While the term neoi is generally used in Greek literature to designate young people, as opposed to gerontes, or middle-aged men, it also defines, in the institutions of Hellenistic cities, a category that clearly distinguishes young citizens, aged between 20 and 30 , from epheboi, or young people who have reached the age of citizenship, between 18 and 20 . For a period of ten years, the neoi thus formed a distinct group within the civic body. This observation led Riet Van Bremen to take issue with the famous " Chasseur noir " model described by Pierre Vidal Naquet, according to whom, as we know, ephebia was a rite of passage at the end of which young men found themselves fully integrated into the civic body : for the passage from ephebia to citizenship turns out to have been, in reality, a long process.
We now know of more than fifty cities where epigraphy attests to the existence of neoi corps. They appear to have been associated with the gymnasium, the agonistic world and military activities. The neoi in arms, referred to as neaniskoi, constituted an important fighting force (as recent research has clearly shown). On the political level, civic decrees often mention them in formulas such as ho neoi eipan, " the neoi made the proposal ".
