The Concept of Sharing in the Polis: Its Origins and Early Developments

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This article revisits the origins and development of the language of ‘sharing’ (in particular, the verbs metechein, meteinai, metadidonai, and metalambanein) in literary sources, situating it within broader debates on citizenship, political participation, and the development of abstract language. I argue that scholarly emphasis on the distinction between metechein tēs poleōs and metechein tēs politeias risks obscuring a broader semantic continuum and adaptation encompassing both political and non-political uses, together with the interplay between concrete and abstract notions of ‘sharing’. Through a philological analysis of key terms across poetic, dramatic, historiographical, and oratorical sources, I demonstrate that the vocabulary of participation emerges gradually and that ‘sharing’ terminology can be used for a variety of entities. The political meaning of ‘sharing’ crystallises only in the classical period but retains conceptual links with older notions of distribution, equality, and communal belonging. This paper also shows that the political, religious, and other dimensions of ‘sharing’ remain largely distinct in classical sources, even when they use similar lexis. It focuses on the first attestations and the earliest political uses of these terms to show the specific context in which they entered the Athenian political lexicon in the classical period and clarifies their subsequent specialisation.