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Contents:
Introduction to the Historical Overview in PerseusGeographical and Historical IntroductionThe Early Greek Dark Age and Revival in the Near EastRemaking Greek CivilizationThe Archaic AgeThe Late Archaic City-StateIntroduction to the Fifth CenturyClash Between Greeks and PersiansAthenian Empire in the Golden AgeAthenian Religious and Cultural Life in the Golden AgeContinuity and Change in Athenian Social and Intellectual HistoryThe Peloponnesian War and Athenian LifeIntroduction to the Fourth CenturyThe Aftermath of the Peloponnesian WarNew Directions in Philosophy and EducationThe Creation of Macedonian Power |
Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander
The Archaic Age
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5.17. V. Non-hoplites as Citizens
Most men in the new city-states were too poor to qualify as hoplites. It is usually assumed that poor men most likely could contribute little to military defense because they lacked hoplite armor and metal weapons and Greek armies at this date made scant use of light-armed troops like skirmishers, slingers, and archers. Nor had the Greeks developed navies yet, the military service for which poor men would provide the manpower in later times when a fleet was a city-state's most effective weapon. If being able to make a contribution to the city-state's defense as a hoplite was the only grounds for meriting the political rights of citizenship, the aristocrats along with the old and new hoplites had no obvious reason to grant poor men the right to vote on important matters. Yet poor men did become politically empowered citizens in many city-states, with some variations on whether a man had to own a certain amount of land to have full political rights or whether eligibility for higher public offices required a certain level of income. In general, however, all male citizens, regardless of their level of wealth, eventually were entitled to attend, speak in, and cast a vote in the communal assemblies in which policy decisions for the city-states were made. That poor men gradually came to participate in the assemblies of the city-states means they were citizens possessing the basic component of political equality. The hoplite revolution fails as a complete explanation of the development of the city-state above all because it cannot account for the extension of this right to the poor. Furthermore, the emergence of large numbers of men wealthy enough to afford hoplite armor seems to belong to the middle of the seventh century B.C., well after the period when the city-state as an innovative form of political organization was first coming into existence.
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OCLC: 33900145
ISBN: 0300069561
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