SOL Search

The metics are an inferior part of the citizens, like the achura of barley. Aristophanes [writes]: "for the metics I call achura of the townsfolk."[1]
Metics [are] those moving from one city and living in another.[2]
"If ever you spoke well in a petty lawsuit against a metic foreigner, you considered yourself an able speaker".[3]
In Sophocles 'metic' appears in place of 'inhabitant' [e)/noikos]: "unless you wish to be a metic of this land".[4] For 'inhabitant' did not mean the same thing, as it does in our language. 'Metics' is what we call those living [somewhere who have come] from another land, and also those who have migrated from somewhere or other. This means an inhabitant [in our language].[5] Aeschylus [speaks of] the birds in high places [as metics], meaning inhabitants.[6]
And elsewhere: "when Zobia took in the fugitive Aristogeiton and asked for the favour to be returned when he had recovered, he dragged her to the auction-house of the metic-tax, and he sold [his own] sister for export".[7]
And elsewhere: "[the Athenians] sold him when he was unable to pay the metic-tax".[8]

*me/toikoi: me/ros e)sti\ tw=n politw=n oi( me/toikoi eu)tele/s, w(s ta\ a)/xura tw=n kriqw=n. *)aristofa/nhs: tou\s ga\r metoi/kous a)/xura tw=n a)stw=n le/gw. *me/toikoi de\ oi( a)f' e(te/ras po/lews metasta/ntes kai\ ei)s e(te/ran oi)kou=ntes. ei)/ pou diki/dion ei)=pas eu)= kata\ ce/nou metoi/kou, w)/|ou dunato\s ei)=nai le/gein. para\ *sofoklei= de\ me/toikos a)nti\ tou= e)/noikos: ei) mh\ me/toikos th=sde th=s xw/ras qe/leis ei)=nai. a)nti\ tou= e)/noikos. ou) ga\r au)to\ tou=to to\ e)/noikos, w(s h(mei=s famen, ei)/rhtai. metoi/kous de\ kalou=men tou\s a)po\ e(te/ras xw/ras oi)kou=ntas, pro\s de\ tou\s metoikisqe/ntas poqe/n. tou=to de\ shmai/nei e)/noikon. *ai)sxu/los tou\s oi)wnou\s tw=n u(yhlw=n to/pwn, a)nti\ tou= e)noi/kous. kai\ au)=qis: *zwbi/an u(podecame/nhn *)aristogei/tona fugo/nta kai\ a)ciou=san eu)= paqei=n, o(/te i)/sxuen, e)pi\ to\ tou= metoiki/ou pwlhth/rion h)/gage kai\ th\n a)delfh\n e)p' e)cagwgh=| pe/prake. kai\ au)=qis: tou=ton de\ e)pi/praskon, to\ metoi/kion a)tonou=nta qei=nai.

For the metics of Athens see already mu 819, and generally Whitehead (1977), where all the passages given in this entry are discussed.
[1] Aristophanes, Acharnians 508 (web address 1). Scholiastic comment on it, followed here, construed a)/xura as (worthless) chaff; but more probably it means bran, which turns the line from an insult into a compliment.
[2] cf. mu 819.
[3] Aristophanes, Knights 347-350 (web address 2), abridged.
[4] Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 934-5 (web address 3).
[5] From the end of the Sophocles quotation to this point the Greek is very obscure; translation tentative.
[6] Aeschylus, Agamemnon 57 (web address 4).
[7] [Demosthenes] 25.57 and 55 (web address 5); cf. alpha 3913 and epsilon 1514, with the notes there.
[8] Diogenes Laertius 4.14, on Xenocrates (xi 42). On this episode see Whitehead (1981).

William Hutton (cosmetics, modified translation, added links and keywords, set status) on 2 October 2003@15:42:40.
David Whitehead (cosmetics) on 3 October 2003@03:19:40.
David Whitehead (another keyword) on 23 October 2005@09:45:06.
David Whitehead on 20 May 2013@06:58:25.
Catharine Roth (cosmeticule) on 24 August 2020@00:21:14.

Suda On Line Search