Polis

A polis (pl.: poleis) was any Ancient Greek city-state. The ancient word polis had socio-political connotations not possessed by modern usage. For example, Modern Greek πόλη (póli), "city", is located within a χώρα (chóra), "country", which is a πατρίδα (patrída) or "native land" for its citizens. In ancient Greece, the polis was the native land; there was no other. It had a constitution and demanded the supreme loyalty of its citizens. Χώρα was only the countryside, not a country. Ancient Greece was not a sovereign country; rather, it was territory occupied by Hellenic people, those who claimed as their native language some dialect of Ancient Greek. Poleis did not only exist within the area of the modern Republic of Greece. A collaborative study carried by the Copenhagen Polis Centre from 1993 to 2003 classified about 1,500 settlements of the Archaic and Classical ancient-Greek-speaking population as poleis. These ranged from the Caucasus to Southern Spain, and from Southern Russia to Northern Egypt, spread over the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. They have been termed a network of micro-states. Many of the settlements still exist, such as Marseille and Syracuse, but they are no longer Greek or micro-states, belonging to other countries. The ancient Greek world was split between homeland regions and colonies. A colony was generally sent out by a single polis to relieve the population or some social crisis or seek out more advantageous country. It was called a metropolis or "mother city". The Greeks were careful to identify the homeland region and the metropolis of a colony. Typically a metropolis could count on the socio-economic and military support of its colonies, but not always. The homeland regions were located on the Greek mainland. Each gave an ethnic or "racial" name to its population and poleis. Acarnania, for...