Studies on the dialectic between citizen and foreigner in the ancient Greek city have largely focused on Athens and the sharply articulated concept of the metoikos (D. Whitehead, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic [1977], and more recently S.M. Wijma, Embracing the Immigrant. The Participation of Metics in Athenian Polis Religion (5th–4th Century bc) [2014]). But how did other cities deal with their hybrid populations, both legally and socially? This question is especially pertinent in the globalising Hellenistic era when urbanism grew at an unprecedented rate and new cities conceived by remote rulers were in search of populations, whether by persuasion or coercion. Migration often followed war and commerce and took a good share in the increasing mobility so characteristic of the era. These are some of the issues addressed in the conferences organised by G. of the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum and K. Freitag of the Rheinisch-Westfälischen Technischen Hochschule in Aachen, as part of the Deutsches Forschungsgemeinschaft's programme Die hellenistische Polis als Lebensform. This volume, product of the first conference held in Bochum in March 2011, presents a welcome contribution to the elusive subject of urban demographics in the post-classical Greek world.
G.'s affinity with the topic is evident through her contribution of three of the nine chapters. Her first topic concerns Syracuse, who invited Timoleon from Corinth to resettle the city after the downfall of Dionysius II. Of the estimated 60,000 new ‘colonists’, most were from Sicily or southern Italy. The restitution of phygades, or exiles, to post-war Syracuse was an issue and G. postulates that the incorporation of non-Syracusans as colonists was an effort to temper their influence, an innovative tactic that would be applied in other Sicilian cities as well. Going beyond the usual explanation of post-war oligandreia, G. focuses instead on the clever political implications of Timoleon's solution.
K. Scherberich reopens the case in Thessaly between Philip V and Larisa (IG IX 2.517), which he dates to 217 b.c. Warfare had taken its toll on the population of Larisa, and few were left to work the land. Asked to intervene, Philip V arranged for a group of new citizens, only later to find their names deleted on a stele. In his second letter he gently commands Larisa to reinstate them. Contrary to general opinion, Scherberich argues that not all these new citizens had been blackballed, and that they were probably not soldiers, as R. Oetjen suggests (‘Antigonid Cleruchs in Thessaly and Greece: Philip V and Larisa’, in G. Reger et al. [edd.], Studies in Greek Epigraphy and History in Honor of Stephen V. Tracy [2010], pp. 237–54), but more likely were metics already in the area.
According to L.S. Köcke, oligogyneia appears to be the main drive behind the demographic shift that took place in Miletus in the latter part of the third century b.c. In this period thousands of Cretans were admitted into the civic community of Miletus, and Köcke shows how much of a population growth, and demographic shift, this influx represented. In her research, which draws interesting parallels with modern Germany, she addresses the adjoining problem of how to incorporate the new residents as citizens while maintaining the rigid standards of citizenship.
The Milesian community also forms the background to G.'s two other contributions. Miletus had a Carian population and G. uses onomastics to understand their background, piecing together some of the leading local families that forged relations in the Hellenistic period, either through migration or sympoliteia. Her conclusion that the shift towards Greek names indicates a declining sense of ‘Carian’ identity among the smaller cities needs some qualification (see also D. Piras, ‘Der archäologische Kontext karischer Sprachdenkmäler und seine Bedeutung für die kulturelle Identität Kariens’, in F. Rumscheid [ed.], Die Karer und die Anderen [2009], pp. 229–50). As G. further argues, migrants retained their identity in the greater polis by selecting marriage partners from the same hometown, often cousins. G.'s argument for a ‘Landflucht’ to Miletus gives thought as to how this relates to the wider trend of sympoliteia and synoecism so evident in Caria at this time.
In her final article, G. does a similar analysis of Milesian women living in Athens based on funerary inscriptions and constructs a glimpse into their life. Milesians were apparently the largest ‘minority’ in Athens, with increasing numbers, and she finds evidence for numerous mixed marriages between Milesian women and Athenian men. The names of Milesian women in Athens were similar to those elsewhere, but not in Miletus, possibly indicating strong trading families and why these women made such desirable marriage partners.
Attitudes towards locals could change over time, as D. Kah demonstrates in his analysis of three different epigraphic moments at Priene. Conflict initially marked the relations with the pedieis, the indigenous communities in the lower Maeander valley whose allegiance was circumstantial. The situation improved by the early-first century b.c. when locals were drawn into civic, and ephebic, life as katoikoi and paroikoi (with a new commentary of I. Priene 117 + 86). By the end of this era new –and Roman – citizens could gain prominence, exemplified by stephanephoros Aulus Aemilius Zosimos, although his cursory commemoration, an afterthought in the ‘hall of fame’ of the Sacred Stoa, may reflect changing civic concepts under Roman rule.
H. Klinkott argues that the conspicuous absence of metics in Hellenistic Alexandria, despite the obvious Macedonian influence, Egyptian population and Jewish presence, is fundamental to its understanding. The foundation of Alexandria presents a new concept of the city, a cosmopolis in which everyone is a foreigner to some degree. But this does not mean that there were no distinctions. Rather than a static division of citizens and foreigners, K. signals various dynamic legal categories, from katoikoi to full-fledged citizens with demotics, designed as a ladder of mobility to draw newcomers into the system as new citizens.
Cities were not the only political bodies that administered citizenship. In an inspiring overview of leagues, K. Freitag identifies problematic areas that have yet to be addressed in understanding their multiple levels of citizenship. Examples like the Triphylioi inscription from the Peloponnese, in which the koinon grants citizenship within a member state, or the Aetolian league, which acts like a polis in its negotiations with cities in the Aegean and Asia Minor, demonstrate the complex power that these federated bodies could have but also how very different their approaches could be; proxeny decrees were often more about honour than substance. Rather than asking how federations granted citizenship we should first ask what citizenship meant in these different contexts.
On occasion leagues even founded cities, albeit with varying results. V. Grieb analyses Megalopolis’ descent from ‘Great City’ in the fourth century b.c. to ‘Great Desert’, as Strabo wryly dubs it, in the early imperial period. An initiative of the Arcadian League as a bulwark against Sparta, it took sanctions to keep the reluctant new citizens from returning home. By the third century the city lived up to its name, but was decimated in 223 b.c. by Cleomenes III. New citizens were recruited to maintain defence and political balance. With little else going for it, however, this urban agglomeration in the meadows was soon made obsolete by the Roman conquests of 146 b.c.
While this volume does not give a comprehensive view of the dynamics behind population shifts in the Hellenistic period, the individual case studies offer several important insights into the motives at the root of these migratory actions, and will prove useful to anyone interested in citizenship in antiquity, not just the Hellenistic period. The book is well-produced with few typos, although the articles are loosely ordered and there seems to be a missing second table at the end. On the whole it leaves one hungry for more, for example honorary and multiple citizenships, and will hopefully lead to an increase in studies devoted to this topic.
