Mĕtoeci
（μέτοικοι). The name given at Athens to aliens (other than slaves) resident in Attica. When the State was most flourishing, they numbered 10,000 adult men (B.C. 309). The favourable position of Athens for commerce and the rich opportunities for carrying on trade and for selling merchandise induced both Greeks and barbarians to settle there. The Athenians besides had the reputation among the Greeks of being friendly towards foreigners. For the legal protection granted them by the State, they paid a sum of twelve drachmae ($2) annually for each man, and half as much for each independent woman; and they had to choose a patron (προστάτης) to conduct their dealings with the State in all public and private affairs—e. g. the bringing of an action. Whoever failed to do the one or the other was summoned before a law court, and, if guilty, sold as a slave. They were prohibited from marrying citizens and from obtaining landed property; but they could follow any trade they pleased, on payment of a tax (μετοίκιον). They also had to pay the extraordinary taxes for war (εἰσφοραί and λειτουργίαι), and were obliged to serve either in the fleet or in the army; they might be hoplites, but not knights. At festivals (e. g. the Panathenaea) it was their duty to follow the processions, carrying sunshades, pitchers, and bowls or trays filled with honey or cakes. A decree of the people could, in return for special services, confer on them the ἰσοτέλεια, which placed them on a level with the citizens with regard to liturgies, or public burdens, freed them from the necessity of having a patron or paying a tax for protection, and gave them the right of holding property in land and of transacting business with the people or the authorities without an intermediary; but even this privileged class did not possess the active rights of a citizen.Resident aliens were found in most other cities and States besides Athens. (See the list given by Schenkl in the Wiener Studien for 1880, ii. pp. 163 foll.) At Sparta, however, they were not allowed to settle (Resp. Lac. xiv. 4), and so, possibly, Apollonia (V. H. xiii. 16).