At V th century BC, a golden age for the city, Athens was at its peak economically, politically and culturally and extended its influence to other surrounding cities. Athens indeed emerged victorious from the Persian Wars and was considerably enriched thanks to the treasure of the Delian League. With Solon's reforms in the 6th century century BC, continued by Cleisthenes and Pericles in the V th century before our era, the Attic city embarked on the path of democracy. While power was previously aristocratic, power now is officially in the hands of the citizens. They can therefore attend the debates of the Assembly which take place in the Ecclesia and intervene in political life. The city was very important for the Greeks, citizenship being intrinsically linked to the latter. At that time, a Greek citizen could be born to a foreign mother as long as his father was Greek.
451 BC
Characters
Pericles
Procedure
But in -451, Pericles, who is in the government, decides to toughen this law. He therefore restricted access to citizenship to people born of a Greek citizen father but also born of a mother daughter of an Athenian citizen. Henceforth, female filiation matters just as much as male filiation. This law therefore ousts more than three quarters of the population! Indeed, women, wogs, slaves, and underage boys are not citizens. Those whose maternal lineage is not Greek have their citizenship revoked.
At that time, the population increased considerably. So Pericles considers it urgent to drastically limit citizenship. He argues this decision by arguing that the larger the number of citizens, the more difficult it is for the city to make unanimous political decisions. Pericles, who has just been elected strategist, intends to master politics, institutions and finally the management of Athens. While the reforms of Cleisthenes had considerably favored access to citizenship, Pericles began a restrictive phase to better manage the city politically. It is therefore for the sake of political vision and efficiency that Pericles would have made this unpopular choice. But some, who suffer from these restrictions, accuse him of having passed this law in order to eliminate certain rivals.
Consequences
Pericles dominates political life at this time; he was elected 15 times as a strategist, so he has a global and sustainable vision of the city, so he reforms the rights and duties of the citizen. In this regard, at the same time (between -454 and 450 BC), he decreed the misthos to compensate citizens who actively participated in political life (meeting, assembly, etc.). Pericles thus allows the poorest citizens to participate in the political life of the city thanks to this financial compensation.