metics

metics (mğtoikoi), in the Greek city-states, voluntary resident aliens who had acquired a recognized status in the community; those at Athens, where very large numbers were resident, are best known. Metics enjoyed full civil rights (as opposed to political rights, which they did not possess) except that they could not own land or contract legal marriages with citizens. As a class they concentrated on commercial and industrial activities, and carried on important businesses as bankers, shipowners, importers, and contractors. Some were physicians, philosophers, sophists, and orators (e.g. Aristotle, Protagoras, Lysias); the comic poets Antiphanēs and Philemon were metics.