Citizenship for the liberators of Athens
After the fall of Athens (April 404), the Spartans put up an oligarchic regime of thirty men (text). Thrasybulus and other democrats, supported by Thebes, which resented the increased power of Sparta, occupied a fortress named Phyle, captured Piraeus, and fought against the oligarchs. In September 403, the Spartan king Pausanias decided that the Thirty did not have a future and allowed the restoration of Athenian democracy.
Among the liberators of Athens were people who belonged to the class of metics, foreigners who had settled in the city but did not have citizen rights. They were loyal to the Athenian community and had fought alongside the democrats. When democracy was restored, several of them received full citizenship. Or so it would seem from the inscription below, known as IG² 10, which contains the text of the decree.
However, it is unclear which metics qualified for franchise. Part of the problem is that the text, which has come down to us in five fragments, contains many lacunae. The following reconstruction is just one possibility.
[10.1] Lysiades, the son of [...] from [...] was secretary,
Xenainetus was archon.note
Resolved by the Council and the People's Assembly.
Hippothontis held the prytany, Lysiades was secretary, Demophilos presided, Archinos made the motion:
[10.2] Let it be voted by the Athenians that, in order that the metics may receive fitting rewards, all those who have joined in the return from Phyle or gave assistance for the return to Piraeus to those who returned:
[10.3] There shall be for them and their descendants citizenship, and they shall be assigned forthwith to the ten tribesnote and the magistrates shall use in their case the same laws as also in the case of the Athenians.
[10.4] All those who did not join in the return, but joined in fighting in the battle at Munychia and joined in saving Piraeus for the Athenians when the reconciliation was brought about and carried out the duties assigned to them, there shall be for them equality of taxation while they live at Athens and the right of intermarriage and the right of giving security just as for the Athenians. And the [broken off]