This section provides a selection of literary, epigraphic, papyrological, and numismatic sources related to citizenship in the Greek world.
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This text comes from a pamphlet that was erroneously attributed to Xenophon in the manuscript tradition. Its anonymous author strongly disapproves of Athenian democracy. However, he explains to a fictitious...
Read moreThis well-known passage from the Constitution of the Athenians attributed to pseudo-Xenophon addresses the theme of the Athenians’ linguistic identity. The anonymous author articulates what appears to be a critique...
Read moreAt vv. 690–692 of the Eumenides, Athena speaks of the reverence and fear that the Areopagus would henceforth inspire in the astoi, but immediately afterwards (v. 693) the goddess clarifies...
Read moreThe two comedies considered here allow us to address the long-standing question regarding the position of the metoikoi within the spectrum of Athenian citizenship—namely, whether they were conceptually associated by...
Read moreAt vv. 335–343 of the Lysistrata, the semicorps of old women reports having heard that the old men (comprising the other semicorps) were planning to set fire to the entrance...
Read moreOur understanding of the tumultuous relationship between the Boeotian koinon and Demetrius Poliorcetes, as documented in literary sources (Plut. Demetr. 39-40; D.S. 21, fr. 25-27; Polyaen. 3.7.2 and 4.7.11), has...
Read moreThis fragmentary stele contains a decree approved by the Athenian Council and the People making provisions for the celebration of religious festivals, most likely the Hephaistia, honouring of the god...
Read moreThe fragment of Craterus the Macedonian is part of a decree issued in Athens following Pericles’ citizenship law of 451/0 BC. It concerns the registration of citizens in the phratries and...
Read moreThe speech Against Eubulides (Demosth. 57) is a crucial source for understanding how civic identity was defined and contested in Athens during the second half of the 4th century BCE....
Read moreWhen Euripides premiered the Heracleidai, likely in 430 BC, the Peloponnesian invasion of Attica had already occurred. The Athenian audience had witnessed firsthand a Peloponnesian army follow the same path...
Read moreThe inscription contains, in boustrophedon script, the text of an ancient law from the small Cretan city of Dreros, dating to the mid-7th century BCE. Although the syntactic structure leaves...
Read moreAlthough highly fragmentary, the inscription nevertheless allows for a broad reconstruction—albeit with several uncertainties—of the law’s contents. It appears to regulate the procedure to be followed for the swearing of...
Read moreThe conflict between the Lokrians and Phokians, which was at the origin of the stalemate in the Corinth War (395-387 BC), gives the author of the Hellenika Oxyrhynchia the opportunity...
Read moreBefore the meeting between the Greek ambassadors and Gelon, which aimed to convince Syracuse to support the Greek contingent against the Persians, Herodotus dedicates a brief digression to Gelon. He,...
Read moreShortly before the decisive battle of Salamis (480 BC), the Hellenic army was in danger of falling apart: the conquest and burning of Athens by the Persians had, in fact,...
Read moreThis is the first attestation of the term politeia and, rather unexpectedly, it concerns Sparta, one of the most strict cities, at least in the classical age, in the delimitation...
Read moreThe term dromeus occurs five times in the Great Code of Gortyn. In three of these instances, it appears as a requirement for witnesses in the context of private disputes...
Read moreThe epitaph for Tettichos, dated between 575 and 550 BCE, represents the oldest surviving example of an Attic funerary epigram. Discovered in a private garden in Sepolia, near Athens, the...
Read moreThick stele or post inscribed on three sides (A-C). Face C (see below) was so designated before being recognised as the front side, with which the whole document opens. Variously...
Read moreThe inscription, dated to 394/3 BC, consists of two decrees, issued a short distance apart, in favour of Sthorys, a soothsayer from Thasos. The first decree, enacted by the council,...
Read moreThe entry of Philip II into the territory of Abdera (Demosth. 23.183; Polyaen. 4.2.22), variously dated between 355 and 347 BC, resulted in the expulsion of Athenian partisans. This honorary...
Read moreThe stele, which is preserved in its entirety, contains a decree passed by the Athenian people during the archonship of Aristophon (330/29 BCE) in honor of a Plataian citizen, who...
Read moreAt Epidaurus, one of the inscriptions from the sanctuary of Asclepius contains a law of the Achaean confederation relating to the cult of Hygieia, the goddess of health, dating from...
Read moreIscrizione stoichedica da Tegea, ora perduta, composta da un decreto di prossenia e una lista, in tutta probabilità completa, di magistrati federali. Il documento deve essere successivo al sinecismo di...
Read moreThis is a decree from Oropos, dating from the mid-2nd century BC, in which the Oropians honour a benefactor, the Achaean Hieron, for pleading their cause during exile and helping...
Read moreThe honorary decree for Batichos, a benefactor originally from Cos, is part of a substantial collection of inscriptions that commemorate the period of exile for the Samians (referred to as...
Read moreThe bronze tablet discovered at Olympia preserves the text of a century-long treaty of symmachia between the city of Elis and the otherwise unknown community of Eua, probably a small...
Read moreOn the 26th of Targelion (early June of 307 BC), Demetrius Poliorcetes arrived at the port of Piraeus with a fleet of 250 ships. Plutarch describes his decision to sail...
Read moreIn Philip Manville’s influential model on Greek citizenship studies, Athenian citizenship emerged under Solon, evolved under tyranny, and became fully formalised under Clisthenes. The continuist approach to the study of...
Read moreIn one of the most renowned passages of Polybius’ Histories, which celebrates the expansion of the Achaean league throughout the Peloponnese, the historian from Megalopolis praises the Achaean federal model...
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