Children of parents who were born in Athens. Only male citizens could participate in voting and governing the city. A young man became a citizen after he finished his military service at age 20. Residents of Athens who had been born OUTSIDE the city-state.

Pericles was an Athenian statesman. Under his leadership Athenian democracy and the Athenian empire flourished, making Athens the political and cultural focus of Greece between the Greco-Persian and Peloponnesian wars.

Pericles set about toppling the Areopagus (ar-ee-OP-uh-guhs), or the noble council of Athens, in favor of a more democratic system that represented the interests of the people. He introduced the practice of paying citizens to serve on juries, which allowed poor men to leave work and participate in the justice system.

Metics Weren’t Given the Rights of Citizens Among these disadvantages was that they had to pay a military duty as well as additional taxes called “eisphora” and, if they were wealthy, contributing to special civil projects such as helping other wealthy Athenians pay for a warship.

Metics were a class of free non-citizens, often employed on more menial, but nevertheless vital, tasks – including trireme building, rowing and maintenance. Metics were usually Greeks from other city-states. Women of non-Athenian origin could often rise to positions of considerable influence as courtesans.

Citizen women and children were not allowed to vote. Slaves and foreigners living in Athens (known as metics) were banned from participating in government. The city was also a great centre for art and literature. Writers, artists and philosophers flocked to Athens, where they could work and think in freedom.

A Metic is an Athenian non-citizen (free born foreigner)

Metics were prevented from having any part in politics. They could not attend the Ekklesia or take part in decisions which generally affected their lives. They were also forced to pay a liturgy which was a special tax. Men were made to pay twelve drachmai and woman were made to pay six.

The physical geography of Greece encouraged colonization because there was not a lot of farmland, and there were many mountains in Greece, so as the populations of city-states increased Greece struggled to feed and accommodate everyone, so people suffered from overpopulation and land hunger which encouraged …

Greek city-states likely developed because of the physical geography of the Mediterranean region. Another reason city-states formed, rather than a central, all-encompassing monarchy, was that the Greek aristocracy strove to maintain their city-states’ independence and to unseat any potential tyrants.

Greek civilization developed into independent city-states because Greece’s mountains, islands, and peninsulas separated the Greek people from each other and made communication difficult. The steep mountains of the Greek geography also affected the crops and animals that farmers raised in the region.