Polis, in plural poleis, is the word the ancient Greeks used to describe their principal type of state and community and the most common of all nouns in ancient Greek. In Archaic and Classical sources there are over 11,000 attestations of the word, and they show that it was used in two different senses: (1) town (sometimes including the hinterland) and (2) state (sometimes including the territory). Often it carries both senses simultaneously and denotes both the state and its urban centre. The Copenhagen Polis Centre (1993-2005) conducted a number of investigations into the use and meanings of the term polis in all Archaic and Classical sources to find out what the Greeks thought a polis was. The present volume is a thoroughly revised and updated comprehensive publication of all these studies, to which four new studies have been added. They show that the two different meanings of the word polis are connected through their reference: with very few exceptions every polis town was the urban centre of a polis state, and conversely: virtually every polis state had an urban centre called a polis in the sense of town.

Explores the creation of identities through cross-cultural interactions in multiethnic commercial settlements in the Archaic and Classical Mediterranean.

This book offers the first comprehensive treatment in English of proxeny, drawing fully on the extensive record of literary sources and inscriptions to offer a new reconstruction of this Greek institution which was central to interstate relations in the ancient world.

The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean offers a comprehensive survey of ancient state formation in western Eurasia and North Africa. Eighteen experts introduce readers to a wide variety of systems spanning 4,000 years, from the earliest known states in world history to the Roman Empire and its immediate successors. They seek to understand the inner workings of these states by focusing on key issues: political and military power, the impact of ideologies, the rise and fall of individual polities, and the mechanisms of cooperation, coercion, and exploitation. This shared emphasis on critical institutions and dynamics invites comparative and cross-cultural perspectives. A detailed introductory review of contemporary approaches to the study of the state puts the rich historical case studies in context. Transcending conventional boundaries between ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean history and between ancient and early medieval history, this volume will be of interest not only to historians but also anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists, and political scientists. Its accessible style and up-to-date references will make it an invaluable resource for both students and scholars.

In its various incarnations, the Roman Empire survived until 1918, when the last two rulers to bear the title "Caesar" (Kaiser Wilhelm in Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia) fell from power. This volume contains the thinking of an international team of twelve scholars who analyze two of the most important changes in political and religious identity brought about by that empire: a change from the Greek kinship- and polis-based system to the territorial system of imperial Rome, and the development of a universal religious consciousness that lasted from the adoption of Christianity in the fourth century to the development of the nation-state in modern times.

Beyond the historical development of the Greek polis, the authors ask questions about the civic institutions of ancient Greece as a whole, and their relationships to each other.