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Aristotle the metic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

David Whitehead
David Whitehead
Affiliation:
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
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Extract

‘Le fondateur du Lycée était à Athènes un métèque; cette position marginale est pour quelque chose dans son détachement et sa lucidité.’ Thus a recent and stimulating commentary upon the economic and social structure of Greek society, in a formulation of the obvious difference between Plato's participation in and Aristotle's observation of contemporary political phenomena. In one area, however, it was Aristotle rather than Plato whose experience was the more direct – that of life, over a prolonged period, as a resident alien. In this brief παίγνιον I shall pursue the Aristotelian side of this contrast along three paths: (a) Aristotle's exact juristic status in Athens; (b) the feelings aroused by his presence there; and (c) what he himself has to say on the subject of metics and foreigners. I advise the reader to derive what satisfaction he may from the journeys themselves, for no startling revelations await him ἐν τριπλαἴς ἁμαξιτοῖς.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 21 , 1975 , pp. 94 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

page 94 note 1 Austin, M. and Vidal-Naquet, P., Économies et sociétés en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1972), p. 369. 1Google Scholar.

page 94 note 2 The nearest approach to plain speaking is ‘alien’ (Ross, W. D., Aristotle (London, 1968), p. 3Google Scholar) or ‘non-citizen’ (Lloyd, G. E. R., Aristotle: the growth and structure of his thought (Cambridge, 1968), p. 5Google Scholar).

page 94 note 3 See, conclusively, Gauthier, P., SYMBOLA. Les étrangers et la justice dans les cités grecques (Nancy, 1972), pp. 107 ffGoogle Scholar. The clear inference from the definition of the μέτοικος given by Aristophanes of Byzantium fr. 38 Nauck, in conjunction with IG II 2 141 (c. 360), lines 30–6Google Scholar (an exemption from metic-status for visiting Sidonian ἔμποροι), was drawn by Schenkl, H., Wiener Studien II (1880), 189Google Scholar (cf. Clerc, M., Les métèques athéniens (Paris, 1893), pp. 250 ff.Google Scholar) but denied or distorted by other students of the Athenian metic, led by Wilamowitz, , Hermes xxii (1887), 233–5;Google Scholar cf. Francotte, H., Mélanges de droit public grec (Lièg/Paris, 1910), pp. 202 ff.Google Scholar; Hommel, H., RE xv (1932), ‘Metoikoi’, cols. 1413 ff.Google Scholar; Kahrstedt, U., Staatsgebiet und Staatsangehörige in Athen (Stuttgart/Berlin, 1934), pp. 276 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 94 note 4 Pol. 1278 a 35–8. The point is reinforced by reference to the Homeric phrase ὡς εἴ τιν᾿ ἀτίμητον μετανάστην (Iliad 9. 648, 16. 59). The fullest account of Athenian metic-status, though vitiated by sentimentality, is still Clerc's monograph cited in the preceding note.

page 95 note 1 See Schenkl, op. cit. pp. 174, 224; Gerhardt, P., Die attische Metoikie im vierten Jahrhundert(diss. Königsberg, 1933 [1935]), p. 68Google Scholar n. 157.

page 95 note 2 ἰσοτελεῖς and πρόξενοι introduce more problems than can be aired here; see Clerc, , Les métèques, pp. 200–20Google Scholar, though other views are possible. In observing that many fourth-century πρόξενοι were enjoying residence-privileges in Athens I am not unaware of Wilhelm's, insistence (‘Proxenie und Euergesie’, Attische Urkunden v (1942), esp. pp. 30–5;Google Scholar cf. Gauthier, op. cit. pp. 18, 24–5) that proxeny continued to be a genuine function in the fourth century.

page 95 note 3 Lysias apart, the exception which proves the rule is the case of Xenocrates of Chalcedon, head of the Academy 339–314, who appears in anecdotes as the paradigm ‘intellectual’ payer (or rather non-payer) of μετοίκιον: Plut, . Phoc. 29Google Scholar. 6; Flam. 12. 4; [Plut, .] Vit. X Or. (Lycurgus) 842Google Scholar B; Diog. Laert. 4. 14.

page 95 note 4 Drerup, E., ‘Ein athenisches Proxeniendekret für Aristoteles’, Ath. Mitth. XXIII (1898), 369–81Google Scholar (text pp. 377–8).

page 95 note 5 Düring, I., Aristotle in the ancient biographical tradition (Goteborg, 1957), pp. 213 ff.Google Scholar (translation of Usaibia) and 232–6 (commentary).

page 96 note 1 Düring, pp. 208–10, cf. 469–76.

page 96 note 2 ‘Athens bestows the Decree of Proxenia on Aristotle’, Hermes CI (1973), 187–94Google Scholar.

page 96 note 3 Düring, p. 236.

page 96 note 4 See Düring's comments on this document (pp. 61 ff. with bibliography): ‘he had his father's house in Stagira, his mother's house in Chalcis; he probably rented a house in Athens’ (p. 62). Theophrastus' will (Diog. Laert. 5. 51–7) does bequeath buildings, but they had been specially acquired later through the influence of Demetrius of Phalerum.

page 96 note 5 IG 11 2288Google Scholar is a contemporary proxeny decree without ἔγκτησις. The date of II2 308, with its grant of ἔγκτησις (in Wilhelm's restoration) ῾καθάπε]ρ [τ]οῖς ἄλ[λοις προξένοις᾿ (lines 5–6) cannot be pinpointed within the period 352/1–337/6 (Pečirka, , The formula for the grant of Enktesis in Attic inscriptions (Prague, 1966), p. 59Google Scholar).

page 97 note 1 A compression of Odyssey 7. 120Google Scholar–1 (also in Diog. Laert. 5. 9 and elsewhere).

page 97 note 2 See Jacoby, FGH ad loc. (328Google Scholar F 223); Düring, pp. 256–8 (his ‘Tif’).

page 97 note 3 ‘Early invectives’, Düring, pp. 373–95 (‘T57-66’).

page 97 note 4 Diog. Laert. 5. 38; Athenaeus 610 E–F; Pollux 9. 42; Ferguson, , Hellenistic Athens (London, 1911), pp. 104–5Google Scholar.

page 97 note 5 Baiter/Sauppe, II, 341–2; Düring, ‘T58g’ with commentary, p. 388.

page 97 note 6 Düring, pp. 459 ff., esp. 459–62.

page 98 note 1 Grayeff, Felix, Aristotle and his school (London, 1974), pp. 26Google Scholar–7, also takes it as self-evident that Aristotle's metic-status (with his Macedonian connections) accounts for his problems. Grayeff's authority is Chroust, through whose earlier articles this theme runs — see Historia xv (1966), 188–9Google Scholar ( = Laval Théologique et Philosophique XXII (1966), 188–9Google Scholar); Greece & Rome n.s. XIV (1967), 40Google Scholar with n. 2. Chroust arbitrarily supplies ‘for an alien’ in the τὸ Ἀθήνηοι διατρίβειν ἐργῶδες phrase, and repeatedly claims a marked increase in xenophobia in Athens at this time. His assertion that ‘Aristotle lived there more by sufferance than by right, always subject to arbit ary persecution and sudden expulsion’ (Historia, loc. cit.) can serve to illustrate how little his epidemic of articles on this subject (more than the four I have cited) is to be welcomed.

page 98 note 2 Pečirka, J., ‘A note on Aristotle's conception of citizenship and the role of foreigners in fourth century Athens’, Eirene VI (1967), 23–6Google Scholar.

page 98 note 3 E.g. Lysias 6. 49, 12. 27 (implicit), 20. 19 (with ξένος), 31. 29; Isocrates 8. 53; Isaeus 5. 37.

page 98 note 4 The converse – that an Athenian citizen who voluntarily abandons his prerogatives and chooses to live as a metic elsewhere is indeed μικρόψυχος – is a sentiment familiar from forensic oratory: Lysias 31. 9 (cf. 14); Demosthenes 29. 3; Lycurgus, Κατὰ Λεωκράτους 21 and passim.

page 99 note 1 See Lysias 5. 2–3, 12. 4 and 20, 31. 29.

page 99 note 2 A possibility expressed more tartly by Plato, , Rep. 563Google Scholar A: one of the evils of the democratic state is that μέτοικον δὲ ἀστῷ καὶ ἀστὸν μετοίκῳ ἐξισοῦσθαι, καὶ ξένον ὡσαύτως (a remark ‘made’ in the house of the metic Polemarchus!). In Laws legislation ensures that such distasteful pretensions are all but impossible.

page 99 note 3 For the concept of status dissonance see Hopkins, Keith, Past and Present XXXII (1965), 12–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 14–16.

page 99 note 4 I am grateful to Professor Finley for advice about the presentation of this paper.