Ancient Greek Citizenship

No concept was more central to the political cultures of the ancient Greek world than citizenship (politeia), and few have had a more enduring influence on modern political thought. Yet Greek citizenship did not emerge fully formed. It developed over time in connection with the invention of a series of abstract rights relating to different dimensions of citizen life: land ownership and tax status, religious and political participation, and legal status and personal identity.Drawing on more than three thousand inscribed grants of citizenship and related privileges, William Mack shows when specific citizen rights first appeared, how they were adopted, and why they became so widespread. In doing so, he illuminates how the definition of citizenship changed over five hundred years and the effect this had on the lives of both citizens and those excluded from citizenship, including enslaved people and their descendants.This new history of the Greek city-state network and its convergence around a democratic norm of adult male citizen equality also offers fresh insight into Greek ideas about female citizenship, federalism and oligarchy, as well as the relationship between Greek and Roman conceptions of citizenship. The result is a compelling account of how ideas of citizen equality helped entrench and sustain democracy in the Greek world, despite domination by the Hellenistic kings and Rome.