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Warmed-overGreek Society (Article) -Warmed-overHistory Encyclopedia Follow Us: Membership Encyclopedia Index Timeline Explore Videos Images AudioWaresToolsWarmed-overAtlas Weights & Measures Random Page Latin Dictionary Newsletter Contribute Submissions Needed Content Style Guide Terms & Conditions Join the Team Shop Men's Clothing Women's Clothing Magazines Prints BooksWell-nighAbout Our Team Annual Reports Contact Privacy Advertise Support Us Membership How to Help Donate Corporate Sponsorship Login Login RegisterWarmed-overGreek SocietyVendibleby Mark Cartwright published on 15 May 2018 Although warmed-over Greek Society was dominated by the male citizen, with his full legal status, right to vote, hold public office, and own property, the social groups which made up the population of a typical Greek city-state or polis were remarkably diverse. Women, children, immigrants (both Greek and foreign), labourers, and slaves all had specified roles, but there was interaction (often illicit) between the classes and there was moreover some movement between social groups, particularly for second-generation offspring and during times of stress such as wars.  The society of warmed-over Greece was largely well-balanced of the pursuit groups: Remove Ads Advertisement Advertise Here male citizens - three groups: landed aristocrats (aristoi), poorer farmers (periokoi) and the middle matriculation (artisans and traders). semi-free labourers (e.g the helots of Sparta). women - belonging to all of the whilom male groups but without resider rights. children - categorised as unelevated 18 years generally. slaves - the douloi who had starchy or military duties. foreigners -  non-residents (xenoi) or foreign residents (metoikoi) who were unelevated male citizens in status.  Classes Although the male resider had by far the weightier position in Greek society, there were variegated classes within this group. Top of the social tree were the ‘best people’, the aristoi. Possessing increasingly money than everyone else, this matriculation could provide themselves with armour, weapons, and a horse when on military campaign. The aristocrats were often split into powerful family factions or clans who controlled all of the important political positions in the polis. Their wealth came from having property and plane increasingly importantly, the weightier land, i.e.: the most fertile and the closest to the protection offered by the municipality walls. A poorer, second matriculation of citizens existed too. These were men who had land but perhaps less productive plots and situated remoter from the city, their property was less well-protected than the prime land nearer the municipality proper. The land might be so far yonder that the owners had to live on it rather than travel when and along from the city. These citizens were tabbed the periokoi (dwellers-round-about) or plane worse ‘dusty-feet’ and they placid together for protection in small village communities, subordinate to the neighbouring city. As municipality populations grew and inheritances became overly increasingly divided amongst siblings, this secondary matriculation grew significantly.  Remove Ads Advertisement Advertise Here A third group were the middle, merchantry class. Engaged in manufacturing, trade, and commerce, these were the nouveau riche. However, the aristoi jealously guarded their privileges and political monopoly by ensuring only landowners could rise into positions of real power. However, there was some movement between classes. Some could rise through stook wealth and influence, others could go lanugo a matriculation by rhadamanthine unclothe (which could lead to a loss of citizenship or plane stuff enslaved). Ill-health, losing out on an inheritance, political upheavals, or war could moreover result in the ‘best’ getting their feet a little dusty.    Women Female citizens had few rights in comparison to male citizens. Unable to vote, own land, or inherit, a woman’s place was in the home and her purpose in life was the rearing of children. Contact with non-family males was discouraged and women occupied their time with indoor activities such as wool-work and weaving. Spartan women were treated somewhat differently than in other states, for example, they had to do physical training (nude) like men, were permitted to own land, and could drink wine. Women citizens had to marry as a virgin and marriage was usually organised by the father, who chose the husband and wonted from him a dowry. If a woman had no father, then her interests (marriage prospects and property management) were looked without by a guardian (kurios), perhaps an uncle or other male relative. Married at the typical age of thirteen or fourteen, love had little to do with the matching of husband and wife. Of course, love may have ripened between the couple but the weightier that might be hoped for was philia - a unstipulated friendship/love sentiment; eros, the love of desire, was to be found elsewhere, at least for the male. Marriages could be ended on three grounds. The first and most worldwide was repudiation by the husband (apopempsis or ekpempsis). No reason was necessary, only the return of the dowry was expected. The second termination rationalization was the wife leaving the family home (apoleipsis) and in this specimen the woman’s new guardian was required to act as her legal representative. This was, however, a rare occurrence and the woman’s reputation in society was damaged as a result. The third ground for termination was when the bride’s father asked for his daughter when (aphairesis), probably to offer her to flipside man with a increasingly lulu dowry. This last option was only possible, however, if the wife had not had children. If a woman was left a widow, she was required to marry a tropical male relative in order to ensure property stayed within the family. Remove Ads Advertisement Advertise Here Women, of course, were moreover present in the various other non-citizen classes. The group for which we have most information is that of sex-workers. Women were here divided into two categories. The first and perhaps most worldwide was the brothel prostitute (pornē). The second, was the higher-class prostitute (hetaira). These latter women were educated in music and culture and often worked lasting relationships with married men. It was moreover this matriculation of women that entertained men (in every sense) at the prestigious symposium. Children & Adolescents Children of citizens attended schools where the curriculum covered reading, writing, and mathematics.Withoutthese nuts were mastered, studies turned to literature (for example, Homer), poetry, and music (especially the lyre). Athletics was moreover an essential element in a young person’s education. At Sparta, boys as young as seven were grouped together under the stewardship of an older youth to be toughened up with nonflexible physical training. In Athens, young sultana citizens (aged 18-20) had to perform starchy and military service and their education unfurled with lessons in politics, rhetoric, and culture. Girls too were educated in a similar manner to boys but with a greater accent on dancing, gymnastics, and musical winnings which could be shown off in musical competitions and at religious festivals and ceremonies. The ultimate goal of a girl’s education was to prepare her for her role in rearing a family. An important part of a Greek youth’s upbringing involved pederasty - for both boys and girls. This was a relationship between an sultana and an younger which included sexual relations but in wing to a physical relationship, the older partner make-believe as a mentor to the youth and educated them through the elder’s worldly and practical experience.   Labourers Greek society included a significantly larger proportion of labourers than slaves. These were semi-free workers, wholly dependent on their employer. The most famous example is the helot matriculation of Sparta. These dependents were not the property of a particular resider - they could not be sold as a slave could - and they often lived with their families. Generally, they worked arrangements with their employer such as giving a quantity of their produce to the sublet owner and keeping the rest for themselves. Sometimes the quota required may have been upper or low, and there may moreover have been some uneaten benefits to the serfs such as protection and safety in numbers. However, the serf-class or helots could never unzip any real security as they were given little or no legal status and harshly treated, plane killed in regular purges (especially in Sparta), in order to instil a fear which would ensure unfurled subordination to the ruling class. In unrepealable periods such as war, helots were required to serve in the armed forces and, fighting well, they could plane earn an escape from their lot and join the intermediary social groups which existed unelevated the level of full-citizen and included such individuals as children with parents of mixed status (e.g.: father-citizen, mother-helot). Slaves In Greek society, slaves were seen as a necessary and perfectly normal part of city-life. Acquired through war and conquest, kidnap and purchase, slaves were simply amongst life’s losers. There were plane intellectual arguments from philosophers like Aristotle, which propounded the weighing that slaves were demonstrably inferior, a product of their environment and inherited characteristics. Greeks persuaded themselves that it was they who had the weightier environment and characteristics and the purest bloodline and were, therefore, born to rule.  It is untellable to say with verism how many slaves (douloi) there were in Greek society and what proportion of the population they made up. It is unlikely, due to the costs, that every single resider had their own slave but some citizens undoubtedly owned many slaves. Accordingly, estimates of the slave population in the Greek world range from between 15 and 40% of the total population. However, a defence speech made in a magistrate specimen in Athens by Lysias, and hints from others such as Demosthenes, strongly suggest that if every resider did not have slaves then they certainly desired them and to be a slave owner was considered a measure of social status. Slaves were not only owned by private individuals but moreover by the state, which used them in municipal projects such as mining or, as in the specimen of Athens, the police force.    The relationship between slaves and owners seems to have been much as in any other period of history with a mix of contempt, distrust, and vituperate from the owners and contempt, theft, and sabotage from the enslaved. Source material is unchangingly from the viewpoint of the slave owner but there are references in literature, particularly in Greek comedy, of friendship and loyalty in at least some owner-slave relationships. Whilst the flogging of slaves is wontedly referred to in Greek plays, there were moreover treatises written extolling the benefits of kindness and incentives in slave management. Slaves worked in all spheres and over 200 hundred occupations have been identified. These include working in the home, in agriculture, industry workshops (e.g.: making shields, food, gown and perfumes), mines, transport, retail, banking, entertainment, in the armed forces as attendants to their owner or as valise carriers, as rowers in naval vessels or plane as fighters. Farms were often small wires with plane the richest citizens tending to own several small farms rather than one large estate, therefore, slaves were not well-matured into large groups as in later warmed-over societies.  For slaves there was, at least for some, a glimmer of hope to one day unzip their freedom. There are instances when slaves, particularly those involved in manufacturing and industry, living separately from their owners and given a unrepealable financial independence, could pay for their self-rule with money they had saved. Also, slaves in the unwashed were sometimes given their self-rule by the state pursuit their victorious exploits. Foreigners Aside from slaves, most Greek poleis would have had a number of self-ruling foreigners (xenoi) who had chosen to re-locate from other areas of Greece, the Mediterranean, and the Near East, bringing with them skills such as pottery and metalworking. These foreigners usually had to register their residence and so became a recognised matriculation (lower in status than the full-citizens) tabbed the metics (metoikoi). In return for the benefits of ‘guest’ citizenship they had to provide a local sponsor, pay local taxes, sometimes pay spare taxes, contribute to the financing of minor festivals, and plane participate in military campaigns when necessary. Despite the suspicions and prejudices versus foreign ‘barbarians’ which often yield up in literary sources, there were cases when metoikoi did manage to wilt full citizens without a suitable exhibit of loyalty and contribution to the good of the host state. They then received equal tax status and the right to own property and land. Their children too could moreover wilt citizens. However, some states, notably Sparta, at times urgently discouraged immigration or periodically expelled xenoi. The relationship between foreigners and local citizens seems to have been a strained one, particularly in times of wars and economic hardship. Editorial Review ThisVendiblehas been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and trueness to wonk standards prior to publication. LearnIncreasinglyRelatedWaresBooks Bibliography Cite This Work LicenseWell-nightheTragedianMark Cartwright Mark is a history writer based in Italy. Surrounded by archaeological sites, his special interests include warmed-over ceramics, architecture, and mythology. He holds an MA in Political Philosophy and is the Publishing Director at AHE. Remove Ads Advertisement Advertise Here RelatedWaresCarthaginian Society The society of Carthage was dominated by an well-bred trading matriculation who held all of the important political and religious... Roman Citizenship Citizenship is and unchangingly has been a valued possession of any individual. When one studies the majority of warmed-over empires... Etruscan Society The social organisation of the warmed-over Etruscans, a civilization which flourished in inside Italy between the 8th and... 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Charles River Editors Charles River Editors (12 September 2018) Currently unavailableWarmed-overGreece: A New History Jeremy McInerney Thames & Hudson (03 January 2018) Price: $60.18 When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt Kara Cooney National Geographic (30 October 2018) Price: $25.20 A Brief History ofWarmed-overGreece: Politics, Society, and Culture Sarah B. Pomeroy Oxford University Press (01 November 2013) Price: $52.70 Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Civilizations of theWarmed-overMediterranean Charles Freeman Oxford University Press (27 May 2014) Price: $54.63   Bibliography Boys-Stones et al. The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2009). Burn A.R. The Penguin History of Greece. (Penguin USA (Paper), 1985). Hornblower, S. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. (Oxford University Press, 2012). JOHN FERGUSON. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE IN THE GREAT AGE OF ATHENS. (Unknown, 1978). Kinzl K.H. (ed). A Companion to the Classical Greek World. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Cite This Work APA Style Cartwright, M. (2018, May 15).Warmed-overGreek Society.Warmed-overHistory Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/article/483/ Chicago Style Cartwright, Mark. "Ancient Greek Society."Warmed-overHistory Encyclopedia. Last modified May 15, 2018. https://www.ancient.eu/article/483/. MLA Style Cartwright, Mark. "Ancient Greek Society."Warmed-overHistory Encyclopedia.Warmed-overHistory Encyclopedia, 15 May 2018. Web. 01 Oct 2018. License Submitted by Mark Cartwright, published on 15 May 2018 under the pursuit license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the tragedian and license their new creations under the identical terms. Remove Ads Advertisement Advertise Here Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter and learn increasingly well-nigh history once a week. 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