Jakub Filonik, Christine Plastow, and Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz, ‘Citizenship in antiquity: current perspectives and challenges’ Taylor and Francis; Milton Park Abingdon UK, 2023
In order to fully appreciate the different attitudes of Greece and Rome towards the grant of citi... more In order to fully appreciate the different attitudes of Greece and Rome towards the grant of citizenship rights to manumitted slaves, we need to take into consideration several factors. Not only the different ‘nature’ of politeia and civitas, as pointed out by Gauthier, but also the different political institutions of Greece and Rome, and the motives of slave owners. As we have seen, in Greek poleis the enfranchisement of slaves happens in extraordinary circumstances, as a reward that the Assembly of citizens de- cides to bestow in return to benefactions made to the community. Individual reasons or benefactions do not count. The isonomia among citizens makes sure that there is no subordinate status within the citizen body. For this reason, the only way ex-masters have to keep their former slaves in a dependent position is to include apeleutheroi among the metic population (thus placing them outside the citizen body) and to arrange para- monē agreements with them. In Rome, on the other hand, slaves manumitted ‘formally’ became free and citizens, and they were placed in a dependent status within the citizen body. This was possible because, unlike Greece, differences of statuses among cives did exist. However, two aspects need to be considered. First, the patronage relationship that arose from manumission was functional to patroni, who could count on their freedmen for having supporters at elections and their role advertised. Second, the inclusion of freedmen in the citizen community and their subsequent right to express their will in the assemblies through the right to vote, had a counter-balance in the timocratic and voting system of Roman assemblies.
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Papers by Edward Harris
responsibility for policing crimes in the hands of officials. At Athens the Council of 500 and Areopagush a d wide powers in detecting and punishing offenders; at Sparta the ephors exercised broad powers over citizens and perioikoi(members of a dependent community). There werem a n y officials to police the Attic countryside. Greek city-states also had many officials to enforce market regulations and laws about buildingsand to keep orderin sanctuaries and ingymnasia. By contrast, private individuals were allowed to use deadlyforce in onlya fewvery restricted circumstances. It would be a mistake to call the Greek polis a "stateless community."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119399940
Not very long ago, the standard view of the ancient Greek city and its territory was one of a cellular unit whose economic activities were nearly all internally oriented - an almost closed system where exchanges beyond the territory's borders were limited to the importation of a few luxuries for elites and any key commodities (e.g. metals) that could not be obtained locally. Most residents, furthermore, lived in the countryside. The relationship between the city residents and country residents was parasitic: the city-dwelling elite drew rents from country dwellers to fund its lifestyle and provide it with the leisure to pursue politics. This is the Greek city of the "New Orthodoxy" of M.I. Finley and his school. Finley of course recognized that large, dynamic commercial cities existed, but he treated these as rarities and furthermore played down the role of manufacturing even there (Finley 1999 [1973], 123-49; 191-6; cf. Hopkins 1983, xi-xii). Recent research into the full range of ancient Greek cities, their territories, and their resources-but also, crucially, their entanglement with the broader interstate trading economy-renders this model outdated. This chapter aims to survey the current state of the subject. Due to length constraints, comprehensive coverage is impossible, so we have focused on a series of case studies. We also limit our timeframe to the Classical and Early Hellenistic periods and therefore avoid the formative Archaic period when processes of urbanization and state formation were still inchoate; nor do we discuss some of the huge urban centers of the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean such as Antioch and Alexandria. We focus primarily on the Aegean world and secondarily on the "colonial" world (especially Magna Graecia and the Black Sea). The first section aims to canvass the size range of Greek city-states, looking both at the overall number of known cities and the "typical" city and territory size. The second section examines agriculture and settlement patterns. The third section looks at the uneven resource base of Greek cities, and the fourth shows how many cities surmounted the challenge of small and unpromising territories by specializing in some local advantage, an option that depended on high levels of mobility and interstate trade. The fifth section provides a series of case studies illustrating how cities large and small were integrated into this broader trading economy, but to differing degrees.
homicide law (IG I3 104). Previous editions starting with Köhler have restored the lacunas in the text with phrases from a document inserted into the text of the Demosthenic speech Against Macartatus (43.57-58). The second section of this essay shows that the document is a forgery containing several mistakes about Athenian law and legal procedure and a form of the word phrater not found until the Hellenistic period.
The third part examines the procedure of examining (dokimasia) the laws, which led to the republication of Draco’s homicide law and shows that the procedure did not revise laws but either accepted them without changes or annulled them. The fourth part proposes new restorations in lines 13-16 and lines 18-23. The fourth part proposes several possible restorations for line 11 and explains why Draco’s homicide law did not contain a rule about intentional homicide. The sixth part places the law in the context of long-term developments in Greek Law during the Archaic period and shows why there is no reason to connect the law with the suppression of Cylon’s conspiracy. The article shows that the text of the law used by Gagarin, Phillips, Pepe, Schmitz, Thür, Osborne and Rhodes is not reliable.
responsibility for policing crimes in the hands of officials. At Athens the Council of 500 and Areopagush a d wide powers in detecting and punishing offenders; at Sparta the ephors exercised broad powers over citizens and perioikoi(members of a dependent community). There werem a n y officials to police the Attic countryside. Greek city-states also had many officials to enforce market regulations and laws about buildingsand to keep orderin sanctuaries and ingymnasia. By contrast, private individuals were allowed to use deadlyforce in onlya fewvery restricted circumstances. It would be a mistake to call the Greek polis a "stateless community."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119399940
Not very long ago, the standard view of the ancient Greek city and its territory was one of a cellular unit whose economic activities were nearly all internally oriented - an almost closed system where exchanges beyond the territory's borders were limited to the importation of a few luxuries for elites and any key commodities (e.g. metals) that could not be obtained locally. Most residents, furthermore, lived in the countryside. The relationship between the city residents and country residents was parasitic: the city-dwelling elite drew rents from country dwellers to fund its lifestyle and provide it with the leisure to pursue politics. This is the Greek city of the "New Orthodoxy" of M.I. Finley and his school. Finley of course recognized that large, dynamic commercial cities existed, but he treated these as rarities and furthermore played down the role of manufacturing even there (Finley 1999 [1973], 123-49; 191-6; cf. Hopkins 1983, xi-xii). Recent research into the full range of ancient Greek cities, their territories, and their resources-but also, crucially, their entanglement with the broader interstate trading economy-renders this model outdated. This chapter aims to survey the current state of the subject. Due to length constraints, comprehensive coverage is impossible, so we have focused on a series of case studies. We also limit our timeframe to the Classical and Early Hellenistic periods and therefore avoid the formative Archaic period when processes of urbanization and state formation were still inchoate; nor do we discuss some of the huge urban centers of the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean such as Antioch and Alexandria. We focus primarily on the Aegean world and secondarily on the "colonial" world (especially Magna Graecia and the Black Sea). The first section aims to canvass the size range of Greek city-states, looking both at the overall number of known cities and the "typical" city and territory size. The second section examines agriculture and settlement patterns. The third section looks at the uneven resource base of Greek cities, and the fourth shows how many cities surmounted the challenge of small and unpromising territories by specializing in some local advantage, an option that depended on high levels of mobility and interstate trade. The fifth section provides a series of case studies illustrating how cities large and small were integrated into this broader trading economy, but to differing degrees.
homicide law (IG I3 104). Previous editions starting with Köhler have restored the lacunas in the text with phrases from a document inserted into the text of the Demosthenic speech Against Macartatus (43.57-58). The second section of this essay shows that the document is a forgery containing several mistakes about Athenian law and legal procedure and a form of the word phrater not found until the Hellenistic period.
The third part examines the procedure of examining (dokimasia) the laws, which led to the republication of Draco’s homicide law and shows that the procedure did not revise laws but either accepted them without changes or annulled them. The fourth part proposes new restorations in lines 13-16 and lines 18-23. The fourth part proposes several possible restorations for line 11 and explains why Draco’s homicide law did not contain a rule about intentional homicide. The sixth part places the law in the context of long-term developments in Greek Law during the Archaic period and shows why there is no reason to connect the law with the suppression of Cylon’s conspiracy. The article shows that the text of the law used by Gagarin, Phillips, Pepe, Schmitz, Thür, Osborne and Rhodes is not reliable.
All in all, this is a very impressive work with major implications.
After reading a volume like this one, one can understand why most university presses are reluctant to publish conference proceedings without sending the papers to anonymous referees.
Populist is a modern term used to describe politicians and political movements that claim to represent the people and denounce elites as corrupt and out of touch with average citizens. Some populist leaders and movements are xenophobic and hostile to immigrants, and most are anti-pluralist and undermine the rule of law. Many attempt to discredit their opponents by spreading conspiracy theories. There is no Ancient Greek term that is the precise equivalent of the word “populist.” The word demagogos is mostly used as a neutral term with the meaning “leader of the people” though in some contexts it has a pejorative connotation. Many of the institutions and practices attacked by modern populists did not exist in the ancient world: professional bureaucracies, large corporations, and enormous commercial banks. There was also no hostility to immigration at Athens and in other democratic cities. Cleon resembled modern populists to some extent in his tendency to criminalize policy differences through exploiting the weaknesses of the courts and to disrupt the norms of civic discourse, which inhibited effective deliberation in the Assembly.
Reviews: (1) Peter O' Connell, The Classical Review 68 (2018) 34-37: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-review/article/theatre-of-oratory-s-papaioannou-a-serafim-b-da-vela-edd-the-theatre-of-justice-aspects-of-performance-in-grecoroman-oratory-and-rhetoric-mnemosyne-supplements-403-pp-xii-355-leiden-and-boston-brill-2017-cased-126-us146-isbn-9789004334649/8406EF25818F2751EF3AECC082EDA5FC. (2) Cristian Criste, München: http://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/rezbuecher-27889 (in German).
Citations: (1) G. Nagy and M. Noussia-Fantuzzi (eds.). Solon in the Making: The Early Reception in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries (De Gruyter 2015). (2) A. Vatri, Orality and Performance in Classical Attic Prose: A Linguistic Approach (Oxford 2017). (3) G. Westwood, Bryn Mawr The Classical Review 2017.09.40. (4) K. Kapparis, Bryn Mawr The Classical Review 2017.11.02. (5) A. Petkas, “The King in Words: Performance and Fiction in Synesius’ DeRegno”, American Journal of Philology 139 (2018) 123-151. (6) C. Carey, I. Giannadaki and B. Griffith-Williams, Use and abuse of law in the Athenian courts (Leiden and Boston 2018). (7) U. Babusiaux, W. Kaiser and M. Schermaier (eds.). Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung, Volume 135, Issue 1, Pages 877–919.
The goal of this conference is to reassess the impact of physical destruction on ancient Greek cities and its demographic and economic implications. The problem of “destruction layers” will rst be addressed from the point of view of stratigraphy and micromorphology. Using well-documented case studies, archaeologists and historians will compare literary and archaeological data in order to evaluate the scale of physical damage and demographic losses sustained by ancient cities. They will then attempt to estimate the impact of warfare on economic activity, trade and the expansion of markets, trying to understand to what extent warfare inhibited regional settlement patterns, demography, and the growth of regional and inter-regional trade.
It is a true pleasure to announce the autumn 2024 program for The Athens Greek Religion Seminar. All welcome to the sessions, which take place at the Swedish Institute at Athens and via zoom link. More details about each seminar and its registration procedure will be available shortly on our website at www.sia.gr.
Registration details will be available first week of September.
Welcome!