Metics and the Athenian “Phialai”-Inscriptions
A Study in Athenian Epigraphy and Law
By (author) Elizabeth A. Meyer
Hardback (Published)
(June 2010)
ISBN: 9783515093316
6.69 x 9.49 inches
Price: $110.00
In stock
Beneath the shining world of the citizen of Classical Athens was the perilous shadow-realm of the resident foreigner, the metic. Emblematic of the status of metic was the requirement to pay a special metic tax, the metoikion. And if a metic failed to pay this tax, he or she would be sold into slavery, a fate that threatened no citizen of the classical Athenian polis. In the late fourth century BC the Athenians, in the face of widespread departure of metics in the face of economic recession and legal harassment, moved to improve metics’ legal situation in order to entice metics back to Athens. It is to the context of these legal reforms of the metic condition, this volume argues, that a celebrated set of fourth-century BC Athenian inscriptions recording dedications of silver cups, phialai, belong. Known since the nineteenth century as the “Attic Manumissions”, these inscriptions have been thought to be the result of a legal process by which slaves were set free. Here these inscriptions are published as a corpus for the first time. And it is argued that they represent not the freeing of slaves, but preserve instead the traces of prosecutions of metics for failure to pay the metoikion. In the new pro-metic atmosphere of the 330s BC, persons who sued metics for failing to pay the metic tax, but did not win a conviction, were fined to discourage frivolous suits, and part of that fine was dedicated to divinity in the form of a phiale.
Beneath the shining world of the citizen of Classical Athens was the perilous shadow-realm of the resident foreigner, the metic. Emblematic of the status of metic was the requirement to pay a special metic tax, the metoikion. And if a metic failed to pay this tax, he or she would be sold into slavery, a fate that threatened no citizen of the classical Athenian polis. In the late fourth century BC the Athenians, in the face of widespread departure of metics in the face of economic recession and legal harassment, moved to improve metics’ legal situation in order to entice metics back to Athens. It is to the context of these legal reforms of the metic condition, this volume argues, that a celebrated set of fourth-century BC Athenian inscriptions recording dedications of silver cups, phialai, belong. Known since the nineteenth century as the “Attic Manumissions”, these inscriptions have been thought to be the result of a legal process by which slaves were set free. Here these inscriptions are published as a corpus for the first time. And it is argued that they represent not the freeing of slaves, but preserve instead the traces of prosecutions of metics for failure to pay the metoikion. In the new pro-metic atmosphere of the 330s BC, persons who sued metics for failing to pay the metic tax, but did not win a conviction, were fined to discourage frivolous suits, and part of that fine was dedicated to divinity in the form of a phiale.
- By (author) Elizabeth A. Meyer
Other Titles in this Series
Roman Imperial Chronology and Early-Fourth-Century Historiography
The Regnal Durations of the So-called "Chronica urbis Romae" of the "Chronograph of 354"
Variationen über Latinus
Erzählungen über die Ursprünge der Latiner von Hesiod bis ins 3. Jahrhundert v. Chr.
Psychopathen in Purpur
Julisch-claudischer Caesarenwahnsinn und die Konstruktion historischer Realität
Politikos archein
Zum Regierungsstil der senatorischen Statthalter in den kaiserzeitlichen griechischen Provinzen
L’aristocrazia senatoria e l’egemonia del Mediterraneo
Uno studio sulle forme dell’imperialismo romano nel II secolo a.C.
Governare l’impero
La "praefectura fabrum" fra legami personali e azione politica (II sec. a.C. – III sec. d.C.)
Reinstating the Hoplite
Arms, Armour and Phalanx Fighting in Archaic and Classical Greece
Volume 207
Biographie und Prosopographie
Internationales Kolloquium zum 65. Geburtstag von Anthony R. Birley, 28. September 2002, Schloß Mickeln, Düsseldorf
Bürger und Soldaten
Aspekte der politischen und militärischen Rolle athenischer Bürger im Kriegswesen des 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr.
Die wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen der römischen Eroberung
Vergleichende Untersuchungen der Provinzen Hispania Tarraconensis, Africa Proconsularis und Syria
Polis und Arché
Kleine Schriften zu Gesellschafts- und Herrschaftsstrukturen in der griechischen Welt
Von der Symmachie zur Arché und zurück
Die Entwicklungsphasen des Ersten Attischen Seebundes (478/7–404 v. Chr.)
Koinè symmachía
Untersuchungen zum Hellenenbund Antigonos' III. Doson und Philipps V. (224-197 v. Chr.)
Similar Books
Contesting Labeled Identities
The Sociology of Gentilics in Biblical and Northwest Semitic Literature
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Epigraphic “Shades” from Hellenistic Thrace
Contextualizing Inscriptions in Greek from Thracian Tombs
Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and the New Testament
Fifth International Symposium of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti (CJHNT), 14-17 May 2015, Nottingham
Gold, Silver and Glass: Power Networks, Cultural Identities, Technology Transfers and Agency across the Old World (7th Century BC – 1st Century AD)
Proceedings of a Conference Held at the British Museum, 16–18 June 2023
Language and Power in the Roman Empire and Early India
Hierarchy, Ambiguity, and the Art of Reading the Signs in Cosmopolitan Cultures
Late Antique villae in the Balkans (3rd–7th c. AD): Current Research Questions and Perspectives
HAEMUS Companion to the Late Antique Balkans 1
Volume 4
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
Roman Copies, Collecting, and Culture in the Bay of Naples and Beyond
Papers in Honor of Eugene J. Dwyer
The Compositional History of the Book of Kings
An Analysis of the Evaluative Frameworks in 1 Kings 14–2 Kings 25
Zooarchaeology of Ancient Greek Sanctuaries in Southwestern Sicily
Faunal Analysis from Selinus and Akragas as Evidence of Differences in the Treatment of Animals for Ritual Purposes
