Concept

Polis

Overview

A polis (pl.: poleis) was any Ancient Greek city-state. The ancient word polis had socio-political connotations not possessed by modern usage. For example, Modern Greek πόλη (póli), "city", is located within a χώρα (chóra), "country", which is a πατρίδα (patrída) or "native land" for its citizens. In ancient Greece, the polis was the native land; there was no other. It had a constitution and demanded the supreme loyalty of its citizens. Χώρα was only the countryside, not a country. Ancient Greece was not a sovereign country; rather, it was territory occupied by Hellenic people, those who claimed as their native language some dialect of Ancient Greek.

Poleis did not only exist within the area of the modern Republic of Greece. A collaborative study carried by the Copenhagen Polis Centre from 1993 to 2003 classified about 1,500 settlements of the Archaic and Classical ancient-Greek-speaking population as poleis. These ranged from the Caucasus to Southern Spain, and from Southern Russia to Northern Egypt, spread over the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. They have been termed a network of micro-states. Many of the settlements still exist, such as Marseille and Syracuse, but they are no longer Greek or micro-states, belonging to other countries.

The ancient Greek world was split between homeland regions and colonies. A colony was generally sent out by a single polis to relieve the population or some social crisis or seek out more advantageous country. It was called a metropolis or "mother city". The Greeks were careful to identify the homeland region and the metropolis of a colony. Typically a metropolis could count on the socio-economic and military support of its colonies, but not always. The homeland regions were located on the Greek mainland. Each gave an ethnic or "racial" name to its population and poleis. Acarnania, for example, was the location of the Acarnanian people and poleis. A colony from there would then be considered Acarnanian, no matter how far away from Acarnania it was. Colonization was thus the main method of spreading Greek poleis and culture.

Ancient Greeks did not reserve the term polis solely for Greek-speaking settlements. For example, Aristotle's study of the polis names also Carthage, comparing its constitution to that of Sparta. Carthage was a Phoenician-speaking city. Many nominally Greek colonies also included municipalities of non-Greek speakers, such as Syracuse.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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That society then which nature has established for daily support is the domestic, and those who compose it are called by Charondas _homosipuoi_, and by Epimenides the Cretan _homokapnoi_; but the society of many families, which was first instituted for their lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most naturally composed of the descendants of one family, whom some persons call homogalaktes…
Aristotle, Politics
States what Polis is; the author is tied to Polis in the knowledge graph.
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ATHENIAN: Very good, Cleinias; and now let us all three consider a further point. CLEINIAS: What is it? ATHENIAN: That all the matters which we are now describing are commonly called by the general name of unwritten customs, and what are termed the laws of our ancestors are all of similar nature. And the reflection which lately arose in our minds, that we can neither call these things laws, nor yet leave them…
Plato, Laws
States what Polis is; the author is tied to Polis in the knowledge graph.
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Amphīon, the district of Thebes between the rivers Strophia and Ismenus (Pausan. ix. 16 and 17), 10. Amphipolis, a town of Macedon on the Strymon, taken by Brasidas in 424, 175 _n._ Amphitheüs, a Theban patriot, imprisoned by the Polemarchs, 11, 29, 43, 50. Amphitryon, father of Hercules, 13.
Plutarch, Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. II.
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Philosophers who discussed Polis

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Doxa

Place in the tradition

Part of Anaximander.

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