Athenian Zeugitai and the Solonian Census Classes: New Reflections and Perspectives

Abstract

It has recently been claimed that the Solonian zeugitai were well-off landowners included in the Athenian leisured class. As a result, it has been called into question the existence of a “middle class” of farmers and suggested that the thetes were regularly conscripted as hoplites in the fifth century. In these pages we reflect on who the zeugitai of the archaic and classical periods were and develop new arguments in favour of their importance as a broad group of middling peasants who owned approximately 5 ha of land and a yoke of oxen.