How to be a citizen in ancient Greece, by Dr Roger Brock, Leeds UniversityCitizenship is definitely a hot issue today. People have disengaged from politics, and whether citizenship classes on the National Curriculum, even combined with postal voting, can make much difference to the situation is doubtful. Sectional interests for most people override their loyalty to the state.
What has ancient Greece got to teach us?
Education for citizenship
Interestingly, the academic fashion now is to translate the Greek term polis not as 'city state' but as 'citizen state'. Being a citizen was a big thing in ancient Greece. Education, then as now, was a tool for making citizens. "That freelance educational consultant" Socrates questioned his accuser Meletus at his trial, according to Plato's version of the Apology, about who had a good effect on the young. By going through the various sections of Athenian society, including the jury in court, he got Meletus to claim that every single person in Athens had a good effect on the young - except Socrates. Although Plato's Socrates is able to ridicule that notion, most Athenians would agree with it.
So what kind of education was there to mould the young into being good citizens? The sophist Protagoras claimed to be an expert educator, and as such was entitled to receive pay for his services. In Sparta, by contrast, the education system was state-run. And the syllabus?
Protagoras taught that men and women came together first for the sake of protection. A small number of people can rub along together in peace, because they know each other and are sensitive to each other; the problem comes when the citizen state grows too big for people to know each other personally. So Zeus, in Protagoras' story, sent Hermes down to mankind with two gifts: aidos and dike. These Greek concepts, roughly translated as a sense of shame and justice, can be compared with the modern concepts taught in citizenship classes: social and moral responsibility.
Feeling oneself a citizen
Plato and Aristotle claim that Athens was a democracy. Each citizen, therefore, would feel himself (and it was himself, not herself) to have a share in the decisions, the rights and the duties of the city. Corinth, on the other hand, was an oligarchy, with a Council of eighty ruling the citizen body of perhaps 15,000; and yet the decisions of the Council were recorded as being decisions of 'the Corinthians.' By what means were the Corinthians in general led to consider themselves as citizens, sharing in the rights, responsibilities and decisions of the city?
Some answers may be found be studying stone tablets recording honorific decrees by Athens and other cities granting rights of various kinds to non-Athenians. One has to remember that those granted honours of this kind were not expected to make use of their rights, any more than the average freeman of the City of London is expected to drive a flock of sheep over Tower Bridge. Nevertheless the honours and privileges granted are an indication of what citizens valued about their status.
We recall that resident aliens in Athens, metics, could not own real estate and were obliged to pay taxes. Common features of honorific decrees often granted the right to own a house, and immunity from taxation. An example is the decree by which Athens honoured loyal Acarnanians.
There were degrees of honour. The right to own houses could be given without full citizenship. Citizenship could be granted without the right to be an archon or a priest.
Some aspects of being a citizen:
1. Membership of smaller sub-groups
The ancient polis was made up of a number of sub-units, and they in turn were comprised of smaller groups. In Athens they were the tribes and the demes. Membership of the city began with membership of a deme. That is where new babies were registered - in the memories of men - and their legitimacy established. Normally one became a citizen of Athens by being born of citizen parents. And indeed, grants of citizenship to outsiders usually included the allocation of the honoured person to a particular tribe and deme.
2. Land ownership
Another aspect of being a citizen was land ownership. The two were normally held together in an unbreakable bond.
3. Access to justice
Equally part of citizenship was access to justice in your polis. When a citizen of one polis went to another one, he could often have access to the law courts there by means of a 'symbolon', a mutual agreement between two states giving reciprocal rights to justice.
4. Access to religious rites
Supremely important to citizenship was access to religious rites. Cult activity defined the citizen body. A group who were being threatened made this appeal to the Athenian citizens: "We have shared in festivals and in choruses." The choruses in question may have been tragic or comic choruses, but were more likely the large dithyrambic choirs that competed along with the dramatic contests. The religious side included sharing in the ancestors, who were very important to the life of the state; it also included the right to burial within the polis. When Themistocles was convicted for being a traitor, he was debarred from burial within the Athenian polis. The land of the polis must be protected from pollution. In a similar way, the houses of traitors were destroyed.
5. Sharing in the defence of the polis
The threatened group mentioned under the last heading went on to point out that they had served with other Athenians in the army. Citizenship included defending the polis.
The question arises: How did an oligarchy get ordinary citizens to fight, when they had no share in the government? One method was to hold a citizen assembly to debate war and peace, to give the people the illusion of real power; in fact, assemblies could be effective tools in mobilising public opinion in favour of the government's policy. It was only under what the Greeks called 'dynasteia' (extreme oligarchy) or a tyranny, that this was impossible.
Idiots?
Dr Brock noted the surprising fact that a political revolution did not break the sense of community in a city. All the other factors, perhaps especially shared military service, were strong to keep the sense of community alive. Political citizenship was not the only kind. Claude Mossé 20 years ago wrote about active and passive citizens, and we have been told how in Athens the term for a non-participating citizen was 'idiotes', but non-political citizenship is not to be dismissed. Such men could serve the state by contributing their taxes, and army service is called 'assisting with persons and resources.'
Women citizens
Many people cannot accept that Athens was a true democracy, because women and children were excluded from the political arena, and could not own property. Bearing in mind the much wider definition of citizenship which we have established, we can see that women were still citizens in a real sense. Indeed, the law at one point said that only those whose father and mother were both citizens could claim citizenship themselves.
Bearing in mind the importance of taking part in religious ritual, we see that women qualified on that count. Aristophanes in Lysistrata and other plays shows how women had their own religious rites. Some of them involved girls rather than adult women, and even children were included in festivals - witness the choes at the Anthesteria. The Athenians certainly recognised a female citizen body, because it was from them that priestesses were chosen. The importance of these priestesses is shown in one decree which lays down that the priestess was to receive a stipend, and also portions of the sacrificial animals - the legs and skins - though it was only certain civic cults which elected 'from all Athenian women' (in fact, the two known instances are the priestess of Athena Nike, the decree for which is mentioned above, and that of the Thracian goddess Bendis). Women did also occupy many family priesthoods.
Dr Brock adds (21 April 2005): I've made some progress recently on some fronts by looking at more inscriptions - for example, I've found unambiguous female citizens on Thasos, at Dyme in Achaia and in Molossia.
Anomalies
What happened during periods of oligarchy? The Athenians in general lost their citizenship, but remained part of the community. In 411 BC hoplites were enrolled in the citizen body. In 403 BC there was a proposal for a land-holding qualification for citizenship.
What about people on the fringes, for example bastards, and those who suffered 'atimia', loss of rights? Since there were different kinds of atimia (in the Andocides passage), even Athenian citizenship could be unpicked in different ways and so wasn't simply a uniform package. These conditions of life brought penalties; such people could not hold property, nor speak in lawcourts. Women who were found guilty of adultery were barred from taking part in sacrifices. It was a social sanction.
Then and now
The Athenians were keenly aware of the rights that citizenship conferred. It has been calculated that half of all citizens would have served on the council, the Boule, at least once in their lifetime.
Today the government is focussing on getting people to take an interest in politics and to turn out to vote - or put their vote in the post-box. Is that focus right? After all, one could argue that we live, not in a democracy, but in an oligarchy. We might learn from the wide definition of citizenship discussed in this lecture, and explore ways of fostering a sense of belonging in ways other than merely political. To be actively involved in one's local community in one way or another might result in a healthier society.
