Open borders

20 Apr 2025

The statesman Pericles praised his fellow citizens thus: we throw open our city to the world, and never expel a foreigner or prevent him from seeing or learning anything.

The Athenians wrestled with the question of how far they should extend the rights of citizens to outsiders and even to deserving slaves. In 404, after readmitting known opponents of the democracy to citizenship, they ended up losing the democracy and enduring the terrifying regime of the Thirty Tyrants for over a year.

Edith Hall, Introducing the Ancient Greeks