The Rise of the Polis

The town where a king and his advisors lived became the heart of the political unit called the polis, or city. Over time, farms surrounding the city center joined the polis, creating a city-state, which the Greek still called polis. The rural oikoi that joined a polis wanted the security that came with being part of a larger community. At the same time, these farmers were used to living without direct rule, and they wanted some say in how their government was run. Assemblies, where male citizens gathered to debate public issues, were already a key part of Greek politics in the eighth century B. C.E.

As the poleis (plural of polis) developed, the basilees in most city-states asserted their growing political and economic strength and forced the basileus from power. The details of this transition are not clear, but by the seventh century B. C.E. the aristocrats as a group controlled the poleis, with several officials sharing the duties once held by the basileus. The number of government officials, or magistrates, grew as a city-state grew. Athens, for example, had many more magistrates, with specific duties, than did smaller city-states. After leaving public office, the most important magistrates sat on a council that passed laws and directed most government affairs. Council members often served for life. With the rise of the aristocracy and the councils, the assemblies-and thus the common farmers-lost some political influence for a time.

The polis was both a religious and a political entity, and individual city-states had a particular patron god. Athena was the patron of both Sparta and Athens, while several cities in Asia Minor had as their patron Zeus’s brother Poseidon, who ruled the seas. A polis, the Greeks believed, would not prosper as a whole, nor its citizens as individuals, without proper homage to the various deities in charge of the universe. So a series of festivals with various rituals to please and honor the gods was built into the social fabric of the polis. (The religion of the ancient Greeks is explored further in chapter 5.)

Aristotle believed the polis reflected a natural law: Humans are political creatures and are only complete when they are living together in a community. In his Politics he wrote, “He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state. A social instinct is implanted in all men. . . (as quoted in Ancient Thought: Plato and Aristotle). Yet each Greek polis cherished its independence from its neighbors, and some developed along very different political lines. Sparta, for example, kept a rigidly ruled monarchy, with two kings who shared power, while Athens created the environment that brought about democracy, drama, comedy, and the pondering of humanity’s place in the universe. Despite the achievements of Athens, however, some historians have argued that the polis was always destined to fail. The very independence that tolerated experimentation and encouraged diversity of thought also discouraged the tendency to work together as a united nation.