Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece

Citizenship is a major feature of contemporary national and international politics. It is also a legacy of ancient Greece. The concept of membership of a community appeared in Greece some three millennia ago as a participation in the social and political life of small-scale communities, but only towards the end of the fourth century BC did Aristotle offer the first explicit statement about it. Though long accepted, the Aristotelian definition remains deeply rooted in the philosophical and political thought of the classical period, but it probably fails to account accurately for the previous centuries or the dynamics of the emergent cities. Focusing on archaic Greece, this collective enquiry, bringing together renowned international scholars, aims at exploring new routes to archaic citizenship, exemplifying the living diversity of approaches to archaic Greece and to the Greek city. If the Aristotelian model has long been applied to all Greek cities regardless of chronological issues, historians are now challenging Aristotle’s theoretical definition and are looking for other ways of conceiving citizenship and community, setting the stage for a new image of archaic cities, which are no longer to be considered as primitive or incomplete classical poleis. Driven by this same objective, the essays collected here have not, however, been tailored to endorse any specific view. Each contributor brings his or her own national background and approaches to archaic citizenship through specific fields of enquiry (law, descent, cults, military obligations, associations, civic subdivisions, athletics, commensality, behaviours, etc.), often venturing off the beaten track.