What It Was Like to Be Every Rank in Ancient Greece

You give the goddess Athena the nose and chin of a merchant's late mother, even her look of disappointed patience. He weeps at the statue and pays you double. Athens fines its winning general 50 talents, bills its merchant ten years of a craftsman's wages for one play, and audits its archon down to the drachma. We've decided this democracy is really a very persistent collections agency. 0:00 The Slave 2:56 The Metic 5:16 The Citizen Farmer 7:40 The Craftsman 10:17 The Merchant 12:59 The Strategos 15:43 The Orator 18:39 The Archon 21:20 The Tyrant 23:54 The Philosopher Sources, ready for their public accounting: Metics and the metoikion tax in Athens (Foundation of the Hellenic World) Slave labour in the Laurion silver mines (Foundation of the Hellenic World) The Pnyx and the Athenian Assembly (Foundation of the Hellenic World) How Athenian democracy worked (World History Encyclopedia) Hoplite armour and the phalanx (World History Encyclopedia) Ostracism, Themistocles and Aristides (World History Encyclopedia) City Dionysia and chorus sponsors (World History Encyclopedia) Kleroterion allotment device of Athens (Wikipedia)