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1. INTRODUCTION TO THE SOCIETY OF
CLASSICAL ATHENS
 First of all, Athenians of the Classical period mainly thought of their
city as the sum of its citizens, not as a geographical area: for that there
were separate terms: asty (town) to refer to Athens, or chora (country)
to refer to the remainder of Attica. At its peak, the population of Attica
was somewhere in the region of 300,000 to 350,000. The citizens can
never have numbered more than 50,000 at most as the bulk of the
population -women, metics and slaves- had no civic rights. There was
also a secondary distinction, based on origin: men, women and children
of Athenian origin were known as astoi (townspeople).

2. Oikos
 In Classical Athens equality among citizens was restricted to the
equal exercise of civic rights. Perceived differences in the economic
fabric ran all the way through everyday life, and were not seldom
associated with origin. The oikos, the household, was the basic unit
of the polis, the city, and the life style of the family in
each oikos depended on its economic potential. The house of an
aristocrat or a well-to-do person differed from that of the hoi
polloi not only as regards its size, but as regards the part played by
its members
 The average Athenian household oikos in the Classical Period
normally consisted of husband, wife and children (who remained
children until they started their own families) and their slaves.

3. The man’s role
 In an age when wars broke out routinely, soldiers were bound to be prominent in
city life. They were accorded civic rights and decided on the developments in the
city. Under a direct democracy, the citizens spent a lot of their time dealing with
public affairs, which made slaves, even on small holdings, indispensable for farm
work. It is certain that men in less well-to-do houses worked on the land. For them,
'free time' was a luxury. One should also bear in mind that they were under an
obligation to help run the city. Their amusement must have been limited to the not
infrequent public festivals.
 Obviously an adult male was not in the house much. There was little for him to do
there as the women of the house attended to all practical matters.

4. The woman’s role
 For women, this period brought no great changes. A woman continued
to be the symbol of the domestic interior; she was still subject to her
lord and master, and she had no civic rights.
 It was mainly women in the better-off households who were affected by
the woman's confinement inside the house.
 Going out of the house was not actually banned - women went to market
and of course there were hetairai and women innkeepers. However, it
was frowned upon, especially for the well-born. The act of leaving the
house was thus in itself a mark of social differentiation. It should also be
noted that women were not criticized as such, but at the mother, wife or
daughter of a respectable citizen.

5. Children and ephebes
 Boys and girls began to be treated differently at the age of seven. A
boy would go to school: he would be walked there by his paidagogos,
a trusty slave. Education was private; the parents paid the teacher.
Reading, writing and arithmetic were taught by the grammatistes.
There was also a guitar-player to teach the boy music, and
a paidotribes, responsible for his physical exercise. The young man
could later continue his education by becoming the pupil of one of the
Sophists: however their fees were so enormous that only the sons of
the very rich had any chance of attending their courses. An ephebe (a
young men of eighteen to twenty) served two years in the army. It
was the most important stage in his life: the bridge between
childhood and adulthood, which gave him the civic grounding with
which to launch himself into the polis.

6. House Slaves
 In Classical Athens everybody except the really poor had slaves. Slaves who
belonged to an oikos and stayed permanently in the house were
called oiketai or oikeis. These 'house slaves' were used both for domestic
chores and for land work. Their duties included looking after children - this
was done by the the paidagogos - and escorting the women of the family to
religious festivals and the men on their hunting trips.
 The slave would be attached to the house for the rest of his/her life, and
some slaves would actually have been born in the house. This encouraged
feelings of devotion towards 'the master'. Moreover, their destinies lay in the
hands of those they served.
 This special relationship meant that house slaves had more hope of obtaining
freedom than other kinds of slave. By the end of the Classical period, the
will of the kyrios usually included a clause granting freedom to some slave
or other in recognition of his fidelity. 'Freedmen' - as freed slaves were
called - were at liberty to go back to their homelands. But if a freedman
stayed on in Athens, he could go on the city register as a metic, and his ex-
master would undertake to become his protector.

7. Labour and production
 The most important commodities in Classical Athens came from
farming and fishing. But as the city expanded, a whole host of other
professions came to the fore, and depending on how important they
were to the polis, developed their own forms of organization. As with
farming, there was no exchange of surplus produce: as a rule an order
was placed for a specific number of items and anything left over was
on offer to the slaves.
 The main businesses were the pottery workshops, bronze foundries
and tanneries. Businesses (with the exception of the Lavrion mines)
were in the hands of private individuals, mainly metics, and the work
force came from all social groups.

8.  Papageorgiou Sophia
 Paterakos Mihalis
 Perdikomath Panagiwta