Cittadinanze coloniali arcaiche. Appunti su Massalia, Siracusa e Apollonia sullo Ionio

ABSTRACT Archaic colonial citizenships. Notes on Massalia, Syracuse and Apollonia on the Ionian Sea Among the citizen bodies of the Greek colonies in the West, there are some notable cases in which the group of people who ‘participate in the community’ is numerically narrow, to varying degrees. Massalia is an example of a community whose body of political participants is small, but has its own identity and political and judicial powers. Pre-Gelonian Syracuse is an example of a city state where the free men (the demos) were, in a sense, caught between an elite group of landowners who identified as such (the Gamòroi) and the rural serfs. The Gamòroi monopolised power and civic presence. The demos, for its part, did not enjoy a civic role. This exclusion from political life may explain why the demos joined forces with the rural serfs against the Gamòroi. Finally, Apollonia’s situation was strikingly similar to that of Syracuse before the revolt against the Gamòroi. However, the socio-political context must have been even more stifling and imbalanced, with a few lords on one side and many unfree people on the other. A political community of citizens could not be formed on this basis.