Download Classical Archaeology/Classical Civilization 365

CLAS 0810A: Alexander the Great and the Alexander Tradition
Handout for January 31 and February 2, 2011 (Classes 3 & 4)
Some characteristics of the Greek polis
(1) Numerous: at least 700 known, with a wide geographical spread (incl.
southern and central Greece, the Greek islands and Crete, the Aegean
coast of Turkey, the shores of the Black Sea, southern Italy and Sicily).
(2) Usually very small in both territory and population (e.g., the island of Keos,
less than 50 sq.miles in size, supported four poleis). A typical polis might
include ca. 5,000 adult male citizens (politai). Geographical factors, as
well as the agonistic Greek character, may have played a role here.
(3) Every polis aspired to autonomy (political independence) and autarky
(economic self-sufficiency), though these were often only partially
achieved.
(4) The polis represented a tight bond of an agricultural territory or hinterland
(chora) and its urban focus (asty), often centered on an acropolis. An
agrarian peasant society, with no legal demarcation of town and
country.
(5) Economic basis was not trade or industry, but agrarian, with special
dependence on the “Mediterranean triad” of wheat/barley, vines and
olives. Fear of famine and dangers of overpopulation are two recurrent
themes.
(6) A polis was defined less in terms of territory than by the existence of the
body of male, voting, citizen members, ruled (in theory) by nomos
(custom, law). In practice, between the 8th and 5th centuries BC, rule by
the few (oligarchy) was contested by the people (demos), leading to
political unrest (stasis), and often a brief period of democratic dictatorship
(tyranny), before democracy.
(7) The polis was defended not by a standing army, but by citizen soldiers
convened according to necessity.
Greeks and the “other”
(1) Despite political fragmentation and endemic inter-state warfare, Greeks
thought of themselves as Hellenes (i.e., occupants of Hellas), linked by:
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a basically common language
similar religious outlook (many common deities and myths)
shared culture (e.g., in art, architecture, literature)
institutional embodiments of Greek unity (e.g., pan-Greek shrines or
oracles, such as Delphi; panhellenic games, such as the Olympics,
open to all Greeks).
(2) To be fully Greek meant being a male, adult, free, citizen of a polis.
Greekness came to be expressed in terms of negative, polar opposition to
a whole series of “others”–slaves, minors, females, non-citizens, non-Greek
speakers, even non-humans (Amazons, centaurs etc.). Greekness (to
hellenikon, lit. “the Greek thing”) was an ideological, cultural construct.
The general term for non-Greeks was barbarian.