Citizenship: inscribed honours for individuals in Classical and Hellenistic Athens
p. 273-292
Texte intégral
1. APPROACHING INDIVIDUALS AND INDIVIDUALISM1
1The individual is at the heart of this paper, but not in the sense of seeking “une théorie générale de la naissance de l’individu et du développement de l’individualisme.”2 Vernant himself had focused on the eighth to fourth centuries B.C., and pursued “une perspective d’anthropologie historique” that identifies the individual and individualism through three problems.
2“1) l’individu... sa place, son rôle dans son ou ses groupes... sa relative autonomie par rapport à son encadrement institutionnel; 2) le sujet; quand l’individu, s’exprimant lui-même à la première personne... énonce certains traits qui font de lui comme un être singulier; 3) le moi, la personne; l’ensemble des pratiques et des attitudes psychologiques qui donnent au sujet une dimension d’intériorité et d’unicité...”3
3In another study of the individual and individualism, Isaiah Berlin adopted a different approach that focused on political thought where he identifies the idea of individual equality as opposed to social equality. It is in the Stoic and Epicurean writing of the late fourth and third centuries that “we find, in place of hierarchy, equality; in place of emphasis on the superiority of specialists, the doctrine that any man can discover the truth for himself and live the good life as well as any other man, at least in principle; in place of emphasis on intellectual gifts, ability, skills, there is now a stress upon the will, moral qualities, character...”.4 Berlin’s own study placed great emphasis on the Hellenistic era where he found not change but also continuity: “civic feeling continued; men continued to vote, to elect public office, to bear liturgies. The poleis were not dissolved by Alexander or his successors: on the contrary, new ones were created. The inscriptions do not show a slackening of public spirit. There was no real collapse until the Romans appeared on the scene.”5
4This paper considers the apparent continuities in the civic organisation of the polis and focuses on one feature of the “encadrement institutionnel” of the individual as presented in the late Hellenistic Athenian polis: the award of Athenian citizenship. Going beyond the time frame chosen by Vernant, it takes us down to the first century B.C. and raises questions about change and continuity, questions that occupy many of those who work on Hellenistic history. Osborne has established that in the second half of the second century B.C. Athens was awarding citizenship more liberally.6 The paper challenges these views and suggests that the polis continued to value highly citizenship in the later Hellenistic period and the Athenians granted citizenship with discretion in the later second century. If change was introduced, solid arguments are required to indicate how and why such modifications of civic practices evolved. Changes did indeed take place in the award of citizenship but they should be located in the middle third of the first century B.C. It is insufficient to assume, as Berlin did, that the arrival of Rome immediately produced change in the late Hellenistic period for there is “no indication of any special interest taken by Roman officials in the internal affairs of Athens.”7 This paper reconsiders the documentary evidence that informs two of the important continuities identified by Berlin — the citizen and the inscriptions. Epigraphy provided the documentary evidence that suggested to Berlin no “slackening of public spirit”.8 Citizenship offers a way of investigating the relationships between the individual and society in the form of the state, or the polis, and the civic sub-groups to which an individual belonged.9
5Citizenship and in particular the award (and acceptance) of citizenship certainly raises the problems of the place of the individual in the polis. The dénial of citizenship and membership of its sub-groups was an idea of some importance to Zeno of Citium’s philosophy. The extract from Plutarch’s On the fortune of Alexander is cited in Berlin’s essay on the birth of Greek individualism:10 “We should not live in separate cities and demes, each using its own rules of justice, but we should consider all men to be fellow-demesmen and citizens, with one common life and order for ail, like a flock feeding together in a common pasture.”11
6What does the award of Athenian citizenship inform about groups within the polis? How do such awards reflect the value attached to being a member of the Athenian polis? Is there any change in the value that Athenian citizenship demands? To answer these questions, I turn to a well-established body of evidence — the decrees and testimonia for the award of Athenian citizenship collected and published by Michael Osborne in his Naturalization in Athens.12 Although the paper focuses on the later Hellenistic period, the second half of the second and the first centuries B.C., it will reflect widely on the overall value of Athenian citizenship earlier in the Classical and Hellenistic periods.
2. THE OPENING UP OF ATHENIAN CITIZENSHIP TO FOREIGNERS IN THE LATER HELLENISTIC PERIOD
7To revisit Athenian citizenship is to retrace some well-trodden pathways.13 Herein lies a central problem that has stimulated this paper. A feature of anglo-saxon work in particular has been the dependence on Osborne’s evaluation of the history of Athenian citizenship, especially in the Hellenistic era. Among the many important conclusions and observations that Osborne makes on Athenian citizenship is his interpretation of the second half of the second century when the inscribed decrees awarding citizenship honours disappear from the epigraphical record. Osborne has argued that a considerably more open policy towards naturalization was being embraced by the later stages of the second century, and that at some point prior to the 30s the citizenship had become available for purchase.14 The last inscribed decree awarding citizenship can be dated to around 135 to 123/2 B.C.15 The disappearance from the epigraphical record of the state decree awarding citizenship is considered as a symptom of the change in procedures:
8“Soon after ca. 140 the epigraphical record for naturalization ceases altogether, though it is clear from other sources that naturalization continued, indeed increased. The obvious implication is that naturalization was no longer being effected by decree, and it seems likely that from the last decades of he second century onwards naturalization was accomplished by means of some sort of aitesis on the part of the candidate coupled with ephebic service. The opening of the ephebate to foreigners late in the second century is doubtless concerned with this change.”16
9Osborne argues that new citizens were being admitted after first serving as ephebes, by requesting citizenship status: “After ca. 140 it is clear that naturalization went on apace, but it is virtually certain that it was now being effected by aitesis and ephebic service, though the details are obscure. Decrees were no longer necessary and they are no longer attested.”17 A fundamental reason for this view of a progressive reduction of the citizenship qua honour is Osborne’s insistence on interpreting the epigraphical evidence for the procedural changes in the award of citizenship after 229 as proof that “grants are increasingly regarded as practical privileges rather than honorific titles.”18 Osborne argues that inscribed decrees awarding individuals Athenian citizenship become less common (and disappear) because the Athenians attached less importance to citizenship: it was easier for foreigners to obtain Athenian citizenship by other routes.
10Osborne has assembled several observations that suggested greater access to Athenian citizenship in the later Hellenistic period:
- The literary evidence of the second century B.C.: Polybius 30.20 on Haliartos in 167 B. C.,19 and Nat. T119.
- The epigraphical record for citizenship decrees ends c. 140 B.C.20
- The admission of foreigners to the Athenian ephebeia.21
- The development in the first century B.C. that suggests easier access to Athenian citizenship and even the ability to purchase it as witnessed by respectively Cicero and Dio on Augustus’ ban on the sale of citizenship in 21 B.C.22
- The change in Athenian citizenship law suggested by the fact that Athenians by the second century B.C. are able to marry non-Athenian women and continue to act as citizens and pass on citizen status to the children of such marriages.
- The increasing numbers of foreigners, especially Romans, among those serving as prytaneis.23
11Osborne’s book has been well-received. Gauthier praised the work behind it but also offered some criticisms:24 he questioned the use of the term ‘naturalisation’ — a ‘terme anachronique et trompeur’25 and the comparison Osborne made between his own acquisition of Australian citizenship and the process of naturalization in Athens.26 However. Gauthier never disagreed with the chronology that Osborne produced for the opening up of Athenian citizenship despite signs that he did not follow completely the conclusions of the book. As a result, the assessment of Athenian citizenship in later Hellenistic Athens that derives from Naturalization has had indirect influences on other analyses of the city’s social history as two examples illustrate.
(a) Adoption27
12The Danish team working on the Athenian polis revisited the evidence for adoption at Athens in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The introduction on tombstones in the second century B.C. of an Athenian’s natural and adoptive fathers was seen as a way of reaffirming the natural Athenian parentage. The citizens who displayed such details may have wished to assert their eligibility for priesthoods or magistracies at Athens which may have demanded that candidates have Athenian fathers. Rubenstein et al. identify one of the reasons for this change as the opening up of citizenship in the second half of the third century B.C.: “The use of the adoption formula in the Athenian epigraphical sources was very likely a reaction, on the part of the (well) born Athenians, to the large influx of foreigners which allowed the relaxation of the rules on citizenship in the mid-second century B.C.”28
(b) Bastardy29
13Ogden’s study of Greek bastardy reviews the granting of citizenship in communities throughout the Classical and Hellenistic Greek world. The crux of the chronological development is the distinction he finds between the more restricted practice of citizenship requiring double ascendancy (both parents being born of citizen parents) and the more liberal operation where (usually) the father only was required to be of citizen birth and the mother could be foreign (metroxenia). Ogden emphasises the difficulty of interpreting the evidence for the Hellenistic period but overall sees a relaxation of laws preventing metroxenoi obtaining citizenship and locates that practice in the wider context of the Hellenistic period which “tended to reduce the importance of traditional city-state citizenship: population mixing, synoecism, the rise of leagues, the sale of citizenship, and, just possibly, tiered citizenship.”30 Athens is given specifie attention although only two pages are devoted to the development of bastardy laws in the Hellenistic period.31 Ogden recites as evidence that metroxenoi were permitted to be citizens the well-established examples of Athenians appearing on tombstones in the late third and second centuries who had foreign mothers or wives.32 Several examples of Athenians married to non-Athenian women are recorded on funerary monuments in Attic. Their sons not only carry the demotic but in some cases serve as magistrates in civic institutions. Such examples suggest that the fact that an Athenian had married a non-Athenian woman did not prevent the offspring from holding Athenian citizenship. Do these instances reflect an end to the fifth-century (Periklean) law on the restriction of Athenian citizenship to those with Athenian parents? In support of such an innovation. Ogden relies on Osborne’s interpretation of the disappearance in the formulae for the awards of citizenship.33 From the late third century the extension of the award of citizenship to the descendants of honorands was removed from the inscribed decrees. For Osborne this change “merely represented a more liberal attitude towards marriage and descent, and that grants were now automatically assumed to cover a benefactor’s children.”34 Ogden however sees citizenship in Hellenistic poleis being opened up and made more available. Typical is his interpretation of the seven examples of Greek cities that sold citizenship: Byzantium; Dyme; Tritaia; Ephesos; Aspendos; Thasos: Phaselis.35 For Ogden “The sale of citizenship apparently became common in the hellenistic world.”36 But for Gauthier the same evidence suggests a “mesure exceptionelle…généralement motivée par la détresse des finances publiques et valable pour une période limitée.”37
14These two examples illustrate how Osborne’s analysis has been received and incorporated into our understanding of Athenian social history in the second century B.C. It also shows the importance that must be attached to his view on Athenian citizenship and the consequences for his belief that access to Athenian citizenship was opened up in the third quarter of the second century B.C.
15One of the most important challenges to such a view comes from the revision of the accepted model of service in the Athenian ephebeia. French and Australian scholars have scrutinised independently the admission of foreigners to the Athenian ephebeia and concluded that such service did not qualify automatically foreigners as Athenian citizens. Their conclusions are consistent with and support the arguments that will be offered here: that access to Athenian citizenship was not liberalized in the second century B.C. and the grant of citizenship was not more readily awarded from the third quarter of the second century. In fact, Athenian citizenship remained a valued status in the late Hellenistic period.
3. REVIEWING ACCESS TO ATHENIAN CIVIC INSTITUTIONS: CITIZENS, FOREIGNERS AND EPHEBES
16The access to Athenian citizenship has been the subject of recent work by E. Perrin-Saminadayar and S.G. Byrne.38 Both have posed questions about Osborne’s interpretation of citizenship and independently offered critical examinations of the Athenian ephebeia. They have convincingly dismantled the idea that the opening up of ephebic service to foreigners in Athens had any relationship with easing access to citizenship and opposed the idea that more foreigners were being admitted to the citizen body through completion of ephebic service.39 Byrne, now followed by Perrin-Saminadayar, has shown that ephebic service at the end of the second century neither qualified individuals as citizens nor made them eligible for citizenship. In this respect they echo the words of Woloch on the Imperial period: “the ephebeia was not a road to citizenship in Athens.”40 Athenian citizenship status could be obtained only by birth or by a grant (however acquired). Perrin-Saminadayar has now developed the same arguments and also saw how this impacts on the award of Athenian citizenship: “Au total, les indices semblent bien maigres pour accréditer l’idée selon laquelle, même à la basse époque hellénistique, les Athéniens accordèrent la citoyenneté avec facilité”.41 I develop below the argument that Athenian citizenship remained a valued honour at Athens into the first century B.C. Despite whatever changes we might identify in the qualification for Athenian citizenship. it continued to be awarded in a way that maintained its value throughout the Hellenistic period. In spirit, therefore, this paper falls in line with the generai approach that Gauthier has argued for citizenship among Greek cities in the Hellenistic age: “L’octroi du droit de cité devait rester quelque chose d’exceptionnel.”42 Indeed. Gauthier’s review of Osborne’s Naturalization had already suggested some doubts about the presentation of the citizenship in Hellenistic Athens, in particular Osborne’s view of the shift in the late third and second centuries.43
4. REVIEWING ATHENIAN CITIZENSHIP
17I will deal with the five of the six points used by Osborne to support his overall argument for the change, and increased liberality, in the award of Athenian citizenship in the later Hellenistic period, especially in the second half of the second century B.C.44
4.1. The literary evidence
4.1.1. A. POLYBIUS 30.20.5-6
18Polybius tells us how the Romans received embassies in 167/6 B.C. from every polis, ruler and King following their victory over Perseus, the last of the Macedonien Kings.45 Two embassies did not receive a straightforward reception, the Rhodians and the Athenians. To their initial request that the people of Haliartos be spared the Athenians had no reply so they instead asked that Delos, Lemnos and Haliartos be made Athenian territories.46 This request was granted and came in for much criticism from Polybius
19Polybius thought it outrageous that the Athenians should claim Haliartos, not only because they had not done so before but also because the Athenians thereby neglected one of the most ancient of Boeotian cities and threatened to wipe it out by removing hope for those who were registered citizens of Haliartos.47 Polybius comments how ironic this was when at the same time, the Athenian tradition was “to make their own country common to the whole world.”48 Davies had seen this last passage as a reférence to the broadening of the citizen body by enfranchisement.49 Osborne saw the passage in a similar fashion, but saw it as a Polybian comment on contemporary Athenian civic behaviour, i.e. as evidence for more foreigners becoming Athenian citizens in the middle second century B.C.:50 “Polybius implies that this liberality went back to the middle of the second century at least.”51 However both Gauthier and later Ogden followed the explanation offered by Walbank in his Commentay.52 The passage should be seen as an allusion to the ideas promoted by Athenian orators in the Classical period, especially Pericles.53 Polybius’ comment is therefore ironic and does not refer to contemporary practice in the second century B.C. but contrasts the well-known rhetoric that in the second century was familiar to writers such as Polybius.54 The passage cannot therefore be taken to refer to the increased generosity with which the Athenians awarded citizenship in the mid-second century B.C.
4.1.2. OSBORNE, NATURALIZATION T119 = APOLLODOROS, CHRONIKA FR. 59 = JACOBY, FGRH IIB 244 F. 59 (END OF THE SECOND THIRD OF THE SECOND CENTURY B.C.?)
20The important testimonium records the grant of citizenship awarded to an unknown man from Asia who “easily attained citizenship and opened a school in the Ptolemaion”. At the age of 22, in the archonship of Aristophantos, the honorand had gone to Athens. There he followed the teaching of Kameades (Head of the Academy) for seven years, returned to Asia, and then come back again to Athens.55 Osborne observes that the individual, now clearly a figure of some stature in the world of learning, had no difficulty in securing citizenship, and concludes that the Athenians at the time awarded citizenship with some degree of liberality. “His return to Athens thus falls in the second half of the second century, and the ease with which he allegedly acquired the citizenship is quite intelligible. For the citizenship was by then a readily available commodity to those who desired it.”56 The identity of the honorand is supposedly Charmadas.57 The date is problematic: Aristophantos dates to the middle of the second century, perhaps 146/5 as argued recently.58 The philosopher’s return to Athens must date some time after 139/8 depending on how long he stayed in Asia Minor.59 The honorand is one of several philosophers who received the award of citizenship. In his treatment of this series of honours given to second century thinkers. Perrin-Saminadayar underlines how rarely such grants of citizenship were made.60 It is clear that this piece of evidence cannot be used to reflect the liberality or ease with which one could gain citizenship but is a positive comment on the high status of Charmadas. Such was his reputation and stature in Athens that the people there awarded him quite readily — and therefore easily — citizenship. If anything, this example underlines the high status of citizenship awards in the second century not the contrary.
4.1.3. ATTICUS
21Titus Pomponius Atticus, the friend of Cicero and long-standing correspondent, spent a significant part of his life in Athens. Nepos explains how Atticus, as a great public benefactor,
22“[2.4-6] often relieved their public necessities by wealth; for example, when the state needed to negotiate a loan and could not do so on fair terms, he always came to the rescue… He added to this service with still another act of generosity; for he made a distribution of grain to the entire people, giving each man six modii of wheat… the equivalent of a measure which at Athens is called a medimnus. [3.1] Furthermore, his conduct in Athens was such that he showed himself gracious to the humble and an equal with the great. The result was that the state conferred upon him all possible honours and wished to make him a citizen of Athens. But that favour he declined, because the jurists hold that if one becomes a citizen elsewhere, Roman citizenship is lost.”61
23Atticus was in Athens from 86 until 65 B.C.62 His behaviour and benefactions rank among the most generous and compare very well to the significant services that individuals in the Classical and Hellenistic periods had performed to merit the award of honours such as citizenship. Nepos says of Atticus that “so long as he was in Athens he opposed the erection of any statue in his honour; but he could not prevent it when he left.”63 It is clear that Atticus had performed significant services or benefactions for the Athenian people in a period of disruption and reduced means. The proposed award of the highest honours (citizenship and apparently a statue) while he was in Athens is not surprising.64 Moreover, the fact that such awards were offered reflects also on the status or value attached to them. The conclusion is surely that even in the 80s to 60s (if we date the proposals to some point in these years) the award of citizenship must still have been an honour of great value and given only to those who were felt to merit it. The services performed by Atticus suggest that proposals of such honours were not made for trivial undertakings and, by extension, that the award of citizenship continued to be considered (with a statue) as appropriate for the most important benefactors.
4.2. The epigraphical record for citizenship decrees ends c. 140 (osborne, Naturalization, p. 167-8)?
24Epigraphical evidence from outside Athens in the second half of the second century B.C. confirms that the award of citizenship was a still regarded as an indicator of great honour. The inscription from Claros in honour of Menippos is strong evidence of the prestige attached to the award of Athenian citizenship.65 Unfortunately the date of the erection of the stele at the sanctuary of Apollo is not certain. The orthodox view is that it was set up in the last quarter of the second century B.C. and certainly after 120/19 (the date of Q. Mucius Scaevola’s (cos. 117) governorship of Asia). An alternative date that has found less support puts the inscription in the early 90s on the argument that the Q. Mucius Scaevola is the cos. of 95 and governor of Asia in the early 90s.66
25Menippos had stayed at Athens (Robert’s translation):
26“en suivant renseignement des meilleurs professeurs; ayant donné le plus bel exemple, par sa vie comme par la culture qu’il avait reçue, tout d’abord à la cité même qui la lui avait transmise, il obtint une haute distinction chez les Athéniens eux-mêmes: il fut couronné, devint citoyen par décret et reçut le témoignage qui convenait de tout son séjour dans la ville”.67
27Athens was the metropolis of Claros. The date of the honours probably coincides with the period of the final extant ’naturalization’ decrees in the earlier 130s.68 The Claros stele itself certainly dates some years after the Athenians made the award. The conclusion however is clear. The award of Athenian citizenship to Menippos was a sign of significant achievement and worthy of record some years later when he was honoured at Claros.69 It is difficult to deny that this reflects the value of the awards granted to the honorand. The description of Menippos’ award offers no support to the argument that the Athenians were more readily handing out honours such as citizenship. It is hard not to compare the local importance of this honour with the similar pride attached by Nikomedes of Kos to his collection of foreign honours which he had inscribed in Kos at some point towards the end of the fourth century B.C.70 Two decrees, one from the late fourth century another from the last quarter of the second century, indicate the local significance attached to an award of Athenian citizenship.
28The final extant decrees awarding citizenship date to c. 130. To the decree for the unknown Alexandrian71 we should now add the honours for Menestheus of Miletus, which Osborne had dated to c. 150 on the basis of the lettering.72 However Tracy, commenting on the letter-style, offers a later date of c. 130.73 Byrne now suggests that Naturalization D113 is in fact the last known inscribed citizenship decree.74 The dates of the cutters of Naturalization D121 and D113 in fact suggest that both may belong somewhere in the region of c. 130. This chronology is important because it further weakens the argument put forward by Osborne for the reduction in the wording for the formulaic procedures in the citizenship decree for the Alexandrian (Naturalization D121):“By the later decades of the second century it is likely that the ephebate was the main means of entry into the citizen body for foreigners, and that, as a result, actual decrees granting citizenship became by and large unnecessary. In the rare cases where a grant by decree was made (as here) the formalities (and hence the descriptive formulae) were perhaps cut down to the bare minimum.”75
29For when one compares the procedural formulae associated with the decree for Menestheus of Miletus (Naturalization D113) one finds language typical of a Type III decree evident from the 190s to c. 140.76 The re-dating of this decree removes any weight that Osborne had placed on the wording of the descriptive formula in the grant of citizenship to the Alexandrian (Naturalization D121). The later dating of Menestheus’ decree weakens further the association between a change in the formulae (no longer evident) and a reduced importance attached to admitting new citizens by grants awarded by the People.
4.3. THE ADMISSION OF FOREIGNERS TO THE ATHENIAN EPHEBEIA77
30One of the central arguments to the change and indeed liberalisation of access to citizenship for foreigners was the appearance from the 120s B.C. onwards of foreigners in the Athenian ephebeia. Osborne, developing arguments established by Reinmuth and to some extent misrepresenting Pélékides, had assumed service in the Athenian ephebeia allowed foreigners in some way to become Athenian citizens.78 As a result, he suggested that a third way to becoming Athenian was routed through ephebic service. Reinmuth had placed this innovation in the mid-first century when Athens was “very liberal in conferring citizenship”79 but Osborne dated it to the 120s when for the first time foreigners start to appear in ephebic inscriptions. Recent scholarship has questioned this assumption. “It may be noted that service in the Athenian ephebes has been connected with the ability to take on Athenian citizenship… But Athenian citizenship was not an automatic or immediate right, as the continued use of ethnics [in the ephebic lists] shows. Habicht’s claim that ‘“these young men then became Athenian citizens at the end of their annual service and acquired the right to vote, and about a decade later, at age thirty, were eligible to serve in the Council or as magistrates’… seems too strong for the available evidence.”80 Byrne can find before the second century A.D. only one foreign ephebe who is later recorded as an Athenian.81 Perrin-Saminadayar developed independently the idea that service in the ephebeia at Athens did not qualify foreigners for Athenian citizenship. He draws on the parallel offered by Beroia in Macedonia where a gymnasiarchy law published by Hatzopoulos and Gauthier also shows that citizenship was not gained by passing through the gymnasia or ephebeia.82 Perrin-Saminadayar confirms that no instance of an ephebe at Athens serving between 167 and 88 BC can be attested later as an Athenian citizen.83 Any connection between the admission of foreigners to the ephebeia and the opening up of Athenian citizenship in the last half of the second century B.C. must be abandoned.
4.4. DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FIRST CENTURY B.C.
31There remain changes identified by literary evidence in the first century B.C. of which the most significant is the apparent ban imposed by Augustus on the Athenians making money from making foreigners citizens. Dio Cassius reports several reforms imposed on the Athenians including an apparent reference to the sale of citizenship.84 What does this refer to? When and how many sales were made? The reforms imposed by Augustus follow on from the time when in the second quarter of the first century B.C. it was clear that the acceptance of local Greek citizenship by Roman citizens resulted in their loss of Roman citizen status, a loss which Atticus was not prepared to suffer which led to his refusal of Athenian citizenship. Cicero touches on the problems associated with dual citizenship in his speeches Pro Balbo (55 BC) and Pro Caecina (69 BC). Ferrary sees a shift in behaviour in the 40s and 30s when Greeks gained Roman citizenship in addition to their local citizenship without losing their local citizen status in the process: “la citoyenneté romaine fait désormais partie des privilèges offerts à des Grecs voulant retourner ou rester dans leur patrie et y exercer une activité publique”.85 He identifies the lex Munatia Aemilia of 42 BC as a signal for a major change that may well have legitimated a practice that predated the legislation.86 In his study of Romans at Athens after 86 B.C. Byrne identified a major shift in the percentage of those who can undeniably be identified as Roman among tribe members or gennetai, from under 1% before 86 B.C. to anywhere between 6.4 and 11.2% after 86 B.C.87 After c. 40 B.C. Byrne sees “a rather substantial participation rate in Athenian affairs by people of Roman background at a regular level, as prytaneis, ephebes, and genos members.”88 The Roman Athenians listed by Byrne after 86 BC can very rarely be dated before c. 50 B.C.89 There clearly was a shift in the presence of Roman citizens holding positions within the Athenian democracy but that change belongs to the second half of the first century B.C.
32Osborne identified the evidence for Augustus’ reform in second half of the first century B.C. as part of a shift towards the liberalisation of Athenian citizenship that he wished to trace back to the third quarter of the second century B.C.90 It is becoming clear now that, in fact, the developments in Athens that culminate in Augustus’ reform should in fact be seen against a much more limited historical background that one might associate with the decades after the Sulla revolt. It is quite likely that changes in the admission of citizens into the Athenian civic body should fall after Atticus’ lengthy stay in Athens (86 to 65) for in this period there seemed to exist both considerable prestige but crucially a high level of service for awards of citizenship to be made. All the evidence therefore indicates a change in Athens around c. 40 B.C. perhaps in line with changes in Roman legislation. Habicht has suggested that Cicero’s Pro Balbo already suggests that Roman citizens were serving at Athens qua Athenian citizens in local magistracies but as yet the evidence examined by Byrne does not support this idea.91
33As Gauthier has shown, the sale of citizenship in the Hellenistic world was not common. Such sales occur on specific occasions and seem to be generated by local concerns — whether they might be fiscal or demographic. Difficult financial conditions prevailed at Athens in the years after the revolt against Sulla and continued into the mid-first century B.C. Atticus made another gift of grain in 50 B.C.92 All indications of radical change in the award of citizenship seem more appropriate in the mid-first century B.C. than in the later second century. What those changes were for the present lies outside the scope of this paper.
4.5 THE CHANGE IN ATHENIAN CITIZENSHIP LAW? MARRIAGE TO NON-ATHENIAN WOMEN
34The funerary monuments at Athens in the second century B.C. introduce Athenians who have non-Athenian wives/mothers. Such a change seems to legitimate and confirm as Athenian citizens individual Athenians who are born of Athenian fathers and non-Athenian mothers (metroxenoi). Claude Vatin who collected much of this material concluded that marriages between Athenians and non-Athenians “encore exceptionnels au iiie siècle, sont devenus parfaitement valables au iie siècle.”93
35One example illustrates this body of evidence:
36IG II2 8377. From the Sacred way in Athens, a grey marble columella records
37Philista (FRA no. 1231), daughter of Phillis of Argos, the wife of Androkles of Ptelea (LGPN s.v. Androkles 53).
38The husband may well be the Androkles son of Philistion (LGPN s.v. Androkles 54) who joined fellow ephebes in honouring the didaskalos in c. 120 B.C. (SEG 39.187 1. 13 = Horos 7 (1989) 17-21) and served as Pythaist at Delphi in 128 (FD III 2 12 II1. 15).
39This association is suggested by a likely later generation in the first century B.C.: the wife of Philistion of Ptelea (and therefore perhaps son of Androkles) married a certain Euemeris (FRA no. 7103), daughter of Demetrios of Termessos (IG II2 10439).
40It is difficult — although not impossible — to argue that each instance reflects a specific dispensation passed by Athenian institutions that legitimised these metroxenoi as Athenian.94 Indeed Perrin-Saminadayar points out that there is no firm evidence for a legal change that legitimated as citizens the children born of marriages between Athenians and non-Athenians.95 Taking a cue from other evidence, it is possible that specific agreements might have existed between Athens and the foreign cities whose females married Athenians. The evidence of the funerary monuments suggests something longer term. There is probably some scope for revisiting the problem. Niku has now suggested that the change in the wording of the Athenian decrees granting citizenship should signal a relaxation in the citizenship laws of Athens. When the wording of the citizenship decrees changes in c. 229 and no longer specifies that descendants of those awarded citizenship will be citizens, that change reflects a change in citizenship legislation. Niku argues that those children born of mixed marriage before 229 would not have been citizens because Athenian men could not marry legally a foreign woman. After 229, the citizenship decree wording changes, reflecting a change in legislation. And from that point on, we see in the second century an increase in the number of tombstones that record Athenian men married to non-Athenian women. The increase can be explained by the change in legislation which allowed children born of such marriages to be citizens, the same legislation that made redundant the special wording on Athenian citizenship decrees that extending citizenship to descendants of the honorands.96 The absence of a good chronology for many of the Hellenistic tombstones can make it difficult to gauge the trend toward an increase in numbers of tombstones set up by Athenian men with foreign wives (or concubines).97
41Of the many arguments put forward by Osborne, the apparent relaxation of Athenian parentage (admission of metroxenia) is the most difficult to explain away. Nevertheless, if there was a change in the admissibility of Athenians to the citizen body then this does not necessarily provide evidence for the reduced value attached to the award of citizenship. The funerary monuments collected by Vatin and others belong to the late third and second centuries and do not display any real relationship to the change that Osborne wants to see in the third quarter of the second century.98 If any change did occur in the admission of individuals to Athenian citizenship, then it had taken place in the latter part of the third century.99
42After this review (4.1-5) of Osborne’s arguments, the grounds for arguing that Athenian citizenship was opened up to foreign males in the later second century are without substantial foundation. Changes certainly took place but it is clear that the period after Sulla in the first century B.C. experienced more radical shifts in practice.
Conclusion
43Interpreting the evidence to establish whether citizenship was being granted more liberally is notoriously difficult. An award of Athenian citizenship was a great honour. One finds in the fourth century criticism of Athenian practice in awarding citizenship. Demosthenes himself contrasted the time of the Persian war with contemporary practice in the mid-fourth century when he suggests citizenship was being given more liberally.100 If only this part of Demosthenes’ work had survived how would we have judged his assessment? We might have taken it at face value. But Demosthenes’ view is contradicted elsewhere by other Demosthenic speeches which suggest that in fact citizenship in the mid-fourth century was indeed a highly prestigious honour.101
44To explore such issues in the Hellenistic period is particularly difficult. The interpretation of poorer evidence for the later Hellenistic period is not without problems. This paper suggests that Osborne’s construction of less value attached to the award of Athenian citizenship in the later second century is misplaced. The evidence does change: the inscribing of decrees awarding citizenship seems to draw to halt. But this is as much evidence for a change in epigraphical (itself also honorific) habits as it is for a change in the absolute value attached to citizenship. The example of Atticus in the first half of the first century B.C. is a salutary one in favour of the case for the continuing value attached to the award of Athenian citizenship to individuals in the late Hellenistic period.
Notes de bas de page
1 Abbreviations used in this chapter: Agora XVI = Woodhead (A.G.), The Athenian Agora XVI: Inscriptions: the decrees, Princeton, ASCSA, 1997; FRA = Osborne (M.J.) and Byrne (S.G.), The foreign residents of Athens. An annex to the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, Louvain (Studia Hellenistica 33), 1996; LGPN II = Osborne (M.J.) and Byrne (S.G.), ed., A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names. Volume II. Attica. Oxford, 1994.
2 Vernant (J.-P.), “L’individu dans la cité”, in Vernant (J.-P), L’individu, la mort, l’amour. Soi-même et l’autre en Grèce ancienne, Paris, 1989, p. 213
3 Ibid., p. 216.
4 Berlin (I), “The birth of Greek individualism”, in Hardy (H.), ed., Liberty Isaiah Berlin, Oxford, 2002, p. 303 (= Berlin, The birth of Greek individualism).
5 Ibid., p. 312.
6 Osborne (M.J.), Naturalization in Athens (Volumes I, II and III-IV), Brussels, 1981-1984 (= Osborne, Naturalization).
7 Kallet-Marx (R.M.), Hegemony to empire. The development of the Roman imperium in the east from 148 to 62 B.C., Berkeley, 1995, p. 203: there is “no indication of any special interest taken by Roman officials in the internal affairs of Athens”.
8 Berlin, The birth of Greek individualism, p. 312.
9 See Baslez (M.-F.), “Deux catégories de citoyens à Athènes”, in Actes du VIIe congrès international d’épigraphie grecque et latine II, Athens, 1987: p. 46-50; “Citoyens et non-citoyens dans l’Athènes imperiale au ier et au iie siècles de notre ère” in Cameron (A.), ed, The Greek renaissance in the Roman empire, London, Institute of Classical Studies (BICS Suppl. 55), 1987, p. 17-36.
10 Berlin, The birth of Greek individualism, p. 308.
11 Plutarch, De alexandri magni fortuna aut virtute i 329a = Stoicorum veterum fragmenta I 262 = Austin (M.M.), The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest, Cambridge, 1981, no. 19.
12 Osborne, Naturalization.
13 Osborne, Naturalization and Gauthier (Ph.), “‘Générosité’ romaine et ‘avarice’ grecque: sur l’octroi du droit de cité”, in Mélanges d’histoire ancienne offerts à William Seston. Paris, (Publications de la Sorbonne, série (études) tome 9), 1974, p. 207-15; “La citoyenneté en Grèce et à Rome: participation et intégration”, Ktema, 6 (1981), p. 167-79; Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs, ive-ier siècle avant J.C., Athens-Paris, EFA (BCΉ Suppl. XII), 1985 (= Gauthier, Bienfaiteurs).
14 Osborne, Naturalization. III-IV, p. 140 with n. 4.
15 Ibid., D121 with Tracy (S.V.), Attic Letter-Cutters of 229 to 86 B.C., Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, (Hellenistic Culture and Society 6), 1990, p. 173-80 = Agora XVI, 316.
16 Osborne, Naturalization, III-IV, p. 144-5.
17 Ibid., p. 167-8.
18 Ibid., p. 166.
19 Ibid., p. 141 n. 4.
20 Ibid., p. 167-8.
21 Ibid., p. 144-5; 167-8.
22 Ibid., p. 140.
23 Ibid., p. 141 n. 4.
24 Gauthier (Ph.), Bienfaiteurs; “L’octroi du droit de cité à Athènes”, REG 99 (1986), p. 119-33 (= Gauthier, “L’octroi”).
25 Gauthier, Bienfaiteurs, p. 150 et n. 48 bis.
26 Gauthier, “L’octroi”, p. 128-9.
27 Rubenstein (L.), Bjertrup (L.), Hansen (M.H.), Nielsen (T.H.) et Vestergaard (T.), “Adoption in Hellenistic and Roman Athens ”, C&M, 42 (1991), p. 139-51.
28 Ibid, p. 148.
29 Ogden (D), Greek bastardy in the classical and hellenistic periods, Oxford, 1996 (= ogden, Greek bastardy).
30 Ibid., p. 317.
31 Ibid., p. 81-2.
32 See now Niku (M.), “When and why did the Athenian μετοία System disappear? The evidence of inscriptions”, Arctos 38 (2004) (= Niku, “When and why did the Athenian μετοικία System disappear...”).
33 Osborne, Naturalization, III-IV, p. 150-4; Niku, When and why did the Athenian μετοικία system disappear, p. 77-9.
34 Osborne, Naturalization, III-IV, p. 153.
35 Robert (L.), “Sur un dicton relatif à Phasélis; La vente du droit de cité”, Hellenica I, Paris. 1940, p. 37-42; Ogden, Greek bastardy, p. 296-9.
36 Ibid., p. 296, on selling citizenship, p. 296-99.
37 Gauthier, Bienfaiteurs, p. 201.
38 Perrin-Saminadayar (É.), “Image, statut et accueil des étrangers à Athènes à l’époque hellénistique”, in Nourrisson (D.) and Perrin (Y.), ed., L’étranger, le barbare: images de l’autre, Saint-Étienne, p. 67-91 (= Perrin-Saminadayar, “Image, statut”); Byrne (S.G.), “Early Roman Athenians”, in Jordan (D.) and Traill (J.), ed., Lettered Attica. A day of epigraphy (Actes du symposium d’Athènes Proceedings of the Athens symposium 8 mars March 2000 with a memoir by avec un mémoire par Johannes Kirchner), Toronto, Canadian Archaeological Institute of Athens, 2003, p. 1-20 (= Byrne, Early Roman Athenians).
39 On foreigners in Hellenistic Athens, see Follet (S.), “Éphèbes étrangers à Athènes: Romains, Milésiens, Chypriotes etc.”. Centres d’études Chypriotes, 9 (1988), p. 19-32; “Les Italiens à Athènes (iie siècle av J -C. — ier siècle ap. J.-C.”, in Müller (Chr.) and Hasenohr (C.), ed.. Les Italiens dans le monde grec, Athens-Paris, EFA (BCH Suppl. XLI), 2002, p. 79-88.
40 Woloch (M.), “Roman and Athenian citizenship at Athens A.D. 96-161”, Historia, 20 (1971 ), p. 745.
41 Perrin-Saminadayar, “Image, statut”, p. 79.
42 Gauthier (Ph.), “La citoyenneté en Grèce et à Rome: participation et intégration”, Ktèma, 6 (1981), p. 169.
43 Gauthier, “L’octroi”, p. 132, addresses the explanation offered by Osborne for the changes in the formulae used for awarding citizenship in the second half of the third century B.C “Ces nouveautés n’impliquent nullement un changement de mentalite et, en particulier, ne suggèrent pas que les Athéniens auraient alors pris conscience de la valeur modeste du don de leur politeia Après 229, le mantien de la clause d’enrôlement dans les subdivisions civiques ne peut paraître ‘illogique’... que si l’on suppose avec l’auteur que ‘le don de la citoyenneté a perdu sa nature spécifiquement athénienne’. Mais cette expression, d’ailleurs peu compréhensible, semble correspondre à un p. priori, qu’il est difficile de concilier avec l’observation présentée par l’auteur un peu plus loin: ‘(Après 229) ces changements s’accompagnent de la tendance à accorder dorénavant la citoyenneté comme un privilège effectivement utile plutôt que comme un honneur’” (referring to Osborne, Naturalization, III-IV, p. 185).
44 Osborne’s sixth point. Romans serving in Athenian institutions, is dealt with below (4.3), ephebes.
45 Polybius 30.19.15-17.
46 Polybius 30.20.1-2.
47 Polybius 30.20.3-4.
48 Polybius 30.30.6.
49 Davies (J.K.), “ Athenian citizenship: the descent group and the alternatives ”, CJ, 73 (1978), p. 119, translates the Greek as “to make their own country common to everyone, while destroying that of others, would not seem to be in accord with the city’s traditions.”
50 Osborne, Naturalization, III-IV, p. 141 n. 4; 167 n. 45.
51 Osborne, Naturalization, III-IV, p. 204 with n. 132.
52 Gauthier, “L’octroi”, p. 132; Ogden, Greek bastardy, p. 82 n. 218.
53 Walbank (F.W.), Commentary on Polybius. Volume III, Oxford, 1979, p. 444.
54 On the Hellenistic reception of Thucydides. Hornblower (S), “The fourth-century and Hellenistic reception of Thucydides”, JHS 115 (1995), p. 47-68; Polybius’ Knowledge of Thucydides is, at best, “uneven”, Hornblower (S.), “Introduction”, in Hornblower (S), ed, Greek historiography, Oxford, 1994, p. 60-1. It is not clear that Polybius draws self-consciously on Thucydides (2.39.1) rather than the general ideology.
55 Osborne, Naturalization T119.
56 Osborne, Naturalization, III-IV, p. 104-5.
57 Philodemos, Index academicorum col. 31-2 ap. Perrin-Saminadayar (É.), “Des élites intellectuelles à Athènes à l’époque hellénistique? Non, des notables ”, in Cébeillac-Gervasoni (M.) and Lamoine (L.), ed., Les élites et leurs facettes. Les élites locales dans le monde hellénistique et romain, Rome-Clermont-Ferrand, École française de Rome, (Collection de l’école française de Rome 309; Collection Erga 3), 2003, p. 392 & n. 52 (= Perrin-Saminadayar, “Des élites intellectuelles...”).
58 Habicht (Chr.), “The eponymous archons of Athens from 159/8 to 141/0 B.C.”, Hesperia, 57(1988) p. 244-7 (reprinted in Habicht (Chr.), Athen in hellenisitischer Zeit, Munich, 1994, p. 317-21).
59 Would the troubles in Asia have been a likely moment for Charmadas’ return, sometime at the end of the 130s, e.g. the war of Aristionikos in 133-30 B.C.?
60 Perrin-Saminadayar, “Des élites intellectuelles...”, p. 392-3.
61 Nepos, Atticus, 2.4-3.1.
62 Habicht (Chr.), Athens from Alexander to Antony, (translated by D. L. Schneider), Cambridge, Ma., 1997, p. 328-30; (= Habicht, Athens from Alexander). See in general, Perlwitz (O), Titus Pomponius Atticus. Untersuchunger zur Person eines einflussreiehen Ritters in der ansgehenden römischen Republik, Stuttgart, (Historic! Einzelschriften 58), 1992.
63 Nepos, Atticus 3.2.
64 On the megistai timai, see Gauthier, Bienfaiteurs, Kralli (I.), “Athens and her leading citizens in the early Hellenistic period (338-261 B.C.): the evidence of the decrees awarding the highest honours”, Archaiognosia, 10 (1999-2000), p. 133-62.
65 Robert (J. and L), Claros I. Décrets hellénistiques, fascicule I, Paris, 1989, p. 63-104.
66 See e.g. Eilers (C.), Roman patrons of Greek cities, Oxford, 2002, p. 124-32.
67 Robert (J. and L), Claros I, p. 68-9; the Menippos decree, ibid, p. 63, col. III. 3-10.
68 Osborne, Naturalization D121 = Agora XVI, 310; and now Osborne, Naturalization D113.
69 Robert (J. and L), Claros I, p. 63 col. 111. 6-7, episêmasias.
70 osborne, Naturalization D51.
71 Ibid., D121.
72 Ibid., II, p. 195; Ibid., Dl13 = IG II2 982 + Add. p. 670.
73 Tracy, Attic Letter-Cutters of 229 to 86 B.C., p. 241.
74 Byrne, Early Roman Athenians, p. 7 n. 19 with Habicht, Athens from Alexander, p. 346, n. 37.
75 Osborne, Naturalization, II, p. 198, on D121.
76 Ibid., II, p. 195 with I, p. 23-4.
77 Ibid., III-IV, p. 144-5; 167-8. Timarchos (T120) is listed with a demotic and so seems to be admitted to his deme before his ephebic service.“ It seems possible that by ca 120 a form of aitesis had been introduced for prospective citizens and that one of the conditions was (subsequent) service in the ephebate (i.e. just like any native born citizen) This would account for the steady trickle of foreign names in the demes after ca. 120, and also for the cessation of the decrees” (Osborne, Naturalization, III-IV, p. 106).
78 Reinmuth (O.W.), “The ephebate and citizenship in Attica”, TAPA, 79 (1948), p. 211-31; Pélékides (Chr.). Histoire de l’éphébie attique des origines à 31 avant Jésus-christ. Athens-Paris, EFA (Travaux et mémoires des anciens membres étrangers de l’école et de divers savants), 1962.
79 Reinmuth (O.W.), TAPA, 79 (1948), p. 229.
80 Byrne, Early Roman Athenians, p. 11 n. 33 For Habicht’s claim, Athens from Alexander, p. 13; similarly p. 346; at p. 344, where he suggests that the ephebes of foreign origin “acquired the rights of full citizens upon completion of their service and also became eligible for membership in the Council and service as magistrates when they reached the age of thirty.”
81 Byrne, Early Roman Athenians p. 18: Pollio Chrysonos, ephebe c. 40 B.C., with Byrne’s new reading of IG II2 2461 1 111 as [Pol]lion instead of […]mion.
82 Perrin-Saminadayar, “Image, statut”, p. 81 with n. 71, citing Gauthier (Ph.) and Hatzopoulos (M.B.), La loi gymnasiarchique de Béroia, Athens, (Meletemata 16), 1993, p. 83.
83 Perrin-Saminadayar, “Image, statut”, p. 80-1 with n. 70.
84 Dio Cassius 54.7.2.
85 Ferrary (J.-L.) “ Les Grecs des cités et l’obtention de la civitas Romana ”, in Fröhlich (P.) and Müller (Chr.), ed., Citoyenneté et participation à la basse époque hellénistique, Geneva. 2005, p. 70.
86 See Lintott (A.W.), Imperium Romanun. Politics and administration, London and New York, 1993. p. 163-4 with n. 21; for a revised edition of the relevant edict issued by Octavian that refers to the lex Munatia Aemilia (Edict II), see Raggi (A.), “The epigraphic dossier of Seleucus of Rhosus: a revised edition”, ZPE 147 (2004), p. 123-38, at p. 128-9, doc. II 11. 9-72, (with an english translation, p. 134-5).
87 Byrne, Early Roman Athenians, p. 9.
88 Ibid., p. 10.
89 Ibid., p. 15-19, List II. Habicht, Athens from Alexander, p. 345: “By the first century B.C. Romans who had become naturalized Athenian citizens were no longer a rarity, and by the second half of the century there were clearly large numbers of them.” See also Habicht (Chr.), “Roman citizens in Athens (228-31 B.C.)”, in hoff (M.C.) and Rotroff (S.I.), ed., The Romanization of Athens (Proceedings of an international conference held at Lincoln, Nebraska (April 1996), Oxford, 1997, p. 9-17.
90 Osborne, Naturalisation, III-IV, p. 140.
91 Habicht, Athens from Alexander, p. 346-7; possibly the comments in the Pro Balbo refer to Cicero’s own observations in Athens in 79, ibid., p. 346-7 n. 41. See Oliver (J.H.), “Civic status in Roman Athens: Cicero, Pro Balbo 12.30”, GRBS, 22 (1981), p. 83-88 (reprinted in Oliver (J.H.), The civic tradition and Roman Athens, Baltimore and London, 1983, p. 56-61 ).
92 Ibid., p. 334 with Cicero Ad Att. 6.6.2.
93 Vatin (Cl.), Recherches sur le mariage et la condition de la femme mariée à l’époque hellénistique. Paris, (BEFAR 216), 1970, p. 125 n. 3 (material), p. 216 (quotation); see now Ogden, Greek bastardy, p. 81-2. For a correction to Vatin’s (followed by Ogden) family stemma of Archianassa (concerning IG II2 7721; 7726; 8581), see Niku, “When and why did the Athenian μετοικία system disappear…”, p. 77-8.
94 Perrin-Saminadayar, “Image, statut”, p. 82 n. 76, suggest a decree might have been passed for each attested instance
95 Ibid.
96 Niku, “When and why did the Athenian μετοικία system disappear…”, p. 78-9.
97 Ibid., p. 79 n. 16: the dates offered by Kirchner can often place a tombstone after 317/6, but at some point after that date, and not simply in the late fourth century B.C.
98 Ogden, Greek bastardy, p. 82.
99 Niku, “When and why did the Athenian μετοικία system disappear…”.
100 Gauthier, Bienfaiteurs, p. 151: Demosth. 23 (Against Aristokrates) 200.
101 E.g. Demosth. 20 (Against Leptines) 41.
Auteur
School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology
The University of Liverpool
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