dowry—payment from the family of the bride to the groom—
and bride-gift s—payment from the groom to the family of the
bride. Th e latter established the status of the potential groom;
a man who could not provide valuable bride-gift s would not
be considered wealthy enough to deserve the bride. Th e for-
mer was insurance for the well-being of the bride. Th e dowry
was paid to the husband but did not belong to him entirely;
if he should send his wife back to her family, or if she should
choose to leave, the dowry would have to be repaid.
Not everyone was a lord in the community like Odys-
seus, of course, and there were degrees of status among the
more ordinary people. Th ese degrees may seem surprising to
modern readers, however. It seems that the status of a slave
was higher than that of a hired man, for example, perhaps
because a slave was a full-fl edged member of the household
while a hired worker did not “belong” in the community.
Homer also identifi es a category of demiourgoi, “workers for
the community,” certain craft smen, prophets, healers, build-
ers, and singers of tales, who are not attached to a particular
household but are nevertheless valued in the community. As
the Greek world emerged from the dark ages and these house-
hold-based communities came to be organized into more
structured city-states, more sophisticated economic practices
and institutions came about.
Much of the literary evidence comes in the form of com-
plaints—complaints from peasants about the oppression of
the lords and from the lords about the presumption of the
peasants. Th e poet Hesiod describes complaints about “bribe-
devouring judges” who mishandled cases of inheritance, and
the poet Th eognis of Megara, in the sixth century b.c.e., de-
tails a complaint about how “those who previously did not
know about courts and laws, but wore goatskins and held pas-
tures outside the city” had come into political power, displac-
ing the former lords. By the fi ft h century Greek society had
produced enough evidence for modern scholars to describe
in some detail the economic workings of a city-state, with the
democratic and prosperous state of Athens providing the best
evidence.
SLAVES
Th e best early evidence for the ancient Greek economy does
not appear until the Classical Period (480–323 b.c.e.), and
most of that evidence comes from the city of Athens. So
Athens can serve as a representative case study of the an-
cient Greek economy. Th at economy depended on slaves.
Th ey provided labor in the house, on the farm, for public
works, and, in dire circumstances, even for the conduct
of warfare. Slavery in the ancient world generally was not
based on race but was the consequence of war or piracy.
Odysseus’s slave woman, Euryclea, describes how she was
abducted by pirates as a child and sold into slavery. In the
Classical Period it was common to sell into slavery the in-
habitants of a defeated city. Th e children of slaves were also
slaves and were oft en considered more reliable, never having
known freedom.
Th e lot of slaves varied considerably. Slaves who worked
in quarries or mines suff ered terribly and had an extremely
short life expectancy. Domestic slaves generally had an easier,
but by no means easy, life. Even the most fortunate slave was
still subject to the whims of the master and did not enjoy any
rea l protection under the law. Th ere are no accurate data on the
number of slaves in Athens, and estimates vary widely. Th ere
may have been as many slaves as free Athenians, and the slaves
may even have outnumbered the free by two to one or more.
No ancient writer discusses in any depth the extent to
which the economy depended on slavery, though the depen-
dence was well known. Th e historian Th ucydides describes
how, during the war between Athens and Sparta, the Spartans
captured a fortress on the Athenian border, and he encour-
ages Athenian slaves to fl ee there; according to Th ucydides
20,000 slaves did so, damaging the ability of Athens to har-
vest crops and maintain public works.FREEMEN
Some slaves could earn money and could hope to save enough
to buy freedom. Masters could, and did, set free (or manumit)
slaves in their wills. Th e most famous case is that of the slave
Pasion in the fourth century. He was the property of a banker
in Athens, and upon his master’s death he became free and
the owner of the bank and eventually one of the wealthiest
men in Athens. Th rough his generous gift s to the city, he even
acquired Athenian citizenship and became an associate of the
most prominent people in the city. Th is anecdote is extraordi-
nary and certainly does not represent the usual experience of
Greek slaves, but it does reveal the fl uidity of economic status
during the Classical Period.RESIDENT ALIENS
Free people who were not Athenians and yet resided in the
city were an important part of the economic life of the state.
Th ese were called metics, or metoikoi, which means “resident
aliens.” Th ey tended to be mercha nts or ba n kers, si nce a s non-
Athenians they could not own land. Metics were involved in
industry, making and selling perfume and furniture; were
traders in wheat, wine, or oil; and were bankers, loaning
money at interest. Metics were acknowledged members of the
community, enjoying protection of the laws, although each
metic had to have an Athenian sponsor who would represent
him in court, should the need arise. At the great festivals,
when the Athenians celebrated their civic identity, the metic
took par t in t he processions, a mark of forma l status as par t of
the community. Metics were valuable to the community not
only for the goods they brought to market and the services
they may have provided but also for the taxes they paid to
the city.WOMEN
Women in classical Athens did not enjoy political rights,
could not vote, and could not hold offi ce of any kind. An
Athenian woman could be said to be a “citizen” only in the364 economy: Greece