The European balance of power is a tenet in international relations that no single power should be allowed to achieve hegemony over a substantial part of Europe. During much of the Modern Age , the balance was achieved by having a small number of ever-changing alliances contending for power, which culminated in the World Wars of the early 20th century.
138-600: The emergence of city-states ( poleis ) in ancient Greece marks the beginning of classical antiquity . The two most important Greek cities, the Ionian -democratic Athens and the Dorian -aristocratic Sparta , led the successful defense of Greece against the invading Persians from the east, but then clashed against each other for supremacy in the Peloponnesian War . The Kingdom of Macedon took advantage of
276-527: 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
414-473: 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
552-454: 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. Ferdinand II of Aragon Ferdinand II (10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), called Ferdinand
690-484: 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
828-590: 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
966-489: 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
1104-674: A dominant nation (Prussia had quickly defeated both Austria and France in wars) restructured the European balance of power. For the next twenty years, Otto von Bismarck managed to maintain the balance of power, by proposing treaties and creating many complex alliances between the European nations such as the Triple Alliance . After 1890, the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II set out on his imperialist course of Weltpolitik ("world politics") to increase
1242-514: 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
1380-521: 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
1518-438: A highly effective sovereignty under equal terms. They utilised a prenuptial agreement to lay down their terms. During their reign they supported each other effectively in accordance to his joint motto of equality: "Tanto monta [or monta tanto], Isabel como Fernando" ("They amount to the same, Isabel and Ferdinand"). Isabella and Ferdinand's achievements were remarkable: Spain was united, or at least more united than it ever had been;
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#17327766713841656-668: A massive impact on the political and economic landscape of Europe: the first crusade (1099) re-opened the trade routes in the Mediterranean and ushered the commercial revolution ; the fourth crusade (1204) resulted in the formation of the Venetian maritime empire ; and the sixth crusade (1228) temporarily made Frederick II , heir of both the Kingdom of Sicily and the Holy Roman Empire , also King of Jerusalem . At
1794-613: 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
1932-518: 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
2070-629: A single Spain occurred under Philip V in 1707–1715.) The first years of Ferdinand and Isabella's joint rule saw the Spanish conquest of the Emirate of Granada , the last Islamic al-Andalus entity on the Iberian peninsula, completed in 1492. The completion of the Reconquista was not the only significant act performed by Ferdinand and Isabella in that year. In March 1492, the monarchs issued
2208-500: 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
2346-446: 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
2484-422: 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
2622-429: 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
2760-640: 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
2898-414: 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
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#17327766713843036-574: 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
3174-434: 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
3312-409: 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
3450-445: 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
3588-406: 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
3726-440: 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
3864-600: Is traditionally dated to the Battle of Covadonga (718 or 722), in which an Asturian army achieved the first Christian victory over the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate since the beginning of the military invasion. Its culmination came in 1492 with the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada to the united Spanish Crown of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile . The Germanic Emperor (Holy Roman Emperor) and
4002-693: The Age of Discovery . During the early 16th century, France and the House of Habsburg clashed during the Italian Wars . In 1519, Charles V of Habsburg , already Duke of Burgundy, King of Spain, and Archduke of Austria, became Holy Roman Emperor. After the defeat in the Battle of Pavia , Francis I of France allied with the Muslim Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent . After the annexation of
4140-983: The Axis invasion of the Soviet Union . During the post-Second World War era, the Allies split into two blocs, a balance of power emerged among the Eastern Bloc (affiliated with the Soviet Union and the Socialist nations of Central and Eastern Europe , Central Asia , and the Caucasus ), the Western Bloc (affiliated with the Western democracies , particularly France , the United States , and
4278-704: The Caribbean . Ultimately, Charles V conceded the Peace of Augsburg and abandoned his multi-national project with a series of abdications in 1556 that divided his hereditary and imperial domains between the Spanish Habsburgs, headed by his son Philip II of Spain , and the Austrian Habsburgs , headed by his brother Ferdinand . Ferdinand had been Archduke of Austria in Charles's name since 1521 and
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4416-1007: The Eighty Years' War , the War of the Mantuan Succession , the Franco-Spanish War , the Dutch-Portuguese War and the Portuguese Restoration War . Many Protestant states also experienced a golden age: the newly independent Netherlands formed the Dutch East India Company in Indonesia ; Sweden formed an empire in northern Europe ; and England began the colonization of North America . By the Treaty of Westphalia at
4554-613: The English Channel into Britain . A group of senators afraid of Caesar's title of dictator for life assassinated him on the Ides of March of 44 BC. The adoptive son of Caesar, Octavian Augustus , defeated the killers of his father and became the first Roman Emperor ( Princeps ) in 27 BC. The Roman Empire peaked during the Pax Romana , stagnated during the crisis of the third century AD and ultimately split between
4692-702: The G7 , the G8 , and the G20 . The NATO Quint is made up by the United States and the Big Four. The term G4 is especially (although not only) used to describe meeting of the four nations at the leaders' level. In addition, the term EU three (or G-3) was used to describe the grouping of foreign ministers from France, the United Kingdom, (at the time is still a European Union member state) and Germany (now re-unified) during
4830-670: The Iran nuclear talks . On the other hand, the grouping of interior ministers that includes Spain and Poland is known as the G6 . Germany (which has the largest economy in Europe) is often regarded as the EU's economic leader, such as with the ongoing European sovereign debt crisis , whilst France and the United Kingdom (both permanent members of the UNSC ) often lead in defence and foreign policy matters, such as
4968-693: The Latin West and the Greek East . Both parts of the Empire abandoned pagan polytheism in order to tolerate monotheistic Christianity and finally make it the state religion . The West collapsed around 476 , following centuries of attacks by Germanic and Slavic peoples and several "barbarian" kingdoms were established on its former territory. The East continued to be ruled by the Byzantine Empire for an additional thousand years. Among
5106-577: The Nueva Planta decrees issued between 1707 and 1716. The Crown of Aragon that Ferdinand inherited in 1479 included the kingdoms of Aragon , Valencia , Majorca , Sardinia , and Sicily , as well as the Principality of Catalonia . His marriage to Isabella is regarded as the "cornerstone in the foundation of the Spanish monarchy". They played a major role in the European colonization of
5244-540: 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
5382-730: The Republic of Venice , in which all the other powers with interests on the Italian peninsula, including Louis XII, Ferdinand II, Maximilian, and Pope Julius II joined together in the League of Cambrai . Although the French were victorious against Venice at the Battle of Agnadello , the League of Cambrai soon fell apart, as both the Pope and Ferdinand II became suspicious of French intentions. Instead,
5520-617: The Roman Pontiff (Pope in Rome) came to be known as the universal powers of Europe, but then entered in conflict during the investiture controversy and the clash between their factions . Their rivalry made possible the birth of autonomous city-states in northern Italy and the rise of an independent feudal monarchy in France under the House of Capet . Around the same period, the Norse
5658-642: The Soviet Union , and authoritarian nationalists led by Germany and Italy . The failure of the democratic states to prevent the advance of Nazi Germany ultimately led to the Second World War , which led to a temporary alliance between the UK and the Soviets. The UK did not condemn the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, but declared war on Germany. Later, they sided with the Soviet Union against Germany after
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5796-490: The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) where the catholic french empire allied with the Protestant nations to defeat the Habsburg alliance. The Thirty Years War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history. Fought primarily in Central Europe , an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle, famine, and disease, while some areas of what is now modern Germany experienced population declines of over 50%. Related conflicts include
5934-418: The United Kingdom ), and neutral or non-aligned countries (including Ireland , Sweden , Switzerland , Austria , and Yugoslavia ), with German lands divided up between them respectively as East Germany and West Germany until 1989 . Most Western Bloc countries came together under the military alliance of NATO , while the Eastern Bloc countries formed the Warsaw Pact . The first NATO Secretary General ,
6072-445: The conquest of Ceuta . In 1453, the French expelled the English from their land , and the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople , initiating the dominance of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. At the end of the 15th century, following the marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon Spain was dynastically unified and Reconquista concluded successfully. Portugal and Spain, followed by France and England, ushered in
6210-405: The intervention in Libya in 2011. This, to an extent, represents a balancing of leadership power for the Western sphere of the continent. How this balance will change after the Brexit vote in 2016 and the UK's exit from the European Union in 2020 is still an open matter. However, there continues to be a wider, strategic balance of Western and (now) Russian power, albeit with the boundary between
6348-417: The 'Holy League' was formed, in which now all the powers joined together against Louis XII and France. In November 1511 Ferdinand and his son-in-law King Henry VIII of England signed the Treaty of Westminster , pledging mutual aid between the two against Navarre and France ahead of the Spanish invasion of Navarre as of July 1512. After the fall of Granada in 1492, he had manoeuvred for years to take over
6486-414: The (global) League of Nations and to form countries based mostly on ethnicity (although the diminished Austria containing only its German-speaking lands and the majority-German areas of the Czech lands were not permitted to join Germany). This idea floundered as Europe split into three principal factions in the 1920s and 1930s: liberal democratic states led by the UK and France, communist states led by
6624-405: 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
6762-464: The Americas , sponsoring the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. That year the couple defeated Granada , the last Muslim state in Western Europe , thus completing the centuries-long Reconquista . Following Isabella's death in 1504, the couple's daughter Joanna became queen of the Crown of Castile . That year, after a war with France, Ferdinand conquered the Kingdom of Naples . In 1507 he became regent of Castile on behalf of Joanna, who
6900-458: 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
7038-443: The Aztec Empire and conquest of the Incas , Emperor Charles used the gold and silver coming from the Americas to finance the defence of his German territories in Austria from the Ottoman Empire ( Siege of Vienna ) and of his Italian territories in the Duchy of Milan from France ( Battle of Pavia ). In response, European rival states sanctioned privateers to raid Spanish or Portuguese ships full of gold and silver, most especially in
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#17327766713847176-425: The British Lord Ismay , famously stated the organization's initial goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." The three most powerful members of the European Union — France, Italy and Germany — as well as the United Kingdom are referred to as the Big Four of Western Europe . They are major European powers and the only EU countries individually represented as full members of
7314-402: The British decided not to become involved in continental issues that did not directly affect them. They rejected the plan of Tsar Alexander I to suppress future revolutions. The Concert system fell apart as the common goals of the Great Powers were replaced by growing political and economic rivalries. Artz says the Congress of Verona in 1822 "marked the end." There was no Congress called to restore
7452-543: The Catholic , was King of Aragon from 1479 until his death in 1516. As the husband and co-ruler of Queen Isabella I of Castile , he was also King of Castile from 1475 to 1504 (as Ferdinand V ). He reigned jointly with Isabella over a dynastically unified Spain ; together they are known as the Catholic Monarchs . Ferdinand is considered the de facto first king of Spain , and was described as such during his reign, even though, legally, Castile and Aragon remained two separate kingdoms until they were formally united by
7590-413: The Edict of Expulsion of the Jews, also called the Alhambra Decree , a document which ordered all Jews either to be baptised and convert to Christianity or to leave the country. It allowed Mudéjar Moors (Islamic) and converso Marrano Jews to stay, while expelling all unconverted Jews from Castile and Aragon (most Jews either converted or moved to the Ottoman Empire). 1492 was also the year in which
7728-431: The French from Milan, which was restored to its Sforza dukes by the peace treaty in 1513. The French were successful in reconquering Milan two years later, however. Ferdinand II died on 23 January 1516 in Madrigalejo , Extremadura , Kingdom of Castile and Leon. He is entombed at Capilla Real , Granada . His wife Isabella, daughter Joanna, and son-in-law Philip rest beside him there. Ferdinand and Isabella established
7866-419: 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
8004-469: 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
8142-415: 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
8280-444: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and by Pope Leo X . Consequently, after Ferdinand II's funeral on 14 March 1516, Charles I was proclaimed King of Castile and of Aragon jointly with his mother. Finally, the Castilian Regent , Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros accepted the fait accompli , and the Castilian and Aragonese Cortes paid homage to him as King of Aragon jointly with his mother. Ferdinand's grandson and successor Charles,
8418-446: The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, the Concert of Europe tried to maintain the balance of power. The territorial boundaries agreed to by the victorious Great Powers (Prussia, Austria, Russia and Great Britain) at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 were maintained, and even more important there was an acceptance of the theme of balance with no major aggression. Otherwise the Congress system says historian Roy Bridge, "failed" by 1823. In 1818,
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#17327766713848556-494: The Holy Roman Empire—to counter the perceived threat. These Grand Alliances reached their height in the wars against Louis XIV and Louis XV of France . They often involved the English (later the British ) and Dutch paying large subsidies to European allies to finance large armies. In the 18th century, this led to the stately quadrille , with the major European powers of that century— Austria , Prussia , Great Britain , and France — changing alliances multiple times to prevent
8694-447: The Neapolitan throne. In 1500, following Ferdinand II's death and accession of his uncle Frederick , Ferdinand signed an agreement with Charles VIII's successor, Louis XII , who had just successfully asserted his claims to the Duchy of Milan , to partition Naples between them, with Campania and the Abruzzi , including Naples itself, going to the French and Ferdinand taking Apulia and Calabria . The agreement soon fell apart and, over
8832-402: 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
8970-597: The Ocean Sea. But the Treaty of Villafáfila did not hold for long because of the death of Philip; Ferdinand returned as regent of Castile and as "lord of the Indies". The widowed Ferdinand made an alliance with France in July 1505 and married Germaine of Foix , cementing the alliance with France. She was the granddaughter of his half-sister Queen Eleanor of Navarre and niece of Louis XII of France. Had Ferdinand's son with Germaine, John, Prince of Girona, born on 3 May 1509, survived, "the crown of Aragon would inevitably been separated from Castile" and denied his grandson Charles
9108-401: 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
9246-420: 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
9384-400: 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
9522-438: The clearly guaranteed religious freedom for Mudéjar Muslims. Ferdinand forced all Muslims in Castile and Aragon to convert, converso Moriscos , to Catholicism, or else be expelled. Some of the Muslims who remained were mudéjar artisans, who could design and build in the Moorish style. This was also practised by the Spanish inquisitors on the converso Marrano Jewish population of Spain. The latter part of Ferdinand's life
9660-449: 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
9798-552: The crown of Aragon. But the infant Prince John died within hours and was buried in the convent of Saint Paul in Valladolid , Kingdom of Castile and Leon , and later transferred to Poblet Monastery , Vimbodí i Poblet , Principality of Catalonia ( Crown of Aragon ), traditional burial site of the kings of Aragon. Ferdinand had no legal position in Castile, with the cortes of Toro recognizing Joanna and her children as heirs and Ferdinand left Castile in July 1506. After his son-in-law Philip's untimely death in September 1506, Castile
9936-455: The crown power was centralised, at least in name; the reconquista was successfully concluded; the groundwork for the most dominant military machine of the next century and a half was laid; a legal framework was created; the church was reformed. Even without the benefit of the American expansion, Spain would have been a major European power. Columbus' discovery set the country on the course for
10074-578: The day of his wife's death, he formally renounced his title as King of Castile and instead became governor ( gobernador ) of the kingdom, as a way to become regent. Philip deemed his wife sane and fit to rule. A compromise was forged between Philip and Ferdinand, which gave Ferdinand a continued role in Castile. Ferdinand had served as Joanna's regent during her absence in the Netherlands , ruled by her husband Archduke Philip. Ferdinand attempted to retain
10212-704: The designated successor as emperor since 1531 . The papacy launched the Catholic revival in an attempt to halt the growth of Protestantism and Ottoman expansion . Despite some successes, such as the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and the Siege of Paris (1590) , the Anglo-Spanish War and the Long Turkish War questioned the Catholic ambitions. Ultimately, the papacy lost its status and influence with
10350-484: The doubtful nature of the deal. Isabella made her will on 12 October 1504, in advance of her 26 November 1504 death. In it she spelled out the succession to the Crown of Castile, leaving it to Joanna and then to Joanna's son Charles. Isabella was dubious of Joanna's ability to rule and was not confident of Joanna's husband Archduke Philip . Ferdinand moved quickly after his wife's death to continue his role in Castile. On
10488-513: The empire's influence in and control over the world. Newly created alliances were proven to be fragile, something that triggered the First World War in 1914 with Germany and Austria-Hungary on one-side against Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia (until 1917) on the other. One of the objectives of the Treaty of Versailles , the main post-World War I treaty, was to abolish the dominance of the 'Balance of Power' concept and replace it with
10626-667: The end of the Thirty Years' War, the Holy Roman Empire became a more decentralized entity in which constituent states, such as Prussia (which also had lands outside the Empire), were allowed to pursue their own foreign policy independent of that of the Austrian Habsburg Emperor. The Austrian Habsburgs also controlled some states outside of the Holy Roman Empire. It was France under Louis XIV who took
10764-430: The first modern world power. During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain pursued alliances through marriage with Portugal, Habsburg Austria , and Burgundy . Their first-born daughter Isabella was married to Manuel I of Portugal , and their first-born son John was married to Margaret of Austria. However, the deaths of these children, and the death of Isabella, altered the succession plan forcing Ferdinand to yield
10902-515: The following instability and established a single rule over Greece . Desire to form a universal monarchy brought Alexander the Great to annex the entire Persian Empire and begin a hellenization of the Macedonian possessions. At his death in 323 BC, his reign was divided between his successors and several hellenistic kingdoms were formed. Rome expanded into the whole of Italy around
11040-404: 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 ,
11178-732: The government of Castile to Philip of Habsburg the husband of his second daughter Joanna. In 1502, the members of the Aragonese Cortes gathered in Zaragoza , and Parliaments of the Kingdom of Valencia and the Principality of Catalonia in Barcelona , as members of the Crown of Aragon, swore an oath of loyalty to their daughter Joanna as heiress, but Alonso de Aragón , Archbishop of Saragossa, stated firmly that this oath
11316-712: The growing power of Russia, which had expanded westward towards Central Europe, and Prussia, which was increasingly assuming greater control and influence over the German lands, aside from Austria. The Crimean War of 1854–55 and the Italian War of 1859 shattered the relations among the Great Powers in Europe. The creation in 1871 and rise of the Prussian-led German Empire (excluding Austria) as
11454-799: The hegemony of one nation or alliance. A number of wars stemmed, at least in part, from the desire to maintain the balance of power, including the War of the Spanish Succession , War of the Austrian Succession , the Seven Years' War , the War of the Bavarian Succession and the Napoleonic Wars . Following Britain's success in the Seven Years' War during which it was allied with Prussia, many of
11592-433: 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
11730-422: 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
11868-454: 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
12006-467: 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
12144-479: 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
12282-440: 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,
12420-488: 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
12558-417: 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
12696-453: 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
12834-453: 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
12972-582: The monarchs commissioned Christopher Columbus to find a westward maritime route for access to Asia, which resulted in the Spanish arrival in the Americas. In 1494 the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the entire world beyond Europe between Portugal and Castile (Spain) for conquest and dominion purposes – by a north–south line drawn down the Atlantic Ocean. Ferdinand abrogated a section of the 1491 Treaty of Granada peace treaty in 1502 by dismissing
13110-547: The next several years, Ferdinand's great general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba fought to take Naples from the French, finally succeeding by 1504. The King of France complains that I have twice deceived him. He lies, the fool; I have deceived him ten times and more. Some time before 1502 Andreas Palaiologos , the last exiled claimant to the Byzantine throne of his house, sold his titles and royal and imperial rights to Ferdinand. Those, however, had never been made use of, due to
13248-482: The old system during the great revolutionary upheavals of 1848 with their demands for revision of the Congress of Vienna's frontiers along national lines. Britain, with its naval, maritime, commercial and financial dominance, was committed to the European balance of power after 1815. Between the 1830s and 1850, Britain and France were the strongest powers in Europe, but by the 1850s they had become deeply concerned by
13386-606: The other powers began to see Great Britain as a greater threat than France. Several states, most particularly France, entered the American War of Independence in the hope of overturning Britain's growing strength by securing the independence of the Thirteen colonies of British America . After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, during which France directly or indirectly controlled much of Europe except for Russia, and
13524-674: The outbreak of the Hundred Years' War (1337) with England and the return of the papacy to Rome (1378). After Europe recovered from the Black Death , the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, which started the Printing Revolution . A Renaissance in art and science began in Italy and spread to the rest of the continent. Portugal formed the first European colonial empire in 1415 with
13662-466: 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
13800-551: 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
13938-472: 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
14076-448: 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
14214-410: The purported daughter of Henry IV, and were swiftly successful. When Ferdinand succeeded his father as King of Aragon in 1479, the Crown of Castile and the various territories of the Crown of Aragon were united in a personal union . The various states were not formally administered as a single unit, but as separate political units under the same monarchs. (The legal merging of Aragon and Castile into
14352-531: The regency permanently, but was rebuffed by the Castilian nobility and replaced with Joanna's husband. In the Treaty of Villafáfila of 1506, Ferdinand renounced not only the government of Castile in favor of Philip but also the lordship of the Indies, withholding half of the income of the "kingdoms of the Indies". Joanna and Philip immediately added to their titles the kingdoms of Indies, Islands and Mainland of
14490-504: 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
14628-410: 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
14766-414: The royal House of Trastámara , and the two were second cousins by descent from John I of Castile . They were married with a clear prenuptial agreement on sharing power, and under the joint motto " tanto monta, monta tanto ". He became jure uxoris King of Castile when Isabella succeeded her deceased brother in 1474. The two young monarchs were initially obliged to fight a civil war against Joanna ,
14904-427: 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
15042-478: 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
15180-561: The same period and then rose to prominence in the western and Eastern Mediterranean through the Punic and Macedonian wars , but was then shaken by a century-long political crisis . Meanwhile, the popularity and wealth of Roman generals increased: notably Julius Caesar acquired fame for projecting military power north of the Alps into Gaul , east of the Rhine into Germania and across
15318-544: The same time, was taking place in the Iberian Peninsula and the kingdoms of Portugal , Castile and Aragon were formed. A vast part of the French nobility took part in the crusades under the leadership of their king: this made possible the formation of a strong centralized French monarchy. The rise of medieval France began with the Battle of Bouvines (1224) and the Avignon Papacy (1309) but ended with
15456-480: 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
15594-399: 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
15732-420: 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
15870-408: 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
16008-562: The status of main continental power from the Habsburgs thanks to the Treaty of Westphalia and the Treaty of the Pyrenees . In the 16th and 17th centuries, English and Dutch foreign policy strove to prevent a creation of a single universal monarchy in Europe, which many believed France or Spain might attempt to create. To maintain the balance of power, the English and Dutch made alliances with other states —including Portugal and
16146-652: The successor kingdoms in the West, that of the Franks was the largest, and under Charlemagne managed to unite most of present-day France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Low Countries and Italy under one rule: he was subsequently crowned Holy Roman Emperor the day of Christmas in 800 by Pope Leo III . Meanwhile, the Iberian peninsula fell under Muslim control. The beginning of the Reconquista of Christian forces
16284-522: The supreme loyalty of its citizens. χώρα 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
16422-488: 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
16560-563: The throne of the Basque kingdom, ruled by Queen Catherine of Navarre and King John III of Navarre , also lords of Béarn and other sizeable territories north of the Pyrenees and in Gascony . Ferdinand annexed Navarre first to the Crown of Aragon, but later, under the pressure of Castilian noblemen, to the Crown of Castile. The Holy League was generally successful in Italy, as well, driving
16698-425: The totality of urban buildings and spaces 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
16836-428: 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
16974-521: 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
17112-463: 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
17250-615: The two pushed further east since the collapse of the Soviet Union , with many former Communist countries in Central Europe having since joined the EU and NATO. Poleis 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
17388-408: 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
17526-401: 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
17664-520: 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
17802-466: 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
17940-442: Was alleged to be mentally unstable. In 1506, as part of a treaty with France, Ferdinand married Germaine of Foix , with whom he had no surviving children. In 1512 he conquered most of the Kingdom of Navarre , ruling all the territories comprising modern-day Spain until his death in 1516. He was nominally succeeded by his daughter Joanna, but power was soon assumed by her son Charles I (later Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ). Ferdinand
18078-469: Was born on 10 March 1452, in the town of Sos del Rey Católico , Kingdom of Aragon , as the son of John II of Aragon (whose family was a cadet branch of the House of Trastámara ) by his second wife, Juana Enríquez . Ferdinand married Isabella , the half-sister and heir presumptive of Henry IV of Castile , on 19 October 1469 in Valladolid , Kingdom of Castile and Leon . Isabella also belonged to
18216-567: Was in crisis. Joanna was allegedly mentally unstable, and Joanna's and Philip's son, Charles, the future Emperor Charles V , was only six years old. Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros , the Chancellor of the Kingdom, was made regent, but the upper nobility reasserted itself. Ferdinand led an army against Pedro Fernández de Córdoba y Pacheco , the marquis of Priego of Córdoba , who had seized control there by force. By 1508 Ferdinand had triumphed and war resumed in Italy, this time against
18354-626: Was invalid and did not change the law of succession which could only be done by formal legislation by the Cortes with the King. So, when King Ferdinand died on 23 January 1516, his daughter Joanna inherited the Crown of Aragon , and his grandson Charles became Governor General (regent). Nevertheless, the Flemish wished that Charles assume the royal title, and this was supported by his paternal grandfather
18492-430: Was largely taken up with disputes with successive kings of France over control of Italy, the Italian Wars . In 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and expelled Alfonso II , who was Ferdinand's first cousin once removed and step nephew, from the throne of Naples . Ferdinand allied with various Italian princes and with Emperor Maximilian I to expel the French by 1496 and install Alfonso's son, Ferdinand II , on
18630-497: 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
18768-468: 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
18906-776: Was taking place with the Norman conquest of England happening in 1066 and that of Sicily in 1130. With the Holy Land lost to Islam and the Byzantine Empire seeking help from Turks , the Pope initiated the crusades against Muslims in an attempt to restore Christian unity following the Eastern Schism of the Orthodox from the Catholics. Most of the crusades did not achieve their objective, but some of them had
19044-868: Was to inherit not only the Spanish lands of his maternal grandparents, but the Austrian and Burgundian lands of his paternal family, which would make his heirs the most powerful rulers on the continent and, with the discoveries and conquests in the Americas and elsewhere, of the first truly global empire. With his wife Isabella I the Catholic (whom he married 19 October 1469), King Ferdinand had seven children: With his second wife, Germaine of Foix (whom he married on 19 October 1505 in Blois , Kingdom of France ), King Ferdinand had one son: He also left several illegitimate children, two of them were born before his marriage to Isabella: With Aldonça Ruiz d'Ivorra i Alemany ,
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