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11 - Population and Social Structure

from Part II - Inhabitants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2021

By
Danielle L. Kellogg
Edited by
Jenifer Neils  and
Dylan K. Rogers
Jenifer Neils
Affiliation:
American School of Classical Studies, Athens
Dylan K. Rogers
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Summary

This chapter provides an overview of the debate surrounding the population of Athens in the Classical period, and the methodologies used to estimate it. It further summarizes some of the key social, economic, political, and religious groups and divisions in Classical Athenian society and how these interacted with each other and with questions of belonging and identity in the polis.

Keywords

populationphratriesgenecitizenshipmeticsslavery
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Athens , pp. 159 - 172
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

The available literature on the population and social structure of Athens is vast and continues to multiply; for that reason, what follows is necessarily selective. For questions of population, a good place to begin is Akrigg 2019, as he references much of the earlier literature on both sides of the population debate. Much of the work on Athenian society has been focused on various groups and statuses. For the phratries, the standard work is still Lambert 1993, but see also Humphreys 2018. For a general examination of status categories in Athens, see Kamen 2013. On questions of gender and citizenship, see Blok 2017. For wealth and poverty, see Taylor 2017, and Kierstead and Klapaukh 2018. On associations in Athens and their connections with citizenship, see Jones 1999, Ismard 2010 and 2018, and Humphreys 2018. On questions of kinship relations, see Humphreys 2018. On metics, the standard work is still Whitehead 1977; for metic women, Kennedy 2014. For slavery, see Vlassopoulos 2009, Lewis and Canevaro 2014, and Lewis 2018.

Bibliography

Akrigg, B. 2019. Population and Economy in Classical Athens. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Blok, J. 2017. Citizenship in Classical Athens. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coale, A.J., and Demeny, P.. 1966. Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations. Princeton.Google Scholar
Duplouy, A. 2015. “Genealogical and Dynastic Behaviour in Archaic and Classical Greece: Two Gentilician Strategies.” In Aristocracy in Antiquity: Redefining Greek and Roman Elites, eds. Fisher, N. and van Wees, H., Swansea, 59–84.Google Scholar
Hansen, M.H. 1985. Demography and Democracy: The Number of Athenian Citizens in the Fourth Century bc. Herning.Google Scholar
Hansen, M.H. 2011. “How to Convert an Army Figure into a Population Figure.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51: 239–253.Google Scholar
Humphreys, S.C. 2018. Kinship in Classical Athens. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ismard, P. 2010. La cité des réseaux: Athènes et ses associations, VIe–Ier siècle av. J.-C. Paris.Google Scholar
Ismard, P. 2018. “Associations and Citizenship in Attika from Solon to Kleisthenes.” In Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece, eds. Duplouy, A. and Brock, R., Oxford, 145–159.Google Scholar
Jones, N.F. 1999. The Associations of Classical Athens: The Response to Democracy. Oxford.Google Scholar
Kamen, D. 2013. Status in Classical Athens. Princeton.Google Scholar
Kennedy, R.F. 2014. Immigrant Women in Athens: Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in the Classical City. New York.Google Scholar
Kierstead, J.C., and Klapaukh, R.. 2018. “The Distribution of Wealthy Athenians in the Attic Demes.” In Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science, eds. Canevaro, M., Erskine, A., Gray, B., and Ober, J., Edinburgh, 376–401.Google Scholar
Lambert, S.D. 1993. The Phratries of Attika. 2nd edn. Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Lambert, S.D. 1997. “The Attic Genos Salaminioi and the Island of Salamis.” ZPE 119: 85–106.Google Scholar
Lewis, D.M. 2015. “Slavery and Manumission.” In The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Law, eds. Harris, E. and Canevaro, M., Oxford.Google Scholar
Lewis, D.M. 2018. Greek Slave Systems in their Eastern Mediterranean Context, c. 800–146 bc. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D.M and Canevaro, M. 2014. “Khoris Oikountes and the Obligations of Freedmen in late Classical and early Hellenistic Athens.” Incidenza dell’antico 12: 91–121.Google Scholar
Loraux, N. 1993. The Children of Athena: Athenian Ideas about Citizenship and the Division between the Sexes. Princeton.Google Scholar
Moreno, A. 2007. Feeding the Democracy: The Athenian Grain Trade in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries bc. Oxford.Google Scholar
Osborne, R. 1985. Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attika. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. 2007. “A New Political World.” In Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution: Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Politics 430–380 bc, ed. Osborne, R., Cambridge, 72–90.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. 2017. Poverty, Wealth, and Well-Being: Experiencing Penia in Democratic Athens. Oxford.Google Scholar
Taylor, M. 1997. Salamis and the Salaminioi: The History of an Unofficial Athenian Demos. Leiden.Google Scholar
Vlassopoulos, K. 2009. “Slavery, Freedom, and Citizenship in Classical Athens: Beyond a Legalistic Approach.” In Slavery, Citizenship, and the State in Classical Antiquity, eds. Vlassopoulos, K. and Geary, D.. European Review of History 16:3: 347–364.Google Scholar
Whitehead, D. 1977. The Ideology of the Athenian Metic. Cambridge.Google Scholar

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