Peasantry and politics in the Athenian society. On the Aristotelian model of agrarian democracy

The article analyzes the peasantry's situation in the Athenian polis under the condition of full citizenship. Athens has recently been recognized as a society whose democratic political organization was based on the presence of citizen agriculturists who controlled most of the land, constituted the majority of the civic body and had a decisive role in the working of the government. Under certain limits, Aristotle's ideas in the Politics with respect to the agrarian democracy are taken as elements valid to the Athenian political context in some periods. According to this model, it is analyzed the ways of incorporation of the rural villages to the State structure, the relation of hoplite farmers both with landed aristocrats and other candidates to leadership and with the social classes located below the farmers, and the actual political participation that the latter could develop in different stages of the Athenian history. The conclusion aims to maintain, beyond certain schematizations, the possibility of a long term vision of the Athenian history starting from Aristotle's characterizations.