This book examines how the various groups of people of which the polis of Classical Athens was composed got on together--or failed to do so. The authors collectively bring out what was distinctive about life in an ancient Greek city that was unusual both in its size and social complexity and in the extent of the democracy it practiced. The emphasis is broadly on the great success of the Athenians" communal experiment but tensions and fissures arising from religious, sexual, economic and political differences are not elided or glossed over.