Performance and Power: In what ways is Aristotle's definition of citizenship applicable to the experience of political participation in the places he studied?

This thesis aims to historicise Aristotle’s definition of Citizenship. Firstly, it will examine the recent history of scholarship around Greek Citizenship and Aristotle, identifying the approaches and contradictions that have emerged. Then I will closely examine Aristotle’s Book III discussion to clarify his definition by analysing his terms. This will include discussion of the key terms of the definition, arche, metechein, koinonein, and krisis. After establishing the Aristotelian conditions for citizenship, this research is focused on examples from the margins of political participation to find the limits of his categories and discover how many ‘so-called’ politai were citizens by Aristotle’s standard. This will be divided into two sections, assemblies and courts, following Aristotle’s own schema. After reviewing the broad range of evidence just for these institutions across the Greek world against Aristotle’s definition of citizen participation, this thesis will discuss the forms of participation that may have been typical for a polites but are excluded by Aristotle’s definition. It will focus on the problematic category of those called citizens but excluded from the decisively powerful offices of the polis. This will largely be the poor in oligarchies. This survey will examine the inscription evidence with some
use of literary interpretations of various partial forms of political participation. This thesis
demonstrates that there was widespread participation of unempowered citizens in oligarchies. This makes sense of Aristotle’s definition even in the context of radical oligarchy. Finally, it will discuss how this more inclusive definition affects other theories of ancient citizenship and the polis.