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Development of history of the Polis

Polis was developed in this space but it turned out to be too long to include the history. Unless there is disagreement, that circumstance calls for a new article, History of the polis, which I am currently developing here now.Botteville (talk) 03:23, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Introduction

History of the polis
Native name Error {{native name list}}: an IETF language tag in |tag1= is required (help)
Acrocorinth, the akropolis ("city heights") of Corinth, the polis that governed the Isthmus of Corinth over which ships could be dragged to prevent a more dangerous sail around the Peloponnesus (today they pass through the Corinth Canal). A Dorian city, its constitution allowed it to develop an international, diverse culture, in opposition to Sparta, also ethnically Dorian, the severe military state located a few miles away.
The network of ancient Greek-speaking microstates.
Type	Network of microstates
Etymology	Walled place
Location	Mainland Greece, the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas

The modern Greece of record, often termed the Greek Republic, is a nation speaking Greek as a national language, possessing national borders delimiting a national territory governed by a single government obeying a single constitution. Greece is a traditional exonymn, the endonym being Hellas. The population calls itself the Hellenes. They are recognized as a sovereign nation by other nations. They regard their country as a patris, "fatherland," toward which they feel patriotism, and for which they are willing to fight and die if required.

This being the age of nations, most of the world's populations are distributed to nations. Some of these are very ancient, descending out of prehistoric times, such as Egypt, Assyria, Persia, China, and Judaea. Examining a map of ancient nations one may find colored areas represemting the national borders and national presence of each one. Those looking for an ancient nation of Greece, however, will not find it. If Greece is to be regarded as the name of a country, then ancient Greece is meaningless. There was none.

This fact is beyond expectation to modern audiences. There is no problem finding an ancient Egypt or an ancient China. They had national borders. Going back in the history of Greece one loses the Greek national borders. Greek-speaking people do not seem to be confined to a delimited country. They are found almost everywhere on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. They are not in a single country or under a single government. They behave quite independently.

They do recognize a common ethnicity, Hellenes, refering to places where the language is spoken as Hellas. Throughout the network of ancient Greece, the Hellenes struggled with the idea of incipient nationalism in the form of alliances and of regions subordinate to imperial victors. In the end the poleis were replaced by the nations. The thinly-spread shoreline poleis became easy targets for larger tribal conglomerates developing inland.

Certain demographic names of people acting with geopolitical authority in the history preempt any such opinion that the ancient Greeks were anarchists acting together impromptu without law or authority: the Athenians, the Spartans, the Macedonians, the Syracusians, the Massiliotes. Not even the two ancient political scientists with surviving works of most respect: Thucydides and Aristotle, who both promulgated models that society grew into being by the orderly conglomeration of isolated families, dared to cite any peoples then in such a deficit of law and order. Their suppositions were entirly hypothetical. Instead, the major authoritative unit of the ancient Greek society of which they knew and wrote was the polis, plural poleis. There are but few works touching on political science that do not include in their beginning Aristotle's famous definition of man as a "political animal" (politikov zoon}, or animal that dwells in poleis. The polis then was an alternative analog to the country of today or then; i.e., a kind of native land.

Description of the poleis

There have been a number of models of the poleis, then and now, none of which give a full and satisfactory definition of its mandatory features. Currently a new model has been promulgated that regards the polis as a miniaturization of what we know as a country: the micro-state. It has the necessary features for being a country, but they are squeezed into a small territory. This is not necessarily a city-state, as it might not be either a city or a fully independent state.

A recent study .... (size, number, distribution)

Condiderig the small size of the polis with regard to the country, the question of what distinguishes a polis from other kinds of settlement has been often debated. As it turns out, there are some city-states today that are smaller than the larger poleis. Some other types of settlement were suburbs, ports, emporia, military bases. Aristotle's definition of the mandatory features of a polis is still without equal today.

A polis had to have a time, a place, and a constitution.

Pre-Greek period

Bronze-Age remnants

Daugmales pilskalns, a hill-fort in Latvia occupied from about 2000 BC, the Indo-European period. The settlement was over the walled summit of the hill.

Lithuanian Daugavpils, "Pilis on the Daugava," (castle gate), etymological cousin of the original Greek polis.

Greek "polis" developed in Greece in conjunction with the evolution of the Greek language there from the earliest Indo-European (IE)-speaking entrants. The late IE root is *pel-, that which is "tossed up" in the sense of "walls." Etymologically the polis is a walled enclosure, not necessarily on an elevation, although it is now known that the westward-migrating IE built walled enclosures on elevations. The original application necessarily precedes Greek culture, but also has nothing to do with the classical development of its usage in Greece. Some other survivals of the IE word are Indic pur and Lithuanian pilis. One supposes that a new IE settlement built a fort for defense if it was needed, and that the fort also housed the marketplace and the tribal government.

Europe is still dotted with the remnants of many thousands of IE hillforts. The largest percentage of them were also occupied into times when the daughter cultures developed. New ones came into residence long after the period when IE was spoken. In the Middle Ages they were supplanted by hill towns for the defense of larger populations.

See also: Lists of hillforts

.

Life in the polis

• Agora: the social hub and financial marketplace, on and around a large centrally located open space
• Acropolis: the citadel, inside which a temple had replaced the erstwhile Mycenaean anáktoron (palace) or mégaron (hall)

Gymnasia

Might be in a smaller space than a polis or not there at all.

Theatres

Might be in a smaller space than a polis or not there at all.

Walls: used for protection from invaders

Sparta notoriously had no walls, relied on the home army.

Coins: minted by the city, and bearing its symbols

Again, pretty fancy for back-country poleis. No ref. A few had coinage, the rest used their coinage.

I suppose it depends on what you will admit was a polis. What about the dependent poleis? Anway the minting of coinage is not something every polis could do. It is not a diagnostic of polis. If it were then all the poleis that preceded coinage must not have been poleis. Although coinage is an interesting topic per se and coinage is often used to date various poleis I think that is a separate topic altogether.Botteville (talk) 17:27, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

• Greek urban planning and architecture, public, religious, and private (see Hippodamian plan)
• Temples, altars, and sacred precincts: one or more are dedicated to the poliouchos, the patron deity of the city; each polis kept its own particular festivals and customs (Political religion, as opposed to the individualized religion of later antiquity). Priests and priestesses, although often drawn from certain families by tradition, did not form a separate collegiality or class; they were ordinary citizens who on certain occasions were called to perform certain functions.

The end of the polis

During the Hellenistic period, which marks the decline of the classical polis, the following cities remained independent: Sparta until 195 BC after the War against Nabis. Achaean League is the last example of original Greek city-state federations (dissolved after the Battle of Corinth (146 BC)). The Cretan city-states continued to be independent (except Itanus and Arsinoe, which lay under Ptolemaic influence) until the conquest of Crete in 69 BC by Rome. The cities of Magna Graecia, with the notable examples of Syracuse and Tarentum, were conquered by Rome in the late 3rd century BC. There are also some cities with recurring independence like Samos, Priene, Miletus, and Athens. A remarkable example of a city-state that flourished during this era is Rhodes, through its merchant navy, until 43 BC and the Roman conquest.

The Hellenistic colonies and cities of the era retain some basic characteristics of a polis, except the status of independence (city-state) and the political life. There is self-governance (like the new Macedonian title politarch), but under a ruler and king. The political life of the classical era was transformed into an individualized religious and philosophical view of life (see Hellenistic philosophy and religion). Demographic decline forced the cities to abolish the status of metic and bestow citizenship; in 228 BC, Miletus enfranchised over 1,000 Cretans. Dyme sold its citizenship for one talent, payable in two installments. The foreign residents in a city are now called paroikoi. In an age when most political establishments in Asia are kingdoms, the Chrysaorian League in Caria was a Hellenistic federation of poleis.

During the Roman era, some cities were granted the status of a polis, or free city, self-governed under the Roman Empire. The last institution commemorating the old Greek poleis was the Panhellenion, established by Hadrian.

The search for the ideal state

Plato's republic

Plato analyzes the polis in the Republic, the Greek title of which, Πολιτεία (Politeia), itself derives from the word polis. The best form of government of the polis for Plato is the one that leads to the common good. The philosopher king is the best ruler because, as a philosopher, he is acquainted with the Form of the Good. In Plato's analogy of the ship of state, the philosopher king steers the polis, as if it were a ship, in the best direction.

Books II–IV of The Republic are concerned with Plato addressing the makeup of an ideal polis. In The Republic, Socrates is concerned with the two underlying principles of any society: mutual needs and differences in aptitude. Starting from these two principles, Socrates deals with the economic structure of an ideal polis. According to Plato there are five main economic classes of any polis: producers, merchants, sailors/shipowners, retail traders and wage earners. Along with the two principles and five economic classes, there are four virtues. The four virtues of a "just city" are wisdom, courage, moderation and justice. With all of these principles, classes and virtues, it was believed that a "just city" (polis) would exist.

The polis abroad

During the Hellenistic period, which marks the decline of the classical polis, the following cities remained independent: Sparta until 195 BC after the War against Nabis. Achaean League is the last example of original Greek city-state federations (dissolved after the Battle of Corinth (146 BC)). The Cretan city-states continued to be independent (except Itanus and Arsinoe, which lay under Ptolemaic influence) until the conquest of Crete in 69 BC by Rome. The cities of Magna Graecia, with the notable examples of Syracuse and Tarentum, were conquered by Rome in the late 3rd century BC. There are also some cities with recurring independence like Samos, Priene, Miletus, and Athens. A remarkable example of a city-state that flourished during this era is Rhodes, through its merchant navy, until 43 BC and the Roman conquest.

The Hellenistic colonies and cities of the era retain some basic characteristics of a polis, except the status of independence (city-state) and the political life. There is self-governance (like the new Macedonian title politarch), but under a ruler and king. The political life of the classical era was transformed into an individualized religious and philosophical view of life (see Hellenistic philosophy and religion). Demographic decline forced the cities to abolish the status of metic and bestow citizenship; in 228 BC, Miletus enfranchised over 1,000 Cretans. Dyme sold its citizenship for one talent, payable in two installments. The foreign residents in a city are now called paroikoi. In an age when most political establishments in Asia are kingdoms, the Chrysaorian League in Caria was a Hellenistic federation of poleis.

During the Roman era, some cities were granted the status of a polis, or free city, self-governed under the Roman Empire. The last institution commemorating the old Greek poleis was the Panhellenion, established by Hadrian.

Citation references

• Coulanges, Fustal de (1901). The Ancient City: Study of the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome (PDF). Translated by Small, Willard (10th ed.). Boston: : Lee and Shepard.
• Fowler, W.Warde (1895). The City-State of the Greeks and Romans: A Survey Introductory to the Study of Ancient History (Reprint ed.). London; New York: MacMillan and Co.
• Hansen, M.H. (2004). "Introduction". In Hansen, M.H.; Nielsen, T.H. (eds.). An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (PDF). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Hansen, M.H. (2008). "An Update on the Shotgun Method". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 48.
• Sakellariou, Μ.Β. (1989). The Polis-State Definition And Origin (PDF). ΜΕΛΕΤΗΜΑΤΑ 4. Athens: Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity National Hellenic Research Foundation.
• Voegelin, Eric (1957). The World of the Polis. Order and History, Volume Two. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.
• Watkins, Calvert (2009a). "Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans". The American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed.). Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 2007–2015.
• Watkins, Calvert (2009b). "Appendix I: Indo-European Roots". The American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed.). Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 2020–2055.

History of the polis

Archaic and classical poleis

• Agora: the social hub and financial marketplace, on and around a large centrally located open space
• Acropolis: the citadel, inside which a temple had replaced the erstwhile Mycenaean anáktoron (palace) or mégaron (hall)
• Greek urban planning and architecture, public, religious, and private (see Hippodamian plan)
• Temples, altars, and sacred precincts: one or more are dedicated to the poliouchos, the patron deity of the city; each polis kept its own particular festivals and customs (Political religion, as opposed to the individualized religion of later antiquity). Priests and priestesses, although often drawn from certain families by tradition, did not form a separate collegiality or class; they were ordinary citizens who on certain occasions were called to perform certain functions.
• Gymnasia
• Theatres
• Walls: used for protection from invaders
• Coins: minted by the city, and bearing its symbols
• Colonies being founded by the oikistes of the metropolis
• Political life: it revolved around the sovereign Ekklesia (the assembly of all adult male citizens for deliberation and voting), the standing boule and other civic or judicial councils, the archons and other officials or magistrates elected either by vote or by lot, clubs, etc., and sometimes punctuated by stasis (civil strife between parties, factions or socioeconomic classes, e.g., aristocrats, oligarchs, democrats, tyrants, the wealthy, the poor, large, or small landowners, etc.). They practised direct democracy.
• Publication of state functions: laws, decrees, and major fiscal accounts were published, and criminal and civil trials were also held in public.
• Synoecism, conurbation: Absorption of nearby villages and countryside, and the incorporation of their tribes into the substructure of the polis. Many of a polis' citizens lived in the suburbs or countryside. The Greeks regarded the polis less as a territorial grouping than as a religious and political association: while the polis would control territory and colonies beyond the city itself, the polis would not simply consist of a geographical area. Most cities were composed of several tribes or phylai, which were in turn composed of phratries (common-ancestry lineages), and finally génea (extended families).
• Social classes and citizenship: Dwellers of the polis were generally divided into four types of inhabitants, with status typically determined by birth:
  • Citizens with full legal and political rights: that is, free adult men born legitimately of citizen parents. They had the right to vote, be elected into office, and bear arms, and the obligation to serve when at war.
    • Ephebos
  • Citizens without formal political rights but with full legal rights: the citizens' female relatives and underage children, whose political rights and interests were meant to be represented by their adult male relatives.
  • Citizens of other poleis who chose to reside elsewhere (the metics, μέτοικοι, métoikoi, literally "transdwellers"): though free-born and possessing full rights in their place of origin, they had full legal rights but no political rights in their place of residence. Metics could not vote or be elected to office. A liberated slave was likewise given a metic's status if he chose to remain in the polis, at least that was the case in Athens. They otherwise had full personal and property rights, albeit subject to taxation.

Polis during Hellenistic and Roman times

During the Hellenistic period, which marks the decline of the classical polis, the following cities remained independent: Sparta until 195 BC after the War against Nabis. Achaean League is the last example of original Greek city-state federations (dissolved after the Battle of Corinth (146 BC)). The Cretan city-states continued to be independent (except Itanus and Arsinoe, which lay under Ptolemaic influence) until the conquest of Crete in 69 BC by Rome. The cities of Magna Graecia, with the notable examples of Syracuse and Tarentum, were conquered by Rome in the late 3rd century BC. There are also some cities with recurring independence like Samos, Priene, Miletus, and Athens. A remarkable example of a city-state that flourished during this era is Rhodes, through its merchant navy, until 43 BC and the Roman conquest.

The Hellenistic colonies and cities of the era retain some basic characteristics of a polis, except the status of independence (city-state) and the political life. There is self-governance (like the new Macedonian title politarch), but under a ruler and king. The political life of the classical era was transformed into an individualized religious and philosophical view of life (see Hellenistic philosophy and religion). Demographic decline forced the cities to abolish the status of metic and bestow citizenship; in 228 BC, Miletus enfranchised over 1,000 Cretans. Dyme sold its citizenship for one talent, payable in two installments. The foreign residents in a city are now called paroikoi. In an age when most political establishments in Asia are kingdoms, the Chrysaorian League in Caria was a Hellenistic federation of poleis.

During the Roman era, some cities were granted the status of a polis, or free city, self-governed under the Roman Empire. The last institution commemorating the old Greek poleis was the Panhellenion, established by Hadrian.

Further reading

• Ando, Clifford. 1999. "Was Rome a Polis?". Classical Antiquity 18.1: 5–34.
• Brock, R., and S. Hodkinson, eds. 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organisation and Community in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Davies, J. K. 1977–1978. "Athenian Citizenship: The Descent Group and the Alternatives." Classical Journal 73.2: 105–121.
• Hall, J. M. 2007. "Polis, Community and Ethnic Identity." In The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece. Edited by H. A. Shapiro, 40–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hansen, M. H., and T. H. Nielsen, eds. 2004. An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Hansen, M. H., ed. 1993. The Ancient Greek City-State: Symposium on the Occasion of the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, July 1–4, 1992. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
• Hansen, M. H. 1999. The Athenian Democracy in the age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles and Ideology. 2nd ed. London: Bristol Classical Press.
• Hansen, M. H., ed. 1997. The Polis as an Urban Centre and Political Community. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
• Jones, N. F. 1987. Public Organization in Ancient Greece: A Documentary Study. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
• Kraay, C. M. 1976. Archaic and Classical Greek Coins. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Millar, F. G. B. 1993. "The Greek City in the Roman Period". In The Ancient Greek City-State: Symposium on the Occasion of the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, July 1–4, 1992. Edited by M. H. Hansen, 232–260. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
• Osborne, R. 2009. Greece in the Making. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
• Polignac, F. de. 1995. Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-State. Translated by J. Lloyd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• van der Vliet, E. 2012. "The Durability and Decline of Democracy in Hellenistic Poleis". Mnemosyne 65.4–5: 771–786.