Non-Citizens in the City - Dilemmas of Belonging and Exclusion in Ancient Political Theory

The book deals with the concept of citizenship in ancient political theory and practice. It explores this phenomenon through the liminal category of non-citizens, which typically included women, slaves, freed-men/freedwomen and settled aliens/metics. It examines the range of statuses that constituted the ancient city through the lens of exclusionary and inclusionary tendencies, and situates them within ideological frameworks that theoretically underpin both differentiation and integration strategies applied to these groups. A comprehensive treatment of the subject is based on the perspectives of philosophy, rhetoric and law, with an emphasis on the Pythagoreans, the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle and Cicero.