The Performance of Identity in Classical Athens

Abstract

Between 350 and 330 BCE, Athenians, facing growing anxieties about attacks on the citizen body, passed a series of laws that penalized foreigners who usurped the rights of citizenship. Furthermore, Athenian citizens were required to reaffirm their identities before their communities and the court system. This legislation sparked numerous lawsuits which have survived in the speeches of the Attic orators. These orations give modern scholars critical insights into the complicated process through which Athenian citizens proved their identities in court.

In Classical Athens, citizens did not rely on public records to confirm their status. Instead, they were required to complete specific performances as members of key identifying groups. These groups included Athenians’ families and their deme and phratry, the two institutions that controlled Athenian citizenship. If citizens’ identities were ever questioned in court, they could call on the members of these organizations as witnesses to the performative acts that defined their civic identity. These performances could be political in nature; for example, citizens could point to the fact that they had held political office as evidence of their status. Athenians could also complete religious performances to establish themselves within their communities; litigants in court often called on their relatives as witnesses to testify that they had completed sacrifices together as a family.

Furthermore, Athenians considered mundane activities, or the performances of everyday life, as equally important proofs of identity. These quotidian actions also ranged in nature. Athenians could point to minute daily actions, like socializing with friends or attending school, as evidence of their citizenship. They could also carry out performances within formal institutions that fell outside of typical political activities. For example, Athenians often presented their participation in lawsuits or in arbitrations as proofs of status. This dissertation offers detailed analyses of legal decisions that highlight these everyday performative acts and make clear that mundane activities were as crucial to the establishment of civic identity as the participation within political and religious institutions on which modern scholars have most often concentrated. In examining Athenian forensic speeches in this way, this dissertation redefines Athenian citizenship as a complex identification process in which all Athenians—men, women, slaves, foreigners, citizens, and non-citizens—could take part, either as actors or as audience.