<P> It can be argued that this growth of slavery was what made Greeks particularly conscious of the value of freedom . After all, any Greek farmer might fall into debt and therefore might become a slave, at almost any time...When the Greeks fought together, they fought in order to avoid being enslaved by warfare, to avoid being defeated by those who might take them into slavery . And they also arranged their political institutions so as to remain free men . </P> <P> The Greek sense of the polis, in which citizenship and the rule of law prevailed, was an important strategic advantage for the Greeks during their wars with Persia . </P> <P> The polis was grounded in nomos, the rule of law, which meant that no man--no matter who he might be--was master, and all men were subject to the same rules . Any leader who set himself above the law was reckoned to be a tyrannos--a tyrant . It was also grounded in the notion of citizenship--the idea that every man born from the blood of the community has a share in power and responsibility . This notion that...the proper way for us to live is as citizens in communities under the rule of law...is an idea originated by the Greeks and bequeathed by them as their greatest contribution to the rest of mankind and history . It meant that Greeks were willing to live, fight, and die for their poleis...</P> <P> Greeks could see the benefits of having slaves, since their labor permitted slaveowners to have substantial free time, enabling participation in public life . While Greeks were spread out in many separate city - states, they had many things in common in addition to shared ideas about citizenship: the Mediterranean trading world, kinship ties, the common Greek language, a shared hostility to the so - called non-Greek - speaking or barbarian peoples, belief in the prescience of the oracle at Delphi, and later on the early Olympic Games which involved generally peaceful athletic competitions between city - states . City - states often feuded with each other; one view was that regular wars were necessary to perpetuate citizenship, since the seized goods and slaves helped make the city - state rich, and that a long peaceful period meant ruin for citizenship . </P>

Who was considered to be a citizen in ancient greece