Citizenship in Ancient Greece: Terms and Sources – Athens and Sparta

 Steven G. Ellis, Gumundur Hálfdanarson, and Ann Katherine Isaacs edited Citizenship in Historical Perspective (Pisa University Press, 2006)

In 1833, King Otto of Greece arrived in Athens and was greeted in front of the Thiseion temple.

Introduction: The concept and problem of citizenship in ancient Greece are extremely complicated, and it continues to be the subject of scholarly investigation in various situations, as evidenced by new book titles.

If we compare the definitions authored by V. Ehrenberg and J. Kenyon Davis in the second edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary from 1972 and the third edition of 1996, it is clear that there is new knowledge on citizenship and a new approach to it, as a fusion of the state and its relations with the inhabitants' right to participate in the state's life and decisions. Various ancient sources have left us a wealth of information regarding citizenship in Greece, primarily in Athens, throughout a long period of time.

Thus, in this chapter, we will examine various social relationships such as those between the state and its subjects, power, legislation, rights and obligations, loss and gain of citizenship, exile, social, economic, and gender stratification, foreigners, settlers, and so on, using historiography, philosophy, rhetorics, and poetry, and we will examine the following terms: politeia, polites, polis, genos, phratria, phyle, demos, isonomia, isegori

Citizenship is referred to in Greek as o [politeia]. Politeia is a citizenship right. It signifies that a citizen – [polites] can only be a member of a society who is capable of governing. This leads us to the concept of the state. The word politeia is not only etymologically related to the city-state [polis], but it is also necessary. The polis was a political union among its settlements created by citizens-polites working together. Different types of partnerships resulted in various constitutions. Politeia is another Greek word meaning constitution. Because different social classes had varying rights to citizenship depending on the constitution, and different social groups who obtained political power influenced the state's constitution and type of governance, which is another meaning for politeia.