Metics And Slaves In 5th Century Athens

In 5th and 4th Century Athens unrestricted access to the legal system, as to other areas of political life, was the prerogative of the male Athenian citizen who had come of age. To what extent this unrestricted access to justice was extended to metics and slaves is open to debate however. Before I begin the main body of my essay I intend to lay down my understanding of metics and slaves in Athenian society before assessing specific legal cases regarding their access to justice. Firstly it is important to remember that resident male foreigners though denied all other political rights, such as being a member of the assembly, had almost unlimited access to the judicial system in Athens although modern scholars still disagree about whether metics
A surprising discovery in Antiphon 5: On the Murder of Herodes (Burtt, 1954, 148 – 234) is that Euxitheus describes how he was tried as a ‘kakourgos: petty criminal’ before the Heliaea instead of a ‘phoneus: murderer’ before the Areopagus (Carey, 1997: 42 – 43). Euxitheus goes on to explain how he was abducted by the family of the deceased Herodes who suspected him of playing a role in his death and presented him before the Eleven to stand trial. Abduction was permissible in the case of Athenian criminals only if they were caught ‘in flagrante delicto’, while foreigners suspected of murder could be arrested as ‘kakourgos’ even if they were not caught in the act (Demosthenes n.d Murray, 1990: 152-153), as this was evidently the most practical method of bringing foreigners to trial. Regardless of its practicality this method of citizens arrest ensured that foreigners and metics did not experience the same benefit of doubt extended to citizens and therefore it can hardly be considered a fair system of bringing people to
A famous, if not the most famous example of this is in Demosthenes 59: Theomnestus and Apollodorus Against Neaera where a metic woman is prosecuted for having lived illegally in marriage with an Athenian man. It appears that in the year 349 BC the accused Stephanus had attacked and convicted Apollodorus on the charge of having secured the passage of an illegal decree, and had fixed the penalty at the ruinous sum of fifteen talents, which the jury, fortunately for the defendant, had reduced to one talent. At a later date he had again indicted Apollodorus on a charge of murder, but in this case the defendant was acquitted. The speech before us is therefore a bitter personal attack upon Neaera and Stephanus however it does pose interesting notions about the legal freedom of metics in Athenian society and their access to justice. The speaker drags up embarrassing details about Neaera’s past including how her former lover Phrynion “had intercourse with her openly whenever and wherever he wished” and how “many (men) had intercourse with her when she was drunk, while Phrynion was asleep, among them even the serving-men of Chabrias” (Demosthenes n.d. Murray: sect. 33). These details are deliberately intended to prejudice the jury against the accused but also highlight the dangers a metic woman faced from xenophobic attacks in the courtroom. Not only this but these instance