API tools faq
paste
jonstond2

Polis (Classics)

jonstond2
Feb 15th, 2017
568
0
Never
Add comment
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!
text 120.80 KB | None | 0 0
raw download clone embed print report
  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. The polis (plural poleis), or city-state, was the dominant political unit in the ancient Greek world. It was commonly agreed that a polis is a community of citizens organized under a constitution, usually based in an urban center. The polis phenomenon endured throughout Antiquity, from the Archaic period onward. Although Hellenistic monarchies and then the Roman Empire came to dominate the Greek world after the Classical period (from c. 337 BCE onward), poleis remained vital and influential parts of the political landscape, as much recent scholarship on relevant periods has emphasized. At any one time across that span many hundreds of poleis could be found across the Greek world, many of which had very small populations (perhaps only a few thousand adult male citizens, plus their dependents and slaves and some resident foreigners). Much of the evidence for the classical polis (c. 480–337 BCE) derives from the Athenian democracy. The Athenian democracy therefore features prominently in this article. For later periods in particular, however, the range of evidence creates great scope, much still unexplored, for research into the nature and development of the polis across a very wide geographical span, something which this article attempts to bring out. Although this article concentrates on the physical and practical aspects of poleis, attention is also given to studies of the role of the polis as an ideal, metaphor, or framework for thought in Greek philosophy and literature. This article places an overall emphasis on more recent studies, but most of the works cited can be consulted for references to earlier bibliography. In the thematic sections (e.g., on economics and religion), the focus is on works that directly address the relation between the polis and those areas of life. It is stated in the annotations when a work is particularly accessible or valuable for undergraduates, but most of the items that are included can be read with profit by advanced undergraduates and postgraduates.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
  6.  
  7. These volumes provide a wide-ranging overview of the character and development of the Greek polis. Hansen 2006 gives a basic introduction to the ways in which the ancient Greeks conceived of the polis. The papers in Hansen 1993 and Hansen 1997 offer a good introduction to the polis in theory and practice and to the development of the polis in different periods. For the post-classical period, Jones 1940 and Rostovtzeff 1941 still offer wide-ranging and stimulating, and competing, syntheses. The papers collected in Murray and Price 1990, Flensted-Jensen, et al. 2000, and Brock and Hodkinson 2000 offer a good sense of the diversity of forms that the polis could take. All three volumes, especially Brock and Hodkinson 2000, also reveal how it is possible to use the available evidence to look beyond classical Athens in building up a picture of the complexity of the polis phenomenon across the Greek world.
  8.  
  9. Brock, R., and S. Hodkinson, eds. 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of political organisation and community in ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  10. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  11. A stimulating collection of articles about the variety of forms of political organization adopted by Greek communities across the Mediterranean in the Archaic and classical periods. Structures discussed include diverse polis constitutions and political cultures, but also non-polis structures, especially ethnic and federal ones.
  12. Find this resource:
  13. Flensted-Jensen, P., T. Heine Nielsen, and L. Rubinstein, eds. 2000. Polis and politics: Studies in ancient Greek history presented to Mogens Herman Hansen on his sixtieth birthday, August 20, 2000. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
  14. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  15. This volume collects many useful studies of aspects of the history of Greek civic politics and political institutions as well as some interesting papers challenging orthodox interpretations.
  16. Find this resource:
  17. 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.
  18. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  19. The chapters in this volume constitute a useful chronological survey of the development of the polis in different periods. Studies of particular periods or phenomena are accompanied by discussions of Greek ideas about the polis and its relationship with society and the economy.
  20. Find this resource:
  21. Hansen, M. H., ed. 1997. The polis as an urban centre and political community. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
  22. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  23. In this collection of papers, the authors analyze the polis as a physical, urban entity, with an often complex geographical and demographic structure. It includes a range of regional case studies.
  24. Find this resource:
  25. Hansen, M. H. 2006. Polis: An introduction to the ancient Greek city-state. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  26. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  27. An accessible introduction to the institutions and history of the polis, suitable for all students, that gives a sense of the geographical extent of the phenomenon and the variety of its forms. It also offers a useful introduction to questions of civic population and demography.
  28. Find this resource:
  29. Jones, A. H. M. 1940. The Greek city from Alexander to Justinian. Oxford: Clarendon.
  30. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  31. A classic history of the development and spread of the Greek city after the classical period, with good treatment of social and economic issues and the role of the polis in the Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic Near East. Jones often emphasizes decline and crisis in the post-classical polis, in a way now often challenged.
  32. Find this resource:
  33. Murray, O., and S. R. F. Price. 1990. The Greek city from Homer to Alexander. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  34. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  35. A collection of influential and thought-provoking articles about how to interpret the Archaic and classical polis, drawing extensively on anthropology, political theory, and the social sciences.
  36. Find this resource:
  37. Rostovtzeff, M. I. 1941. The social and economic history of the Hellenistic world. Oxford: Clarendon.
  38. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  39. A classic, wide-ranging survey of the social and economic history of the Hellenistic world (from Alexander to Augustus) across the eastern Mediterranean, that pays much attention to civic life. It often offers a more optimistic view of the post-classical polis than Jones 1940. Scholars have challenged many of its arguments, such as its identification of something like a Hellenistic civic bourgeoisie, but it remains a central work.
  40. Find this resource:
  41. Reference Works
  42.  
  43. Hansen and Nielsen 2004 represents an indispensable catalogue of known poleis of the Archaic and Classical periods, with an entry for each polis, containing basic information about sources, constitution, history, and culture. The research project that created this resource also published many useful studies of the polis and Greek political ideas, in the series Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre, included in this section; many individual articles or volumes from that series are included in the different sections here. No equivalent is available for the post-classical period, but Cohen 1995, Cohen 2006, and Cohen 2012 collect the evidence for new polis foundations in the Hellenistic period. Busolt 1920–1926 remains a significant work of reference for the constitutions of poleis.
  44.  
  45. Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
  46. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  47. This series includes the papers and volumes arising from the Copenhagen Polis Project, which involved the comprehensive collaborative research into the poleis of the different regions of the Greek world which led to Hansen and Nielsen 2004. A list of the publications of this project is available online.
  48. Find this resource:
  49. Busolt, G. 1920–1926. Griechische Staatskunde. 2 vols. Edited by H. Swoboda. Munich: Beck.
  50. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  51. Systematic treatment of Greek constitutions and accompanying institutions and law, with an emphasis on the classical period and on Athens and Sparta.
  52. Find this resource:
  53. Cohen, G. M. 1995. The Hellenistic settlements in Europe, the islands, and Asia Minor. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  54. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  55. The evidence for Asia Minor is particularly rich. The volume includes a helpful introduction to the sources and problems. The introduction also discusses wider issues concerning the nature, status, and civic life of new city foundations in the Hellenistic period, such as the role of Alexander the Great and his legacy.
  56. Find this resource:
  57. Cohen, G. M. 2006. The Hellenistic settlements in Syria, the Red Sea Basin, and North Africa. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  58. DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520241480.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  59. This volume offers an excellent guide to the known new Hellenistic polis foundations in the Levant and North Africa. In the course of the catalogue, the volume examines the evidence and its problems, as well as addressing the political and social importance and functioning of the new foundations.
  60. Find this resource:
  61. Cohen, G. M. 2012. The Hellenistic settlements in the east from Armenia and Mesopotamia to Bactria and India. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  62. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  63. Cohen concludes the trilogy by examining the known new Hellenistic city foundations in the Middle East and Central and South Asia.
  64. Find this resource:
  65. Hansen, M. H., and T. H. Nielsen, eds. 2004. An inventory of Archaic and classical poleis. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  66. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  67. An indispensable work of reference, this volume catalogues all the Greek settlements that can be confidently identified as poleis in the Archaic and classical periods. In addition to detailed information about the evidence for each polis in the inventory itself, the volume also includes introductory essays on varied topics (such as destructions of cities and relations of dependency between poleis).
  68. Find this resource:
  69. Sources
  70.  
  71. The polis is attested through a combination of literary texts, texts inscribed on stone, coins (see Literary Sources, Inscriptions, and Coins), and archaeological remains (see the Physical Polis). Whitehead 1994 reveals the rich diversity of the available evidence as well as the challenges involved in interpreting it.
  72.  
  73. Whitehead, D., ed. 1994. From political architecture to Stephanus Byzantius: Sources for the ancient Greek polis. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
  74. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  75. A collection of articles discussing the varied sources of evidence for the polis, including many relatively obscure ones, and their advantages and problems.
  76. Find this resource:
  77. Literary Sources
  78.  
  79. The polis features, as a context, influence, subject, or conceptual frame, in almost all the literary products of ancient Greece: epic and lyric poetry, tragedy and comedy, oratory, historiography, and philosophy. The works listed under General Overviews and Whitehead 1994 (cited under Sources) offer guidance concerning the literary sources for particular phenomena. Perhaps the most fundamental literary sources for polis institutions are Aristotle’s Politics, a theoretical treatment of the nature of politics, the good polis, and the good citizen, that is also extremely rich in detail about the institutions of classical poleis; and the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens, the only surviving example of the more than one hundred detailed accounts of the constitutions of individual cities produced by Aristotle’s school in the 4th century BCE. On these two works, Schütrumpf 1991–2005 and Rhodes 1981, respectively, offer very helpful commentaries. Perhaps the most vivid and influential account of the workings of polis institutions and debates in practice is Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, which offers a detailed account of poleis in crisis in Greece, the Aegean, and Sicily in the later 5th century BCE. Hornblower 1991–2008 offers an extremely rich commentary, including many discussions of Thucydides’ approach to democracy and civic politics.
  80.  
  81. Hornblower, S. 1991–2008. A commentary on Thucydides. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  82. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  83. An extremely rich and stimulating three-volume commentary, useful for undergraduates as well as more advanced students, on Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Each volume includes thematic essays in the introduction.
  84. Find this resource:
  85. Rhodes, P. J. 1981. A commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  86. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  87. A detailed commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia, which shows that ancient text to be both an indispensable source for the history and institutions of the Athenian democracy and a work of political analysis in itself.
  88. Find this resource:
  89. Schütrumpf, E. 1991–2005. Aristoteles Politik: Übersetzt und erläutert. 4 vols. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
  90. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  91. A four-volume commentary on Aristotle’s Politics, with a German translation of the text. The third volume is co-authored with H. J. Gehrke.
  92. Find this resource:
  93. Inscriptions
  94.  
  95. Texts inscribed on stone offer evidence for many different aspects of polis life. Poleis frequently inscribed their laws and decisions for public display. For the Archaic and classical periods, most preserved public inscriptions derive from Athens. These offer many insights into the development of democratic institutions and the role of writing and literacy within them. From the 4th century BCE onward, many poleis around the Mediterranean offer rich inscribed evidence for their civic life, especially political and legal institutions and interactions between the citizen-body and wealthy benefactors, for whom public honors were inscribed. Rhodes and Lewis 1997 offers a good guide to public decision making, and resulting inscriptions, across the Greek world. Private inscriptions, such as gravestones and epigrams, also offer important insights into the socioeconomic and cultural life of poleis. For the value of epigraphy in general as a source for Greek history, including the history of the polis, see the section on inscriptions in Chaniotis 2011 (cited under Hellenistic Polis), a separate Oxford Bibliographies Online article. Among the resources that the author selects there, the reader should note especially the collections of inscriptions from particular poleis and regions in the series Inscriptiones Graecae and Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien. Note also the annual reviews of newly published inscriptions and epigraphic publications in the Supplementum epigraphicum graecum and Bulletin épigraphique. The collected works of L. Robert and A. Wilhelm, also cited by Chaniotis, also contain much discussion of the epigraphic evidence for polis institutions and life across the ancient Greek world. In addition, particular collections of inscriptions illustrate vividly the civic life and politics of different periods. Koerner and Hallof 1993 and van Effenterre and Ruzé 1994 present revealing legal inscriptions from Archaic poleis. For its part, Rhodes and Osborne 2003 collects a representative sample of revealing inscriptions from the 4th century BCE, many of which illustrate the civic life of 4th-century poleis.
  96.  
  97. Koerner, R., and K. Hallof, ed. 1993. Inschriftliche Gesetzestexte der frühen griechischen Polis: Aus dem Nachlass von Reinhard Koerner. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag.
  98. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  99. A very helpful collection of inscribed early Greek laws, with German translations and extensive commentary. The collection gives a good sense of the complexity of early Greek experiments in law-making.
  100. Find this resource:
  101. Rhodes, P. J., with D. M. Lewis. 1997. The decrees of the Greek states. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  102. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  103. The authors in this volume collect and analyze, on the basis principally of the epigraphic evidence, the formal aspects of poleis’ public decisions or decrees, especially the formulae through which decrees were expressed and the institutional mechanisms underlying them.
  104. Find this resource:
  105. Rhodes, P. J., and R. G. Osborne. 2003. Greek historical inscriptions, 404–323 BC. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  106. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  107. A selection of the most interesting and significant Greek inscriptions from the 4th century BCE, each with a facing translation and commentary, accessible for undergraduates. This selection offers clear examples of many of the main types of civic inscription, such as laws, treaties, decrees in honor of individuals and groups, and records of civic reconciliation after unrest.
  108. Find this resource:
  109. van Effenterre, H., and F. Ruzé. 1994. Nomima: Recueil d’inscriptions politiques et juridiques de l’archaïsme grec. 2 vols. Rome: École française de Rome.
  110. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  111. A very rich and helpful collection of some of the most revealing political and legal inscriptions from the Archaic poleis, with French translation and detailed commentary. It illustrates the value of inscriptions as evidence for the development of Greek thinking about the nature of the polis, law, and citizenship.
  112. Find this resource:
  113. Coins
  114.  
  115. The other principal source of evidence for the polis comes in the form of coins. Kraay 1976 and Howgego 1985 show clearly how coins can illuminate not only the economic, but also the social and cultural life of poleis. Martin 1985 approaches the question of the connections between minting coins and polis sovereignty and power. For the coins of individual cities, consult the entries in Hansen and Nielsen 2004 (cited under Reference Works), citing the specialist bibliography for different cities and regions; see Kroll 1993 for a particular example.
  116.  
  117. Howgego, Christopher. 1985. Ancient history from coins. London: Routledge.
  118. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  119. A useful introduction, helpful for undergraduates, to the value of coins for reconstructing ancient history in general and the difficulties in doing so.
  120. Find this resource:
  121. Kraay, C. M. 1976. Archaic and classical Greek coins. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  122. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  123. An introduction to Archaic and classical Greek coins, which necessarily includes much discussion of Archaic and classical poleis.
  124. Find this resource:
  125. Kroll, J. H. 1993. Athenian Agora XXVI: The Greek coins. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
  126. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  127. The publication of the Greek coins discovered in the excavations of the Athenian agora.
  128. Find this resource:
  129. Martin, C. R. 1985. Sovereignty and coins in classical Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  130. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  131. This book offers a controversial argument against the view that coins were a key marker of the sovereignty of a polis or other political formation in classical or early Hellenistic Greece. The discussion concentrates on relations between Macedon and Thessaly in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE.
  132. Find this resource:
  133. The Origins of the Polis
  134.  
  135. Scholars have used literary, epigraphic, and especially archaeological evidence to develop competing explanations and models for the emergence of the Greek polis. Raaflaub 1993 and Snodgrass 1993 set out the nature of the evidence and its problems. Snodgrass 1980 (cited under Physical Polis) and Polignac 1995 have helped to provoke renewed debate about the nature and chronology of the emergence of the polis and its connections with culture and religion. Hall 2007 and the papers in Raaflaub and van Wees 2009 (cited under Archaic Polis) offer recent assessments of, and contributions to, these debates. Raaflaub 1997 and Raaflaub 2004 offer helpful treatments of factors that have been presented as central causes of the emergence of the polis, alongside religion and economics, namely warfare and influences from the Near East. This is a topic that requires giving attention to many different parts of the Greek world, including some that were relatively marginal in later periods of ancient Greek history; see, for example, Kotsonas 2002 on Crete.
  136.  
  137. Hall, J. M. 2007. A history of the Archaic Greek world. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  138. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  139. An accessible, clear, and engaging account of the Archaic Greek world and the methodological challenges of studying it, suitable for all students. Hall develops his own interpretation and chronology of the origins and development of the polis, arguing against the picture of a dramatic “rise of the polis” in the 8th century BCE. Instead, Hall emphasizes long, complicated processes of development, extending over several centuries (see especially chapter 4, pp. 68–95).
  140. Find this resource:
  141. Kotsonas, A. 2002. The rise of the polis in central Crete. Eulimene 3:37–74.
  142. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  143. Kotsonas takes the settlement patterns of central Crete, especially the region around Gortyn in the 7th century BCE, as a case study of the development of the polis through the aggregation of smaller settlements and communities, for complex political, military, economic, and religious reasons.
  144. Find this resource:
  145. Polignac, F. de. 1995. Cults, territory, and the origins of the Greek city-state. Translated by J. Lloyd. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
  146. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  147. English translation of a highly influential French work, originally published in 1984, that sets out an interpretation of the origins of the polis. The book stresses the role of cults, temples, and religious geography in the development of notions of polis territory and identity; sanctuaries outside urban centers are assigned a particularly important role as markers of borders and identities.
  148. Find this resource:
  149. Raaflaub, K. A. 1993. Homer to Solon: The rise of the polis: The written sources. 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, 41–105. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
  150. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  151. A helpful survey of the literary sources relevant to debates about the origins of the polis.
  152. Find this resource:
  153. Raaflaub, K. A. 1997. Soldiers, citizens, and the evolution of the early Greek polis. In The development of the polis in Archaic Greece. Edited by L. G. Mitchell and P. J. Rhodes, 49–58. London: Routledge.
  154. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  155. This chapter discusses the role of warfare in the development of the polis and the close intertwining of the roles and identities of the soldier and of the citizen. For these questions, see also the section Warfare, especially van Wees 2000, cited there.
  156. Find this resource:
  157. Raaflaub, K. A. 2004. Zwischen Ost und West: Phönizische Einflüsse auf die griechische Polisbildung? In Griechische Archaik: Interne Entwicklungen—Externe Impulse. Edited by R. Rollinger and C. Ulf, 271–289. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
  158. DOI: 10.1524/9783050080253Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  159. A critical analysis of the evidence and arguments for strong influence from the Near East, especially the Phoenician city-states, on the emergence of city-states in Greece. Raaflaub notes some parallels in civic structures that could well be due to Greek borrowing from the Near East at some stage in the Archaic period. However, he also argues for the distinctiveness of the Greek polis of citizen-soldiers and its characteristic ideology and institutions.
  160. Find this resource:
  161. Snodgrass, A. 1993. The rise of the polis: The archaeological evidence. 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, 30–40. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
  162. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  163. A useful introduction to the archaeological evidence relevant to debates about the origins of the polis.
  164. Find this resource:
  165. The Archaic Polis
  166.  
  167. A good introduction to almost all aspects of the polis in the Archaic period (c. 750–480 BCE), and modern debates about it, is offered in the articles in Mitchell and Rhodes 1997 and Raaflaub and van Wees 2009, which themselves contain much further bibliography. For a single synthesis of the Archaic period, with much attention to the emergence and development of the polis, see Osborne 2009; compare Hall 2007 (cited under the Origins of the Polis). For a clear and engaging overview of the best-documented example of the political development of a polis, see Stahl and Walter 2009 on Athens. One of the major debates about the Archaic polis concerns the claim that it can be seen as the site and product of intense competition between aristocratic elites and the nonelite majority, a controversial view propounded in (for example) Morris 2000; see Kistler 2004 and Hall 2007 (for example) for criticism and alternative views. A major phenomenon that shaped the development of the polis in varied ways was migration and the emergence of new poleis in previously peripheral areas, such as Sicily and southern Italy, from the 8th century BCE onward; on this see New Cities. Morgan 2003 shows the importance of studying non-, and especially supra-, polis structures in order to understand the Archaic polis, which often provided only one (if a very important one) of several “tiers of identity.”
  168.  
  169. Hall, J. M. 2007. Polis, community and ethnic identity. In The Cambridge companion to Archaic Greece. Edited by H. A. Shapiro, 40–60. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  170. DOI: 10.1017/CCOL9780521822008Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  171. An engaging introductory survey of the Archaic polis, commenting on prominent historical debates about the nature of identity and community formation.
  172. Find this resource:
  173. Kistler, E. 2004. Kampf der Mentalitäten: Ian Morris’ “elitist” versus “middling-ideology”? In Griechische Archaik: Interne Entwicklungen—Externe Impulse. Edited by R. Rollinger and Chr. Ulf, 145–175. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
  174. DOI: 10.1524/9783050080253Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  175. A critical analysis of I. Morris’s influential arguments about the social structure and civic ideology of the Archaic polis. Kistler discusses, for example, the complex range of meanings and adherents of ideals of moderation and self-control.
  176. Find this resource:
  177. Mitchell, L. G., and P. J. Rhodes. 1997. The development of the polis in Archaic Greece. London: Routledge.
  178. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  179. This volume offers a very rich account of the Archaic polis, addressing the most important aspects of the phenomenon in a way accessible for undergraduates. Note, for example, articles by Davies, Donlan, Raaflaub, and Salmon on the early polis, power, citizenship, and tyranny; Osborne on early law; Hodkinson on early Sparta; Harris, Foxhall, and Mitchell on Solon and his reforms; Morgan on the archaeological evidence; and Wilson on overseas settlement.
  180. Find this resource:
  181. Morgan, C. 2003. Early Greek states beyond the polis. London: Routledge.
  182. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  183. Morgan discusses not only alternatives to the polis, but also the enmeshing of the early polis with other political structures and identities, especially those of larger regional and/or ethnic political and cultural structures.
  184. Find this resource:
  185. Morris, I. 2000. Archaeology as cultural history: Words and things in Iron Age Greece. Oxford: Blackwell.
  186. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  187. This book synthesizes some of Morris’s own earlier arguments that Archaic Greece saw competition between elite and “middling” ideologies. For a critical discussion of Morris’s picture, including his detection of the egalitarian seeds of classical democracy in “middling” aspects of Archaic Greek culture, see, for example, Kistler 2004 and Hall 2007.
  188. Find this resource:
  189. Osborne, R. 2009. Greece in the making. 2d ed. London: Routledge.
  190. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  191. Engaging and argumentative introduction to Archaic Greece and the Archaic polis, suitable for all students, that skillfully synthesizes archaeological and literary evidence to develop a picture of the emergence of characteristic Greek institutions, including those of the polis. Includes helpful discussion of questions of Greek collective memory and approaches to the past and their role in the Archaic polis and its later reception and representation.
  192. Find this resource:
  193. Raaflaub, K., and H. van Wees, eds. 2009. A companion to Archaic Greece. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  194. DOI: 10.1002/9781444308761Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  195. A rich collection of essays on all aspects of Archaic Greek history in which the polis and its development feature prominently. The volume gives a good sense of current controversies and uncertainties.
  196. Find this resource:
  197. Stahl, M., and U. Walter. 2009. Athens. In A companion to Archaic Greece. Edited by K. Raaflaub and H. van Wees, 138–161. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  198. DOI: 10.1002/9781444308761Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  199. Clear and engaging overview of Athenian political history in the Archaic period, suitable for all students, debating whether a linear progress toward democracy can be detected. It refers to many other important items of bibliography on the problems in understanding the Archaic Athenian polis.
  200. Find this resource:
  201. The Classical Polis
  202.  
  203. For the classical period (c. 490–337 BCE), during which well-established poleis competed with one another for influence and often fluctuated between democratic and oligarchic constitutions, most of the precise evidence for internal polis life derives from the classical Athenian democracy. Ostwald 1986 and Hansen 1999 offer very clear guides to the Athenian democracy in the 5th and 4th centuries respectively, as well as influential and thought-provoking interpretations of Athenian political culture in those periods. It is, however, also possible to look beyond Athens, to oligarchic Sparta (see Cartledge 2002; also Hodkinson 2000, cited under Rule by Few) and also farther afield to less central cities, aspects of whose civic life emerge in the works of authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, and Aristotle and in inscriptions. In general on classical civic life beyond Athens and Sparta, see Gehrke 1986 and Carlier 1996.
  204.  
  205. Carlier, P., ed. 1996. Le IVe siècle av. J.-C.: Approches historiographiques. Paris: Boccard.
  206. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207. A rich collection of articles on 4th-century history across different regions. It includes interesting discussions not only of Athens and Sparta, but also of other poleis (such as Megalopolis in the Peloponnese or the cities of northern Greece and western Asia Minor). Some chapters also present unfamiliar sources for 4th-century civic life, such as archaeological evidence for civic houses or the work of Aeneas Tacticus, a writer on siegecraft.
  208. Find this resource:
  209. Cartledge, P. 2002. Sparta and Lakonia: A regional history, 1300–362 BC. London: Routledge.
  210. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  211. A comprehensive and engaging regional history of Sparta from prehistoric times to the 4th century BCE. Part 3 is on classical Lakonia. That discussion emphasizes the precariousness of the social and political system on which the classical Spartan polis was based, especially relations with the helots, and controversially identifies an atmosphere of crisis.
  212. Find this resource:
  213. Gehrke, H.-J. 1986. Jenseits von Athen und Sparta: Das dritte Griechenland und seine Staatenwelt. Munich: Beck.
  214. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  215. Gehrke shows well the existence and importance of a Greek “third world” in the classical period, one that existed beyond Athens and Sparta. He constructs a typology of small- and medium-sized poleis based on their economic features.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. Hansen, M. H. 1999. The Athenian democracy in the age of Demosthenes: Structure, principles and ideology. 2d ed. London: Bristol Classical Press.
  218. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  219. Hansen offers a lucid and wide-ranging survey of the 4th-century Athenian democracy, very helpful for all students. He also advocates a quite liberal democratic picture of the structure and functioning of the 4th-century democracy, which has been a subject of debate.
  220. Find this resource:
  221. Ostwald, M. 1986. From popular sovereignty to the sovereignty of law: Law, society, and politics in fifth-century Athens. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  222. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  223. Ostwald presents a history of 5th-century Athenian politics and political thought through the lens of ideas and practices concerning law and law-making. He identifies tensions and disagreements among Athenian citizens and intellectuals about the question whether law is or should be mutable, even by democratic decision, and argues that these had important consequences for 5th-century Athenian political history. The volume weaves together political and intellectual history to great effect.
  224. Find this resource:
  225. The Post-classical Polis
  226.  
  227. After long being overshadowed by the Archaic and classical polis, the post-classical polis (the polis after c. 337 BCE) is now a central topic of research in scholarship on the polis. Much of the leading past and present publications on the Hellenistic polis are in French, German, and Italian. The groundbreaking scholarship of the leading epigraphist L. Robert (see, for example, Robert 1969–1990 and Robert 2007) is greatly concerned with the epigraphy and geography of post-classical poleis, especially in Asia Minor, and what they reveal about civic life. Veyne 1990 offers a classic, controversial account of the role of elite benefactors throughout the life of the post-classical polis. Van Nijf and Alston 2011 offers a helpful and stimulating introduction to the issues, including reflection on what is distinctive about the “post-Classical” polis and its relevance for contemporary concerns. Martzavou and Papazarkadas 2013 constitutes a recent collection of studies that reveal different current approaches to inscriptions as evidence for the civic life and ideals of the post-classical polis.
  228.  
  229. Martzavou, P., and N. Papazarkadas, eds. 2013. Epigraphical approaches to the post-classical polis, fourth century BC to second century AD. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  230. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. A collection of articles that present case studies of the ways in which inscriptions illustrate and explain features of post-classical civic life, including law, diplomacy, euergetism, religion, and education. Several chapters argue for the value of inscriptions as an underexploited source for post-classical culture, values, and rhetoric as well as institutions and events. The introduction by Martzavou and Papazarkadas surveys current approaches, arguing that more attention should be given to dynamism and conflict within the post-classical polis.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Robert, L. 1969–1990. Opera minora selecta: Épigraphie et antiquités grecques. 7 vols. Amsterdam: Hakkert.
  234. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235. An extensive collection of Robert’s articles, many of which concern the post-classical polis.
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Robert, L. 2007. Choix d’écrits. Edited by Denis Rousset with the collaboration of Philippe Gauthier and Ivana Savalli-Lestrade. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
  238. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  239. A selection of twenty-four of Robert’s most important articles, many of which deal with the post-classical polis, especially in Asia Minor. Topics covered include the personal names, festivals, and judicial life of post-classical poleis.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. van Nijf, O., and R. Alston, eds. 2011. Political culture in the Greek city after the classical age. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  242. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  243. A collection of articles on the political culture of the post-classical polis, with strong discussion of mobility, euergetism, and the role of civic institutions. It includes an introduction by the editors and an epilogue by Alston, suitable for undergraduates, that discuss different possible theoretical approaches to the post-classical polis. Those parts also identify links with contemporary debates about inequality, multiculturalism, the relationship between culture and politics, and the condition of coming after (being post-. . .).
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Veyne, P. 1990. Bread and circuses: Historical sociology and political pluralism. Translated by B. Pearce. London: Allen Lane.
  246. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  247. The English translation of a highly influential French work of 1976 that identifies euergetism as the defining feature of the Hellenistic and Roman polis. It controversially argues that euergetism did not serve straightforward practical functions but should be seen as a symbolic expression of the social distance between elite and nonelite.
  248. Find this resource:
  249. The Hellenistic Polis
  250.  
  251. For introductions to the issues and bibliography, stressing both continued vitality and often gradual change in the Hellenistic polis (the polis in the period c. 337–331 BCE), see Gauthier 1993 and Gruen 1993. A major topic of debate is the relationship of the Hellenistic polis with powerful individuals and benefactors. For interaction with kings, see Bertrand 1992 and Ma 2002, both stressing the importance of language, rhetoric, and geography as factors shaping the relationship. The interpretation of these interactions is closely bound up with the question, also addressed by Bertrand and Ma, to what extent freedom and autonomy were possible for Hellenistic poleis in a world dominated by kings; on this see also, for example, Grieb 2008 and Hamon 2009 (both cited under Constitutions: Rule by Many). Other crucial relationships for Hellenistic poleis were those with their own wealthy citizen benefactors, engaged in munificence or “euergetism” toward their poleis, an issue that probably took on increasing importance in the course of the Hellenistic period. The classic study of the nature and development of Hellenistic euergetism is Gauthier 1985; see also many of the contributions in Wörrle and Zanker 1995 (many of which draw extensively on archaeological evidence) and Fröhlich and Müller 2005.
  252.  
  253. Bertrand, J.-M. 1992. Cités et royaumes du monde grec: Espace et politique. Paris: Hachette.
  254. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  255. An extended essay on relations between cities and kingdoms in the Greek world, with special attention to the Hellenistic period. It stresses the capacity of citizens of poleis to use language to good, complex effect as a means of achieving civic harmony and interacting effectively with outsiders.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Chaniotis, A. 2011. Greek history: Hellenistic. In Oxford bibliographies in Classics. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  258. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  259. A very helpful and wide-ranging annotated bibliography of scholarship on Hellenistic history, including the history of the Hellenistic polis. Available online by subscription.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Fröhlich, P., and C. Müller, eds. 2005. Citoyenneté et participation à la basse époque hellénistique: Actes de la table ronde des 22 et 23 mai 2004, Paris. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz.
  262. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  263. A collection of specialist essays that seek to shed light on the “low Hellenistic period,” c. 150–131 BCE, when it is commonly agreed that many poleis came to rely to an unprecedented extent on the benefactions of a narrow civic elite. The papers investigate continuities and changes in the role and image of the citizen in that period, assessing to what extent traditional citizen participation endured.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Gauthier, P. 1985. Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs. Paris: Boccard.
  266. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  267. A wide-ranging, precise, and stimulating study of the role of benefactors in the Hellenistic polis. Gauthier argues, partly in reaction against the more uniform Hellenistic picture presented in Veyne 1990 (cited under Post-classical Polis), for quite a sharp distinction between the early Hellenistic polis (c. 4th century BCE to c. 170–130 BCE) and an increasingly inegalitarian late Hellenistic polis (c. 170–130 BCE onward), in which some elite benefactors broke free from the constraints of civic institutions.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Gauthier, P. 1993. Les cités hellénistiques. 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, 211–231. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
  270. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  271. An authoritative introduction, suitable for undergraduates, to the Hellenistic polis and significant issues: autonomy and dependence; geographical variety and chronological changes in the course of the Hellenistic period; the emergence of small poleis into the historical record through their epigraphy; the role of benefactors; and education, culture, rhetoric, and the gymnasium.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Gruen, E. S. 1993. The polis in the Hellenistic world. In Nomodeiktes: Greek studies in honor of Martin Ostwald. Edited by R. Rosen and J. Farrell, 339–354. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
  274. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. Another authoritative introduction, also suitable for undergraduates, to the Hellenistic polis and the sources for it. Gruen argues strongly for the continued vitality of the polis and “civic spirit” in the Hellenistic period, discussing both interstate interaction and internal politics.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Ma, J. 2002. Antiochos III and the cities of western Asia Minor. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  278. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. A study of the relations between Hellenistic kings and Hellenistic cities through the lens of the interactions between the Seleucid king Antiochos III and the cities of western Asia Minor, which fell within his sphere of influence. Much attention is paid to the power of language. The book includes a dossier of relevant inscriptions with English translations and specialist commentary.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Wörrle, M., and P. Zanker, eds. 1995. Stadtbild und Bürgerbild im Hellenismus. Munich: Beck.
  282. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283. An influential and stimulating collection of articles in German and French on the image of the Hellenistic polis and citizen. Chapters discuss topics including the role of the gymnasium in civic life; the civic council; civic finance, euergetism, honors, and honorific rhetoric; civic religion and festivals; and civic art, architecture, and memorials.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. The Polis in the Roman Empire and Beyond
  286.  
  287. The polis continued to flourish as a center of cultural, social, and religious life, and certain forms of political life, under the Roman Empire (poleis in different regions came within the Roman Empire in the course of the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE). Millar 1993 offers a helpful overview of the issues. As with the Hellenistic period, debates about the role of civic elites and euergetism and honors are central; see Heller 2009 and Zuiderhoek 2009. For honorific statues as a crucial form of honor for elite citizens, see Smith 1999 and Smith 2006. For a study of the world of one elite citizen benefactor in the Roman Empire at its height, see Jones 1978. In Asia Minor, in particular, cities enjoyed a complex and often vibrant civic life also in Late Antiquity; see Roueché 1989, Smith 1999, and Dally and Ratté 2011.
  288.  
  289. Dally, O., and C. Ratté, eds. 2011. Archaeology and the cities of Asia Minor in Late Antiquity. Ann Arbor, MI: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.
  290. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  291. A collection of studies of the archaeology of the cities of Asia Minor in Late Antiquity, which reveals an often flourishing civic culture. It includes discussion of the evidence both of excavations in urban centers, such as those of Ephesus, Miletus and Aphrodisias, and of archaeological surveys in the rural hinterlands of cities in Late Antiquity.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Heller, A. 2009. La cité grecque d’époque impériale: Vers une société d’ordres? Annales HSS (March–April): 341–373.
  294. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. A critical analysis of arguments for the emergence of a strictly stratified “society of orders” in the Roman-era polis, which argues that democratic institutions, ideals, and participation did not disappear. In contrast to Zuiderhoek 2009, Heller argues that the people of Greek cities had more power than often thought within the exchanges and negotiation with benefactors intrinsic to euergetism.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Jones, C. P. 1978. The Roman world of Dio Chrysostom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
  298. DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674181342Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. A study of Dio Chrysostom, a benefactor and active citizen in his home city of Prusa, through his political and philosophical speeches.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. 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.
  302. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  303. An authoritative introduction, suitable for undergraduates, to the polis under the Roman Empire. It covers central issues such as euergetism and relations with the Roman emperor and Roman provincial administration.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Roueché, C. 1989. Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity: The late Roman and Byzantine inscriptions, including texts from the excavations at Aphrodisias conducted by Kenan T. Erim. London: Society for Roman Studies.
  306. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. Detailed study of a thriving polis during Late Antiquity and the Byzantine periods through its inscriptions. The volume discusses texts illustrating the interaction of Christianity with civic structures as well as arguing for the continued importance of traditional civic life, euergetism, and conflict at some points in the history of Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Smith, R. R. R. 1999. Late antique portraits in a public context: Honorific statuary at Aphrodisias in Caria, AD 300–600. Journal of Roman Studies 89:155–189.
  310. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  311. A study of the role of honorific statues in civic life and society in Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity, which reveals the increasing importance of other centers of power outside the city, especially the Roman imperial court at Constantinople, and the increasing role of imperial officials in civic life.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Smith, R. R. R. 2006. Roman portrait statuary from Aphrodisias: Aphrodisias II. Mainz, Germany: Philipp von Zabern.
  314. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  315. A catalogue of the portrait sculpture of Aphrodisias from the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE, which uses that evidence to develop an interpretation of the civic culture of Aphrodisias, especially the local patriotism and civic pride of its elite, during that period. With contributions by S. Dillon, C. H. Hallett, J. Lenaghan, and J. van Voorhis.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Zuiderhoek, A. 2009. The politics of munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, elites and benefactors in Asia Minor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  318. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511576508Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. An analysis of the politics of euergetism in Roman Asia Minor, which stresses the political function of benefactions in legitimating elite prominence in cities and defusing social tensions.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Particular Poleis and Regions
  322.  
  323. Many studies address the history, institutions, and culture of a particular polis or the poleis of a particular region. See Hansen and Nielsen 2004 (cited under Reference Works) for detailed accounts of the polis landscape of different regions in the Archaic and classical periods, as well as introductions to individual poleis, accompanied by helpful and extensive bibliography. Fraser 1972, Salmon 1984, Shipley 1987, Piérart 2000, and Luraghi 2008 are examples of significant and useful studies of individual poleis; Nielsen 2002 and Thonemann 2011 are important studies of regions rich in poleis.
  324.  
  325. Fraser, P. M. 1972. Ptolemaic Alexandria. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
  326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. The standard work on the polis of Alexandria in Egypt, capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty, in the Hellenistic period. It covers all aspects, including Hellenistic Alexandria’s rich cultural and intellectual life.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Luraghi, N. 2008. The ancient Messenians: Constructions of ethnicity and memory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  330. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511481413Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. A study of the region of Messenia in the southwestern Peloponnese, where a polis was established in 369 BCE, after long subjection of the region to Sparta. The book includes helpful reflections about theory and method in the study of ethnicity and its relationship with political structure in ancient Greece.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Nielsen, T. H. 2002. Arkadia and its poleis in the Archaic and classical Periods. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  334. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  335. A study of the region of Arcadia in the central Peloponnese, which represents a very helpful case study of relations between poleis and a larger ethnic group, eventually organized on federal lines.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Piérart, M. 2000. Argos: Une autre démocratie. In Polis and politics: Studies in ancient Greek history presented to Mogens Herman Hansen on his sixtieth birthday, August 20, 2000. Edited by P. Flensted-Jensen, T. Heine Nielsen, and L. Rubinstein, 297–314. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
  338. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. An overview of the institutions and politics of one of the best attested classical Greek democracies outside Athens. The picture it gives is currently being revised in the light of newly discovered financial accounts from 4th-century BCE Argos.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Salmon, J. 1984. Wealthy Corinth: A history of the city to 338 BC. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  342. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. A helpful and rigorous account of the Archaic and classical history of Corinth, very useful for the study of oligarchy and broader Peloponnesian affairs.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Shipley, D. G. S. 1987. A history of Samos, 800–188 BC. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  346. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. A helpful account of the Archaic, classical, and Hellenistic history of the island polis of Samos, which integrates well archaeological, epigraphic, and literary sources.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Thonemann, P. 2011. The Maeander valley: A historical geography from Antiquity to Byzantium. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  350. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511974847Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  351. A study of the history and geography across Antiquity of the valley of the Maeander River in southwestern Asia Minor, which joined early Greek cities of the coast with new poleis in the interior during the Hellenistic and Roman eras. The book illustrates the role of poleis in the region, while also emphasizing links and identities that transcended polis frontiers.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Citizens and Noncitizens
  354.  
  355. A major building-block of polis organization was citizen status and the division between citizens and noncitizens. Davies 1977–1978 offers an engaging analytical survey of different conceptions of citizenship in classical Athens, many of which are relevant to other poleis in different periods of Greek history. For a recent survey of the main status groups in classical Athens, both citizen and noncitizen, see Kamen 2013. Osborne 1995 discusses the economic and political dependence of Athenian citizen life on slaves. Whitehead 1977, Cohen 2000, and Lape 2010 argue for different positions concerning the relationship between Athenian citizens and resident foreigners (“metics”). Another group which had a more ambiguous position on the citizen/noncitizen boundary in the polis was women. Van Bremen 1996 uses epigraphic evidence to study the complex role of women in later Hellenistic and Roman imperial civic life.
  356.  
  357. Cohen, E. E. 2000. The Athenian nation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  358. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  359. An engaging and controversial book, which argues that classical Athens was more an open-ended “nation” than a closed citizen club.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Davies, J. K. 1977–1978. Athenian citizenship: The descent group and the alternatives. Classical Journal 73.2: 105–121.
  362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. A frequently reprinted study, suitable for all students, of the different ways in which classical Athenians approached possible criteria for citizenship (e.g., parentage, wealth, civic contribution) and the citizen/noncitizen frontier. Davies studies ideas and practices side by side to good effect.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Fraser, P. M. 2009. Greek ethnic terminology. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  366. DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197264287.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. A meticulous study of the different ways in which Greeks expressed an affiliation to a particular community through naming practices, in which polis affiliations necessarily feature strongly. Published for the British Academy.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Kamen, D. 2013. Status in classical Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  370. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. A recent study of status and status distinctions in the classical Athenian democracy, arguing that a complex and subtle range of status categories are relevant to explaining Athenian civic life.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Lape, S. 2010. Race and citizen identity in the classical Athenian democracy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  374. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511676024Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. An engaging and controversial book which takes the opposite position to Cohen 2000, arguing that the classical Athenian democracy was dominated by racial exclusivity, bordering on something like modern racism.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Osborne, R. G. 1995. The economics and politics of slavery at Athens. In The Greek world. Edited by A. Powell, 27–43. London: Routledge.
  378. DOI: 10.4324/9780203269206Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379. An influential and controversial study, suitable for all students, which argues that slavery helped to prop up the Athenian democratic system, pragmatically and ideologically. Reprinted with afterword in Osborne 2010 (cited under Rule by Many), pp. 85–103.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. van Bremen, R. 1996. The limits of participation: Women and civic life in the Greek world in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Amsterdam: Gieben.
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. A thorough and engaging study of the role of women in post-classical civic life, which explores the apparent paradox of the greater prominence of (elite) women as benefactors and civic leaders in an otherwise increasingly inegalitarian environment.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Whitehead, D. 1977. The ideology of the Athenian metic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Philological Society.
  386. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387. An important study of the position of resident foreigners (“metics”) in Athenian polis society, which argues that ideology was a crucial factor in leading metics to accept an inferior position. It has good coverage of legal, economic, and cultural aspects.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Constitutions
  390.  
  391. This section presents key bibliography concerning the range of different constitutions by which poleis could be governed.
  392.  
  393. Rule by Many
  394.  
  395. For an introduction to the Classical Athenian democracy, the best-known example of an ancient Greek democracy, see Hansen 1999 (cited under the Classical Polis). For additional discussion of the ideology, institutions, and culture of the classical Athenian democracy, see Ober 1989 and Osborne 2010. For Archaic and classical democracy outside Athens, see Robinson 1997 and Robinson 2011. For the question of the extent to which “democracy” survived in the Hellenistic polis, and its different forms and connections with questions of freedom and autonomy, see Grieb 2008 and the papers in Mann and Scholz 2012; compare also Hamon 2009, which reviews recent studies of these questions. For essays addressing debates about Archaic and classical Greek democracy and its role in world history, see Raaflaub, et al. 2007.
  396.  
  397. Grieb, V. 2008. Hellenistische Demokratie: Politische Organisation und Struktur in freien griechischen Poleis nach Alexander dem Grossen. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
  398. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399. A detailed and revealing study of different forms of “democratic” constitutions in the Hellenistic period, which concentrates on Athens, Cos, Miletus, and Rhodes. Grieb emphasizes the continued vitality of Hellenistic democracy.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Hamon, P. 2009. Démocraties grecques après Alexandre: À propos de trois ouvrages récents. Topoi 16.2: 347–382.
  402. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403. Hamon critically discusses and synthesizes significant recent works on democracy, and claims to the word demokratia, in the Hellenistic period. He notes the diversity of the phenomenon of Hellenistic demokratia and the need for extensive further research on Hellenistic civic institutions and civic life to gain a better understanding of Hellenistic democracy.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Mann, C., and P. Scholz, eds. 2012. “Demokratie” im Hellenismus: Von der Herrschaft des Volkes zur Herrschaft der Honoratioren? Berlin: Antike Verlag.
  406. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. A stimulating collection of articles in French, German, and Italian that address the status of egalitarianism and self-government in the Hellenistic polis, considering to what extent they were compatible with socioeconomic inequalities, euergetism, and the prominence of outsiders in civic life. The focus is on Asia Minor.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Ober, J. 1989. Mass and elite in democratic Athens: Rhetoric, ideology, and the power of the people. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  410. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411. An influential study, suitable for all students, of relations between the civic elite and their fellow citizens in the classical Athenian democracy, presenting democratic ideology as the lubricant that reconciled sharp socioeconomic inequality with political equality. It shows well that elite euergetism and liturgies were central to civic life well before the Hellenistic period, even in the best-known democracy.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Osborne, R. G. 2010. Athens and Athenian democracy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. A collection of Osborne’s influential papers on Athenian democracy, suitable for undergraduates. The papers collectively make a strong case for interpreting Athenian democracy as a system that influenced, and was influenced by, many diverse aspects of Athenian civic life, especially religion.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Raaflaub, K. A., J. Ober, and R. W. Wallace, eds. 2007. The origins of democracy in ancient Greece. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  418. DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520245624.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. A collection of articles by leading scholars of Greek democracy that gives a good sense of debates about the origins of egalitarianism and participatory democracy in ancient Greece, and their importance.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Robinson, E. W. 1997. The first democracies: Early popular government outside Athens. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
  422. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  423. Robinson collects and analyzes possible evidence for “rule by the many” outside Athens in the Archaic period.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Robinson, E. W. 2011. Democracy beyond Athens: Popular government in the Greek classical age. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  426. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511977527Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. Robinson here collects and analyzes the evidence for classical democracy outside Athens. Separate discussion of a wide range of different cities is followed by synthetic chapters.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Rule by Few
  430.  
  431. There is much less scholarship about ancient Greek oligarchy than democracy. Ostwald 2000 offers a good introduction to oligarchy. Other than the complex evidence for Spartan political organization (see Hodkinson 2000; also Cartledge 2002, cited under the Classical Polis; compare Salmon 1984, cited under Particular Poleis and Regions, on another Peloponnesian oligarchy, Corinth), the best evidence for oligarchic thinking and practice concerns later 5th-century and later 4th-century Athens; see, for example, Lehmann 1997 and Heftner 2003.
  432.  
  433. Heftner, H. 2003. Oligarchen, Mesoi, Autokraten: Bemerkungen zur antidemokratischen Bewegung des späten 5. Jh. v. Chr. in Athen. Chiron 33:1–41.
  434. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. A stimulating analysis of different currents of antidemocratic thought in later 5th-century Athens, and their connections with the oligarchic revolutions of 411 and 404–403 BCE.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Hodkinson, S. 2000. Property and wealth in classical Sparta. London: Duckworth.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. A stimulating and original analysis of the classical Spartan social system, which emphasizes inequalities of wealth and status and their implications for Sparta’s particular brand of oligarchic politics.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Lehmann, G. A. 1997. Oligarchische Herrschaft im klassischen Athen: Zu den Krisen und Katastrophen der attischen Demokratie im 5. und 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag.
  442. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-663-01786-8Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. A synthesis of the evidence for oligarchic rule in classical Athens, which considers the later 4th as well as the later 5th centuries. It also includes reflections about the relationship between oligarchy and democracy in classical Athens.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Ostwald, M. 2000. Oligarchia: The development of a constitutional form in ancient Greece. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
  446. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. An account of Archaic and classical oligarchy, which covers both theory and practice.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Rule by One
  450.  
  451. Some poleis were sometimes ruled by individuals, subject to greater or lesser constitutional safeguards. Andrewes 1956 and Berve 1967 survey the evidence for one-man polis regimes from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period, while Morgan 2003 attempts a more interpretive study of the function of the figure of the “tyrant” in Greek rhetoric and society.
  452.  
  453. Andrewes, A. 1956. The Greek tyrants. London: Hutchison Univ. Library.
  454. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. The classic account and analysis of the role of one-man rulers in the development of the Archaic polis, suitable for undergraduates.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Berve, H. 1967. Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen. 2 vols. Munich: Beck.
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. A comprehensive collection and analysis of the evidence for one-man rulers of poleis described (at least by some) as “tyrants.” More recent studies would place greater stress on the need to take account of the rhetorical character of the historiographical sources that offer most of the evidence.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Morgan, K., ed. 2003. Popular tyranny: Sovereignty and its discontents in ancient Greece. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. A stimulating collection of essays that examine the ideological role of the figure and metaphor of the tyrant in Greek society, political conflicts, and literature, mainly in the classical period.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Civic Organization and Institutions
  466.  
  467. Many specific aspects of the territorial and institutional organization of poleis, many of them relevant to different types of constitution, have been studied by scholars. Athens has generally received most attention, but see, for example, Gauthier 2011 and Brock and Hodkinson 2000 (cited under General Overviews) for studies of different parts of the Greek world, with much further bibliography. Examples of significant themes are cited here. On territorial organization and subunits of the citizen-body, see Osborne 1985 and Jones 1987. For the prominent ancient Greek interest in record-keeping and institutional checks on individual power, as defenses against corruption, see Thomas 1989 and Fröhlich 2004. On reform of constitutions in the 4th century and Hellenistic period, see Bencivenni 2003. In recent years efforts have been made to apply ideas derived from the social sciences, such as “new institutionalism,” to the polis; see, for example, Ober 2008 and Johnstone 2011.
  468.  
  469. Bencivenni, A. 2003. Progetti di riforme costituzionali nelle epigrafi greche dei secoli IV–II a.c. Bologna, Italy: Lo Scarabeo.
  470. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  471. An analysis of the evidence, mainly epigraphic, for attempts at constitutional and institutional reform across the Greek world in the 4th century BCE and Hellenistic period.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Fröhlich, P. 2004. Les cités grecques et le contrôle des magistrats, IVe–Ier siècle avant J.-C. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz.
  474. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. A critical analysis of the evidence for the checks and balances that regulated the power of magistrates in poleis in the 4th century BCE and Hellenistic period.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Gauthier, Ph. 2011. Études d’histoire et d’institutions grecques: Choix d’écrits (édité et indexé par Denis Rousset). Geneva, Switzerland: Droz.
  478. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. A selection of the most important articles on the Greek polis by one of its leading 20th-century interpreters. There is extensive discussion of civic institutions and organization.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Johnstone, S. 2011. A history of trust in ancient Greece. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
  482. DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226405117.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. An innovative study of the role of trust, and ideas about the accompanying concept (pistis), in varied areas of Greek civic life, especially commerce and small-group decision making.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Jones, N. F. 1987. Public organization in ancient Greece: A documentary study. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. A very detailed critical survey of the evidence for different types of subdivision of the citizen-bodies of poleis, such as “demes” (villages), phratries (hereditary religious groups), and phylai (“tribes”).
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Ober, J. 2008. Democracy and knowledge: Innovation and learning in classical Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  490. DOI: 10.1515/9781400828807Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. Ober argues, drawing on ideas from the social sciences, that the institutions of the Athenian democracy were very well suited to the creation, communication, and aggregation of useful knowledge.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Osborne, R. G. 1985. Demos: The discovery of classical Attika. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  494. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  495. An analysis of the politicized villages (“demes” of classical Attica), which presents them as kernels of democracy.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Thomas, R. 1989. Oral tradition and written record in classical Athens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  498. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511597404Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. An analysis of the many different symbolic and practical functions that writing played in classical Athenian civic life and its interaction with oral forms of communication, which remained vital.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. New Cities
  502.  
  503. Greek cities continued to emerge in different parts of the Mediterranean region throughout Antiquity. Historians have shown that the emergence of new cities played an important role in the development of ideas and practices connected with civic government, organization, and identity. Particularly important in this respect are the Archaic and early Hellenistic periods, when many new cities emerged. On the emergence of new cities in the Archaic period, see (for example) Graham 1964, Malkin 2009, and Osborne 2009. These works give a good sense of debates about the nature of the processes by which new cities developed, and the appropriateness or otherwise of using the language of “colonization” and “foundation.” On Hellenistic city foundations, including in regions previously without poleis, see the catalogues in Cohen 1995, Cohen 2006, and Cohen 2012 (cited under Reference Works). Fraser 2003 discusses the foundations of Alexander the Great himself. Bernard, et al. 1973–1992 and Robert 1968 illustrate one striking example of Hellenistic polis life and culture abroad.
  504.  
  505. Bernard, P., H. P. Francfort, J.-C. Liger, et al. 1973–1992. Fouilles d’Aï Khanoum. 8 vols. Paris: Klincksieck.
  506. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  507. The publication of the excavations at the Greek city, founded in the later 4th century, at modern Ai Khanoum in Afghanistan, which became a center of Greek culture in Asia until its destruction in the 2nd century BCE.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Fraser, P. M. 2003. Cities of Alexander the Great. Oxford: Clarendon.
  510. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511. A comprehensive study of Alexander’s city foundations and later Hellenistic debates about their extent and significance.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Graham, A. J. 1964. Colony and mother city in ancient Greece. Manchester, UK: Manchester Univ. Press.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. The classic account of the relationship between Greek cities and their “daughter cities,” or “colonies,” around Greece and the Mediterranean.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Malkin, I. 2009. Foundations. In A companion to Archaic Greece. Edited by K. Raaflaub and H. van Wees, 373–394. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  518. DOI: 10.1002/9781444308761Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. A recent accessible presentation of Malkin’s influential views about the nature of new cities around the Mediterranean in the Archaic period. He argues not only for the historical relevance of the picture presented by later Greeks themselves of organized foundation expeditions led by an oikistes (“founder”), but he also incorporates in his model other more diffuse processes of mobility, migration, and cultural exchange.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Osborne, R. 2009. Greece in the making. 2d ed. London: Routledge.
  522. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  523. This work develops, especially in chapters 3, 4, and 6, an innovative account of the emergence of new cities in the Archaic period in areas such as southern Italy, Sicily, and North Africa. In place of “colonization” and “foundation,” Osborne places the emphasis on long-term processes of commercial exchange and cultural mingling, involving non-Greeks as well as Greek migrants, that eventually yielded new poleis. These new poleis developed distinctive “foundation myths” that, in many cases, obscured and simplified their own complex origins.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Robert, L. 1968. De Delphes à l’Oxus, inscriptions grecques nouvelles de la Bactriane. Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 416–457.
  526. DOI: 10.3406/crai.1968.12291Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. A classic study of Greek civic culture abroad in the Hellenistic period, through the example of Ai Khanoum. It is reprinted as chapter 19 in Robert 2007 (cited under the Post-classical Polis).
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Law and Punishment
  530.  
  531. Another major area of research, related to constitutions and institutions, is Greek civic law and punishment. Koerner and Hallof 1993 and van Effenterre and Ruzé 1994 (cited under Inscriptions) give a good sense of the variety of Archaic Greek laws. For later periods, Athens is again quite dominant in the evidence and scholarship, but (for example) Vélissaropoulos-Karakostas 2011 analyzes law across the Greek world in the Hellenistic period. Todd 1993 offers an accessible and useful account of classical Athenian law and legal procedure. Cartledge, et al. 1990; Hunter 1994; and Harris 2006 collectively give a good idea of debates about the role of law in classical Athenian politics and society. Allen 2000 and Forsdyke 2005 discuss the role of punishment and lawful exclusion in the classical Athenian polis. See also the separate Oxford Bibliographies Online article “Greek Law.”
  532.  
  533. Allen, D. S. 2000. The world of Prometheus: The politics of punishing in democratic Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  534. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. An engaging argument that pursuing tit-for-tat punishment for wrongs was central to the ideology of the Athenian democratic citizen.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Cartledge, P., P. Millett, and S. Todd, eds. 1990. Nomos: Essays in Athenian law, politics, and society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  538. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. A collection of stimulating and sometimes controversial articles, suitable for students, taking a mainly sociological approach to Athenian law.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Forsdyke, S. 2005. Exile, ostracism, and democracy: The politics of expulsion in ancient Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  542. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. An analysis of different forms of expulsion of citizens in Archaic poleis and especially the classical Athenian democracy, emphasizing the ordered moderation of the latter.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Harris, E. M. 2006. Democracy and the rule of law in classical Athens: Essays on law, society, and politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  546. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511497858Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. A collection of Harris’s important articles, arguing for a sophisticated legal culture in classical Athens, including the operation of the “rule of law.”
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Hunter, V. 1994. Policing Athens: Social control in the Attic lawsuits, 420–320 B.C. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. An analysis of the Athenian courts as a form of social regulation and defense of the established order, a viable alternative to modern methods.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Todd, S. C. 1993. The shape of Athenian law. Oxford: Clarendon.
  554. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. An authoritative introduction, useful for undergraduates as well as others, to most aspects of Athenian law and courts.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Vélissaropoulos-Karakostas, J. 2011. Droit grec d’Alexandre à Auguste, 323 av. J.-C.–14 ap. J.-C.: Personnes–biens–justice. 2 vols. Meletemata 66. Athens, Greece: Kentron Hellēnikēs kai Rōmaikēs Archaiotētas.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. A very wide-ranging and useful survey of Greek law in the Hellenistic period. The two published volumes discuss law concerning persons and things.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Civic Ideology
  562.  
  563. The counterpart to studies of civic institutions is scholarship on the civic ideologies and values that underpinned and animated those institutions. This area of polis life has been far more intensively studied for classical Athens than for other poleis and periods. For example, Loraux 1986, Cartledge, et al. 1998, Balot 2001, Christ 2006, Farenga 2006, Saxonhouse 2006, and Liddel 2007 all study ideas in circulation in the Athenian democracy concerning virtue, freedom, and civic order, sometimes alongside comparative material from other poleis. Many of these authors use modern political theory, especially liberal political theory, as a model or foil. Although post-classical civic ideologies and values have so far been far less studied, among recent work it is possible to mention, for example, Mari and Thornton 2013, which contains many studies dedicated to Hellenistic political concepts, almost all with civic applications.
  564.  
  565. Balot, R. K. 2001. Greed and injustice in classical Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. An analysis of Athenian ideas about greed and injustice that exposes many of the key features, ambiguities, and contradictions in democratic Athenian approaches to wealth, equality, and politics. Accessible for students.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Cartledge, P., P. Millett, and S. von Reden. 1998. Kosmos: Essays in order, conflict and community in classical Athens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  570. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  571. Essays, suitable for all students, on Athenians ideas about order, solidarity, and civic friendship, as they are reflected in material evidence (Osborne on pottery), philosophy (Schofield on Aristotle’s theory of friendship), law and oratory (Arnaoutoglou and Todd), cultural and social life and relations (Fisher, Goldhill, Rubinstein, and Rhodes), and civic topography (von Reden and Millett).
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Christ, M. R. 2006. The bad citizen in classical Athens. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  574. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511618277Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  575. Christ uses ideas about the bad citizen and his failure to meet his obligations as a window into Athenian civic ideals; a study accessible for students.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Farenga, V. 2006. Citizen and self in ancient Greece: Individuals performing justice and the law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  578. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511497902Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  579. Farenga uses the modern notion of “performance” and modern liberal, communitarian, and deliberative views of the self to develop innovative interpretations of ancient Greek, especially Athenian, civic practices and texts as evidence for civic ideology and ideals.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Liddel, P. 2007. Civic obligation and individual liberty in ancient Athens. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  582. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199226580.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  583. Liddel compares and contrasts classical Athenian democracy with John Rawls’s liberal democratic ideal of a good society, arguing that, in both, freedom is partly a matter of having the opportunity and obligation to perform certain civic duties. Useful for undergraduates interested in political theory and classics.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Loraux, N. 1986. The invention of Athens: The funeral oration in the classical city. Translated by A. Sheridan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
  586. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  587. English translation of an influential and highly stimulating French work of 1981, which analyzes Athenian and wider Greek civic ideals in the light of extant examples of the “funeral oration,” delivered annually in collective praise of citizens killed in war. Loraux emphasizes the “spell” of ideals of harmony and unanimity.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Mari, M., and J. Thornton, eds. 2013. Parole in movimento: Linguaggio politico e lessico storiografico in età ellenistica. Studi ellenistici 27. Pisa, Italy: Fabrizio Serra.
  590. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. A collection of detailed linguistic and political studies of concepts prominent in Hellenistic political rhetoric and historiography, including the political epigraphy and rhetoric of Hellenistic poleis (e.g., philia, prohairesis, philotimia, philanthropia), which offers a rich resource for further research on Hellenistic political values.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Saxonhouse, A. 2006. Free speech and Athenian democracy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  594. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595. A helpful and thought-provoking analysis of Athenian ideas about free speech and “frank speech.” The author reveals well their similarities with, and particularly their differences from, modern ideas. Useful for undergraduates interested in political theory and classics.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Economics and Finance
  598.  
  599. To obtain an understanding of the financing of Greek civic life and the functioning of the wider civic economy, it is necessary to take account of studies of citizen property owners, agriculture, slavery, craft production, coinage, and trade within and between cities as well as the redistribution of wealth through euergetism. Bresson 2000 and Bresson 2007–2008 and Migeotte 2002 offer stimulating overviews of the economy of civic Greece, collectively covering the whole sweep from the Archaic period to the Roman Empire at its height. The other works listed here illustrate well the close entanglement of the economies of Greek cities with local civic politics. Davies 1971 collects evidence for the property and economic activities of Archaic and classical Athenian families wealthy enough for their members to be obliged to perform liturgies, while Moreno 2007 examines the involvement of the Athenian elite in the Athenian grain trade. Migeotte 1984, Migeotte 1992, and Gauthier 1985 analyze the foundations of Greek civic finance, especially in the Hellenistic period.
  600.  
  601. Bresson, A. 2000. La cité marchande. Paris: Boccard.
  602. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  603. A collection of Bresson’s important articles arguing for a more entrepreneurial and economically innovative polis, in reaction against earlier studies that emphasized the communitarianism or even primitiveness of ancient Greek civic economies.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Bresson, A. 2007–2008. L’économie de la Grèce des cités, fin VIe–Ier siècle a.c. 2 vols. Paris: Armand Colin.
  606. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  607. An extremely helpful systematic two-volume survey of aspects of the economy of the Greek civic world from the Archaic to the late Hellenistic period. The first volume concentrates on production and the second on exchange.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Davies, J. K. 1971. Athenian propertied families, 600–300 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon.
  610. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  611. A prosopography of the Athenian elite in the period studied, which can be used to construct a detailed picture of civic finance and economics.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Gauthier, P. 1985. Les cités grecques et leurs bienfaiteurs. Paris: Boccard.
  614. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  615. A detailed account of the functioning of Greek euergetism, frequently the key to civic finance, with a focus on the Hellenistic period.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Migeotte, L. 1984. L’emprunt public dans les cités grecques: Recueil des documents et analyse critique. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz.
  618. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  619. An analysis of public borrowing by Greek cities, often from elite citizens, as an aspect of civic finance and the civic economy. The core of the book is a collection of the relevant inscriptions, which are mainly of the Hellenistic period, with French translation and commentary.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Migeotte, L. 1992. Les souscriptions publiques dans les cités grecques. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz.
  622. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  623. An analysis of “subscriptions” or epidoseis (calls for pledges of money for civic projects by private individuals), a phenomenon best attested for the Hellenistic period. Migeotte collects and translates the major sources.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Migeotte, L. 2002. L’économie des cités grecques: De l’archaïsme au Haut-Empire romain. Paris: Ellipses.
  626. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  627. A short introduction to the economy of the Greek cities, with a wide chronological and geographical focus. It is translated into English as The Economy of the Greek Cities: From the Archaic Period to the Early Roman Empire. Translated by Janet Lloyd (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009).
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Moreno, A. 2007. Feeding the democracy: The Athenian grain supply in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  630. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199228409.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  631. A study of the practical details, but also the ideological underpinnings and consequences, of the Athenian grain trade in the classical period.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Religion
  634.  
  635. Religion was another area of civic life closely intertwined with politics in the polis. Sourvinou-Inwood 1990 represents the classic statement and elaboration of this case; see Kindt 2012 for a recent challenge to this dominant paradigm. The shape of Athenian civic religion, the best-known example, is well presented and discussed in Parker 2005 and Mikalson 1998. The civic religion of other poleis is well documented through inscriptions, especially post-classical inscriptions that shed light on festivals and cults; see Chaniotis 1995 and the articles in Alston, et al. 2013. Another very revealing category of inscriptions are inscribed “sacred laws,” namely inscribed civic regulations concerning religious matters; see Parker 2004 and Carbon and Pirenne-Delforge 2012.
  636.  
  637. Alston, R., O. M. van Nijf, and C. G. Williamson, eds. 2013. Cults, creeds and identities in the Greek city after the classical age. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters.
  638. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  639. A collection of articles on the importance of religion and festivals in post-classical civic life. Note the chapter by A. Chaniotis, “Processions in Hellenistic Cities: Contemporary Discourses and Ritual Dynamics” (pp. 21–48), which offers an alternative, in English, to Chaniotis 1995, and also takes the discussion further.
  640. Find this resource:
  641. Carbon, J.-M., and V. Pirenne-Delforge. 2012. Beyond “sacred laws.” Kernos 25:163–182.
  642. DOI: 10.4000/kernos.2115Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643. Summarizes recent debates about alternative ways of conceptualizing the civic regulations concerning religious affairs commonly known as “sacred laws.” The authors themselves argue for the utility of a narrower category of “ritual norms”: regulations that touch directly on the shape of ritual practice.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Chaniotis, A. 1995. Sich selbst feiern? Städtische Feste des Hellenismus im Spannungsfeld von Religion und Politik. In Stadtbild und Bürgerbild im Hellenismus. Edited by M. Wörrle and P. Zanker, 147–172. Munich: Beck.
  646. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  647. A stimulating analysis of the role of festivals in sustaining and developing civic identity in the Hellenistic polis.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Kindt, J. 2012. Rethinking Greek religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  650. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511978500Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  651. Argues that long dominant approaches, including structuralist ideas and emphasis on the polis as the inescapable focus and context of Greek religion, need to be adapted to give more weight to diversity, contradictions, and personal religious experience.
  652. Find this resource:
  653. Mikalson, J. D. 1998. Religion in Hellenistic Athens. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  654. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  655. A helpful and wide-ranging account of Athenian civic religion in the Hellenistic period.
  656. Find this resource:
  657. Parker, R. C. T. 2004. What are sacred laws? In The law and the courts in ancient Greece. Edited by E. M. Harris and Rubinstein, 57–70. London: Duckworth.
  658. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  659. A helpful discussion of the nature and function of the many surviving inscribed civic regulations of religious affairs, emphasizing the wide range of types of document and regulation traditionally identified by scholars as “sacred laws.”
  660. Find this resource:
  661. Parker, R. C. T. 2005. Polytheism and society at Athens. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  662. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  663. A stimulating and useful analysis of the day-to-day workings of a polytheistic religion within a civic context.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1990. What is polis religion? In The Greek city from Homer to Alexander. Edited by O. Murray and S. R. F. Price, 295–322. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  666. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  667. A well-documented and thought-provoking analysis of the ways in which the polis, and its institutional and ideological structures, decisively shaped Greek religion.
  668. Find this resource:
  669. Social and Cultural Life
  670.  
  671. The later 20th century saw an increasing scholarly interest in social and cultural life, including leisure and education, as integral parts of the civic life of poleis. Murray 1990, Schmitt-Pantel 2011, and Davidson 1997 address different types of consumption and luxury in the polis, both public and private. Davidson 1997 also offers a good introduction to issues of sexuality and the civic. The papers in Winkler and Zeitlin 1992 give a good sense of debates about the social and political context, and role, of drama in the Athenian democracy. For the Hellenistic period, Kah and Scholz 2004 and Clarke 2008 illustrate well how culture, education, recreation, and historical memory were closely bound up with civic structures and ideology.
  672.  
  673. Clarke, K. 2008. Making time for the past: Local history and the polis. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  674. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291083.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  675. A discussion of approaches to history and time in the Hellenistic polis, which demonstrates their centrality to the development of civic identity.
  676. Find this resource:
  677. Davidson, J. 1997. Courtesans and fishcakes: The consuming passions of classical Athens. London: HarperCollins.
  678. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  679. An engaging and provocative history of leisure and pleasure in the classical Athenian democracy, which uses the evidence for consumption of food and sex as a lens on Athenian society and values. Suitable for all students.
  680. Find this resource:
  681. Kah, D., and P. Scholz, eds. 2004. Das hellenistische Gymnasion. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
  682. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  683. A collection of scholarly and informative articles, mainly in German, about the role of the gymnasium (the place of athletic, military, and intellectual training for young men) as a central institution of the Hellenistic polis. Both the details of the gymnasium as educational institution and building and its wider social and cultural importance are covered.
  684. Find this resource:
  685. Murray, O., ed. 1990. Sympotica: A symposium on the symposion. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  686. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  687. A collection of articles that demonstrate the importance of the private drinking party (symposion) as a center of Greek cultural and intellectual life. Note Murray’s own chapter on the direct political relevance of the symposion in Athens in the later 5th century.
  688. Find this resource:
  689. Schmitt-Pantel, P. 2011. La cité au banquet: Histoire des repas publics dans les cités grecques. Updated ed. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.
  690. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  691. Originally published in 1992. A history of the widespread phenomenon of public banqueting in poleis, e.g., for boards of magistrates or for the whole citizen-body at festivals, that demonstrates well the close entwining of social and political life in the polis. It includes a helpful perspective on euergetism, showing its early origins.
  692. Find this resource:
  693. Winkler, J. J., and F. I. Zeitlin, eds. 1992. Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian drama in its social context. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  694. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  695. An influential collection of articles, suitable for all students, arguing strongly for the importance of the theater and drama in classical Athenian civic life, not least as a context for political reflection. Note, for example, J. Henderson, “The Demos and Comic Competition,” and S. Goldhill, “The Great Dionysia and Civic Ideology.”
  696. Find this resource:
  697. Disorder and Civil Strife (stasis)
  698.  
  699. Another perennial feature of polis life, especially before Roman control, was intense internal conflict and civil strife (stasis). Gehrke 1985 systematically collects the evidence for stasis in the classical period across Greece, the Aegean, and Asia Minor, as well as offering a nuanced interpretation of its causes and nature. Loraux 2001 collects together Loraux’s arguments about stasis, which constitute an alternative explanation of the phenomenon influenced by, and influential on, post-structuralist French thought. Shear 2011 examines Athenian responses in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE to oligarchic stasis in 411 and 404–403; it refers to all the most important bibliography concerning those two best-attested episodes of Greek stasis. Dössel 2003 analyzes methods used in Greek poleis to resolve civil strife and reconcile factions.
  700.  
  701. Dössel, A. 2003. Die Beilegung innerstaatlicher Konflikte in den griechischen Poleis vom 5.-3. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag.
  702. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  703. A helpful and detailed analysis of methods of civic reconciliation after civil war in classical and Hellenistic poleis.
  704. Find this resource:
  705. Gehrke, H.-J. 1985. Stasis: Untersuchungen zu den inneren Kriegen in den griechischen Staaten des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Munich: Beck.
  706. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  707. A catalogue of known episodes of classical stasis, alphabetical by polis, is followed by an analytical part, which emphasizes the psychological dimension of political competition and stasis.
  708. Find this resource:
  709. Loraux, N. 2001. The divided city: On memory and forgetting in ancient Athens. Translated by C. Pache, with J. Fort. New York: Zone Books.
  710. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  711. The English translation of a French book of 1997 that brings together Loraux’s reflections about stasis in the polis and the paradoxical relationships between political unity and division.
  712. Find this resource:
  713. Shear, J. 2011. Polis and revolution: Responding to oligarchy in classical Athens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  714. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  715. An interesting and helpful account of Athenian democratic responses to oligarchic challenges, which emphasises the success of democratic rebuilding and amnesty.
  716. Find this resource:
  717. Relations with the Outside World
  718.  
  719. Scholars have increasingly emphasized that almost all poleis were in constant contact with the outside world. These relations with the outside world could take both hostile and more peaceful forms; see the two separate subsections Warfare and Diplomacy and Inter-polis Collaboration. Giovannini 2007 offers a comprehensive survey of relations between Greek cities, with extensive further bibliography. Recent theoretical approaches to this topic have emphasized the relevance of complex, mutually influential interactions among poleis. Malkin 2011 argues for the importance of often informal networks between poleis, across the Mediterranean; compare Ma 2003, proposing the relevance of “peer polity interaction” as a theoretical model for mutually beneficial interaction among poleis.
  720.  
  721. Giovannini, A. 2007. Les relations entre états dans la Grece antique: Du temps d’Homere à l’intervention romaine, ca. 700–200 av. J.-C. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
  722. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  723. A comprehensive analysis of different aspects of interaction and collaboration among poleis in Archaic, classical, and Hellenistic Greece (social interaction, conflicts, alliances, peace agreements, confederations). It includes a very helpful detailed bibliography for each topic covered.
  724. Find this resource:
  725. Ma, J. 2003. Peer polity interaction in the Hellenistic age. Past & Present 180:9–39.
  726. DOI: 10.1093/past/180.1.9Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  727. Argues for the relevance of the notion of “peer polity interaction” for analyzing relations between poleis in the Hellenistic period: the Hellenistic civic world was a system of fruitfully interacting polities, similar in structure and ideology.
  728. Find this resource:
  729. Malkin, I. 2011. A small Greek world: Networks in the ancient Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  730. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734818.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  731. Malkin applies social scientific ideas about networks to the ancient Greek civic world, arguing that the Greek Mediterranean was integrated into a dynamic whole through a range of complex ties.
  732. Find this resource:
  733. Warfare
  734.  
  735. Poleis were almost constantly concerned with military defense and warfare, at least until the later Hellenistic period and Roman peace. Van Wees 2000 and Chaniotis and Ducrey 2002 collect papers that cast light on many different aspects of war and violence in the society of the polis. Chaniotis 2005 concentrates on war in the Hellenistic period, with much attention given to the needs and values of poleis.
  736.  
  737. Chaniotis, A. 2005. War in the Hellenistic world: A social and cultural history. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  738. DOI: 10.1002/9780470773413Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  739. A wide-ranging history, suitable for all students, of war and its commemoration in the Hellenistic world, concentrating on its broader contexts beyond the battlefield itself.
  740. Find this resource:
  741. Chaniotis, A., and P. Ducrey, eds. 2002. Army and power in the ancient world. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
  742. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  743. A collection of essays on the political and social history of ancient warfare. Note the exchange between H. van Wees and V. Gabrielsen, debating the question whether military life significantly influenced politics in the classical polis, and the exchange between A. Chaniotis and J. Ma about the role of foreign garrisons in Hellenistic poleis.
  744. Find this resource:
  745. van Wees, H. 2000. War and violence in ancient Greece. London: Duckworth.
  746. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  747. A collection of articles on warfare and violence in the Greek world from the Archaic period to the Hellenistic, which contribute much to debates about power and the polis. For the Archaic period (compare the Origins of the Polis and the Archaic Polis), note the chapter by van Wees (pp. 125–166) that deals with very prominent scholarly debates about the role of hoplite warfare in the early development of the polis.
  748. Find this resource:
  749. Diplomacy and Inter-polis Collaboration
  750.  
  751. More peaceful relations between poleis, of different degrees of formality, have also been intensively studied. Giovannini 2007 (cited under Relations with the Outside World) and Low 2007 offer wide-ranging analyses of the mechanics and rhetoric of interaction and diplomacy among ancient Greek states, especially poleis. Bengtson, et al. 1962 collects the evidence for treaties involving Greek states; Chaniotis 1996 examines a case study for which there is particularly rich evidence, treaties among Hellenistic Cretan poleis. Marek 1984, Jones 1999, and Rigsby 1996 discuss particular significant aspects of ancient Greek diplomacy. In relations among poleis, notions of the “freedom” and/or “autonomy” of poleis were often very prominent; see, for example, Ostwald 1982 and, for subsequent developments in the Hellenistic period, Bertrand 1992 and Ma 2002 (cited under the Hellenistic Polis) and Grieb 2008 and Hamon 2009 (cited under Rule by Many). Robert and Robert 1976 and Mackil 2013 analyze closer ties between poleis, of the types that created different kinds of formal union involving two or more poleis.
  752.  
  753. Ager, S. L. 1996. Interstate arbitration in the Greek world, 337–90 B.C. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  754. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  755. Ager collects and analyzes the evidence for the resolution of interstate disputes by arbitration in the Hellenistic world, with much attention given to the role of poleis as disputants and arbitrators. The book gives a sense of the machinery developed in the Greek world to regulate, and provide a safe space for, inter-polis rivalry.
  756. Find this resource:
  757. Bengtson, H., R. Werner, and H. H. Schmitt. 1962. Die Staatsverträge des Altertums. Munich: Beck.
  758. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  759. See also Vol. 2, edited by H. Bengtson, with R. Werner, 2d ed. (Munich: Beck, 1975), and Vol. 3, edited by H. H. Schmitt (Munich: Beck, 1969). Collects the evidence for treaties involving Greek states, using both literary and epigraphic evidence. The volumes include detailed German commentaries on the evidence collected.
  760. Find this resource:
  761. Chaniotis, A. 1996. Die Verträge zwischen kretischen Städten in der hellenistischen Zeit. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
  762. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  763. Chaniotis collects and analyzes the evidence for treaties between Greek cities in the Hellenistic period, using them as a lens for investigating different relations of power, dependency, and cooperation among Hellenistic poleis.
  764. Find this resource:
  765. Jones, C. P. 1999. Kinship diplomacy in the ancient world. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
  766. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  767. An engaging study of the use of claims to historical and mythological kinship as a means of forging links and seeking help in ancient Greek diplomacy, especially between poleis.
  768. Find this resource:
  769. Low, P. 2007. Interstate relations in classical Greece: Morality and power. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  770. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  771. An analysis of relations between states, especially poleis, in classical Greece, which uses modern international relations theory to good effect to explore the more idealistic and the more realist aspects of classical diplomacy.
  772. Find this resource:
  773. Mackil, E. 2013. Creating a common polity: Religion, economy, and politics in the making of the Greek koinon. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  774. DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520272507.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  775. A detailed analysis of the rise to prominence in the later classical and Hellenistic periods of koina (“leagues” or “federations”) incorporating a number of poleis, which remained separate entities but clubbed together for a variety of military, political, social, and economic ends. These koina did not stifle inter-polis competition, but sometimes they helped to keep it within peaceful bounds.
  776. Find this resource:
  777. Marek, C. 1984. Die Proxenie. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
  778. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  779. A detailed study of the evidence for an institution very important in Greek inter-polis relations in the classical period and probably also beyond, proxenia (citizens of one polis could be appointed as proxenos of another, a position of honor that carried some responsibility for protecting and promoting the interests of the granting city and its citizens).
  780. Find this resource:
  781. Ostwald, M. 1982. Autonomia: Its genesis and early history. Chico, CA: Scholars Press.
  782. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  783. An analysis of the early history in classical Greece of the concept of autonomia (“self-government”), which frequently served as a rallying cry or became a point of dispute in Greek diplomatic relations.
  784. Find this resource:
  785. Rigsby, K. J. 1996. Asylia: Territorial inviolability in the Hellenistic world. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  786. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  787. Rigsby collects and analyzes the evidence for official recognition, by poleis and other interstate actors, of the asylia, or “territorial inviolability,” of temples and cities in the Hellenistic world.
  788. Find this resource:
  789. Robert, L., and J. Robert. 1976. Une inscription grecque de Téos en Ionie: L’union de Téos et de Kyrbissos. Journal des Savants 153–235.
  790. DOI: 10.3406/jds.1976.1341Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  791. A representative example, with detailed commentary and comparative discussion, of union between two poleis, a phenomenon well attested from the 4th century BCE onward. Such unions could take the varied forms of (for example) isopoliteia, sympoliteia, and synoikismos.
  792. Find this resource:
  793. The Physical Polis
  794.  
  795. This section contains works that offer an introduction to the ways in which the physical environments of poleis influenced their civic life, and how they can be studied. Morgan and Coulton 1997 offers an introduction to those questions. Hansen and Fischer-Hansen 1994 and Matthaei and Zimmerman 2007 discuss civic architecture and topography in different periods. The papers in Rich and Wallace-Hadrill 1991 address the relationships between the ancient city and its countryside. Osborne 1998 offers an introduction to Archaic and classical art, much of which originated in poleis. Snodgrass 1980 represents an example of the ways in which archaeological evidence can be used to write about an important stage in the development of the polis.
  796.  
  797. Hansen, M. H., and T. Fischer-Hansen. 1994. Monumental political architecture in archaic and classical Greek poleis: Evidence and historical significance. In From political architecture to Stephanus Byzantius: Sources for the ancient Greek polis. Edited by D. Whitehead, 23–90. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
  798. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  799. An analysis of monumental political architecture as an almost ubiquitous feature of the Archaic and classical polis, and of its value as evidence for poleis.
  800. Find this resource:
  801. Matthaei, A., and M. Zimmerman. 2007. Stadtbilder im Hellenismus. Frankfurt: Antike Verlag.
  802. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  803. A helpful collection of articles in German on the Hellenistic polis, which takes as its main focus the physical aspects of the polis (settlement and expansion, civic topography, civil and religious buildings, statues, and art) and links with civic identity.
  804. Find this resource:
  805. Morgan, C., and J. J. Coulton. 1997. The polis as a physical entity. In The polis as an urban centre and political community. Edited by M. H. Hansen, 87–144. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
  806. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  807. An introduction not only to the typical physical features of a polis (e.g., agora, public buildings, housing), but also to the difficulties of definition and of identifying which settlements are “poleis” on the basis of material evidence alone.
  808. Find this resource:
  809. Osborne, R. G. 1998. Archaic and classical Greek art. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  810. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  811. An introduction to Archaic and classical Greek art, especially sculpture and vase painting. The book emphasizes the importance, for ancient Greeks and modern students, of the acts of viewing and interpretation of art, themselves heavy with political significance.
  812. Find this resource:
  813. Rich, J., and A. Wallace-Hadrill. 1991. City and country in the ancient world. London: Routledge.
  814. DOI: 10.4324/9780203418703Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  815. A collection of studies of the relationship between the city and its surrounding countryside in the ancient world. On the polis, note the contributions of A. Snodgrass, “Archaeology and the Study of the Greek City” (pp. 1–24), I. Morris, “The Early Polis as City and State” (pp. 25–58), and T. C. Rihll and A. G. Wilson, “Modelling Settlement Structures in Ancient Greece: New Approaches to the Polis” (pp. 59–96).
  816. Find this resource:
  817. Snodgrass, A. M. 1980. Archaic Greece: The age of experiment. London: Dent.
  818. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  819. An influential history of Archaic Greece, with great attention given to the archaeological evidence for early poleis, which sees the seeds of classical Greek culture, including the developed polis, in the Archaic period.
  820. Find this resource:
  821. The Imaginary Polis
  822.  
  823. The polis produced the foundational ideas and texts of Western political thought. Rowe and Schofield 2000 offers a very helpful introduction to Greek philosophical thought about politics, and Balot 2009 to Greek political thought more broadly conceived. Schofield 1999 is a collection of the author’s important articles on Greek political philosophy. Farrar 1988, Ober 1999, and Monoson 2000 are important studies of the relationship between Athenian democratic political culture and fundamental political thought, including antidemocratic reflection. Hansen 2005 approaches the themes of the Copenhagen Polis Project from the perspective of ancient ideas and theory. Laks and Schofield 1995 gives a good sense of the themes of Hellenistic political thought and modern debates about it.
  824.  
  825. Balot, R. K., ed. 2009. A companion to Greek and Roman political thought. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
  826. DOI: 10.1002/9781444310344Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  827. A helpful collection of articles, accessible for all students, that analyzes ancient political thought at different levels (e.g., philosophy, rhetoric, institution-building) as well as its modern reception and influence.
  828. Find this resource:
  829. Farrar, C. 1988. The origins of democratic thinking: The invention of politics in classical Athens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  830. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511552489Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  831. Farrar powerfully charts parallels and connections between experiments in democratic decision making in 5th-century Athens and contemporary radical epistemological and ethical theories, advocated by intellectuals such as Protagoras and Democritus.
  832. Find this resource:
  833. Hansen, M. H., ed. 2005. The imaginary polis: Symposium, May 7–10, 2004. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
  834. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  835. A collection of articles by leading scholars on the “imaginary polis” in Greek literature (Homer, tragedy), philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, early Stoicism) and cities’ own identities and images.
  836. Find this resource:
  837. Laks, A., and M. Schofield, eds. 1995. Justice and generosity: Studies in Hellenistic social and political philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  838. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511518485Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  839. A helpful collection of articles on themes in the political philosophy of the Hellenistic philosophical schools and major thinkers (Peripatetics, Cynics, Epicureans, Stoics, Polybius, Cicero). It shows well that, despite earlier stereotypes, Hellenistic philosophy had an important political dimension.
  840. Find this resource:
  841. Monoson, S. 2000. Plato’s democratic entanglements. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  842. DOI: 10.1515/9781400823741Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  843. Monoson makes a sometimes controversial argument that Plato’s political philosophical outlook was strongly shaped by his Athenian democratic environment, especially its rhetorical and theatrical practices.
  844. Find this resource:
  845. Ober, J. 1999. Political dissent in democratic Athens: Intellectual critics of popular rule. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  846. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  847. Ober sees the existence and productivity of a formidable body of antidemocratic thinkers in classical Athens as a mark of the vitality, and tolerance of free speech, of the classical democracy.
  848. Find this resource:
  849. Rowe, C., and M. Schofield, eds. 2000. The Cambridge history of Greek and Roman political thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  850. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521481366Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  851. An authoritative, detailed very useful survey of the major political philosophers of Antiquity.
  852. Find this resource:
  853. Schofield, M. 1999. Saving the city: Philosopher-kings and other classical paradigms. London: Routledge.
  854. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  855. Schofield’s stimulating collected papers on the political philosophy of (principally) Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.
  856. Find this resource:
  857. Modern Theoretical Approaches to the Polis
  858.  
  859. Reflection about the polis has been central to the development of modern sociological and anthropological theory (see the opening chapter of Finley 1982; also Murray 1990), and theoretical insights have been fruitfully applied back to the polis. The polis has been approached (for example) from Marxist (see Ste. Croix 1982), Weberian (see Finley 1982), structuralist (Vidal-Naquet 1986 and Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 1990) and post-structuralist (see Loraux 2001, cited under Disorder and Civil Strife (stasis)) viewpoints; some have tried, in a spirit of pluralism, to see these, and other viewpoints, as simultaneously valid, even if irreconcilable, alternatives (e.g., Ma 1994). One major theoretical debate concerns the question whether the polis was in any way a “state” (see Berent 1999). The importance of the polis as a unit of social and historical analysis has been subject itself recently to strong theoretical critique (Gawantka 1985, Vlassopoulos 2007).
  860.  
  861. Berent, M. 1999. Anthropology and the classics: War, violence and the stateless polis. Classical Quarterly 50:257–289
  862. DOI: 10.1093/cq/50.1.257Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  863. A challenge to the view that the polis can qualify as a “state” by prominent modern definitions, which offers the anthropological notion of the “stateless society” as an alternative model. Hansen 2002 defends the view of the polis as a state against Berent (1999).
  864. Find this resource:
  865. Finley, M. I. 1982. Economy and society in ancient Greece. Edited by B. D. Shaw and R. P. Saller. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
  866. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  867. After a survey of different modern theoretical approaches to the ancient city (“The Ancient City: From Fustel de Coulanges to Max Weber and Beyond,” pp. 3–23), the majority of the chapters exemplify Finley’s own approaches to ancient Greek social history.
  868. Find this resource:
  869. Gawantka, W. 1985. Die sogenannte Polis: Entstehung, Geschichte und Kritik der modernen althistorischen Grundbegriffe der griechische Staat, die griechische Staatsidee, die Polis. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
  870. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  871. A controversial critique of the long tradition in Greek historiography that makes “the Greek polis” or “the polis” central to interpreting the ancient Mediterranean and subsequent European civilization. Gawantka traces the origins of this approach, especially its connections with German Romanticism, Idealism, and nationalism. He also suggests that this approach obscures the true diversity and complexity of ancient Greek society and politics.
  872. Find this resource:
  873. Hansen, M. H. 2002. Was the polis a state or a stateless society? In Even more studies in the ancient Greek polis. Edited by T. H. Nielsen, 17–47. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy.
  874. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  875. A response to modern debates about whether the polis qualifies as a “state,” which offers a qualified defense of treating the polis as a type of state.
  876. Find this resource:
  877. Ma, J. 1994. Black Hunter variations. PCPS 40:49–80.
  878. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  879. The same passage of Plutarch, concerning culture and politics in a small later Hellenistic polis, is subjected to three successive interpretations, each guided by a different prominent modern methodological approach to the evidence for the polis.
  880. Find this resource:
  881. Murray, O. 1990. Cities of reason. In The Greek city from Homer to Alexander. Edited by O. Murray and S. R. F. Price, 1–25. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  882. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  883. Murray analyzes the sweep of modern theoretical approaches to the polis and offers suggestions of his own. He identifies a distinctively “rational” cast in polis politics, and he argues for some contrasts with modern patterns.
  884. Find this resource:
  885. Ste. Croix, G. E. M. de. 1982. The class struggle in the ancient Greek world. London: Duckworth.
  886. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  887. The classic Marxist treatment of the polis, which identifies some class struggle between rich and poor citizens but sees the main conflict as that between free and unfree.
  888. Find this resource:
  889. Vernant, J.-P., and P. Vidal-Naquet. 1990. Myth and tragedy in ancient Greece. Rev. ed. Translated by J. Lloyd. New York: Zone Books.
  890. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  891. A highly stimulating and influential structuralist interpretation of Greek tragedy as a product of a particular moment in the history of the polis, when a heroic and mythical worldview was giving way to a rationalistic civic one.
  892. Find this resource:
  893. Vidal-Naquet, P. 1986. The Black Hunter: Forms of thought and forms of society in the Greek world. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
  894. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  895. A collection of Vidal-Naquet’s articles using structuralist ideas to uncover underlying assumptions and dichotomies in Greek culture, including a basic political distinction between civilized polis insiders and outsiders.
  896. Find this resource:
  897. Vlassopoulos, K. 2007. Unthinking the Greek polis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  898. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511482946Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  899. Vlassopoulos argues that the conceptual framework of “the Greek polis” has led scholars to downplay the prominence of the city-state in neighboring Mediterranean cultures and the importance of non-polis structures and trans-polis links in the Greek world itself.
  900. Find this resource:
  901. The Polis in Later European Culture
  902.  
  903. The polis and its culture have provided much inspiration for later European political and cultural developments. Roman political institutions and ideas have often offered a more immediately accessible point of reference, but the works collected here show that Greek political examples and ideals have also played an important role. Cambiano 2000 surveys the evidence from the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. Rawson 1969 analyzes the potent influence of Spartan civic ideals throughout much of European history, while Nippel 2008 analyses the growing and improving reputation of classical Athenian democracy from the 18th century onward. Leonard 2005 is a detailed study of the engagement of many of the most influential French intellectuals with Greek civic politics in the second half of the 20th century. The papers in Ober and Hedrick 1996 reflect on the relevance of ancient for contemporary democracy, and vice versa.
  904.  
  905. Cambiano, G. 2000. Polis: Un modello per la cultura europea. Rome: Laterza.
  906. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  907. A clear and engaging history of European engagement with the polis and its political thought in the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. Cambiano argues effectively that, even if Roman political ideas were more prominent in relevant debates, the Greek polis and its political philosophy were also essential common points of reference, subjected to praise, analysis, and criticism by diverse thinkers, including Bruno, Machiavelli, Bodin, Montaigne, and Montesquieu.
  908. Find this resource:
  909. Leonard, M. 2005. Athens in Paris: Ancient Greece and the political in post-war French thought. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  910. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199277254.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  911. An engaging analysis of the ambivalent attitude to ancient civic ideals of community and citizenship, and to ancient political philosophy, of a number of 20th-century French intellectuals, including Vernant, Foucault, Derrida, and Lacan.
  912. Find this resource:
  913. Nippel, W. 2008. Antike oder moderne Freiheit? Die Begründung der Demokratie in Athen und in der Neuzeit. Frankfurt: Fischer.
  914. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  915. A scholarly and engaging account of different political reactions to ancient democracy and ideas of freedom in modern Europe, particularly strong on France and Germany in the period c. 1789–1919.
  916. Find this resource:
  917. Ober, J., and C. Hedrick, eds. 1996. Dēmokratia: A conversation on democracies, ancient and modern. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  918. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  919. A collection of reflections on ancient and modern democracy, with particularly strong coverage of questions about the relationship between ancient democracy and modern liberal and deliberative democracy.
  920. Find this resource:
  921. Rawson, E. 1969. The Spartan tradition in European thought. Oxford: Clarendon.
  922. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  923. A detailed and stimulating study of the prominence of Spartan ideals in European thought.
  924. Find this resource:
  925. back to top
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Public Pastes
We use cookies for various purposes including analytics. By continuing to use Pastebin, you agree to our use of cookies as described in the Cookies Policy.  OK, I Understand
Not a member of Pastebin yet?
Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!