In the classical period, there were likely more than 800 settlements that could be classified as a polis; their physical appearance differed greatly although, “in principle, the inner structure of the settlement space was the same.”1 This usually consisted of an urban centre with a political, economic, and cultural infrastructure with the economic and/or political agora, the meeting place for trade and politics in the centre, bordering on administration and cult buildings, as well as the land surrounding the urban centre that was necessary for agricultural purposes. For example, all of Attica belonged to the polis of Athens and citizens living anywhere in Attica referred to themselves as Athenians even if they lived in a village far away from the main city itself.2 It seems that Athens, the most influential polis, had a population of between 200,000 and 300,000 during the classical period with the majority of the inhabitants living in rural areas.3
The ideal of the “political self-administration and government by the citizens and striving for internal and external independence” was a characteristic of the political self-image of the city states.4 This shows that the goals of political autarchy and autonomy, which were inseparable from the striving for permanent economic stability to be able to provide the citizens with the goods that were necessary and desirable for life at the time, stood at the forefront of the endeavours of the city states. This suggests that there was active economic exchange among many city states. However, most poleis had their own army, their own legal system as well as their own calendar, and different priorities were even set in connection with the mythical cult within the individual city states.
The political self-image of the ancient city state of the classical era was founded on two historical-categorical facts of political practice (and, to a large extent, also of political theory) that have to be dealt with in any examination of the subject of political participation in antiquity: the division of the polis into free and unfree people as well as the paradigm of the free (male) citizen within the polis. In spite of “the great variety of social and state manifestations in ancient Greece”, the separation into free and unfree must be considered “a fundamental characteristic of any ancient political system”,5 and the same also applies to the limitation of civic rights and duties to the free (male) citizens of the polis.
From the political perspective, the differentiation between free and unfree was an everyday normality, a common political practice. The citizen was usually considered free and could lay claim to a number of civic rights for himself: political participation, acquisition of property, etc. However, these rights usually went hand in hand with duties: military service, political participation in accordance with the valid laws, the obligation to accept a public office, accompanied by the obligation to fulfil public offices to the benefit of the polis for a specific period, etc. On the other hand, those who were considered unfree, especially slaves in the so-called “state of unfreedom”, were granted no personal and political rights. But there were social differences among the unfree members of society, and the spectrum of the different activities and obligations was rather large. On the one hand, there were state slaves (official servants, watchmen, and labourers). On the other hand, there were house slaves, maids and manservants, who carried out a number of duties in the oikos (the household or family property) where they worked as kitchen help, tutors, nannies, family physicians, etc. Women and children also had absolutely no political rights, although the woman’s position varied from polis to polis. The rights – or, more precisely, lack of rights – of guests (the metics) and foreigners (the xenoi) were also defined differently in the laws of the individual city states.
In connection with the classical Greek era, it is necessary to bear the following in mind:6 (i) The dichotomy of the differentiation between “free” and “unfree” was a fact that was socio-politically accepted and unquestioned to a large degree in political practice even though there were occasional discussions about the (possible) justification for this separation in literature and philosophy. (ii) The differentiation between “free” and “unfree”, the designation of the “free citizen” in contrast to the “unfree slave”, not only reflected a formal legal status but also implied an ancient political self-awareness. It is already possible to identify this trace in the works of Aeschylus where the Athenians – after the Persians had asked them for the name of the ruler over the Athenians – were described as free citizens, the slaves of no master, and nobody’s subject.7 (iii) On the “unfree” side, the slaves worked in a number of areas and relationships, some of them confidential, which did not change the existing legal status in any way except that of the master’s claim of ownership. (iv) Slaves were defenseless to human trafficking; they were regarded as goods, as possessions, and as tools. (v) Unfree (men, women, and children) were not only expropriated legally and politically, but also – from the anthropological-philosophical perspective – in a worse position and seen in a different way than free people.
2. Ancient political theory: Anthropology and participation in the best state
The thoughts of Aristotle form an indispensable – and, in almost all respects, important –component of ancient classical political philosophy. At the same time, he continued to cling to a fundamental differentiation between the free and unfree. In developing and presenting his practical philosophy, he nevertheless deals, in an astute and cautious manner, with the “philosophy of human affairs”,8 which is an inseparable symbiosis of ethics and politics as well as a concrete political anthropology, a political image of man in the broader sense,9 which has received a great deal of approval but also criticism in the course of the history of philosophy and political thought. The central pillars of this political anthropology will be depicted by way of three short points:
(i) In his Politics, Aristotle determines that man is a being that lives a political life by nature; in Old Greek, zôon politikon. However, according to Aristotle, this definition of man as a political being is not actually a unique feature of humans, seeing that, in his eyes, bees and other animals (such as ants, for example) also led their lives in a political manner.10 Aristotle’s definition of man as a zôon politikon is therefore, first and foremost, a biological view that applies to man and his nature – but not exclusively.
(ii) Only Aristotle’s second politico-anthropological definition describes man in a special manner. Man is not only a zôon politikon, a political being in the broader sense, but – going even further – also a zôon logon echon – a being gifted with reason and language. For Aristotle, language and reason made it possible for man to “have a conception of good and evil, of right and wrong”, be able to enter into a political exchange about this with others, and organise coexistence in this way from a political perspective.11 According to Aristotle, this definition provided the sole foundation for the difference between man and (other) animals.
(iii) The Aristotelian political anthropology positioned man and his lifestyle firmly in a political way of living with other people. The human being is therefore directly dependent on his fellow man for his survival as well as for the good and successful life in different ways. From this viewpoint, man is not only a zôon politikon like other animals – living politically by nature – and also not merely a zôon logon echon – gifted with reason and language – but, going beyond that, also a zôon koinonikon – a “community being”12 who needs the connection to his fellow man just as the individual