Chapter 8 - Gerys and the World of the Merchant Agora

Summary

Following his victory, Thrasybulus proposed a decree granting citizenship to ‘all those who had come back together from Piraeus, some of whom were clearly slaves.’ Acting as a ‘good citizen,’ as Aristotle writes, Archinus sued him for ‘indictment for illegality’ (graphē paranomōn) and won the case. But the Athenian voted another decree in 401 to reward these virtuous noncitizens. It lists the name of several hundred combatants by distinguishing between two categories of individuals. The men present by Thrasybulus’ side in Phyle are granted the statute of citizen, probably without being integrated into the demes and the phratries. On the other hand, for those who joined the combat later, the Athenians granted only isoteleia (tax equality) and engguēsis (the right to marry a member of the Athenian community and produce legitimate offspring). These men, around 850 in all, were registered as members of the Athenian tribes, within which they enjoyed the privilege of being able to fight for the city. On the thirteenth line of the third column of this long inscription, one can easily decipher the name of a certain Gerys. This chapter tries to unroll a series of hypotheses to identify who he was: a soldier, a greengrocer, a privileged metic, and a Thracian.