The ancient city was, as its modern equivalent, a very diverse setting, albeit within a more restrictive cultural and political framework: people of all social, economic and legal backgrounds converged in high-density settlements where they carried out their daily activities within different levels of freedom and financial strain. Of those, the ones on the bottom of the system (slaves, freedpeople and foreigners) bore the brunt of the social prejudice and exclusions despite their economic or demographic relevance. The evidence from the former is especially damming: for instance, of the 263 "private sector" workers recorded in the epigraphic record of Hispania, 55 are slaves (20,9%), while 93 are liberti (35,4%), which, accounting for numerous professionals of which the legal condition is impossible to assess (42, the 15%), accounts for their economic relevance in Roman cities.

Modern scholarship has recently picked up interest in such dynamics of urban social inequality, focusing on the material and ideological implications of highly stratified urban societies; [1] the volume (Non-Citizens in the City. Dilemmas of Belonging and Exclusion in Ancient Political Theory) carries on this trend as it addresses the complex relationship between citizenship, belonging, and exclusion in ancient political thought through a series of contributions organised in broadly chronological order, from the Presocratics to Cicero. As the editors (V. Konradova, and J. Jinek) explain, the common objective is to investigate the conceptual boundaries separating citizens from non-citizens in the Greek polis and the Roman civitas, paying particular attention to intermediate statuses and mechanisms of integration. The chapters therefore explore a wide range of groups traditionally situated on the margins of the political community, including foreigners, women, slaves, children, and craftsmen.

The first three contributions focus on alternative perspectives on civic life and the figure of the outsider. G. Giorgini (Rejecting the City: Sapiential Associations and Self-Exclusion from the Citizen Body - the Case of the Pythagoreans) examines the Pythagorean communities as a case of voluntary detachment from the political community, arguing that they rejected the ethical and political foundations of the Greek polis and sought to construct an alternative form of communal life. A. Maffi (Oikonomia and the Law: Family Relationships in Philosophical Theory Compared with the Code of Gortyn (IC IV,72)) analyses the relationship between household organisation and political theory through a comparison between philosophical reflections on family relations and the legal regulations contained in the Gortyn Code. K. Boháček (Strangers and Philosophers) approaches the issue of non-citizenship from the perspective of intellectual mobility, highlighting how foreigners, particularly the sophists, contributed to cultural innovation and critical reflection precisely because of their position outside local traditions.

Questions of foreignness and marginality remain central in the following chapters. F. Piangerelli (Marginal but not Marginalised: A Portrait of Lysias and Neaera in Classical Athens) examines the ambiguous status of resident aliens in Classical Athens through the examples of Lysias and Neaera, showing how exclusion from citizenship did not necessarily preclude social influence and personal agency. V. Konrádová (The Status of Women in Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle: Premises and Consequences) compares the assumptions underlying the treatment of women in the works of Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as the political and social implications drawn from them. The discussion is complemented by P. Schmitz (Children, Women, Slaves, and the So-Called Free Men: Freedom and Slavery in Plato's Republic), who explores the often-neglected position of non-citizen groups in Plato's ideal state and emphasises the importance of slavery within his conception of justice and political order. M. Knoll (Non-Citizens in Plato's Laws: Slaves, Foreigners, and the Disagreement on the Status of Women) further develops these themes through an analysis of slaves, resident foreigners, and women in Magnesia, revisiting in particular the debate concerning women's participation in political and military life.

The closing part of the volume is devoted to Aristotle and Cicero. J. Jinek (Slave and Master: Aristotle's Dialectical Strategies in Politics I) reassesses Aristotle's discussion of the master-slave relationship, proposing a dialectical interpretation that situates slavery within a broader reflection on political rule. N. Borçin (An Aporia on Citizenship in Aristotle's Politics: The Vulgar Craftsmen) turns to another problematic category of exclusion, the craftsmen denied citizenship in Aristotle's ideal city, arguing that such a position is difficult to reconcile with Aristotle's own criteria for citizenship. Finally, E. Irrera ('Appropriating' the Non-Citizen: Virtue and Abidance by Law in Cicero's Pro Sulla, De Archia and De legibus) analyses Cicero's conception of citizenship, according to which virtue and obedience to a rational and universal law could provide alternative foundations for civic inclusion.

In general terms, the book follows on the already widespread model of specialised edited volumes: compendia of subject-intensive chapters bound together by an "umbrella" theme that acts as the element of cohesion of many different personal researches. That being said, this volume mostly overcomes the main pitfall of such projects, the lack of internal connection, by carefully assigning main sub-themes (philosophical or political thought, women, slaves, foreigners, citizenship, etc.) to one or two authors, so that its full reading provides the audience with a complete overview of a subject. This is by itself a feature that gives this literary endeavour its well-deserved place in modern scholarship; the only thing that could give it even more value would be to acknowledge the role of material culture in the better comprehension of such dynamics of inequality, even if I understand that the main focus is political theory, and it is not strictly required. Archaeology has repeatedly proven that it can provide us with tangible evidence of the social fabric of pre-industrial cities, as it routinely shows that municipal or imperial law (recorded also epigraphically) and real urban development not always agree with each other; to that can be added that many, if not all, of the accounts referenced by the book came, directly or indirectly, precisely from the social class on top of the one studied. Even if not entirely necessary given the textual scope of the volume, an extra chapter discussing such issues (or an occasional reference to it in each chapter) would have completed what was already a very good general work on political theory.

All in all, Non-Citizens in the City. Dilemmas of Belonging and Exclusion in Ancient Political Theory is a worthy addition to what is becoming a very necessary field of study away from the overly-traditional focus on ancient urban elites, especially regarding political and legal theory, so thoroughly dominated by the judgemental point of view of the aristocracy.

Note:

[1] Liu Jinyu: Urban Poverty in the Roman Empire: Material Conditions, in: Paul and Economics, ed. by Thomas R. Blanton / Raymond Pickett, Minneapolis 2017. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctt1kgqtgr.7; Kostas Vlassopoulos: Greek urban social structures, in: A Companion to Cities in the Greco-Roman World, ed. by Miko Flohr / Arjan Zuiderhoek, Hoboken, NJ 2024. DOI: 10.1002/9781119399940.ch20; Arjan Zuiderhoek: Wealth, Inequality and Political Culture in the Cities of Roman Asia Minor, First to Third Centuries CE, in: Capital in Classical Antiquity. Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies, ed. by Max Koedijk / Neville Morley, Basingstoke 2022. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-93834-5_11; Emily Hemelrijk / Miko Flohr: Urban social structures in the Roman world, in: A Companion to Cities in the Greco-Roman World, ed. by Miko Flohr / Arjan Zuiderhoek, Hoboken (NJ) 2024. DOI: 10.1002/9781119399940.ch21; Orlando Cerasuolo (ed.): The Archaeology of Inequality. Tracing the Archaeological Record, New York 2021.

Arnau Lario Devesa