Metic

A metic (Greek μέτοικος métoikos, settlers ') was in Ancient Greece, particularly in Athens, a permanently living in each city stranger who is not a civil right (and thus no political participation rights ) owned, but mostly was also Greek. The metics in Athens had a special tax ( μετοίκιον metoikion, probably a drachma a month) and were paid for under a certain degree of protection of the state. In court and in legal transactions metics had to be represented by a citizen. They could acquire no property in Athens and were, therefore, mostly active in trade and commerce, but the way people were used for military service. Metics were able to gain the rights of citizenship by a resolution of the National Assembly for their outstanding merits. In the Hellenistic period was more frequently reported by a department of the civil law.

Similar legal restrictions were subject to the Perioeci in Sparta.

The word lives in the pejorative French Meteque and closely related languages ​​( Catalan: metec; Occitan: metec ) denotes a continuous and unloved stranger. Become particularly well known in the German area, this French term by the same name by Georges Moustaki Chanson Le Meteque.