Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

114 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
them in greatest numbers, in part because of the opportunities it
afforded for enrichment through mercantile enterprises. Athens’s
most celebrated metic, however, was the philosopher Aristotle, a
native of Stageira in Chalkidike (the triple-forked peninsula to the
east of Macedonia), who resided in Athens for much of his working
life. The Spartans, by contrast, were notoriously xenophobic
and actively discouraged foreigners from residing in their territory
even on a short-term basis.
As noted earlier, in 451 b.c.e. Perikles introduced a law requiring
those claiming citizenship to prove that their mothers as well as
their fathers were citizens. The state also revised its citizen register
at this time and struck off a number of suspected metics who were
believed to be claiming citizenship under false pretenses. Although
Athenians could marry metic women, metic men were subject
to a fine of 1,000 drachmas—the equivalent of about three years’
salary—for cohabiting with an Athenian woman. Each metic had
to have an Athenian sponsor, called a prostatês, and be registered
in a deme. He (or she in the case of hetairai ) was required to pay an
annual poll tax called a metoikion. Men were liable to service in the
military but in the navy only in times of emergency. They were also
required to undertake liturgies (see p. 223). Metics were not permitted
to own land unless they had obtained a special grant called an
enktêsis. This entitled them either to purchase a home or establish a
sanctuary for the worship of a foreign deity.
It was partly through membership of private cultic associations
that metics were able to consort together and retain their distinctive
identity. Many such associations also functioned as dining clubs.
One of these was devoted to the worship of the Phrygian god Sabazios,
an exotic deity whose nocturnal rites included ecstatic dances
accompanied by the flute and kettledrum. The cult of Sabazios
aroused such animosity when it was first introduced into Athens
that it was the butt of humor in no fewer than four comedies by
Aristophanes. In one play, Sabazios, together with other foreign
deities, is booted out of Athens. In the middle of the fourth century
b.c.e. , however, the Athenians received an oracle ordering them
to desist from persecuting the followers of Sabazios. This had the
desired effect, and in time the Athenians themselves became worshipers
of Sabazios. An inscription dated to the very end of the second
century b.c.e. records the names of 51 members of the cult, no
fewer than 36 of whom were Athenian. Private cultic associations,
in other words, sometimes provided a common meeting ground for
metics and Athenians, and in so doing no doubt eased the tensions
between the two.