Weitere Überlegungen zu den Voraussetzungen und Folgen des Perikleischen Bürgerrechtsgesetzes: Naturalisierung und Epigamie im Klassischen Athen

Abstract

Summary This study departs from the recent re-assessment of Pericles’ Citizenship Law: it made descent from two citizen parents a necessary requirement for citizenship, without allowing for any deadlines or exemptions. Behind this background, at first all traces of potential exceptions that might have been formulated in the law are considered - and rejected. However, special regulations would still have been necessary, if one posits that the assembly of the people had been used to convey either citizenship to individuals or epigamia to foreign poleis prior to the mid-5th century BC. In fact, two examples of early naturalization in Athens have been adduced in scholarly literature: those of Menon of Pharsalus and Polygnotus of Thasus. While these cases are in conflict with the aforementioned interpretation of Pericles’ Citizenship Law, they do not stand up to closer inspection. Likewise, the existence of any positive right to legitimate intermarriage beyond the boundaries of the polis community cannot be ascertained for that early period. It will rather be shown that the assembly bothered to convey citizenship or epigamia only as a result of the radically narrow definition of citizenship by Pericles.