Citizenship for sale?

Abstract Reexamining inscriptional and literary sources on grants of politeia by ancient Greek cities in exchange for money allows us to rethink the commonly accepted interpretation of these grants as the sale of citizenship. This article argues that such grants actually reciprocated benefactions that involved a financial expenditure in the interests of the city. These grants could be interpreted as a sale of politeia, similar to today’s grants of citizenship offered by many countries in return for investments. However, like these modern gifts of citizenship, the grants in ancient Greece reflected a basic norm that politeia could only be conferred on benefactors.