La cité grecque entre Aristote et les modernes

Abstract

This paper focuses on a famous passage from Book III of Aristotle’s Politics, which ties the status of citizen and the ability to participate in archè. Some historians have emphasised that such a definition of Greek citizenship had serious limitations. In particular, they have insisted on the part of religion in integrating men and women to citizenship. In front of those interpretative traditions, the paper proposes a return to the text and a new translation. Then it comes back to its potential uses by historians who study connections between archè and participation. Yet it concludes that one just cannot define the Greek citizenship in a single and global way.