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Autochthony myths served the creation of an identity that was culturally and politically meaningful to the people. Since the 430s the Athenians have brought the message of their autochthony across with a confidence and insistence that seem more than average. Around a decade after Pericles' Citizenship Law, the first indications emerge that the Athenians claimed to be 'autochthones'. A century after Pericles' Citizenship Law, being an exclusive elite had become a quality of all citizens of Athens.

Gewiss kamen Fremde kaum mit klaren Heiratsabsichten nach Athen. Aber von der Sache her hatten Metoken durchaus die Absicht fiber eine lange Zeit in Athen zu bleiben and sich dort ein Zuhause zu schaffen. Die auf Langfristigkeit angelegte Niederlassung schloss unter anderem das Bedurfnis nach sozialen Kontakten, Vertrautheit and Vertrauen ein, mit anderen Worten, implizierte ein Lebensmuster, das eben auch fdrderlich fair Eheschlielungen zwischen beiden Gruppen war. Metoken der verschiedenen sozialen Klassen and mit den unterschiedlichsten Fertigkeiten bildeten einen wichtigen Teil der arbeitenden Bevolkerung in Handel and Gewerbe. Die Metoken waren auch von erheblicher militarischer Bedeutung, sowohl als Hopliten als auch als Ruderer in der Flotte. Der greifbare Beitrag der Metoken zur athenischen Gesellschaft nahm fiber die Jahre hinweg immer mehr zu.

The emergence of the polis as the prominent form of socio-political life is one of the most important developments of archaic and classical Greece. The existence of the polis depended on a sense of territorial and soccial coherence. Among the most significant factors in the materialization of the polis are population growth, common cults, military cooperation, written laws, changes in political discourse, and changing political consciousness in relation to (re)organization of space.

Debts were a structural factor in the lives of small peasants in the entire ancient world. In Archaic Greece, Solon of Athens took the unique measure to cancel all debts, to abolish debt-slavery and to bring back those who had been sold abroad. For this innovation, he drew on the tradition of periodic debt remission and liberation of debt slaves by royal decree in the empires of ancient Mesopotamia, of which he may have heard on his travels in the East. His poems about his legal reforms also display striking similarities with ancient Near Eastern, and specifically Neo-Assyrian official memorials. In contrast to the Near East, at Athens debt-slavery was terminated for ever, but debt remission failed to become entrenched because it contravened the prevailing political values.