A metic was a metic, Historia 65.1 (2016), 2-13
• P.A. Tuci, Tra il meteco e la polis: ricerche sul ruolo del prostates, RIL 141 (2007) 237-281
• P.A. Tuci, La crusca e la farina. Attualità del pensiero di Philippe Gauthier sui meteci, Dike 26 (2023), 101-126
• D. Whitehead, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic, Cambridge 1977
• U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Demotika der attischen Metoeken, I-II, Hermes 22 (1887) 107-128; 211-259

[P. A. Tuci]

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Proxenos (πρόξενος)

A proxenos (πρόξενος) is a citizen who, while continuing to reside in his own city, represents the foreign community that granted him that title. Etymologically, the term is a compound of ξένος and thus indicates one who acts according to the relations of ξενία: more precisely, a proxenos guarantees the bonds of hospitality not to a single individual, but to an entire community. The institution of proxenia is widespread throughout the Greek world, across a very broad chronological span, reaching into the Roman era. It is mainly attested through epigraphic, but also by literary sources. One of the oldest testimonies is an inscription from Corcyra dating to the beginning of the 6th century, the cenotaph of a certain Menekrates, son of Tlasia, from Eantea (in Locris Ozolia), who is qualified as πρόξενϝος δάμου φίλος (IG IX 1².4 882).

Several categories of inscriptions mention proxenoi: a particular but noteworthy case are lists of names (collected in Mack 2015, 286-361), while the most frequent are the decrees of proxenia, by which a city bestows this honour (and possibly others related to it) on an individual for special merits. We possess decrees of this kind promulgated by more than 180 cities, including especially Delphi, Delos, Oropo, Athens, but also by political entities of a different nature such as federations (Mack 2015, 9; 14).

The form of these texts is mostly standard: almost always the reason for the concession is mentioned, introduced by the conjunction ἐπειδή. For example, an inscription from 349/8 (IG II² 294 = IG II³ 1, 552) states that the Athenians grant proxenia to Theogenes of Naucratis because he is ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός towards the demos of the Athenians and both his ancestors and himself have acted well towards the Athenians coming to Naucratis for public and private matters. The adjectives most frequently used to characterise the honorand are ἀγαθός, εὔνους, πρόθυμος, φίλος, which emphasise his good disposition and always refer not to generic qualities, but to his behaviour towards the community that grants the proxenia; worth mentioning are also χρήσιμος and εὔχρηστος, which emphasise more concretely their “utility” to the community of which they are proxenoi.

The kind of assistance the proxenos offers to the community can be illustrated by various expressions: for instance, a third-century inscription from Tenos states that the Mytilenian Melesias son of Melesias always offers services to the Tenians who come to him for public or private matters (IG XII 5, 798: διατελεῖ χρείας παρεχόμενος καὶ κοινεῖ τῆι πόλει καὶ ἰδίαι Τηνίων τοῖς ἐντυνχάνουσιν ἑαυτῶι); elsewhere we find expressions such as ποιῶν ὅ τι δύναται ἀγαθόν (IG IX.4 639, da Delo, III sec.), λέγων καὶ πράττων ἀεὶ τὰ συμφέροντα τῶι δήμωι (IG XII.9 221, from Eretria, 3rd cent.), or similar ones.

Obviously, the status of the proxenos could in some way influence the services he could provide. Many of the proxenoi are unknown to us, but sometimes we find names of people with institutional roles, even of a certain importance: for example, kings, dynasts, royal officials, military officers, magistrates, envoys, judges, priests; alongside these we encounter individuals linked to the world of culture, such as philosophers, poets, artists, and of business and finance, such as merchants and bankers (for a more complete list, Mack 2015, 59).

Another characteristic aspect of the decrees of proxenia is the emphasis on the fact that the community issuing them expects the proxenos to continue acting with the diligence shown thus far: in this respect, the verb διατελέω followed by the participle or expressions emphasising the temporal aspect are often used (cf. the already mentioned IG II² 294 = IG II³ 1, 552).

A forward-looking perspective is also found in inscriptions such as IG II² 1137, a decree dated 193/2 by which the Athenians granted proxenia to Charmion, son of Eumaridas of Cidonia (in Crete): it not only mentions his past behaviour to justify the grant of proxenia (ll- 51-59), but also states that in the future (εἰς τὸ λοιπόν) Charmion, by showing his good disposition (αἵρεσις) towards Athens, will be able to obtain further benefits if deemed worthy (ll. 67-70).

The typical formula πρόξενος καὶ εὐεργέτης can be found not only in epigraphic texts (e.g. IG I³ 126, from Athens; IG IX.4 543, from Delos), but also in literary ones (e.g. Hdt. 8.136.1; Xenoph. HG 6.1.4). More generally, the importance of evergetism in the context of proxenia grants is evident; however, it should be noted that not all εὐεργέται also have the title of proxenoi.

Literary attestations are less numerous, but provide interesting perspectives: for instance, they show how proxenoi could engage in espionage (cf. Thuc. 3.2.3); more generally, they could be suspected of treason, facing particular risks especially in the event of conflicts between the community of origin and the community for which they were proxenoi. In the theatre, there are multiple echoes of the role of proxenoi in welcoming foreigners or foreign delegations (Aesch. Supp. 234 ff.; Aristoph. Av. 1021), although other literary genres provide more abundant and important information. For historiography, see for instance the numerous passages of Thucydides (2.29.1; 2.85.5; 3.2.3; 3.52.5; 3.70.1; 4.78.1; 5.43.2; 5.59.5; 5.76.3; 6.89.2) and Xenophon (HG 1.135; 4.5.6; 5.4.22; 6.1.4; 6. 3.4; 7.2.16), which are interesting because they offer examples of proxenoi “in action” (as opposed to simply capturing the moment of the grant of proxenia, as is the case with proxenia decrees). For oratory, the main witness is Demosthenes (but see e.g. also Aeschin. 3.138; Din. 1.45); oration 52 of the corpus Demosthenicum features Callippus, proxenos of the Heracleesians, in a charge initiated by Apollodoros concerning a sum of money that the Heracleote Lycon had deposited at the bank of Pasion. Finally, a significant passage from Plato mentions Megillos, a Spartan proxenos of the Athenians, stating that the proxenoi nurture benevolence towards the city that appointed them as such, and that they regard it almost as a δεύτερα πατρίς (Pl. Lg. 642b).

• E. Culasso Gastaldi, Le prossenie ateniesi del IV secolo a.C.: gli onorati asiatici, Alessandria 2004
• A. Gerolymatos, Espionage and Treason. A Study of the Proxenia in Political and Military Intelligence Gathering in Classical Greece, Amsterdam 1986
• W. Mack, Proxeny and Polis. Institutional Networks in the Ancient Greek World, Oxford 2015
• C. Marek, Die Proxenie, 1984
• M.B. Walbank, Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century B.C., Toronto-Sarasota 1978

[P. A. Tuci]

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Sympoliteia (συμπολιτεία)

Συμπολιτεία and related terms (συμπολιτεύειν, συμπολίτης, etc.) indicate the sharing of citizenship both among members of a single community and among multiple communities, either within the framework of a koinon (so-called federal sympoliteia) or through an agreement between two poleis (so-called bilateral sympoliteia). Of these meanings, the first – typical especially of verbal forms related to συμπολιτεία – is the oldest attested and enjoyed significant persistence over time: it already appears in Thucydides (e.g. 8, 76, 3), reemerges in various 4^th-century BCE authors (e.g. Isoc., Or. 16, 44; Arist., Pol. 1324a), and is attested down to the late Hellenistic and Roman periods (see, respectively, I.Priene B-M 64 and IGBulg IV 2247). However, this meaning does not fall within the concept of sympoliteia – or ‘sympolity’ – as understood in modern scholarship, which is instead grounded in the ancient use of the term at the inter-community level. Modern scholarship assigns to this category cases exhibiting the features of federal or bilateral sympoliteia even when the sources do not employ this specific terminology. Conversely, although the decrees by which Miletus granted citizenship to the inhabitants of Seleucia-Tralles and Mylasa (I.Delphinion 143 A and 146 A) employ the verb συμπολιτεύεσθαι, the relationship established between these communities falls outside the modern notion of sympoliteia, rather belonging to the sphere of isopoliteia.  [G. Aresi]

In the federal context it can be translated as “common citizenship” or “dual citizenship” and expresses the coexistence of a federal citizenship with a local (polis or village) citizenship. In the official sphere, it is expressed in the onomastic definition of citizen, which juxtaposes the ethnicity of the koinon (e.g., Thessalos, “Thessalian”) with the specification of the locality (town or village) of origin, expressed with a complement of origin (ek Larisses, “from Larissa”). Literary attestations of the formula also exist.

The earliest occurrences of the term sympoliteia (in the verbal form sympoliteuein) recur in two essentially contemporary fourth-century texts whose mutual chronological relationship is difficult to establish. The first is chapter 19.2-4, pp. 32-33 Chambers of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, in which the technical term sympoliteuein is used to identify the relationship between the Boeotian city of Plataea and the choria of Scolus, Erithrai, and Scafe (i.e., a secondary sympolitical relationship within the larger Boeotian League). The second, taken from Xenophon’s Hellenica (5.2.11-19) and relating to the process of empowerment of the Chalcidian League (i.e., the league of Chalcidian cities of Thrace) by the city of Olinthos in 382, not only attests to the terminology of sympoliteia, but also clarifies what it concretely entailed: common laws, common army, pooling of economic resources and rents from ports and markets, exchange of marriage rights (epigamia) and property rights (enktesis). The term is used by Polybius, who also tries to innovate the lexicon of federalism, for the Achaeans (20.6.7; 22.8.9; 23.17.1) and other federations, including in the almost pleonastic form koine sympoliteia (24.8.3; 27.2.10) and in the form ethnike sympoliteia (2.44.5), which makes explicit beyond doubt the reference to the federal state. There is, however, modest trace of the sympoliteia in the sources, especially at the epigraphic level: to identify the federal states and their citizens, the use of the ethnic is more frequently employed. [C. Bearzot]

In the context of relations between two communities, sympoliteia consists in the absorption of one community into the other, which subsumes the territory and civic body of the former, integrating its members into its own citizenship and political-institutional system. This is well illustrated by the agreement signed between Miletus and Pidasa, probably in 187/6 BCE (I.Delphinion 149; cf. I.Milet 1, 184-5), which states that the Pidaseans had “offered [scil. to the Milesians] their city, territory, and the revenues deriving therefrom” (προσφερομένων Πιδασέων πόλιν τε καὶ χώραν καὶ τὰ[ς | ἐ]κ τούτων προσόδους; ll. 50-1), and provides that “the Pidaseans shall be fellow citizens of the Milesians” (εἶναι Πιδασεῖς Μιλησίων πο|λίτας; ll. 10-1; a relatively uncommon feature, though paralleled in other Milesian inscriptions, the text explicitly states that the provision also applied to the children and – under certain conditions – to the wives of the Pidaseans) and therefore “shall share in the cults, offices, and all other matters in which the other Milesians participate” (μετεῖναι […] | ἱερῶν καὶ ἀρχείων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων, ὧν καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς μέτε|στι Μιλησίοις; ll. 13-5) – a form of integration that the document itself designates as συμπολιτεία (l. 49). The act establishing the sympoliteia formed more than a century earlier between Pidasa and Heraclea at Latmos expresses the resulting merger between the two communities in even clearer terms (see I.Nordkarien T4, ll. 16-7: ἴδιον δὲ μηθὲν εἶναι μηδετέραι τῶν πό|λεων, “there shall be nothing exclusive to either of the two cities”), and also provides an example of a demographic measure aimed at promoting its full implementation: for a period of six years, marriages were not permitted within either community, but only between members of the two communities (see ll. 21-5).

However, the establishment of a sympoliteia did not necessarily entail the complete dissolution of the smaller community within the larger one. This is illustrated, for example, by the 2^nd-century BCE treaty stipulating that the citizens of Stiris and Medeon “shall share the politeia” (συ[ν|ε]πολίτευσαν; IG IX 1, 32, ll. 6-7) – a case which, involving two communities of the Phocian koinon, demonstrates the compatibility between federal and bilateral sympoliteia. While stipulating that “all Medeonians shall be Styrians on equal terms, and shall assemble and elect magistrates together with the city of the Styrians” (εἶμεν | [τ]οὺς Μεδεωνίους πάντας | [Σ]τιρίους ἴσους καὶ ὁμοίους, | καὶ συνεκλησιάζειν καὶ συ|ναρχοστατεῖσθαι μετὰ τᾶς | [πό]λιος τᾶς Στιρίων; ll. 10-5), the treaty establishes that the archons of Stiris were to be assisted in performing a series of functions by a hierotamias chosen from among the Medeonians, implying the continued existence of the latter as a distinct group within the civic body. More generally, although some founding documents of sympoliteiai mention – or even introduce measures aimed at facilitating (see, e.g., I.Nordkarien T4, ll. 27-8, with the provision that “the Pidaseans be allowed to build houses in the city [scil. in Heraclea] on public land wherever they wish”; ἐξεῖναι δὲ Πιδασεῦσιν οἰκοδομεῖσθαι οἰκήσε̣[ις] | ἐν τῆι πόλει ἐν τῆι δημοσίαι οὗ ἂν βούλωνται) – population transfers to the larger polis, these do not appear to have normally led to the disappearance of the urban centre of the integrated community. On the contrary, the latter’s survival can be implicitly assumed – or, in some cases, expressly guaranteed – in the same texts (e.g. in the absorption of Kyrbissos by Teos, and, with less certainty, of Helisson by Mantinea; see SEG 26.1306 and Rhodes–Osborne, GHI 14).

The different emphasis placed on the settlement aspect constitutes a distinguishing feature between the similar and partly equivalent modern notions of bilateral sympoliteia and synoecism. The dynamics underlying these unions were also comparable. They could arise from local demands – often a need for protection on the part of the smaller community and a corresponding desire for expansion on the part of the larger one, as well as the smoothing over of previous tensions – or be prompted by a higher authority seeking administrative efficiency and greater control over the territory. The latter policy was frequently adopted by Hellenistic sovereigns and dynasts, helping to explain the widespread occurrence of such phenomena in this period.

Various sources indicate that the formation of sympoliteiai (or synoecisms) was accompanied by negotiations between the parties involved – and, possibly, with the higher authority promoting the project – to which the peculiarities of local experiences can, at least in part, be attributed. The degree of satisfaction – particularly among smaller communities – with the outcome of these processes, as well as the level of coercion that may have underpinned them, were factors influencing the (heterogeneous) long-term success of the unions. [G. Aresi]

• C. Bearzot, Il federalismo greco, Bologna 2014.
• R. Boehm, City and Empire in the Age of the Successors. Urbanization and Social Response in the Making of the Hellenistic Kingdoms, Oakland 2018.
• W.J.B.G. Mack, Communal Interests and Polis Identity under Negotiation: Documents Depicting Sympolities between Cities Great and Small, Topoi 18/1 (2013), pp. 87-116.
• A. Magnetto, Lo statuto dei neocittadini negli accordi di sinecismo, sympoliteia e isopoliteia, Erga-Logoi 13/2, 2025, 115-42.
• C. Müller, é. Priol, How to Be a Citizen in a Koinon? Practices of ‘Common Citizenship’ in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods, L. Cecchet, C. Lasagni (eds.), Citizenship Practised, Citizenship Imagined. Multiple Ways of Experiencing Citizenship in the Greek World, Stuttgart 2025, pp. 225-244.
• J. Pascual, La sympoliteia griega en las épocas clásica y helenística, Gerión 25/1 (2007), pp. 167-186.
• G. Reger, Sympoliteiai in Hellenistic Asia Minor, in S. Colvin (ed.), The Greco-Roman East. Politics, Culture, Society, Cambridge 2004, pp. 145-180.
• H.H. Schmitt, Überlegungen zur Sympolitie, in G. Thür (Hrsg.), Symposion 1993. Vorträge zur griechischen und hellenistischen Rechtsgeschichte, Köln 1994, pp. 35-44.
• M. Sordi, Il federalismo greco nell’età classica, in Federazioni e federalismo nell’Europa antica (Atti del Convegno Bergamo, 21-25 settembre 1992), Milano 1994, 3-22.

[C. Bearzot, G. Aresi]

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Synoikismos (συνοικισμός)

Like the less common συνοίκισις (see, e.g., Thuc. 3, 3, 1), the term denotes the act of συνοικίζειν, “to settle (in order to live) together” (cf. Boehm 2018, pp. 8-9; a slightly different emphasis in Hansen, Nielsen 2004, p. 115).

Sporadically attested in earlier periods, from Thucydides onwards this lexicon recurs with relative frequency in literary sources, predominantly in verbal form, and with a semantic field extending to both the public and the domestic spheres (see also Moggi 1975). In the first case, συνοικίζειν generally means: (1) “to found” a city ex nihilo, typically a colony – the aggregative value of the prefix συν- is apparent in Thucydides’ use of the verb with exclusive reference to colonies founded by groups of individuals of different origins (see e.g. 6, 5, 1), but tends to lose significance in later authors (cf. Str. 14, 1, 6); (2) “to repopulate” and/or “to rebuild” existing centres that had suffered misfortunes so severe as to reduce them to a critical condition, or even to cause a temporary cessation of their existence (see, e.g., Diod. Sic. 19, 54, 2); (3) “to unify” into a single polis, often centred on a newly founded urban nucleus, political entities that were previously fragmented (see, e.g., Ephor., FGrHist 70 F 147 = Str. 10, 4, 8), sometimes due to a “village-based” settlement model (κατὰ κώμας) – a model which synoecism did not necessarily entail entirely abandoning. In the domestic sphere, the verb instead takes on the meaning of “establishing cohabitation” or “giving in marriage”, and συνοικισμός refers to the resulting unions (see, e.g., Diod. Sic. 18, 23, 1).

This polysemy is reflected in epigraphic sources, where, however, the use of this terminology with reference to marriage and cohabitation appears marginal (see only Ma, Antiochos 26 A). Among its ‘public’ meanings, “repopulating” and/or “rebuilding” is particularly widespread (see, e.g., I.Sardes Suppl. II 3; IPArk 18; SEG 30.1120-1122; cf. J., L. Robert 1983, pp. 188-9), while “(co)founding” is documented in no less than three texts (IG XII 4, 1 222, which also preserves a particularly early attestation of συνοικιστής; TAM V II 1187; I.Lindos II 2, XXVIII). The idea of “unification” appears both in the entry on the Marmor Parium recording the act by which Theseus “united the twelve poleis of the Athenians into one entity” (Ἀθηνῶν τὰς δώδεκα πόλεις εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ συνώικισεν; FGrHist 239 a20 = IG XII, 5 444, ll. 34-6; Moggi 1976, no. 12) and in a 3^rd-century BCE decree from Apollonia on the Meander that refers to a “common union of the four poleis” (συνοικισία κοινὴ τῆς τετραπόλεως; Segre 1934, ll. 9-10), of which the city evidently resulted – and which is designated by a term extremely rare in any type of source.

This meaning also characterises various documents relating to mergers between two communities that resulted in the absorption of one into the other: the founding act of the συϝοικία (scil. συνοικία) contracted in the middle decades of the 4^th century BCE between Orchomenos and Euaimon (IPArk 15; Moggi 1976, no. 43) – where a word is used that is similar, but not directly related to συνοικισμός, and generally refers to already existing “communities” (see, e.g., Pl., Resp. 369C) and “settlements” (see, e.g., Polyb. 16, 11, 1) rather than to their formative processes; the letters sent at the end of the same century by Antigonos the One-Eyed to Teos regarding its συνοικισμός with Lebedos (Welles, RC 3-4); the sacrificial calendar drawn up by Mykonos when, probably around the mid-3^rd century BCE, the latter and an anonymous polis with which it had long had some structural link “unified” (συνωικίσθησαν; LSCG 96, cf. CGRN 156).

The same usage is echoed in a letter by Eumenes II to the Dionysiac artists of Asia Minor regarding disputes that had arisen between them and Teos, in which the king rules that the parties should draft an “agreement for the synoecism” (συνθήκηγ … [ε]ἰς τòν συνοικισμὸγ̣; Le Guen, Technites 47, col. III A, ll. 7-8). Transposed to the sphere of relations between a polis and a community of a different nature – albeit characterised by similarities in terms of internal organisation and diplomatic conduct – συνοικισμός acquires a new nuance, which arises from its meaning in the interstate sense, but whose concrete implications remain difficult to define (see also Aneziri 2003, pp. 100-4).

Modern scholarship reserves the term ‘synoecism’ for processes involving the merger of several communities into single political entities, whether pre-existing or newly created through the synoecisms themselves – that is, for the so-called ‘interstate’ synoecisms (cf. Moggi 1976, pp. IX-X; in greater detail Hansen, Nielsen, pp. 117-8). Notwithstanding this general semantic framework and its narrowing compared to its ancient usage, the label is applied to quite heterogeneous experiences, regardless of the specific terms used in the relevant sources (on possible lexical alternatives, see, e.g., Boehm 2018, p. 9). Over time, this variety has led to more complex classifications of synoecisms, the validity and functionality of which are, however, debated. Among these is the distinction between ‘physical’ synoecisms, i.e. those accompanied by population movements and urban planning interventions, and ‘purely political’ synoecisms, limited to the institutional level (see, e.g., Hornblower 1982, pp. 83-4; Reger 2004, p. 149). In contrast, others regard these spheres as substantially inseparable (see, e.g., Hansen 2004, pp. 116-7).

As defined, the modern notion of synoecism bears strong similarities to that of ‘bilateral’ sympoliteia – a term also used by scholars to refer to mergers between poleis (see Aresi, s.v.) – and the distinction between the two is often blurred (cf. the joint treatment of both phenomena in Magnetto 2025). In general, whereas sympoliteiai – in the sense outlined above, and thus excluding the federal sphere – tend to be restricted to cases involving two cities, the category of synoecism also encompasses aggregations of a larger number of communities, not necessarily having prior polis status (cf. Boehm 2018, 10). Scholars further emphasise the settlement-related implications of synoecism, so that the term is often preferred for initiatives involving either the convergence of the population toward a newly founded urban centre or the significant concentration of inhabitants in one existing settlement, whose growth coincided with a contraction of the others (cf. Hansen 2004, 117).

There are, however, unions between poleis which, although involving similar transfers of population, are consistently characterised as sympoliteiai, as well as instances that are attributed both this designation and that of synoecisms (consider, respectively, the cases of Heraclea at Latmo and Pidasa and Mantinea and Helisson; compare, e.g., Mack 2013 and Moggi 1996, esp. pp. 266-7). Overall, at least in circumstances involving two poleis, the attempt to draw a clear distinction between these categories does not seem justified by ancient lexical usage, and it has even been suggested that synoecism should be interpreted in these cases as a specific form of sympoliteia (see Priol 2017, pp. 145-7 contra the differing view of, e.g., J., L. Robert 1976, p. 189). From the classical period onwards, and regardless of the number of contracting communities, synoecisms can also be compared to bilateral sympoliteiai in terms of their underlying dynamics and, at least in part, their variable long-term success.

With regard to citizenship, a synoecism could lead either to the establishment of a new body of politai, composed of members of the communities involved, or to the incorporation of the politai belonging to one or more communities into the civic body of another. Typical examples of the first case are the synoecisms of Rhodes, Megalopolis, and Cos (Moggi 1976, nos. 34, 45, 46; with updates in Moggi 2008, pp. 38-9), while the second is well illustrated by Antigonos’ letters on the union between Teos and Lebedos – e.g. by the provision establishing that the representatives of the latter at the Panionion were to be incorporated into the Teian delegation, and that each of them “shall be called a Teian” (καλεῖσθαι Τηΐον; Welles, RC 3, ll. 2-4).

Both types of synoecism could still allow the incorporated communities to maintain an individual identity, which in some cases led to their development into civic subdivisions – if not, as has been suggested, in dependent poleis (cf. Hansen, Nielsen 2004, p. 118; Hansen 2015, pp. 874-8; contra Fröhlich 2010, pp. 663-6). In the event of a reversal of the synoecistic process in which they had been involved, the return of these communities to full autonomy is also attested – such is the case, e.g., with Lebedos and some centres previously absorbed by Olynthos and Acanthos (see respectively Ager 1998 and Thuc. 5, 18, 6 with Gomme 1962, ad loc.; cf. Moggi 1976, nos. 28 and 31).

• S.C. Bakhuizen, Thebes and Boeotia in the Fourth Century B.C., Phoenix 48 (1994), 307-330
• S. Ager, Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World: the Case of Lebedos, GRBS 39/1 (1998), pp. 5-21.
• S. Aneziri, Die Vereine der dionysischen Techniten im Kontext der hellenistischen Gesellschaft. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte, Organisation und Wirkung der hellenistischen Technitenvereine, Stuttgart 2003.
• R. Boehm, City and Empire in the Age of the Successors. Urbanization and Social Response in the Making of the Hellenistic Kingdoms, Oakland 2018.
• A.W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, III. Books IV–V 24, Oxford 1962 [prima pubbl. 1956].
• M.H. Hansen, The Emergence of Poleis by Synoikismos, in M.H. Hansen, T.H. Nielsen (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis, Oxford 2004, pp. 115-9.
• S. Hornblower, Mausolus, Oxford 1982, pp. 83-4.
• W.J.B.G. Mack, Communal Interests and Polis Identity under Negotiation: Documents Depicting Sympolities between Cities Great and Small, Topoi 18/1 (2013), pp. 87-116.
• A. Magnetto, Lo statuto dei neocittadini negli accordi di sinecismo, sympoliteia e isopoliteia, Erga-Logoi 13/2, 2025, 115-42.
• M. Moggi, ΣΥΝΟΙΚΙΖΕΙΝ in Tucidide, ASNP Serie III 5/3 (1975), pp. 915-24.
• M. Moggi, I sinecismi interstatali greci, I. Dalle origini al 338 a.C., Pisa 1976.
• M. Moggi, I sinecismi greci del IV secolo a.C., in P. Carlier (éd.), Le IV^e siècle av. J.-C. Approches historiographiques, Paris 1996, pp. 259-71.
• M. Moggi, Synoikismos, in M. Lombardo, F. Frisone (a cura di), Forme sovrapoleiche e interpoleiche di organizzazione nel mondo greco antico, Lecce 2008, pp. 38-48).
• E. Priol, Refonder en Grèce à l’époque hellénistique: acte total ou mutation partielle? Les synoecismes dans le cadre des sympolities des années 350 aux années 150 av. J.-C. L’exemple de Latmos et Pidasa, in P. Gervais-Lambony, F. Hurlet, I. Rivoal (éds.), (Re)Fonder. Les modalités du (re)commencement dans le temps et dans l’espace, Paris 2017, pp. 143-56.
• G. Reger, Sympoliteiai in Hellenistic Asia Minor, in S. Colvin (ed.), The Greco-Roman East. Politics, Culture, Society, Cambridge 2004, pp. 145-180.
• J.,L. Robert, Une inscription grecque de Téos en Ionie. L’union de Téos et de Kyrbissos, JS 1976, pp. 153-235.
• J., L. Robert, Fouilles d’Amyzon en Carie. Tome I. Exploration, histoire, monnaies et inscriptions, Paris 1983.
• M. Segre, Decreto di Apollonia sul Ponto, Athenaeum 12 (1934), pp. 3-9.

[G. Aresi]

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Synteleia (συντέλεια)

Synteleia (syntelein) properly denotes the sharing of fiscal burdens, but it can have a broader meaning, of the union of communities gathered together in a larger state. In Herodotus the terminology of synteleia is already applied to the federal context: regarding the events of 519, the Corinthians, called upon to settle the dispute between Thebes and Plataea, declared that it was not possible to force a city to syntelein, that is, to join a federation, if it did not want to (Her. 6.108). Syntelein is used in chapter 19.2-4, pp. 32-33 Chambers of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia to denote a federation-like relationship between certain Boeotian cities and Thebes. Also in Polybius it finds application to indicate the Achaean federation (5.94.1 synteleia patriké). In Diodorus it is normally used to denote the Boeotian league refounded in the fourth century and reunited around Thebes (e.g. 12.41.3; 15.38.4; 15.50.4-5; 15.79.2) or the Arcadian league (15.59.1), sometimes in the form mia synteleia. The term seems to accentuate, in federations, the concept of dependence on a central power.

• S.C. Bakhuizen, Thebes and Boeotia in the Fourth Century B.C., Phoenix 48 (1994), 307-330
• C. Bearzot, Il federalismo greco, Bologna 2014

[C. Bearzot]

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Systasis (σύστασις)

The term denotes “coming together” for various purposes. These include the formation of a political union (e.g. Isocr. 3.54) or a constitutional structure (Plat. Resp. 546a, Leg. 702d). The term systasis is used by Polybius, in Book VI, in the sense of “constitutional structure,” especially about the process of formation (with auxesis). In three occurrences it indicates “federations” (23.1.4; 30.13.6; 32.4.2; in the last two cases with the specification ethnikai, to make it less generic). Systasis seems to want to emphasize the existence of a political “structure” with specific characteristics, the outcome of a consistent development.

• C. Bearzot, Ancient Theoretical Reflections on Federalism, in H. Beck and P. Funke (eds.), Federalism in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge 2015, 503-511

[C. Bearzot]

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Systema (σύστημα)

The term denotes a whole composed of different well-harmonized parts, like the English “system.” One of its meanings is “organized government, constitution” (Plat. Leg. 686b, Arist. EN 1168b32; Polyb. 6.4.5; 6.5.10; 6.10.14). Polybian usage in the sense of “federation” is based on this meaning (2.38.6; 2.41.15; 4.60.10, for the Achaeans; 9.28.2, for the Chalcidians of Thrace). Systema seems to highlight, in the context of Polybius’ desire to innovate the lexicon of federalism, the complexity of the federal state, which brings together and harmonizes different entities. Strabo (14.3.3) uses it for the Lycian koinon; cf. TAM II 175 and 508.

• C. Bearzot, Ancient Theoretical Reflections on Federalism, in H. Beck and P. Funke (eds.), Federalism in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge 2015, 503-511

[C. Bearzot]

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Xenikon/Xenika tele (ξενικόν/ξενικὰ τέλη)

An ancient Athenian law, probably dating to Solon and renewed by Aristophon of Azenia, prohibited foreigners from working in the agora (Dem. 57.31) unless they paid a special tax known as ξενικόν or ξενικὰ (scil. τέλη, Dem. 57.34). Its exact amount is not known, but it may have been a tax on the occupation of public land. Resident foreigners were exempt from this payment (Lex. Seg. s.v. ἰσοτελεῖς).

• L. Loddo, La legge ateniese sull’interdizione degli stranieri dal mercato: da Solone ad Aristofonte di Azenia, Klio 100.3, 2018, 667-687
• L. Migeotte, Les finances des cités grecques aux périodes classique et hellénistique, Paris 2014
• D. Whitehead, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic, Cambridge 1977

[L. Loddo]

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Xenodikai (ξενοδίκαι)

The office of the xenodikai is attested only rarely. It is known exclusively from epigraphic sources, both in the Athenian context (IG I³ 439, l. 75 and 440, l. 26, the Parthenon accounts for the years 444/3 and 443/2 BCE; Agora XVI 47, convention between Athens and Stymphalos, 368/7 BCE; IG II² 46, convention between Athens and Troizen, first half of the 4th century BCE) and in central Greece (an arbitration involving Megara, Thebes, and Eleutherai from the second half of the 6th century BCE, preliminary report in Matthaiou 2014, 213–215; IG IX 1² 3 717, a Locrian treaty between Oianthea and Chaleion, ca. 450 BCE; and IG IX 1 32, homologia between Stiris and Medeon in Phocis, ca. 170 BCE). Their mention in the Parthenon accounts may be connected to the presence of numerous foreigners among the workforce listed in those records, and to the possible existence of formal agreements between Athens and the poleis from which those workers originated—according to a procedure that might also be assumed for the two Athenian cases of the 4th century BCE. However, there is no certainty about this. The earliest attestation of the term appears in the arbitration between Megara, Thebes, and Eleutherai, from which it may be inferred that the xenodikai were magistrates of the city acting as arbiter (Matthaiou 2014, 214). The convention between Chaleion and Oianthea is, in fact, the only document that clearly shows the xenodikai as judicial officials from Chaleion with investigatory functions, to whom the legal cases of the inhabitants of Oianthea—xenoi in Chaleion—were entrusted. Given that these magistrates, with the sole exception of the Parthenon accounts, always appear in the context of international conventions between poleis, it seems reasonable to conclude that they were officials appointed to adjudicate cases concerning foreigners, namely citizens of the other polis involved in a symbola (treaty); in arbitrations, they acted similarly on behalf of the city serving as intermediary in the disputes involving the citizens of the contracting poleis. It therefore seems unlikely that the xenodikai were ever responsible in Athens (or elsewhere) for cases of fraudulent claims to citizenship (graphai xenias). There appears to be no overlap of jurisdiction between the nautodikai and the xenodikai (contra Körte 1993, who argued that the two offices succeeded one another in Athens during the 5th century BCE; for discussion of the two offices, see already Cavaignac 1908, LXVII–LXVIII; Cohen 1973, 163–176; Erdas 2021, 48–49).

• E. Cavaignac, Études sur I’histoire financière d’Athènes au Ve siècle, Paris 1908
• E. Cohen, Ancient Athenian Maritime Courts, Princeton NJ 1973
• D. Erdas, I nautodikai. Note su una magistratura ateniese tra cause di xenia e giurisdizione sugli emporoi, Dike 24, 2021, 33-62
• A. Körte, Die Attischen Ξενοδίκαι, Hermes 68, 1933, 238-242
• A. Matthaiou, Four Inscribed Bronze Tablets from Thebes: Preliminary Notes, in N. Papazarkadas (ed.), The Epigraphy and History of Boeotia. New Finds, New Prospects, Leiden 2014, 211-222

[D. Erdas]

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Xenodokoi (ξενοδόκοι)

Hesychius (s.v. ξενοδόκος) defines the term ξενοδόκος in two ways: as ‘one who receives foreigners’ (ὑποδεχόμενος ξένους) – its literal meaning– and as ‘witness’ (μάρτυς), although the latter likely represents an evolution from the original sense. Xenodokoi are primarily mentioned in inscriptions from the Thessalian region, such as acts of manumission and honorary decrees, but two epigraphic documents that record the text of agreements between contracting parties are also significant: the convention of the syngeneia of the Basaidai (SEG 35.548) and the agreement between two poleis in Achaea Phthiotis, Thebes and Halos (FD III 4, 355). Typically, the xenodokoi appear in the final lines of the inscriptions, often in conjunction with the magistrates of the polis (strategoi and tagoi), seemingly acting as guarantors for the transactions.

In acts of manumission, freed slaves make a payment to the polis in the presence of xenodokoi (e.g. SEG 29.532; BCH 95 (1971), 562), but there are also instances where magistrates other than xenodokoi act as guarantors of the transaction (IG IX 2, 359-550); additionally, the role of xenodokos is sometimes assigned to a tagos. The distinction between idioi xenodokoi (in the form ἰδιοξενοδόκοι in IG IX 2, 1282 III and IV), as attested, for example, at Pythion, and koinoi xenodokoi is not always clear, nor is the nature of their duties: Xenodokoi appear to be not so much magistrates of the polis, but rather private citizens chosen as official guarantors by the community for a specific task, a role that could also be performed by civic magistrates as needed.

Xenodokoi are found in honorary decrees from various Thessalian cities: Phayttos, Mopsion, Atrax, and Metropolis. These are mostly koinoi xenodokoi, but the form συνξενοδόκων is also attested (e.g. in the proxenia decree of the polis of Atrax for Orthotimos of Tylissos, SEG 33.448), suggesting the existence of a kind of board of xenodokoi. The hypothesis that best explains their function in these documents is that they serve as guarantors of relations between foreigners and the polis.

The role of the xenodokoi in the aforementioned agreements between Thessalian poleis appears more elusive. In the convention between Thebes and Halos, where the cities submit to the arbitration of a citizen of Larisa, Makon, regarding a territorial dispute, the term xenodokoi is followed by a list of four names belonging to citizens of Meliteia (ll. 22-23). Zelnick-Abramovitz (2000, 113) has argued that the xenodokoi from Meliteia act as guarantors for both the parties’ decision to submit to arbitration and the judgment rendered by Makon. The need to employ xenodokoi can be explained by their role in receiving the representatives of the poleis who agreed to the outcome of the arbitration whenever they visited Meliteia to lodge complaints regarding the implementation of the arbitral verdict. It is not surprising that the xenodokoi come from Meliteia rather than Larisa, Makon’s homeland, since the parties, contrary to the norm, are relying on the services of a single individual rather than a polis. The presence of the Meliteians indicates the involvement of the koinon, reconstituted after 196 BC, in the agreement, as evidenced by the mention of the federal calendar (l. 13) and the presence of federal magistrates such as the tagoi. Furthermore, as Ager has pointed out, it is not unusual for the guarantors of interstate treaties to come from cities different from those directly involved in the agreement, as seen in the case of Delphi in the treaty between Chaleion and Tritea (IG IX,1² 3, 739).

Similarly, in the convention of the Basaidai of Metropolis – an agreement among syngeneis aimed at regulating the admission of new members – the xenodokoi serve as guarantors because the agreement concerned foreigners naturalised at the time of admission to the syngeneia (Loddo), rather than due to the new members being perceived as xenoi (Zelnick-Abramovitz).

• S. Ager, Interstate Arbitrations in the Greek World, 337-90 B.C., Berkeley 1996
• C. Habicht, Eine Bürgerrechtsverleihung von Metropolis, Klio 52, 1970, 139-148
• B. Helly, La Convention des Basaidai, BCH 94, 1970, 161-189
• L. Loddo, Considerazioni su cittadinanza e isotimia in alcuni decreti tessalici, Dike 27, 2024, 243-274
• R. Zelnick-Abramovitz, The Xenodokoi of Thessaly, ZPE 130, 2000, 109-120

[L. Loddo]

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Xenos (ξένος)

The term xenos, used as a noun, encompasses a spectrum of meanings that can essentially be grouped around three poles: it can identify the foreigner, but also the guest (understood as one who is hosted, for example, in Il. 6.215, and sometimes also as the host, Il. 15.532; both meanings coexist in Pl. Lg. 953d) and the mercenary (Xenoph. An. 1.1.10). There are also instances where the term is employed to identify a specific type of foreigner, namely an ally (Aristoph. Eq. 1408) or a metic (Isoc.2.22; at times, particularly in certain judicial speeches, it is not straightforward to ascertain whether an individual being discussed holds metic status or is merely a xenos). Naturally, all these various semantic fields are closely linked to the first, which is the one of primary interest in this context.

The Greek world recognises various types of foreigners, depending on the duration of their condition and their ethnic identity. Regarding the first aspect, the foreigner in a general sense, that is, the free individual who is temporarily abroad, must be distinguished in legal terms from the specific case of the metic, who resides with a certain degree of stability (usually for more than a month: Whitehead 1977, 7-9) in a foreign location (for further information on metics, see the dedicated entry). Concerning the second aspect, the foreigner in the strict sense, namely the Greek from a community different from the one in which he resides, should be distinguished from the barbarian, that is, the foreigner of non-Greek descent (cf. Vlassopoulos 2013). The following discussion will focus on the Greek foreigner who is temporarily abroad (naturally, the most well-known context is that of Athens, to which this discussion will primarily refer).

The condition of xenos was quite common due to both the extreme political fragmentation of the Greek world, divided into a myriad of city-states and federations, and the dense network of relationships of various kinds that existed among these communities. Movements could occur for a multitude of reasons, including commercial, religious (such as visiting sanctuaries and participating in festivals), military, and diplomatic purposes. Indeed, there are numerous categories of travellers and, consequently, foreigners: merchants, pilgrims, mercenaries, ambassadors, heralds, theorists, as well as actors, musicians, artists, architects, diviners, teachers, sophists, philosophers, and doctors. Particular categories of foreigners include exiles and stateless individuals (cf. Loddo 2022). Some communities are more open towards these foreigners, usually because they need them or benefit from their presence (for example, Athens); others, however, are less tolerant of the presence of foreigners (see e.g. the xenelasiai practised in Sparta, cf. Hdt. 3.148 and Th. 1.144.2, as well as in other contexts, cf. Ael. VH 13.16).

Foreigners were clearly distinguished from citizens, as evidenced at the lexical level by the fact that in the sources the term ξένος is frequently contrasted or at least juxtaposed with ἀστός and, to a lesser extent, with πολίτης (for further discussion, see Cohen 2000, 50-55; Blok 2017, 153-154, 162-172; and specifically regarding Athenian tragic and comic theatre, Falco 2024). Regarding ἀστός, the dualism with ξένος appears both in poetry in its various forms (e.g., Pi. Ol. 13.1-3; Soph. OC 12-13; Eurip. Med. 222-223; Aristoph. Av. 32) and in prose, across different genres like history (Hdt. 2.160.4; Th. 6.30.2), oratory (Andoc. 4.10), and philosophy (Pl. Men. 91c; Arist. Pol. 4.1300b31-32); for epigraphic evidence, see e.g. Rhodes-Osborne 2003, 69, l. 3. Similarly, there are analogous examples for πολίτης: Hdt. 7.237.2-3; Lys. 12.35; and for inscriptions, see Rhodes-Osborne 2003, 51, l. 5.

The free man who is in the position of a ξένος is deprived of a number of rights: for example, he cannot own real property (land is closely tied to citizenship: cf. Arist. Pol. 7.1329a13-19; 1329b36-38) and, starting from Pericles’ law of 451/50, he cannot produce legitimate offspring through marriage with an ἀστή. Furthermore, the condition of minority for the ξένος is also marked by the fact that, according to a law attributed to Solon, foreigners were required to pay a fee to enter the marketplace of the agora (Demosth. 57.31 = Leão – Rhodes 117). Some prohibitions could be lifted through special concessions: for instance, the right of ἐπιγαμία could be granted (see the dedicated entry), and sometimes, even if only temporarily, the right of ἔγκτησις γῆς καὶ οἰκίας could be permitted (e.g., IG II² 80, 9-11), potentially extended to descendants (IG II² 373, 29-30: εἶναι δὲ αὐτῶι καὶ ἐγγόνο[ις γῆς καὶ] [οἰ]κίας ἔγκτησιν) or granted upon request (IG II² 907, ll. 5-8: δεδό[σθαι] [δὲ αὐτῶι κ]αὶ [πρ]οξε[ν]ία[ν] καὶ γῆς καὶ ο[ἰκίας ἔγκτησιν] αἰτησαμ[έ]νωι κατὰ τὸ[ν νόμον; for general information on ἔγκτησις, see Faguer 2021 and Faraguna 2024).

Beyond specific concessions, the separation from citizens is so marked that in cases where, following a γραφὴ ξενίας, a foreigner was declared guilty of usurping citizenship, he was reduced to slavery (Demosth. Ep. 3.29). The competent magistrates (for a general discussion on the issue, see Erdas 2021) appear to have been the ναυτοδίκαι (as noted in, for example, IG I³ 3, ll. 76-77; Poll. 8.126; cf. also Lys. 17.5), while during the time of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (cf. 59.3), these matters were managed by the thesmothetai (who were already involved in cases concerning foreigners in the 5th century, as evidenced by the decree for Chalcis: IG I³ 40, ll. 70-76). On the other hand, it seems that the ξενοδίκαι, known both in Athens and elsewhere (cf. for example Agora XVI 47 and IG IX 1² 3 717), did not deal with cases of γραφὴ ξενίας.

Remaining within the framework of law, the foreigner, except in specific cases, could not seek justice in the courts; however, his testimony could be used in both private (Demosth. 35.14, 20, 23, 33ss.; Hyp. 5.33) and public cases (Demosth. 25.62; Aesch. 2.155). Various aspects highlight the otherness of the foreigner in relation to the citizen within the legal context. For instance, if he was accused, guarantees could be taken to ensure his presence at the trial (Isoc. 17.12; Demosth. 32.29). Furthermore, for the murder of foreigners, the competent court was the Palladium (Arist. Ath. 57.3), which also handled cases involving the killing of metics and slaves, as well as cases of φόνος μὴ ἐκ προνοίας and φόνος ἀκούσιος involving citizens. The involvement of this court clearly indicates that the murder of a foreigner was considered a crime of lesser severity than that of a citizen.

Citizens and foreigners were, in fact, largely equated in the dikai emporikai, introduced in the mid-4th century (see Maffi 2016). The sources attesting to these procedures, namely several orations from the Demosthenic corpus (32, 33, 34, 35, 56), demonstrate the direct involvement of foreigners in court (although it is not always easy to distinguish between ξένοι and metics), both as defendants and as plaintiffs. It is significant that in these procedures a foreigner could directly access the Athenian courts (the case had to be presented to the thesmothetai: [Demosth.] 33.1; Aristot. Ath. 59.5), even in the absence of specific agreements between Athens and their communities of origin. These are, in fact, completely different types of legal proceedings from the dikai apo symbolon.

The condition of foreigners remains rather precarious, as, with the partial exception of personnel on diplomatic missions (Nep. Pel. 5, 1; cf. however Mosley 1973, 81-92), they were exposed to the right of reprisal against their property or person. Some institutions aimed to mitigate this precariousness. At the private level, the main one is xenia (Th. 8.6.3; Isoc. 4.43; cf. Iriarte 2007 and Basile 2016): of aristocratic origin and well known since the Homeric poems (e.g. Od. 24.286), it was symbolised by the exchange of symbola and aimed to provide mutual assistance between the contracting parties. However, a community could also resort to proxenia, meaning it could grant the title of proxenos to a foreigner who, in his own city, provided hospitality and assistance to those from the community that conferred that title (see the entry “proxenos”). Finally, there is the institution of asylia, of sacred origin, which protected the foreigner from the risk of being subjected to violent actions (συλᾶν): within the legal framework, inviolability, a characteristic of sacred areas, could be a concession granted due to particular merits or relationships to individual foreigners (for example, IG I³ 98, l. 19-20, with the typical formula ἀσυλίαν εἶναι αὐτῷ) or, reciprocally, to entire communities (for instance, IG IX 1², 717; on asylia, see Gauthier 1972, 209-284; Maffi 2023, 86-98; for a collection of Hellenistic epigraphic texts, see Rigsby 1996). It is superfluous to note that cases of granting citizenship, to individuals or groups, are exceptional and usually arise from reasons of interest.

• G.J. Basile, Xenía: la amistad-ritualizada de Homero a Heródoto, Emerita 84.2, 2016, 229-250
• M.F. Baslez, L’étranger dans la Grèce antique, Paris 1984 
• C. Bearzot,Una città internazionale: stranieri e meteci, in M. Bettalli – M. Giangiulio (a cura di), Atene, vivere in una città antica, Roma 2023, 141-160
• J. Blok, Citizenship in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2017
• E.E. Cohen The Athenian Nation, Princeton 2000
• D. Erdas, I ‘nautodikai’: note su una magistratura ateniese tra cause di ‘xenia’ e giurisdizione sugli ‘emporoi’, Dike 24, 2021, 33-62
• J. Faguer, Statuts et propriété foncière dans l’Athènes des IIIe et IIe siècles av. J.-C.:la question de l’enktésis, in S. Maillot – J. Zurbach (éds.), Statuts personnels et main-d’œuvre en Méditerranée hellénistique, Clermont-Ferrand 2021, 61-91
• M. Faraguna, Land and Citizenship in the Greek Polis: Real Property, Public Control, and Institutionalisation, Dike 27, 2024, 121-174
• G. Falco, Politēs/politis, astos e metoikos: il lessico della cittadinanza nel teatro ateniese di V secolo a. C., Hormos 16, 2024, 133-200
• P. Gauthier, Symbola. Les étrangers et la justice dans les cités grecques, Nancy 1972
• A. Iriarte, La institución de la ‘Xenía’: pactos y acogidas en la antigua Grecia, Gerión Vol. Extra, 2007, 197-206
• L. Loddo, I rifugiati politici nella Grecia antica, Bologna 2022
• A. Maffi, Riflessioni su dikai emporikai e prestito marittimo in D. Leão – G. Thür (eds.), Symposion 2015, Wien 2016, 199-208
• D.J. Mosley, Envoys and Diplomacy in Ancient Greece, Wiesbaden 1973
• P.J. Rhodes – R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404-323 BC, Oxford 2003
• K. Rigsby, Asylia. Territorial Inviolability in the Hellenistic World, Berkeley 1996
• K. Vlassopoulos, Greeks and Barbarians, Cambridge 2013
• D. Whitehead, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic, Cambridge 1977.

[P.A. Tuci]

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