CLAS 4375: GENDER AND RACE IN ANCIENT GREEK MYTHS

Study Guide: Athenian Society
HYPOTHETICAL TOTALS: 431 BCE  317 BCE
adult male citizens 50,000  21,000
metics 25,000  10,000
slaves 100,000  50,000

For the total population of Attica, figures of adult male citizens should be multiplied by approximately 4 to include women and children of citizen families. Slaves were not permitted to have families. The total population in Athens, then, would be 300,000 to 350,000 in 431 BCE. The traditional view that family, clan, phratry, genos, and "tribe" were like embedded boxes has been debunked recently. Here are the equivalents of the Greek words traditionally interpreted as identical to modern concepts of "family," "brotherhood," "clan," and "tribe."

oikos meant "household" rather than "family"
phratry meant "blood-brotherhood" yet ceased to be that, became a men's club, eventually a political group (not a "party"). Phrater was important enough to displace the first meaning, "brother of the same father," and adelphos came to mean "brother."
genos did not mean "clan." It was an association formed in the historical period, first among aristocrats organizing themselves in the nascent city to guarantee their monopoly of principal cults, and then, according to circumstance, on the model offered by the most ancient among them.
ethnos The population of Attica was divided in very early times into three: artisans, farmers, and warriors or "Well-born."
phule The traditional myth of the "tribes" recognized four, each with a mythic ancestor. These heroes descended from Deucalion and Pyrrha, thought to have repopulated the world after the Great Flood:
Deucalion + Pyrrha
|
Hellen
/ | \
Dorus  Aeolus  Xuthus
| \
Ion  Achaeus

The Dorians were said to descend from Dorus; the Aeolians, from Aeolus; the Ionians, from Ion, and the Achaeans, from Achaeus. Kleisthenes created in 508/507 ten artificial "tribes" in Athens, and assigned to each a hero.
 
 

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