Abstract
This paper contributes to the question of the relationship between democracy and economic inequality in ancient Greece by developing a realistic population and income model for late classical Athens. The model is evidence-based, although hypothetical in many particulars. It aligns with other evidence suggesting that economic inequality in late classical Athens was low by historical standards. While no causal argument is made here, the model is consistent with the hypothesis that democracy tended to lower economic inequality over time, in part through progressive taxation. The model also helps to explain Athenian social stability: poorer Athenians, including many slaves, were beneficiaries of a system that enabled most Athenians to live well above the level of bare subsistence. Some slaves had some chance of earning their way out of slavery by, in effect, purchasing themselves. While taxation could be disruptively heavy for some estates, the overall tax burden on wealthy Athenians, as a class, was not high enough to trigger elite-level revolutionary cooperation against the democratic regime.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
For recent, contrasting views of and approaches to economic inequality in classical Greece, see Roubineau (2015), arguing that every Greek polis was grounded in deep social status inequalities, resulting in the impoverishment of many; Patriquin (2015), arguing for minimal inequality among citizens at Athens, because democracy could only arise in a society with only a small gap between rich and poor. Neither attempts the sort of modeling offered here.
- 3.
In addition to Ober (2015b), recent and important books addressing Greek economic growth in the classical era include Acton (2014), Bresson (2015) and Harris et al. (2015). Taylor (forthcoming) addresses the question of economic inequality in classical Athens.
- 4.
Van Wees (2011) discusses a well-known passage in Athenaeus 272c, that records the following figures for Athens’ population, some time after 317 BCE: Athenaioi: 21,000; metoikoi 10,000; oiketai: 400,000. Van Wees’ interpretation of the passage is at odds with all previous scholarship. Van Wees claims that that the passage (as it has come down in the manuscript tradition) accurately records a careful census of residents of Athens, putatively conducted by Demetrius of Phaleron. He proposes that the metoikoi include many disenfranchised Athenians (see below). He also proposes that the figure for oiketai includes about 100,000 native women and children, the rest being slaves. None of this seems plausible: inter alia, a total population of 431,000 would yield a per square km density of over 170 persons, which is much too high for Attica, in an era when Athens was no longer an imperial capital or the center of Aegean trade. Since Athenian agricultural productivity was limited, in order to feed such a population (ca. 10 slaves to every free household), the non-agricultural sector of the economy of Athens would have to be considerably more productive than any historian of antiquity has ever dared suggest. Extrapolating these figures to other regions of Greece (given that there is no reason to assume that Athens post 317 BCE was vastly more densely populated) would yield population figures far higher than the highest estimates proposed by ancient historians. At least for oiketai, the Athenaeus figure must be regarded as wrong, as most previous scholarship on the passage assumed. The other figures in the passage, even if they were accurate for post-317 BCE, need have little bearing on the figures in 330 BCE, given the dramatic changes in Athens’ fortunes after 322 BCE.
- 5.
These are very general categories; for finer-grained distinctions among Athenian categories of persons (in law and social relations) see Kamen (2013).
- 6.
- 7.
Cartledge (1985: 35), seems reasonable: 60,000–100,000 “according to the most cautious estimates.” Kamen (in progress: Chap. 1 n. 37) surveys a dozen respected classical scholars’ estimates of slave numbers in classical Athens. Estimates are for various dates in the late fifth to late fourth century, and are sometimes stated in terms of maxima or minima. For what it is worth, the mean of the estimates comes to 84,400; the median is 78,000. For the low count: Jones (1964). High count: Taylor (2001) and van Wees (2011). For the background conditions that made Greek and Roman slavery profitable, see Scheidel (2005, 2008) and Silver (2006).
- 8.
Metics in Athens with discussion of possible numbers: Whitehead (1977), Kamen (2013) and Akrigg (2015). Van Wees (2011: 104), argues that even 10,000 metics is “implausibly high,” based on an over-reading of Thucydides 2.31.2. Van Wees uses the Thucydides passage to produce a citizen-to-metic ratio of 5:1. That ratio is in turn imagined to be constant from the fifth through the late fourth century BCE. The argument for the ratio is strained, and its assumed invariance over time, is implausible. Metoikia as an institution outside Athens: Whitehead (1984).
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
The lower figure of ca. 400 liturgical estates: Davies (1971); the higher figure of ca. 1200 liturgical estates: Hansen (1999: 110–115). Due to the simplifying assumption of equal within-group income, the cut off between groups 14 (citizen 5: annual household income 720 dr) and 25 (citizen 6: annual household income 1000 dr) is artificial. Ancient sources referring to 1200 citizens in the liturgical class (on which see Hansen, above) can be accommodated by assuming that a few hundred of the wealthiest group 14 households were subject to paying liturgical taxes.
- 13.
The derived Gini is “Gini1,” which estimates between-group inequality, assuming within-group inequality to be zero. See Milanovic et al. (2011: 260) for the distinction between Gini1 and Gini2; as they note, the difference is very small for most of the historical societies in their study group. The “optimistic” model in Ober (2015b: Table 4.4) yielded an income Gini of 40.
- 14.
- 15.
US Census Bureau, Income Distribution to &250,000 or More for Households 2013. Accessed 02/02/2016.
- 16.
See Alvaredo et al. (2013) and the data collected in Facundo Alvaredo, Anthony B. Atkinson, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, The World Wealth and Income Database, http://www.wid.world, 02/02/2016.
- 17.
Trierarchic liturgy amount: Davies (1971: xxi–xxiv) and Pritchard (2012: n. 71). Gabrielsen (1994) discusses the evidence for financing warships in detail. His final estimate for the number of active service trierarchies per year, 60, is lower than my estimate, but his estimate for the cost of trierarchy is higher than my estimate, at 6000–7000 dr (1994: 216). The total trierarchic tax burden comes to roughly the same amount: 60–70 T.
- 18.
See, further Hansen 1999: 110–115. I estimate festival liturgies at 25 T; annual normal eisphora at 10 T; and extraordinary taxes at 10 T.
- 19.
- 20.
Kron (forthcoming). It is important to keep in mind that the overall Gini wealth index for Athenian society as a whole, including slaves and metics, would surely be substantially higher—I cannot say how much higher because I know no way to calculate the wealth of metics or slaves. Wealth inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is typically much higher than income inequality.
- 21.
- 22.
Morris (1998a: 235–36). Quote, ibid. p. 36. As Claire Taylor pointed out to me, Morris misreported the Gini coefficient as 38.2–38.6; but Morris’ general point remains valid.
- 23.
Kron (2014, forthcoming). For Olynthos houses, Kron (2014: 129, Table 2) calculates the Gini coefficient at 14, considerably lower than later Hellenistic and Roman era Greek cities. Cf. Bintliff (2012, Chap. 13).
- 24.
Athens, and the classical Greek world generally, appear be outliers in the long-term global historical pattern of high inequality (except in the aftermath of major war, natural catastrophe, plague, or state collapse): Scheidel (2017).
- 25.
See Roubineau (2015, Chap. 10).
- 26.
For the association between levels of taxation in democratic societies and social assumptions about fairness, see now Scheve and Stasavage (2016).
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Appendix: Athens, 330 BCE. Model of Population and Income
Appendix: Athens, 330 BCE. Model of Population and Income
Group population | Description | Estates | Size | Group pop | dr/day | Days | dr/year | T/year | T/year/group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Slave 1 | 24000 | 1 | 24000 | 0.25 | 300 | 75 | 0.013 | 300.00 |
2 | Slave 2 | 24000 | 1 | 24000 | 0.5 | 300 | 150 | 0.025 | 600.00 |
3 | Slave 3 | 24000 | 1 | 24000 | 0.75 | 300 | 225 | 0.038 | 900.00 |
4 | Metic 1 | 2000 | 1 | 2000 | 0.5 | 300 | 150 | 0.025 | 50.00 |
5 | Metic 2 | 2000 | 1 | 2000 | 0.75 | 300 | 225 | 0.038 | 75.00 |
6 | Metic 3 | 1000 | 4.5 | 4500 | 1 | 300 | 300 | 0.050 | 50.00 |
7 | Citizen 1 | 5000 | 4.5 | 22500 | 1 | 300 | 300 | 0.050 | 250.00 |
8 | Slave 4 | 8000 | 1 | 8000 | 1.5 | 300 | 450 | 0.075 | 600.00 |
9 | Metic 4 | 3750 | 1 | 4750 | 1.5 | 300 | 450 | 0.075 | 356.25 |
10 | Metic 5 | 3750 | 4.5 | 16875 | 2 | 300 | 600 | 0.100 | 375.00 |
11 | Citizen 2 | 6125 | 1 | 6125 | 1.6 | 300 | 480 | 0.080 | 490.00 |
12 | Citizen 3 | 6125 | 4.5 | 27563 | 1.8 | 300 | 540 | 0.090 | 551.25 |
13 | Citizen 4 | 6125 | 4.5 | 27563 | 2.2 | 300 | 660 | 0.110 | 673.75 |
14 | Citizen 5 | 6125 | 4.5 | 27563 | 2.4 | 300 | 720 | 0.120 | 735.00 |
15 | Metic 6 | 65 | 4.5 | 293 | 1000 | 0.167 | 10.83 | ||
16 | Meitc 7 | 60 | 4.5 | 270 | 2000 | 0.333 | 20.00 | ||
17 | Metic 8 | 50 | 4.5 | 225 | 4000 | 0.667 | 33.33 | ||
18 | Metic 9 | 40 | 4.5 | 180 | 6000 | 1.000 | 40.00 | ||
19 | Metic 10 | 30 | 4.5 | 135 | 8000 | 1.333 | 40.00 | ||
20 | Metic 11 | 25 | 4.5 | 113 | 10000 | 1.667 | 41.67 | ||
21 | Metic 12 | 25 | 4.5 | 113 | 15000 | 2.500 | 62.50 | ||
22 | Metic 13 | 25 | 4.5 | 113 | 20000 | 3.333 | 83.33 | ||
23 | Metic 14 | 10 | 4.5 | 45 | 30000 | 5.000 | 50.00 | ||
24 | Metic 15 | 5 | 4.5 | 23 | 40000 | 6.667 | 33.33 | ||
25 | Citizen 6 | 200 | 4.5 | 900 | 1000 | 0.167 | 33.33 | ||
26 | Citizen 7 | 175 | 4.5 | 788 | 2000 | 0.333 | 58.33 | ||
27 | Citizen 8 | 150 | 4.5 | 675 | 4000 | 0.667 | 100.00 | ||
28 | Citizen 9 | 100 | 4.5 | 450 | 6000 | 1.000 | 100.00 | ||
29 | Citizen 10 | 75 | 4.5 | 338 | 8000 | 1.333 | 100.00 | ||
30 | Citizen 11 | 50 | 4.5 | 225 | 10000 | 1.667 | 83.33 | ||
31 | Citizen 12 | 40 | 4.5 | 180 | 15000 | 2.500 | 100.00 | ||
32 | Citizen 13 | 30 | 4.5 | 135 | 20000 | 3.333 | 100.00 | ||
33 | Citizen 14 | 10 | 4.5 | 45 | 30000 | 5.000 | 50.00 | ||
34 | Citizen 15 | 5 | 4.5 | 23 | 40000 | 6.667 | 33.33 | ||
Total | 226703 | 7180 |
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Ober, J. (2017). Inequality in Late-Classical Democratic Athens: Evidence and Models. In: Bitros, G., Kyriazis, N. (eds) Democracy and an Open-Economy World Order. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52168-8_9
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