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146-492: A deme functioned to some degree as a polis in miniature, and indeed some demes, such as Eleusis and Acharnae , were in fact significant towns. Each deme had a demarchos who supervised its affairs; various other civil, religious, and military functionaries existed in various demes. Demes held their own religious festivals and collected and spent revenue. Demes were combined within the same area to make trittyes , larger population groups, which in turn were combined to form

292-527: A genos , "family"; the Italics, a gens . Corresponding to Greek phratry , a group of families, was the Italic curia . Corresponding to Greek phyle , a tribe of multiple phratries, was the tribus . The comparison of IE cultures is a solid technique, but it is not enough to develop a solid model of "the ancient city", which must take historical disparities into consideration. From the analogy Coulanges weaves

438-473: A sovereign state . As a strict rule, the definition fails on its exceptions. A polis may not be urban at all, as was pointed out by Thucydides regarding the "polis of the Lacedaemonians", that it was "composed of villages after the old fashion of Hellas". Moreover, around the five villages of Lacedaemon, which had been placed in formerly Achaean land, were the villages of the former Achaeans, called

584-414: A Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us. Such measures impelled Pericles' critics to hold him responsible for the gradual degeneration of

730-486: A bankrupt state, the latter must be the one that prevails. For survival the citizens of each city build a privately owned pool of diverse resources, which they can exchange for mutual ("reciprocal") benefit. The theory of equal reciprocity is nothing more than a statement that owners of diverse assets must make profitable deals with each other. Pericles Pericles ( / ˈ p ɛr ɪ k l iː z / , ‹See Tfd› Greek : Περικλῆς ; c.  495 – 429 BC)

876-610: A behavior which the Athenians considered to be impious. After consultations with its allies, Sparta sent a deputation to Athens demanding certain concessions, such as the immediate expulsion of the Alcmaeonidae family including Pericles and the retraction of the Megarian Decree, threatening war if the demands were not met. The obvious purpose of these proposals was the instigation of a confrontation between Pericles and

1022-572: A brother-in-law of Cimon, as a symbol of unity and employed him several times to negotiate important agreements. In the spring of 449 BC, Pericles proposed the Congress Decree, which led to a meeting ("Congress") of all Greek states to consider the question of rebuilding the temples destroyed by the Persians. The Congress failed because of Sparta's stance, but Pericles' intentions remain unclear. Some historians think that he wanted to prompt

1168-484: A city nor an acropolis, but all the historiographers referred to it as a polis. The rule of the city-state persisted until late in the 20th century, when the accumulation of mass data and sponsored databases made possible searches and comparisons of multiple sources not previously possible, a few of which are mentioned in this article. Hansen reports that the Copenhagen Centre found it necessary to "dissociate

1314-590: A community politically or to enlarge the buildings in which it resides. Finally in the Classical Period and later, the -z-/-s- extension began to be used, as evidenced in Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch: sunoik-izein, "combine or join into one city", with its nouns sunoik-isis and sunoik-ismos, "founding a city", from which the English scholarly term synoecism derives. All poleis looked back to

1460-621: A confederation with the participation of all the Greek cities; others think he wanted to assert Athenian pre-eminence. According to the historian Terry Buckley the objective of the Congress Decree was a new mandate for the Delian League and for the collection of "phoros" (taxes). Remember, too, that if your country has the greatest name in all the world, it is because she never bent before disaster; because she has expended more life and effort in war than any other city, and has won for herself

1606-513: A decade. The causes of the Peloponnesian War have been much debated, but many ancient historians lay the blame on Pericles and Athens. Plutarch seems to believe that Pericles and the Athenians incited the war, scrambling to implement their belligerent tactics "with a sort of arrogance and a love of strife". Thucydides hints at the same thing, believing the reason for the war was Sparta's fear of Athenian power and growth. However, as he

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1752-517: A decree dispatching an expedition to Samos, "alleging against its people that, although they were ordered to break off their war against the Milesians, they were not complying". In a naval battle the Athenians led by Pericles and nine other generals defeated the forces of Samos and imposed on the island an Athenian administration. When the Samians revolted against Athenian rule, Pericles compelled

1898-520: A deme and a new deme, Apollonieis, was created in honour of Apollonis, wife of Attalus I of Pergamum. As a consequence there were again 12 tribes and 600 members of the Boule. From this period onward, quotas were no longer assigned to the demes for the 50 Boule members from each tribe The last modification was the creation in 126/127 of XV. Hadrianis , named after the Emperor Hadrian , following

2044-552: A demos. A new village was created and named Berenikidai after Ptolemy's wife Berenice II of Egypt . In 201/200 BC the Macedonian Phylae were dissolved and the villages (except the two given to Ptolemais) went back to their original tribes. In the spring of 200 BC Tribe XIV. Attalis , named after Attalus I , was created following the same scheme used for the creation of the Egyptian Phyle: each tribe contributed

2190-489: A different polis. These are three. A polis has a particular location, population, and constitution ( politeia ). For example, if a polis moves en masse, receives a different form of government, or an influx of new population, it is not the same polis. Aristotle expresses two main definitions of polis, neither of which is possible as stated. In the second (see below for the first) a polis is "a collection of citizens...." (Book III I 2). If they already are citizens, then there

2336-514: A federation with binding membership, etc. The Perioeci were included in this category. When the models are set aside as primary sources (which they never were) it is clear that historiography must be founded on what the authors and inscriptions say. Moreover, there is a time window for the active polis. The fact that polis was used in the Middle Ages to translate civitas does not make these civitates into poleis. The Copenhagen Study uses quite

2482-521: A few evidential indications of a probable polis, in addition to the manuscripts and inscriptions, some of which are victory in the Panhellenic Games, participation in the games, having an official agent, or proxenos, in another polis, presence of civic subdivisions, presence of citizens and a Constitution (Laws). Modern theorists of the polis are theorizing under a major disadvantage: their topic has not been current for thousands of years. It

2628-441: A figure that suggested himself as a bald old man, and also inserted a very fine likeness of Pericles fighting with an Amazon. Aspasia , who was noted for her ability as a conversationalist and adviser, was accused of corrupting the women of Athens to satisfy Pericles' perversions. The accusations against her were probably nothing more than unproven slanders, but the whole experience was very bitter for Pericles. Although Aspasia

2774-563: A helmet , this is not the case; the helmet was actually the symbol of his official rank as strategos (general). Our policy does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. It is called a democracy, because not the few but the many govern. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar

2920-443: A hostile action, the Athenians refused to admit their emissaries. With his last attempt at negotiation thus declined, Archidamus invaded Attica , but found no Athenians there; Pericles, aware that Sparta's strategy would be to invade and ravage Athenian territory, had previously arranged to evacuate the entire population of the region to within the walls of Athens. No definite record exists of how exactly Pericles managed to convince

3066-466: A populist policy to cajole the public. According to Aristotle , Pericles' stance can be explained by the fact that his principal political opponent, Cimon , was both rich and generous, and was able to gain public favor by lavishly handing out portions of his sizable personal fortune. The historian Loren J. Samons II argues, however, that Pericles had enough resources to make a political mark by private means, had he so chosen. In 461 BC, Pericles achieved

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3212-600: A power greater than any hitherto known, the memory of which will descend to the latest posterity. During the Second Sacred War Pericles led the Athenian army against Delphi and reinstated Phocis in its sovereign rights on the oracle . In 447 BC Pericles engaged in his most admired excursion, the expulsion of barbarians from the Thracian peninsula of Gallipoli , to establish Athenian colonists in

3358-613: A precedent of jumping over the wall in mockery of it. There were no families, no phratries, no tribes, except among the already settled Latins, Greeks, and Etruscans. The warriors acquired a social structure by kidnapping the nearby Italic Sabines (" the Rape of the Sabine Women ") and settling the matter by agreeing on a synoecism with the Sabines also, who were Latins. Alba Longa was ignored, later subdued. The first four tribes were not

3504-518: A priori assumptions as though they were substantiated facts and were not the pure speculations they actually are. One of the most influential of these translative models was the French La Cite antique , translated again into English "the ancient city", by Coulanges. Only to read the title gives credibility to the idea that there is a model type inclusive of all ancient cities, and that the author need only present it without proving it. This type

3650-500: A single site, and the single city belongs to its citizens in common." Aristotle's description fits the landscape archaeology of the poleis in the Copenhagen Study well. The study defines settlement patterns of first-, second-, and third-order. The third, dispersed , is individual oikiai distributed more or less evenly throughout the countryside. The other two orders are nucleated, or clustered. 2nd-order settlements are

3796-446: A synoecism under any name as their source of politeia . Not all settlements were poleis; for example, an emporion, or "market reserved for foreign trade", might be part of a polis or out on its own. In any particular synoecism recorded by either ancient or modern epigraphists a major problem has been to fit the model credibly to the instance. For example, Thucydides refers to Spartan lack of urbanity as "not synoecised", where synoecism

3942-422: A tale of imaginary history. Families, he asserts, originally lived dispersed and alone (a presumption of Aristotle as well). When the population grew to a certain point, families joined into phratries. Further growth caused phratries to join into tribes, and then tribes into a city. In the city the ancient tribes remained sacrosanct. The city was actually a confederacy of ancient tribes. Coulange's tale, based on

4088-429: Is actually a lessening of unity and would destroy the state. The individual is actually most united and effective; the polis the least. To take away the property and therefore the powers of the individual diminishes the state to nothing, as it is composed of citizens, and those citizens have been rendered null and void by the removal of their effectiveness. As an example Aristotle gives a plot of land, which owned by one man

4234-588: Is based on the ancient practice of translating polis in Greek literature to civitas (early form of city) in Latin literature and vice versa. Coulanges' confidence that the Greek and Italic cities were the same model was based on the then newly discovered Indo-European language : "Go back as far as we may in the history of the Indo-European race, of which the Greeks and Italians are branches,...." The Greeks had

4380-414: Is carefully tended, but owned by the whole community belongs to no one and is untended. The ideal state therefore is impossible, a mere logical construct accounting for some of the factors, but failing of others, which Aristotle's examples suffice to demonstrate. For example, in some hypothetical place of no polis, a buyer would apply to an individual builder for a house. In an ideal polis, he would apply to

4526-495: Is generally regarded as an admirer of Pericles, Thucydides has been criticized for bias against Sparta . Pericles was convinced that the war against Sparta, which could not conceal its envy of Athens' pre-eminence, was inevitable if unfortunate. Therefore, he did not hesitate to send troops to Corcyra to reinforce the Corcyraean fleet, which was fighting against Corinth . In 433 BC the enemy fleets confronted each other at

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4672-574: Is highly critical. The Theory of the State is not so much political by today's definition. The politics are covered by the New Plan. The topic of the Old Plan is rather society , and is generally presented today in sociology and cultural anthropology . At the end of Book III, however, Aristotle encounters certain problems of definition that he cannot reconcile through theorization and has to abandon

4818-434: Is no need for anyone to collect to create a polis, as it already exists. If they are not citizens then they cannot be defined as a polis and cannot act as such. Aristotle's only consistent meaning is that at the moment of collecting together a population creates a polis of which they are now citizens. This moment of creation, however long it might be, is a logical necessity; otherwise, the citizenship recedes indefinitely into

4964-409: Is not left to the moderns to redefine polis as though it were a living institution. All that remains to ask is how the ancients defined it. It is not to be redefined now; for example, a polis is not a list of architectural features based on ruins. Any community might have those. Moderns can only ask, what did the ancient Greeks think a polis is. Whatever they thought must per force be so, as they invented

5110-445: Is not whether poleis can be found to fit a particular model (some usually can), but whether the model covers all the poleis, which, apparently, no model ever has, even the ancient ones. The re-defining process continues. The Copenhagen study rejects either model and proposes instead the microstate. Some few scholars have become totally cynical, rejecting the idea that any solution has been or can be found. This argument places polis in

5256-406: Is the creation of common living quarters (see above). Here apparently it means only the building of a central urban area. The reader of Plutarch knows that another synoecism existed, one instituted by Lycurgus, founder of the military state. The single overall synoecism is apparently double, one for the facilities, missing in this story, and one for the constitution. He uses the same word to describe

5402-440: Is to know what information to select for a model and what to neglect as probably irrelevant. Classical studies of the last few hundred years have been relatively stable in their views of the polis, relying basically on just a few models: the concept of a city-state, and Fustel de Coulange's model of the ancient city. However, no model ever seems to resolve all the paradoxes or provide for every newly considered instance. The question

5548-449: The demos , in which he saw an untapped source of Athenian power and the crucial element of Athenian military dominance. (The fleet, backbone of Athenian power since the days of Themistocles, was manned almost entirely by members of the lower classes. ) Cimon, in contrast, apparently believed that no further free space for democratic evolution existed. He was certain that democracy had reached its peak and Pericles' reforms were leading to

5694-482: The Attic phyle (clan) of Acamantis ( Ἀκαμαντὶς φυλή ). His early years were quiet; the introverted young Pericles avoided public appearances, instead preferring to devote his time to his studies. According to Herodotus and Plutarch , Agariste dreamed, a few nights before Pericles' birth, that she had borne a lion. Legends say that Philip II of Macedon had a similar dream before the birth of his son, Alexander

5840-548: The Battle of Sybota and a year later the Athenians fought Corinthian colonists at the Battle of Potidaea ; these two events contributed greatly to Corinth's lasting hatred of Athens. During the same period, Pericles proposed the Megarian decree , which resembled a modern trade embargo. According to the provisions of the decree, Megarian merchants were excluded from the market of Athens and the ports in its empire. This ban strangled

5986-686: The Corinthian gulf , before returning to Athens. In 451 BC, Cimon returned from exile and negotiated a five years' truce with Sparta after a proposal of Pericles, an event which indicates a shift in Pericles' political strategy. Pericles may have realized the importance of Cimon's contribution during the ongoing conflicts against the Peloponnesians and the Persians . Anthony J. Podlecki argues, however, that Pericles' alleged change of position

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6132-540: The Perioeci ("dwellers round"). They had been left as supposedly free poleis by the invaders, but they were subject to and served the interests of the Dorian poleis. They were not city-states, failing the criterion of sovereignty. Lacedaemon by the city-state rule thus falls short of being a polis. The earlier Achaean acropolis stood at the edge of the valley and was decrepit and totally unused. Lacedaemon had neither

6278-551: The archonship in 458–457 BC and bestowed generous wages on all citizens who served as jurymen in the Heliaia (the supreme court of Athens) some time just after 454 BC. His most controversial measure, however, was a law of 451 BC limiting Athenian citizenship to those of Athenian parentage on both sides. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far from needing

6424-467: The de facto ruler of the state. In 440 BC Samos went to war against Miletus over control of Priene , an ancient city of Ionia on the foot-hills of Mycale . Worsted in the war, the Milesians came to Athens to plead their case against the Samians. When the Athenians ordered the two sides to stop fighting and submit the case to arbitration in Athens, the Samians refused. In response, Pericles passed

6570-526: The "Periclean Acropolis", which included the Propylaea , the Parthenon and the golden statue of Athena, sculpted by Pericles' friend, Phidias . In 449 BC Pericles proposed a decree allowing the use of 9,000 talents to finance the major rebuilding program of Athenian temples. Angelos Vlachos, a Greek Academician , points out the use of the alliance's treasury, initiated and executed by Pericles, as one of

6716-578: The "prytani" (singular, "prytaneis"), Pericles had no formal control over their scheduling; rather, the respect in which Pericles was held by the prytanies was apparently sufficient to persuade them to do as he wished. While the Spartan army remained in Attica, Pericles sent a fleet of 100 ships to loot the coasts of the Peloponnese and charged the cavalry to guard the ravaged farms close to the walls of

6862-622: The Aegean for a few thousand years prior to the Dorian invasions , forming an "aggregate, the pre-Doric city". This type of city is not to be regarded as "the Hellenic type of the polis". The Greeks set adrift by the Dorian invasions countered by joining ( synoecism ) to form the Hellenic poleis. The polis can thus be dated to this defensive resettlement period (the Dark Age). Quite a few poleis fit

7008-632: 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 Seas. They have been termed a network of micro-states. Many of the settlements still exist; e.g., Marseille , Syracuse , Alexandria , but they are no longer Greek or micro-states, belonging to other countries. The ancient Greek world

7154-496: The Athenian contingent in the Greek victory at Mycale just five years later. Pericles' mother, Agariste, was a member of the powerful and controversial noble family of the Alcmaeonidae , and her familial connections played a crucial role in helping start his political career. Agariste was the great-granddaughter of the tyrant of Sicyon , Cleisthenes , and the niece of the Athenian reformer Cleisthenes . Pericles belonged to

7300-418: The Athenian democracy. Constantine Paparrigopoulos , a major modern Greek historian, argues that Pericles sought for the expansion and stabilization of all democratic institutions. Accordingly, he enacted legislation granting the lower classes access to the political system and the public offices, from which they had previously been barred. According to Samons, Pericles believed that it was necessary to raise

7446-536: The Athenian organization: there were tribes for the population of 1. Arcadia , 2. Achaea , 3. Elis , 4. Boeotia , 5. Delphi , 6. Dorians , 7. Ionians , 8. population of Euboea , 9. the islands and 10. Athenians. The term "deme" ( dēmos ) survived into the Hellenistic and Roman eras. By the time of the Byzantine Empire , the term was used to refer to one of the four chariot racing factions,

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7592-414: The Athenians for forty years. If this was so, Pericles must have taken up a position of leadership by the early 460s BC – in his early or mid-thirties. Throughout these years he endeavored to protect his privacy and to present himself as a model for his fellow citizens. For example, he would often avoid banquets, trying to be frugal. In 463 BC, Pericles was the leading prosecutor of Cimon,

7738-494: The Coinage Decree, which imposed Athenian silver coinage, weights and measures on all of the allies. According to one of the decree's most stringent provisions, surplus from a minting operation was to go into a special fund, and anyone proposing to use it otherwise was subject to the death penalty. It was from the alliance's treasury that Pericles drew the funds necessary to enable his ambitious building plan, centered on

7884-536: The Delian League transformed into an Athenian empire is generally considered to have begun well before Pericles' time, as various allies in the league chose to pay tribute to Athens instead of manning ships for the league's fleet, but the transformation was speeded and brought to its conclusion by Pericles. The final steps in the shift to empire may have been triggered by Athens' defeat in Egypt, which challenged

8030-455: The Great . One interpretation of the dream treats the lion as a traditional symbol of greatness, but the story may also allude to the unusually large size of Pericles' skull, which became a popular target of contemporary comedians (who called him "Squill-head", after the squill or sea-onion). Although Plutarch claims that this deformity was the reason that Pericles was always depicted wearing

8176-419: The Greek conception ... but this was rather owing to their less vivid mental powers than to the absence of the phenomenon." Polis is thus often translated as ' city-state '. The model, however, fares no better than any other. City-states no doubt existed, but so also did many poleis that were not city-states. The minimum semantic load of this hyphenated neologism is that the referent must be a city and must be

8322-411: The Greek mainland which it had acquired since 460 BC, and both Athens and Sparta agreed not to attempt to win over the other state's allies. In 444 BC, the conservative and the democratic factions confronted each other in a fierce struggle. The ambitious new leader of the conservatives, Thucydides (not to be confused with the historian of the same name), accused Pericles of profligacy, criticizing

8468-528: The Greek mainland. Each gave an ethnic or "racial" name to its population and poleis. Acarnania , for example was the location of the Acarnanian people and poleis. A colony from there would then be considered Acarnanian, no matter how far away from Acarnania it was. Colonization was thus the main method of spreading Greek poleis and culture. Ancient Greeks did not reserve the term polis solely for Greek-speaking settlements. For example, Aristotle's study of

8614-415: The Hellenic poleis and was continuous with the pre-Doric city phase, then pre-Doric Athens must have been a Hellenic polis even then. The model fails in its chief instance. A second approach to the modelling of the polis is not to use the word polis at all, but to translate it into the language of the historiographer. The model is thus inherent in the translation, which has the disadvantage of incorporating

8760-616: The Megarian economy and strained the fragile peace between Athens and Sparta, which was allied with Megara. According to George Cawkwell , a praelector in ancient history , with this decree Pericles breached the Thirty Years' Peace "but, perhaps, not without the semblance of an excuse". The Athenians' justification was that the Megarians had cultivated the sacred land consecrated to Demeter and had given refuge to runaway slaves,

8906-454: The Newer were united with a political synoecism. The first sentence of Politics asserts that a polis is a community ( koinonia ). This is Aristotle's first definition of polis (for the second, see above). The community is compared to a game of chess. The man without community is like an isolated piece (I.9). Other animals form communities, but those of men are more advantageous because men have

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9052-461: The Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens as Archon (ruler), roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the " Age of Pericles ", but the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars or as late as the following century. Pericles promoted the arts and literature, and it was principally through his efforts that Athens acquired the reputation of being

9198-776: The Reds, the Blues, the Greens and the Whites. In modern Greece, the term dēmos is used to denote one of the municipalities . Polis Polis ( pl. : poleis) means 'city' in Ancient Greek . The Modern Greek word πόλη ( polē ) is a direct descendant of the ancient word and roughly means 'city' or an urban place. However, the Ancient Greek term that specifically meant the totality of urban buildings and spaces

9344-528: The Spartans, and with neither side willing to back down, the two cities prepared for war. According to Athanasios G. Platias and Constantinos Koliopoulos, professors of strategic studies and international politics , "rather than to submit to coercive demands, Pericles chose war". Another consideration that may well have influenced Pericles' stance was the concern that revolts in the empire might spread if Athens showed itself weak. In 431 BC, while peace already

9490-513: The Trojan War and had placed a polis (Livy's urbs) on one of the hills named Pallantium , later becoming Palatine . He had actually raised the Trojan boys and supported them now. When the band of marauders became populous enough Romulus got them to agree to a synoecism of settlements in the hills to form a new city, Rome, to be walled in immediately. Remus had to be sacrificed because he had set

9636-451: The account of this period is the issue of the Peace of Callias , which allegedly ended hostilities between the Greeks and the Persians. The very existence of the treaty is hotly disputed, and its particulars and negotiation are ambiguous. Ernst Badian believes that a peace between Athens and Persia was first ratified in 463 BC (making the Athenian interventions in Egypt and Cyprus violations of

9782-420: The argument there is "For it is by proportionate requital that the city holds together .... and if they cannot do so there is no exchange, but it is by exchange that they hold together." In short Aristotle had stated two systems of property, one in which the polis holds everything, distributing it equally, and one in which some property is held in common but the rest is privately owned. As the former only leads to

9928-440: The besieging force was defeated and destroyed. In 451–450 BC the Athenians sent troops to Cyprus . Cimon defeated the Persians in the Battle of Salamis-in-Cyprus , but died of disease in 449 BC. Pericles is said to have initiated both expeditions in Egypt and Cyprus, although some researchers, such as Karl Julius Beloch , argue that the dispatch of such a great fleet conforms with the spirit of Cimon's policy. Complicating

10074-400: The citizens and simultaneously a collection of some of the citizens. Similarly property shared by all cannot be shared by men who do not own it. These fictions led to endless conflict between and within poleis as the participants fought for citizenship they did not have and shares they did not own. A village (kome) is a community of several families (I.2). Aristotle suggests that they came from

10220-619: The city's dominance in the Aegean and led to the revolt of several allies, such as Miletus and Erythrae . Either because of a genuine fear for its safety after the defeat in Egypt and the revolts of the allies, or as a pretext to gain control of the League's finances, Athens transferred the treasury of the alliance from Delos to Athens in 454–453 BC. By 450–449 BC the revolts in Miletus and Erythrae were quelled and Athens restored its rule over its allies. Around 447 BC Clearchus proposed

10366-419: The city. When the enemy retired and the pillaging came to an end, Pericles proposed a decree according to which the authorities of the city should put aside 1,000 talents and 100 ships, in case Athens was attacked by naval forces. According to the most stringent provision of the decree, even proposing a different use of the money or ships would entail the penalty of death. During the autumn of 431 BC, Pericles led

10512-469: The city. This promise was prompted by his concern that Archidamus, who was a friend of his, might pass by his estate without ravaging it, either as a gesture of friendship or as a calculated political move aimed to alienate Pericles from his constituents. In any case, seeing the pillage of their farms, the Athenians were outraged, and they soon began to indirectly express their discontent towards their leader, who many of them considered to have drawn them into

10658-586: The coast, one from the city, and one from the inland area. Cleisthenes also reorganized the Boule , created with 400 members under Solon , so that it had 500 members, 50 from each tribe, each deme having a fixed quota. The ten tribes were named after legendary heroes and came to have an official order: In 307/306 – 224/223 BC the system was reorganized with the creation of two Macedonian Phylai (XI. Antigonis and XII. Demetrias ), named after Demetrius I of Macedon and Antigonus I Monophthalmus , and an increase in

10804-471: The company of the philosophers Protagoras , Zeno of Elea , and Anaxagoras . Anaxagoras, in particular, became a close friend and influenced him greatly. Pericles' manner of thought and rhetorical charisma may have possibly been in part products of Anaxagoras' emphasis on emotional calm in the face of trouble, and skepticism about divine phenomena. His proverbial calmness and self-control are also often regarded as products of Anaxagoras' influence. In

10950-449: The concept of polis from the concepts of independence and autonomia". They were able to define a class of "dependent poleis" to consist of 15 types, all of which the ancient sources call poleis, but were not entirely sovereign, such as cities that had been independent, but were later synoecized into a larger polis, new colonies of other poleis, forts, ports, or trading posts some distance removed from their mother poleis, poleis that had joined

11096-429: The control of hostile oligarchs. In 446 BC, a more dangerous uprising erupted. Euboea and Megara revolted. Pericles crossed over to Euboea with his troops, but was forced to return when the Spartan army invaded Attica . Through bribery and negotiations, Pericles defused the imminent threat, and the Spartans returned home. When Pericles was later audited for the handling of public money, an expenditure of 10 talents

11242-514: The educational and cultural center of the ancient Greek world. He started an ambitious project that generated most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis , including the Parthenon . This project beautified and protected the city, exhibited its glory, and gave work to its people. Pericles also fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics called him a populist . Pericles

11388-468: The eruption of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles and two of his closest associates, Phidias and his companion, Aspasia , faced a series of personal and judicial attacks. Phidias , who had been in charge of all building projects, was first accused of embezzling gold meant for the statue of Athena and then of impiety, because, when he wrought the battle of the Amazons on the shield of Athena, he carved out

11534-540: The expulsion of Cimon, the unchallengeable leader of the democratic party became the unchallengeable ruler of Athens. He remained in power until his death in 429 BC. Pericles made his first military excursions during the First Peloponnesian War, which was caused in part by Athens' alliance with Megara and Argos and the subsequent reaction of Sparta. In 454 BC he attacked Sicyon and Acarnania . He then unsuccessfully tried to conquer Oeniadea on

11680-509: The first and the second periods. More precisely in: As regards the last two periods, the material illustrates the complete collapse of the quota-system from 201/200 BC. Some deme lists suggest extensions to the list of 139+3 Demes by adding 43 additional names, some of which have been considered by scholars as Attic demes. The criticism performed by John S. Traill shows that 24 are the result of error, ancient or modern, or of misinterpretation and 19 are well known chiefly from inscriptions of

11826-404: The fragmentary history of priesthoods, does not much resemble the history of cities such as it survives. For example, there was no familial and tribal development of Rome. Livy (Book I), the grandest of the historians of early Rome, portrays a city formed under competitive duress by a collaboration of warriors, some of whom were from among the neighboring Etruscans , led by Romulus and Remus ,

11972-433: The holding relationship implies. In Book II Aristotle begins to face the problem. The "polis men", politai , translated as 'citizens', must logically hold everything there is to hold, nothing, or some things but not others (II.I.2). In this sociological context politai can only be all the householders sharing in the polis, free or slave, male or female, child or adult. The sum total of all the specific holdings mentioned in

12118-422: The ideal state incapable of sustaining itself. Aristotle says, "A collection of persons all alike does not constitute a state." He means that such a collection is not self-sufficient (II.1.4). He alleges the opposite: "components which are to make up a unity must differ in kind .... Hence reciprocal equality is the preservative of states, as has been said before in (Nichomachean) Ethics (1132b, 1133a)." In summary

12264-454: The individual. Families are bound by three relationships: husband to wife, owner to slave, and father to children. Thus slaves and women are members of the polis. The proper function of a family is the acquisition and management of wealth . The oikia is the primary land-holder. The koinonia, then, applied to property, including people. As such it is just as impossible as the collection of citizens mentioned previously, which cannot be both all

12410-505: The inscriptions of dedication in his own name. His stance was greeted with applause, and Thucydides was soundly, if unexpectedly, defeated. In 442 BC, the Athenian public voted to ostracize Thucydides from the city for 10 years and Pericles was once again the unchallenged ruler of the Athenian political arena. Pericles wanted to stabilize Athens' dominance over its alliance and to enforce its pre-eminence in Greece. The process by which

12556-467: The komai, while the 1st order is the poleis. Approaching the polis from the outside of an aerial photograph one would pass successivle orders 3, 2, and 1. By the end of Book I of Politics Aristotle (or one of the other unknown authors) finishes defining the polis according to one scheme and spends the next two books trying to tie up loose ends. It is generally agreed that the work is an accumulation of surviving treatises written at different times, and that

12702-479: The language of the historiographer. For example, Eric Voegelin wrote a work in English entitled "The World of the Polis". In works such as this the author intends to define polis himself; i.e., to present a model of society from one or more of a list of ancient Greek cities (poleis) culled from ancient Greek literature and inscriptions. For example, Voegelin describes a model in which "town settlements" existed in

12848-425: The largest embezzlements in human history; this misappropriation financed, however, some of the most marvellous artistic creations of the ancient world. The Samian War was one of the last significant military events before the Peloponnesian War. After Thucydides' ostracism, Pericles was re-elected yearly to the generalship, the only office he ever officially occupied, although his influence was so great as to make him

12994-520: The leader of the conservative faction who was accused of neglecting Athens' vital interests in Macedon . Although Cimon was acquitted, this confrontation proved that Pericles' major political opponent was vulnerable. Around 461 BC, the leadership of the democratic party decided it was time to take aim at the Areopagus , a traditional council controlled by the Athenian aristocracy, which had once been

13140-440: The legal incorporation of the settlements around Athens into the city by King Theseus , although no special building was required. The central polis already existed. In this story also there is a duality of synoecism with an absent change of physical facilities. Apparently a synoecism can be of different types, the selection of which depends on the requirements of the sunoikisteres. Lippman applies two concepts previously current,

13286-488: The main logical break is the end of Book III. Books I, II, and III, dubbed "Theory of the State" by Rackham in the Loeb Edition , each represents an incomplete trial of the "Old Plan". Books !V, V, and VI, "Practical Politics", are the "New Plan". Books VII and VIII, "Ideal Politics", contains Aristotle's replacement of Plato's ideology, openly called "communist" by modern translators and theoreticians, of which Aristotle

13432-417: The makeup of an ideal polis. In The Republic , Socrates is concerned with the two underlying principles of any society: mutual needs and differences in aptitude. Starting from these two principles, Socrates deals with the economic structure of an ideal polis. According to Plato there are five main economic classes of any polis: producers, merchants, sailors/shipowners, retail traders and wage earners. Along with

13578-453: The many one-castle principates that abounded at the time. The name was applied to the polis by Herder in 1765. Fowler anglicised it: "It is, then, a city-state that we have to deal with in Greek and Roman history; a state in which the whole life and energy of the people, political, intellectual, religious, is focused at one point, and that point a city." He applied the word polis to it, explaining that, "The Latin race, indeed, never realised

13724-407: The membership of the Boule to 600. Each of the ten tribes, except Aiantis, provided three demes (not necessarily one for trittyes); the missing contribution of Aiantis was covered by two demes of Leontis and one from Aigeis. The Egyptian Phyle XIII. Ptolemais , named after Ptolemy III Euergetes was created in 224/223 BC and the Boule was again increased to 650 members, the twelve tribes giving each

13870-400: The model, no doubt, which was widely promulgated in the 20th century. Classical Athens , however, is a paradox in this model, to which Voegelin has no answer. He says, "in the most important instance, that of Athens, the continuity between the Aegean settlement and the later polis seems to have been unbroken." It seems a matter of simple logic that if Athens was a Hellenic polis in the time of

14016-540: The most powerful body in the state. The leader of the party and mentor of Pericles, Ephialtes , proposed a reduction of the Areopagus' powers. The Ecclesia (the Athenian Assembly) adopted Ephialtes' proposal without opposition. This reform signaled the beginning of a new era of "radical democracy". The democratic party gradually became dominant in Athenian politics, and Pericles seemed willing to follow

14162-527: The peace), and renegotiated at the conclusion of the campaign in Cyprus, taking force again by 449–448 BC. John Fine, in contrast, suggests that the first peace between Athens and Persia was concluded in 450–449 BC, due to Pericles' calculation that ongoing conflict with Persia was undermining Athens' ability to spread its influence in Greece and the Aegean . Kagan believes that Pericles used Callias ,

14308-436: The people; this event, indeed, would come about a few years later. At that time, the Athenians unhesitatingly followed Pericles' instructions. In the first legendary oration Thucydides puts in his mouth, Pericles advised the Athenians not to yield to their opponents' demands, since they were militarily stronger. Pericles was not prepared to make unilateral concessions, believing that "if Athens conceded on that issue, then Sparta

14454-466: The polis extends as far back as the beginning of Greek literature, when the works of Homer and Hesiod in places attempt to portray an ideal state. The study took a great leap forward when Plato and the academy in general undertook to define what is meant by the good, or ideal, polis. Plato analyzes the polis in the Republic , the Greek title of which, Πολιτεία ( politeia ), itself derives from

14600-551: The polis names also Carthage , comparing its constitution to that of Sparta. Carthage was a Phoenician -speaking city. Many nominally Greek colonies also included municipalities of non-Greek speakers, such as Syracuse. The word polis is used in the first known work of Greek literature, the Iliad , a maximum of 350 times. The few hundred ancient Greek classical works on line at the Perseus Digital Library use

14746-419: The political elimination of this opponent using ostracism . The accusation was that Cimon betrayed his city by aiding Sparta . After Cimon's ostracism, Pericles continued to promote a populist social policy. He first proposed a decree that permitted the poor to watch theatrical plays without paying, with the state covering the cost of their admission. With other decrees he lowered the property requirement for

14892-531: The political synoecism and the physical synoecism, to events at the polis of Pleuron (Aetolia) described by Strabo . Pleuron, in danger of being sacked by the Macedonians, was officially moved up the slope of a nearby mountain, walled in, and named Newer Pleuron. This act was a physical synoecism. After the Macedonian threat vanished the former location was reinhabited and called Old Pleuron. The old and

15038-448: The power of speech as well as a sense of right and wrong, and can communicate judgements of good or bad to the community (I.10). A second metaphor compares a community to a human body: no part can function without the whole functioning (I.11). Men belong to communities because they have an instinct to do so (I.12). The polis is a hierarchy of community. At the most subordinate level is the family ( oikia ), which has priority of loyalty over

15184-516: The rebels to capitulate after a tough siege of eight months, which resulted in substantial discontent among the Athenian sailors. Pericles then quelled a revolt in Byzantium and, when he returned to Athens, gave a funeral oration to honor the soldiers who died in the expedition. Between 438 and 436 BC Pericles led Athens' fleet in Pontus and established friendly relations with the Greek cities of

15330-462: The region. At this time, however, Athens was seriously challenged by a number of revolts among its subjects. In 447 BC the oligarchs of Thebes conspired against the democratic faction. The Athenians demanded their immediate surrender, but after the Battle of Coronea , Pericles was forced to concede the loss of Boeotia to recover the prisoners taken in that battle. With Boeotia in hostile hands, Phocis and Locris became untenable and quickly fell under

15476-429: The region. Pericles focused also on internal projects, such as the fortification of Athens (the building of the "middle wall" about 440 BC), and on the creation of new cleruchies , such as Andros , Naxos and Thurii (444 BC) as well as Amphipolis (437–436 BC). Pericles and his friends were never immune from attack, as preeminence in democratic Athens was not equivalent to absolute rule. Just before

15622-504: The relinquishing of property to form the polis is advantageous, and the maximum advantage is maximum possession of common property by a polis. The principle of advantage is unity. The more united, the more advantageous (compare the action of a lever, which concentrates advantage). The ideal commun-ity would be commun-ism, the possession of all property by the community. Personal property, such as wives and children, are included (II.1). Aristotle argues that this eminent domain of all property

15768-458: The residents of Attica to agree to move into the crowded urban areas. For most, the move meant abandoning their land and ancestral shrines and completely changing their lifestyle. Therefore, although they agreed to leave, many rural residents were far from happy with Pericles' decision. Pericles also gave his compatriots some advice on their present affairs and reassured them that, if the enemy did not plunder his farms, he would offer his property to

15914-410: The result of any previous social evolution. They were the first municipal division of the city manufactured for the purpose. They were no sort of confederacy. Rome initially was ruled by Etruscan kings. Coulanges work was followed by the innovation of the English city-state by W. Warde Fowler in 1893. The Germans had already invented the word in their own language: Stadtstaat, "city-state", referring to

16060-409: The revolt there. He then punished the landowners of Chalcis , who lost their properties. The residents of Histiaea , meanwhile, who had butchered the crew of an Athenian trireme , were uprooted and replaced by 2,000 Athenian settlers. The crisis was brought to an official end by the Thirty Years' Peace (winter of 446–445 BC), in which Athens relinquished most of the possessions and interests on

16206-427: The same category of Plato's indefinable abstracts, such as freedom and justice. However, there is a practical freedom and a practical justice, although not theoretically definable, and the ancient authors must mean something consistent when they use the word polis . The problem is to find it. In modern historiography of the ancient world πόλις is often transliterated to polis without any attempt to translate it into

16352-478: The same or similar. It is a figure of speech, the most general instance being sunoik-eioun, "to be associated with", its noun being sunoik-eiosis, the act of association. A second verb, sunoik-ein, "to live together," can mean individuals, as in marriage, or conjointly, as in a community. The community meaning appears in Herodotus. A closely related meaning, "to colonize jointly with", is found there also, and in

16498-459: The same scheme: each tribe contributed a deme and a new deme, Antinoeis , was created in honour of Hadrian's favourite, Antinous . Each tribe contributed 40 members to the Boule. In the first three periods there it a more detailed system of fixed quotas which essentially remained unchanged. There is no evidence for a single general reapportionment of quotas within each of the first three periods, while there are evident small quota-variations between

16644-420: The second and third centuries AD, i.e. in the fifth period, and thus for political purposes they were originally dependent on legitimate Cleisthenic demes. There were six pairs of homonymous demes: There were six divided demes, one composed of three parts: When the city was settled under the support of Pericles and the command of Lampon and Xenocritus the population was organized in ten tribes, following

16790-480: The society in which they lived, the polis. Plato was more interested in the ideal; Aristotle, the real. Both had a certain view of what the polis was; that is, a conceptual model. All models must be tested, by definition. Aristotle, of course, could send direct observers. The only way to know a polis now is through study of the ancient literature (philology), and to some extent archaeology. There are thousands of pages of writing and certainly thousands of sites. The problem

16936-399: The sociology in favor of the New Plan, conclusions resulting from research on real constitutions. The difficulties with the Old Plan begin with the meaning of koinonizein, "to hold in common". Typically the authors of the Old Plan use the verb in such expressions as "those holding in common", "A holding in common", "the partnership", and the like, without specifying who is holding what or what

17082-420: The splitting (apoikia, "colonization") of families; that is, one village contains one or more extended families , or clans . A polis is a community of villages, but there must be enough of them to achieve or nearly achieve self-sufficiency. At this point of his theorization, Aristotle turns the "common" noun stem (koino-) into a verb, koinonizein, "to share" or "to own in common". He says: "A single city occupies

17228-619: The spring of 472 BC, Pericles presented The Persians of Aeschylus at the Greater Dionysia as a liturgy , demonstrating that he was one of the wealthier men of Athens. Simon Hornblower has argued that Pericles' selection of this play, which presents a nostalgic picture of Themistocles ' famous victory at Salamis , shows that the young politician was supporting Themistocles against his political opponent Cimon , whose faction succeeded in having Themistocles ostracized shortly afterward. Plutarch says that Pericles stood first among

17374-502: The stalemate of populism. According to Paparrigopoulos, history vindicated Cimon, because Athens, after Pericles' death, sank into the abyss of political turmoil and demagogy . Paparrigopoulos maintains that an unprecedented regression descended upon the city, whose glory perished as a result of Pericles' populist policies. According to another historian, Justin Daniel King, radical democracy benefited people individually, but harmed

17520-408: The state, which would send other members of the united polis to do the work. They would also be sent for any other task: plumbing, farming, herding, etc., as any task could be performed by any member. This view is contrary, as Aristotle points out, to the principle of division of labor . The output of one professional building crew far exceeds the efforts any number of amateur ideal statists, rendering

17666-412: The state. In contrast, Donald Kagan asserts that the democratic measures Pericles put into effect provided the basis for an unassailable political strength. After all, Cimon finally accepted the new democracy and did not oppose the citizenship law, after he returned from exile in 451 BC. Ephialtes' murder in 461 BC paved the way for Pericles to consolidate his authority. Without opposition after

17812-448: The ten tribes, or phylai of Athens. Each tribe contained one trittys from each of three regions: the city, the coast, and the inland area. Cleisthenes divided the landscape in three zones—urban ( asty ), coastal ( paralia ) and inland ( mesogeia )—and the 139 demes were organized into 30 groups called trittyes ("thirds"), ten for each of the zones and into ten tribes, or phylai , each composed of three trittyes , one from

17958-488: The term. There were no doubt many ancient experts on the polis, but time has done its work. The one surviving expert, Aristotle, is thus an indispensable resource. A polis is identified as such by its standing as polis among the community of poleis. Poleis have ambassadors, can join or host the Hellenic Games, etc. According to Aristotle, their most essential characteristics are those that, if changed, would result in

18104-428: The treatise amount to the anthropological sense of property : land, animals, houses, wives, children, anything to which the right of access or disposition is reserved to the owner. This also happens to be Plato's concept of property, not an accident, as Aristotle was a renegade Platonist. The polis, then, is communal property. The theory of its tenancy is where Aristotle and Plato differ sharply. Plato had argued that

18250-521: The true descendants of the Trojans who with the aborigines had earlier formed the Latin people. They were not welcome among the Latins of Alba Longa, and so they had turned to raiding from their base in their seven hills. The myth supposes they had been nourished by a she-wolf and lived a wild life camping in the country. They were, however, supported by an ally. Evander had led a colony from Arcadia before

18396-463: The two principles and five economic classes, there are four virtues. The four virtues of a "just city" are wisdom, courage, moderation and justice. With all of these principles, classes and virtues, it was believed that a "just city" (polis) would exist. Breaking away from Plato and the academy, a professor there, Aristotle, founded his own school, the Lyceum, a university. One of its strongest curricula

18542-408: The unknown past. All current citizenships must have had their first moments, typically when the law-maker had gotten his laws ratified, or the colony had broken with the metropolis. The ancient writers referred to these initial moments under any of several words produced with the same prefix, sunoik- (Latinized synoec-), "same house", meaning objects that are from now on to be grouped together as being

18688-440: The war. Even when in the face of mounting pressure, Pericles did not give in to the demands for immediate action against the enemy or revise his initial strategy. He also avoided convening the ecclesia, fearing that the populace, outraged by the unopposed ravaging of their farms, might rashly decide to challenge the vaunted Spartan army in the field. As meetings of the assembly were called at the discretion of its rotating presidents,

18834-429: The way he spent the money for the ongoing building plan. Thucydides initially managed to incite the passions of the ecclesia regarding these charges in his favor. However, when Pericles took the floor, his resolute arguments put Thucydides and the conservatives firmly on the defensive. Finally, Pericles proposed to reimburse the city for all questionable expenses from his private property, with the proviso that he would make

18980-403: The way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. His family's nobility and wealth allowed him to fully pursue his inclination toward education. He learned music from the masters of the time ( Damon or Pythocleides could have been his teacher) and he is considered to have been the first politician to attribute importance to philosophy. He enjoyed

19126-401: The whole gamut of historical writers, Xenophon, Plato, Strabo, Plutarch; i.e., more or less continuously through all periods from Archaic to Roman. Associated nouns are sunoik-ia, sunoik-esion, sunoik-idion, sunoik-eses, sunoik-isis, a multiplication to be expected over centuries of a single language. These can all mean community in general, but they have two main secondary meanings, to institute

19272-520: The word polis . The best form of government of the polis for Plato is the one that leads to the common good. The philosopher king is the best ruler because, as a philosopher, he is acquainted with the Form of the Good . In Plato's analogy of the ship of state , the philosopher king steers the polis, as if it were a ship, in the best direction. Books II–IV of The Republic are concerned with Plato addressing

19418-466: The word thousands of times. The most frequent use is Dionysius of Halicarnassus , an ancient historian, with a maximum of 2,943. A study of inscriptions found 1,450 that use polis prior to 300 BC, 425 Athenian and 1,025 from the rest of the range of poleis. There was no difference in meaning between literary and inscriptional usages. Polis became loaded with many incidental meanings. The major meanings are 'state' and 'community'. The theoretical study of

19564-422: Was asty ( ἄστυ ), rather than polis. The ancient word polis had socio-political connotations not possessed by the modern. For example, today's πόλη is located within a χώρα ( khôra ), "country", which is a πατρίδα (patrida) 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

19710-677: Was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens . He was prominent and influential in Ancient Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War , and was acclaimed by Thucydides , a contemporary historian, as "the first citizen of Athens". Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of

19856-523: Was acquitted thanks to a rare emotional outburst of Pericles, his friend Phidias died in prison according to Plutarch; however, he is also credited with the later statue of Zeus at Olympia , therefore this is debated, and another friend of his, Anaxagoras, was attacked by the ecclesia for his religious beliefs. Beyond these initial prosecutions, the ecclesia attacked Pericles himself by asking him to justify his ostensible profligacy with, and maladministration of, public money. According to Plutarch, Pericles

20002-502: Was descended, through his mother, from the powerful and historically influential Alcmaeonid family. He, along with several members of his family, succumbed to the Plague of Athens in 429 BC, which weakened the city-state during a protracted conflict with Sparta . Pericles was born c.  495 BC , in Athens, Greece. He was the son of the politician Xanthippus , who, though ostracized in 485–484 BC, returned to Athens to command

20148-403: Was invented by ancient writers to support "a tendentious view of Pericles' shiftiness". Plutarch states that Cimon struck a power-sharing deal with his opponents, according to which Pericles would carry through the interior affairs and Cimon would be the leader of the Athenian army, campaigning abroad. If it were actually made, this bargain would constitute a concession on Pericles' part that he

20294-458: Was not a great strategist. Kagan's view is that Cimon adapted himself to the new conditions and promoted a political marriage between Periclean liberals and Cimonian conservatives. In the mid-450s the Athenians launched an unsuccessful attempt to aid an Egyptian revolt against Persia, which led to a prolonged siege of a Persian fortress in the Nile Delta. The campaign culminated in disaster;

20440-408: Was not sufficiently justified, since the official documents just referred that the money was spent for a "very serious purpose". Nonetheless, the "serious purpose" (namely the bribery) was so obvious to the auditors that they approved the expenditure without official meddling and without even investigating the mystery. After the Spartan threat had been removed, Pericles crossed back to Euboea to crush

20586-480: Was only the countryside, not a country. Ancient Greece was not a sovereign country, but was a territory occupied by Hellenes , people 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

20732-497: Was political science, which Aristotle invented. He dispatched students over the world of the polis to study the society and government of individual poleis, and bring the information back to document, placing the document in a political science section of the library. Only two documents have survived, Politics and Athenian Constitution . These are a part of any political science curriculum today. Both major ancient Greek philosophers were concerned with elucidating an existing aspect of

20878-440: Was precarious, Archidamus II , Sparta's king, sent a new delegation to Athens, demanding that the Athenians submit to Sparta's demands. This deputation was not allowed to enter Athens, as Pericles had already passed a resolution according to which no Spartan deputation would be welcomed if the Spartans had previously initiated any hostile military actions. The Spartan army was at this time gathered at Corinth, and, citing this as

21024-478: Was so afraid of the oncoming trial that he did not let the Athenians yield to the Lacedaemonians . Beloch also believes that Pericles deliberately brought on the war to protect his political position at home. Thus, at the start of the Peloponnesian War, Athens found itself in the awkward position of entrusting its future to a leader whose pre-eminence had just been seriously shaken for the first time in over

21170-468: 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

21316-433: Was sure to come up with further demands". Consequently, Pericles asked the Spartans to offer a quid pro quo . In exchange for retracting the Megarian Decree, the Athenians demanded from Sparta to abandon their practice of periodic expulsion of foreigners from their territory ( xenelasia ) and to recognize the autonomy of its allied cities, a request implying that Sparta's hegemony was also ruthless. The terms were rejected by

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