My name is Sigma, and I'm from Saint-Petersburg, Russia. I work as a user acquisition manager in a game-dev company, love reading books, and live-action role-playing games.
I'm sorry for posting this post so late, but I've already tried to take this course last term and had to withdraw. I didn't have anything saved from the last term, so it was very hard for me to stop procrastinating and redo this assignment again, as I love doing new things, not repeating the same action. Promise to try better next week!
Discuss the role of the polis in Archaic and Classical-era Greece, supporting your response with examples and detail from your reading.
It is hard to diminish the role of the polis in Archaic and Classical-are Greece. It’s also important to understand that although we’re used to translating “polis” as “city”, especially in compound words such as “megapolis” (n.d., Merriam-Webster), a Greek polis was an independent country, or “city-state” (n.d., Brand)
Due to a mountainous, difficult territory (2017, Arzamas), a lot of settlements developed independently, meaning that each polis had its own “political, judicial, legal, religious and social” etc systems (2020, Cartwright). Cartwright describes a typical polis as “an urban center, often fortified and with a sacred center built on a natural acropolis or harbor, which controlled a surrounding territory (Chora) of the land”, but as at a certain point in history there were more than 1000 poleis (2020, Cartwright), there’s no wonder that there are some deviations from this description. For example, Sparta, the most military polis, didn’t care for building a distinct urban center or even fortifications, as they believed that the greatest defense for Sparta was soldiers, not walls (n.d., Brand).
Even the means of living were different for poleis, although they were in similar conditions in terms of climate and location. As the territory was so mountainous and not spacious enough, even grain had to be imported. Some poleis chose to have colonies, more than 90 overall (2017, Arzamas), some, as Sparta, decided to conquer its neighbors, and Athens gained its wealth during the Persian invasion by receiving gold from other members of the Deliah league in return for building warships (n.d., Brand).
Thus, we can see that the role of polis for Ancient Greeks was similar to the role of state or country for us in the modern world.
Reference:
Brand, P. J. (n.d.). Athens & Sparta: Democracy vs. dictatorship.
Arzamas. (2017, May 30). Ancient Greece in 18 minutes [Video]. YouTube.
Merriam-Webster (n.d.). Polis. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/polis
Cartwright, M. (2020, April 12). Polis. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/Polis/
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