Within the poleis were both citizens and non-citizens, who were either foreigners or slaves. Unlike most of the world before and after Greece, a person did not have to own land to become a citizen. A citizen’s rights and privileges, however, varied based on social status and gender. Female citizens could not take part in politics, and only the wealthiest male citizens could hold political office. Middle-class Greeks could vote in the assemblies, but the poorest citizens could not. In their book Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts write that the history of Greece from 700 to 500 B. C.E. “is the struggle of the middle and lower classes to gain an equal share in the governance of their poleis” Their
The Ethnos
City-states did not develop everywhere in ancient Greece. Parts of the Peloponnesus Peninsula and northern Greece were dotted with small villages that lacked a central town that could serve as a political and economic capi-tal. The Greeks called these regions the ethne (the plural of ethnos), which means "tribes" or "peoples."The residents within one ethnos shared a cultural background, but separate villages rarely took united action. Living in an ethnos was considered a mark of backwardness, since the people in ethne did not develop complex political systems.
The word ethnos led to the English word ethnic and the prefix ethno, which refers to a race of people or a cultural group. Ethnocentric, for example, describes someone who believes his or her ethnic group is better than all others. Ethnography is the study of human cultures.
Success, however, was mixed, since some oligarchic states remained after this era. Only a few poleis, such as Athens, developed true democracy.
For some Greek citizens, the military was their path to greater political influence. Aristocrats were only as powerful as the polis they controlled, and the rulers needed strong fighting forces to defend their city or expand its influence. Most city-states relied on their citizens to also serve as soldiers, as opposed to hiring and training professional troops. Around 700 B. C.E., Greek warfare began to feature the hoplites (see page 24). These citizen-soldiers began to demand a greater say in political affairs, since they were risking their lives to defend both their own and the aristocrats’ lands. The oligarchy had to give in, since they needed the military support of the middle class.
The hoplite armies led to shifts in social attitudes. Discipline was a key part of the hoplites’s battlefield success. For the first time, aristocrats had to learn to work well with members of the lower classes. Middle-class soldiers showed that they could match the bravery and skill of their supposed “superiors.” This battlefield experience fueled the call for greater political equality, and shaped the notion that courage in war, not noble birth, determined a man’s worth to his polis. Soldiers fought for the honor of the polis, though they might win personal honor for individual heroism. Many Greeks known today for their writings and philosophy-Socrates, Sophocles, Thucydides, and Demosthenes-were also soldiers.
World History
