central political ideal and the inalienable characteristic of the citizen, while enslave-
ment of aliens flourished. For this reason among others it appears that slaves were
regarded in the first place as anti-citizens. They obviously had no civic rights, but were
at the disposal of their masters – living tools, in Aristotle’s famous phrase. When, on
rare occasions, they were manumitted, they assumed the status of metics. Seldom
were freedmen or their descendants granted citizenship (the famous exception comes
in the fourth century with the family of the freedman banker Pasion). Slaves did not
sit at the bottom of some economic continuum, at the top of which sat citizens; they
were of a different order entirely.
Resident aliens, metics, had no inherent political rights, and, at least until the latter
part of the fifth century, almost no prospect of obtaining them. From the last quarter
of the fifth century on, ‘‘naturalization’’ is more frequently attested, but it remains a
rare privilege. We do not know the size of metic population or its ethnic make-up,
though we hear on occasion of the activities of certain ethnic groups, apparently
substantial; certain metics were wealthy and even politically influential; others were
poor. They did not comprise, as some have thought, a ‘‘merchant class.’’ Plato’s
Republicbegins when Socrates goes down to the Piraeus to watch a procession of
Thracians, who have been granted the exceptional privilege of observing a festival in
honor of Bendis; the dialogue takes place in the house of one of the most famous
metic families, that of Kephalos, a metic from Syracuse, who made his money from a
shield ‘‘factory’’ staffed by numerous slaves.
Native children and women enjoyed a peculiar, ambivalent status. They were
neither outsiders to the political community nor were they full participants.
While they enjoyed the protections of the state, they shared only imperfectly in
its management. Children in the ancient world, as in the modern, were excluded
from full participation in the political order. Because they would someday become
citizens, full participants, however, they do not belong in the same category as
metics. Rather, as Aristotle says, they are to be regarded as ‘‘imperfect’’ citizens.
Native women likewise were necessarily part of the civic order, though they did not
enjoy full participatory political rights. The peculiar status of women was formally
recognized with Pericles’ citizenship law of 451 BC. Up to this time citizens had only
to be the offspring of an Athenian father. By the law of Pericles, henceforth
both parents had to be Athenian, and subsequently it was necessary to establish
women’s status.
Political status was conceived and arranged in relation to the central category of the
citizen, whose qualities were implied in the imperfections of others. Nevertheless, as
the Greeks well knew, groups are not articulated only in terms of political status.
Other criteria play their part in the dynamics of group activity, notably wealth and
birth. We expect too much if we ask that all social categories map onto one another
precisely. An Athenian metic might have been wealthy, but he had no political rights.
A native Athenian woman might have been well born, even in practical matters
powerful and influential, but she still suffered the political disadvantages of her
gender. A poor Athenian might have been able to vote, but had less political influence
and access to luxury than a prominent metic courtesan, such as Diotima, who
supposedly instructed Socrates about the nature of love (Symposium201d). A child
of the right family might, despite his immaturity, even have political influence
through indulgent parents: so Themistocles could joke that his son indirectly
288 Charles W. Hedrick Jr.