[6] M. I. Finley, “The Fifth-Century Athenian Empire: A Balance Sheet,” reprinted in P. Low (ed. In a much shorter concluding section on sex structures, the author suggests that the practice of infanticide was relatively rare in Classical Athens, given that war casualties were consistently replaced. Classical Athens refers to the city of Athens from 508 to 322 BC. The Perioeci, whose name means “dwellers-around,” worked as craftsmen and traders, and … The entire circuit of the walls was 174.5 stadia (nearly 22 miles, 35 km), of which 43 stadia (5.5 miles, 9 km) belonged to the city, 75 stadia (9.5 miles, 15 km) to the long walls, and 56.5 stadia (7 miles, 11 km) to Piraeus, Munichia, and Phalerum. The Acropolis was just south of the centre of this walled area. Athens began as a small, Mycenaen community and grew to become a city that, at its height, epitomized the best of Greek virtues and enjoyed such prestige that the Spartans refused to sack the city or enslave the citizens, even after Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War. [9] Instead Akrigg suggests that overall growth benefited the rich alone (226), but we simply do not know. A.D. (Dale) Trendall (1909-1995) was a leading authority on ancient Greek vase painting and one of the foremost classical art historians of his time. Athens, historic city and capital of Greece. 26-27. On the west end of the Acropolis, where access is alone practicable, were the magnificent Propylaea, "the Entrances," built by Pericles, before the right wing of which was the small Temple of Athena Nike. Close this message to accept … The conflict marked the end of Athenian command of the sea. [3] Hansen, in turn (above, n. 2), exploited the superior life tables of Coale and Demeny. ), Demography and the Graeco-Roman World: New Insights and Approaches (Cambridge 2011): 37-59; “Metics in Athens,” in C. Taylor and K. Vlassopoulos (eds. 2.13.6 on hoplite and reserve sizes, to argue for a total citizen hoplite group of anywhere between 19,000 to 34,000. J. Ober’s work on defenses and C. Taylor’s on the increasing presence of rural demesmen in politics would seem to be compatible with the author’s picture. During the time of democracy in Athens, the city was home to about 310,000 people. In 480 the Persians returned under a new ruler, Xerxes I. Akrigg believes that we can do better than Hansen’s conclusions on this front. Since many citizens were incapable of exercising political rights, due to their poverty or ignorance, a number of governmental resources existed … The war ended with the complete defeat of Athens in 404. [10] See the useful tables of T. Figueira, “Colonisation in the Classical Period,” in G. R. Tsetskhladze (ed. ×Your email address will not be published. However, other Greek cities, including Athens, turned against Thebes, and its dominance was brought to an end at the Battle of Mantinea (362 BC) with the death of its leader, the military genius Epaminondas. Sparta, also known as Lacedaemon, was an ancient Greek city-state located primarily in the present-day region of southern Greece called Laconia. Instead, the Persians were routed. Opposition to Sparta enabled Athens to establish a Second Athenian League. By mid century, however, the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in Athenian affairs. This is the first comprehensive account of the population of classical Athens for almost a century. Antipater dissolved the Athenian government and established a plutocratic system in 322 BC (see Lamian War and Demetrius Phalereus). [1] “The Nature and Implications of Athens’ Changed Social Structure and Economy,” in R. Osborne (ed. (London 1986) but disagrees with Strauss’s conclusion that the thetes were the hardest hit demographically and that their losses contributed to social peace in the fourth century. The book comprises eight chapters, the first six of which seek to establish Athens’ population (and its basic material needs) down to 431. The chapter ends with an illuminating discussion of the wood required for minting coins and feeding the workforce of the silver mines. [7] J. Ober, Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athenian Land Frontier, 404-322 BC (Leiden 1985); C. Taylor, Participation in Athenian Democracy (Unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge 2005). Akrigg rightly notes that there are research questions beyond that of the fourth-century democracy’s ability to live up to its values and that the population of the fifth century has been largely sidelined, despite its importance. The city of Athens, Greece, with its famous Acropolis, has come to symbolize the whole of the country in the popular imagination, and not without cause. If the population of Attica was 400,000 or more on the verge of the Peloponnesian War, as Ben Akrigg convincingly argues in this book, what might that demographic fact alone mean for Athenian history? The author also now attends to the issue of the wealth distribution of Attica, discussing previous arguments by R. Osborne, L. Foxhall, and G. Kron. The discussion of metics omits further recent contributions by R. F. Kennedy, D. Kamen, and J. Sosin, among others. Athens remained a wealthy city with a brilliant cultural life, but ceased to be an independent power. Most offices were filled by lot, although the ten strategoi (generals) were elected. Sparta's former allies soon turned against her due to her imperialist policies, and Athens's former enemies, Thebes and Corinth, became her allies. 3. The latter part of the chapter attempts to square the fourth-century evidence with Akrigg’s theory that drastic population decline from war and plague involved land redistribution. The city was burnt by Xerxes in 480 BC, but was soon rebuilt under the administration of Themistocles, and was adorned with public buildings by Cimon and especially by Pericles, in whose time (461–429 BC) it reached its greatest splendour. The society was divided into several sections such as citizens, freedman, upper class people, slaves, women etc. [6] A (too) brief discussion of the Brea Decree (IG I3 46) concludes that “it is hard…to take the [decree] as unambiguous evidence for the Athenian poor benefitting hugely from the empire” (220). At least 32,000 enslaved men were required for the mines and the navy, with all that that implies for the number of enslaved women and children. We ask that comments be substantive in content and civil in tone and those that do not adhere to these guidelines will not be published. Ben On the west side the walls embraced the Hill of the Nymphs and the Pnyx, and to the southeast they ran along beside the Ilissos. This set a mo… Perhaps future archaeological work will tell us something about the wealth inequality and economic growth at the deme level. Population & Map Approximately 140,000; Approximately 40,000 men were citizens; and slaves (about 40,000). It is estimated that by 400 B.C, ancient Greece had a population of 13 million. From 800 B.C. [Oxford 1933] 34, cf. Xerxes had built himself a throne on the coast in order to see the Greeks defeated. It is also worth noting that the numbers involved in individual colonial and cleruchal projects appear rarely to have surpassed 1,000 citizens at a time. In sum, Ben Akrigg has produced a sophisticated demographic study that should establish new baselines for future debate and that has raised provocative questions about a famous ancient society’s sustainability. In conclusion he makes the salutary point that there can be no single explanation for the development of Athenian society but that demography ought to be one tool among many for understanding history. Akrigg plausibly suggests that the land grabs under Athenian imperial rule would have afforded opportunities for emigration and thus an incentive for natural fertility increase that might otherwise have been lacking in a Greek community. This content was originally written for an undergraduate or Master's program. [8] But was fifth-century Athens the ticking time bomb of wealth inequality the author suggests? Athens is one of the oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for perhaps 5,000 years. [4] Did the average Athenian really view the family of Cephalus—wealthy, pro-democratic metics from Syracuse—as closer to slaves than citizens? That supposedly worked after a number of times, and Cleomenes led a Spartan force to overthrow Hippias, which succeeded, and instated an oligarchy. Athens today is experiencing some population decline, which is standard across the country, due to an aging population and a weak economy. He fostered arts and literature and gave to Athens a splendor which would never return throughout its history. Hippias, son of Peisistratus, had ruled Athens jointly with his brother, Hipparchus, from the death of Peisistratus in about 527. There were many gates, among the more important there were: Among the more important streets, there were: The period from the end of the Persian Wars to the Macedonian conquest marked the zenith of Athens as a center of literature, philosophy (see Greek philosophy) and the arts (see Greek theatre). Classical Athens population in the year 432 BCE was composed of about 50,000 free male citizens, 50,000 free male non-citizens (citizens under the age of 18 and residents without Athenian parentage), 100,000 free females and 115,000 slaves for a total of about 315,000 people. a rapid jump-perhaps a doubling or even a trebling-in population (J. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece [London 1977] 109, 367-369); there was "a considerable natural increase of the population between 480 and 430, and between 400 320" (A. W. Gomme, The Population of Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C. Expressions of thanks or praise should be sent directly to the reviewer, using the email address in the review. We have also to deal with the fact that the institutions that E. E. Cohen sees as emblematic of the fourth century, such as commercialization and banking, probably emerged already in the fifth, albeit without the participation of women and slaves. Following the assassination of Hipparchus in about 514, Hippias took on sole rule, and in response to the loss of his brother, became a worse leader who was increasingly disliked. Document B (population estimates from mixed sources…) states that the population of classical Athens in 422 B.C.E was to be 315,000 total. Sparta's hegemony was passing to Athens, and it was Athens that took the war to Asia Minor. bc may have been about two million people.Demography is not just a matter of population size. To these he would add 40,000 or 30,000 non-hoplites, respectively, for the total citizen adult male population, but his grounds for doing so are unclear at this stage, since he addresses neither the distribution of wealth in Athenian society nor the relation, if any, of the Solonian census classes to military functions until later in the book. ), The Athenian Empire (Edinburgh 2008): 14-40, at pp. • Born in Athens • Male Many would argue that Athens did not have a true democracy because not everyone could participate. Chapter 4, “Population Size 2: Non-Citizens,” deals with the much thornier question of slave and metic populations. Slaves were the lowest class in Athenian society, but according to many contemporary accounts they were far less harshly treated than in most other Greek cities. First, however, he summarizes earlier approaches to the Athenian male citizen population, beginning with J. Beloch and A. W. Gomme. ), Greek Colonisation Vol. Evidence for this has come from pottery finds on and around the Acropolis but particularly from a group of about 20 shallow wells, or pits, on the northwest slope of the Acropolis, just below the Klepsydra spring. POPULATION AND ECONOMY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS This is the rst comprehensive account of the population of classical Athens for almost a century. [1] The introductory Chapter 1 emphasizes that sustained studies of the fourth-century population of Athens, above all that by M. H. Hansen,[2] had as their impetus the questions of whether and how the Athenian constitution made good on its stated goal of a highly participatory state. Even if absolute inequality increased during the fifth century, as was probably the case, Akrigg does not sufficiently allow for overall income growth across the board,[9] nor does he explore at much length the possibility that the Athenian empire’s ability to export (and benefit) poorer citizens via colonies and cleruchies alleviated what otherwise would have been mounting population pressures. [2] Demography and Democracy: The Number of Athenian Citizens in the Fourth Century B.C. The question just posed roughly maps on to Akrigg’s stated concerns: 1) to show that the population was in fact in that range, as scholars have previously suggested but have left relatively unexplored; and 2) to “show why such an account is necessary…and to persuade the reader that this subject…is an important part of the history of the city” (1). Learn more about the history and significance of Athens in this article.
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