"
=Foreigners.=--The name Metics was applied to people of foreign origin
who were established in Athens. To become a citizen of Athens it was
not enough, as with us, to be born in the country; one must be the son
of a citizen. It might be that some aliens had resided in Attica for
several generations and yet their family not become Athenian. The
metics could take no part in the government, could not marry a
citizen, nor acquire land. But they were personally free, they had the
right of commerce by sea, of banking and of trade on condition that
they take a patron to represent them in the courts. There were in
Athens more than ten thousand families of metics, the majority of them
bankers or merchants.
=The Citizens.=--To be a citizen of Athens it was necessary that both
parents should be citizens. The young Athenian, come to maturity at
about eighteen years of age, appeared before the popular assembly,
received the arms which he was to bear and took the following oath: "I
swear never to dishonor these sacred arms, not to quit my post, to
obey the magistrates and the laws, to honor the religion of my
country.
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