Social Stratification in Ancient Greece: Class, Slavery, and Citizenship

Greek society was composed of many social structures influenced by birth, wealth, gender, economics, and chance. These were often interconnected and composed a situation in which, depending upon the location, different aspects of the social stratum are shown. The first aspect of social status revolved around gender. Men comprised the citizenry of a polls, and only they could vote or hold office. Although women were not permitted to have an official say in politics, some states, especially Sparta, gave them some degree of control of the household, even concerning its economy. The status of a child, however, depended upon the status of both parents. In Athens, after the citizenship reform of Ephialtes and Pericles in 452, both parents had to be citizens, meaning that a women’s position was crucial.

After a person’s sex, the next important aspect of social structure was being free or enslaved. This again determined the status of the population. If one was free, he had more rights than a slave. The institution of slavery was common and nearly universal in the ancient Mediterranean. One became a slave by chance: piracy, war, raids, or exposure; or one could be born into slavery as the child of a slave. The Greeks did not condemn a person for being a slave. Further, the Greeks believed that any non-Greek was a barbarian, suitable to becoming a slave, and usually these individuals were considered below the Greek slave. It is estimated that half of Athens in the fifth century was composed of slaves, with some suggesting that there were as many as 100,000.

A slave had no rights. Although people could not kill their slaves indiscriminately, a slave did not necessarily have an enlightened future. If a prisoner or a subject of a pirate raid, the slave may have a chance at being ransomed. Within slaves, there was a hierarchy, with government slaves working in political offices having the best opportunities, followed by those working for businessmen and merchants, where they could also become officers. These two positions were possibly the best since they led to close contact with other businessmen and leading citizens. Household slaves would have been next, where many slaves had close connections with individuals and many often even viewed as members of the family. Finally, at the bottom were slaves who worked the mines and quarries, who had little chance of securing their freedom.

The status of a slave may also have to do with their sex. For women who were smart and attractive, they may have become courtesans or flute girls, slaves-prostitutes who could entertain with music in addition to sex, who could perhaps buy their freedom. For those who were members of a brothel, their chances of freedom were slim. Women who served in the household also probably had little chance to escape their slave status. The social status of slaves, then, existed on two levels. The first level was slave versus free citizen, where slaves were always at the bottom; and second, within the groups of slaves, there was various levels that could potentially lead to freedom and advancement.

At the level of free people, there were again distinctions or gradations. At the top were free individuals who came from the aristocracy, who owed their status to birth. They were aristocrats due to the legacy of their ancestors, so they did not have to prove their status. They had achieved their position based upon their bloodline. For men, this meant that they could hold many political offices as recorded in early Athens and most likely in most cities. Although the democracy blunted their chances to exclusively control offices, most of them could find continual advancement based upon their family. As for women of the aristocracy, they often found that their dowry gave them access to other aristocratic families.

Below the aristocrats by birth stood aristocrats who obtained their status through wealth. These were individuals whose families had risen to power due to commercialism, often trade. These individuals often were disdained by their fellow citizens, but they played important roles in the city’s political and economic future. Below the free citizenry aristocrats were citizens who were peasants or sellers. These individuals were often rural small farmers who, although free, were not able to amass a large fortune. In the city, they were often day laborers, who worked in shops or on building projects. The poorer citizens were still in a social stratum above the metics, who might be wealthier, but as foreigners, they could not sit on juries or serve in the fleet.

Beneath the citizenry stood the foreign born, who often controlled trade in Athens. These were individuals who bought and sold goods and became part of the commercial center of Athenian society. Termed metics, they were not citizens and could not vote, hold office, or marry citizens. They were liable for taxes, liturgies, and even military service. They had some protection under the law. Like a slave captured in war or piracy, a metic could have been an aristocrat of their native land and held in high social status but now someone at the lower end of the social stratum in Athens.

Below the metics stood the freemen. These were ex-slaves who had bought or been given their freedom. They often were workers in the shops or trades and had risen from slavery. Interestingly, as former slaves they were often the most demanding of slaves they were now put in charge. They could not vote or hold office and were often viewed as foreigners. For those areas in the Peloponnese controlled by Sparta, there was a group termed helots. These were not slaves, but rather serfs tied to soil. They were supposed to support the Spartans, but unlike slaves, they could not be bought or sold. They could live with their families and could not be separated from them.

Social status, then, depended upon many factors, which contributed to the growth of city-states but often led to social disturbances. These disturbances in turn frequently led to open civil war. It was not uncommon in the early Archaic period for members of the aristocracy to oust the king, often an individual from one of the aristocratic families. The king, at the apex of the social stratum, was overthrown because he had a monopoly on power. With the overthrow of the king, the aristocracy often set themselves up as the source of political power. The social status of the aristocracy often led to their control, with a few families being in a dominant position.

This was often termed an oligarchy. The power of these few people, often owing to their wealth, meant to exclude a large number of the populace. The ruling aristocracy could be large or small, depending upon the city. In this system, it was not uncommon for factions within the upper echelon to exist. In some cities, this struggle among the oligarchs and against the lower citizenry led to more social dissatisfaction, which could produce a tyrant. Many tyrants came from a faction of the aristocracy. Once empowered, the tyrant sometimes turned against his fellow aristocrats and raised the lower classes to power.

These free individuals of the lower classes often looked to the tyrant to protect them from the aristocrats. In some cities, like Athens, tyrants provided new opportunities to those who had been disenfranchised the most (namely, the poor and merchants of the city who, unlike the aristocrats, did not have land). This allowed such advances as the rise of the middle class and commercialism. Tyrants were often replaced by democracy, where the lowest social classes had the ultimate power, or by aristocracy.

The social status of the Greeks depended on birth, gender, wealth, and chance, which in turn influenced how they related to one another. The changes of social status could be positive, such as marriage or wealth, or negative, such as becoming a slave through war or piracy. The status then depended upon who you were and when it happened.