Sharing in the Polis: Greek Terms for Equality and Fairness

This article examines the Greek collocation isei kai homoiai (ἴσῃ καὶ ὁμοίᾳ, “on equal and like [terms]”) as a key idiom through which ancient communities articulated equality, fairness, and civic integration from the Archaic to the early Hellenistic period. Literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence show that the pairing of isos and homoios expresses a horizontal, relational conception of the civic body rather than proportional hierarchy. First securely attested in the mid-fifth century BCE yet already fully formed, the formula appears mainly in prescriptive contexts—foundations, synoikismoi, exile returns, citizenship grants, and interstate agreements—often linked to lotteries institutionalizing equal civic standing. Its wide diffusion reveals equality as an operative civic value predating democratic theory.