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Polis, was the ancient Greek city - state. The small state in Greece originated probably from the natural divisions of the country by mountains and the sea and from the original local tribal (ethnic) and cult divisions. There were several hundred poleis, the history and constitutions of most of which are known only sketchily if at all. Thus most ancient Greek history is recounted in terms of the histories of Athens, Sparta, and a few others.
The polis centred on one town, usually walled, but included the surrounding countryside. The town contained a citadel on raised ground (acropolis) and a marketplace (agora). Government was centred in the town, but citizens of the polis lived throughout its territory. The polis took its name from the body of citizens, not from the town or district. The citizens governed in varying degrees, depending upon the form of government (aristocracy, oligarchy, or democracy). Since many poleis had different ranks of citizenship, there were longstanding struggles for social, political, and economic equality with first-class citizens. Each polis also contained substantial numbers of noncitizens (women, minors, resident aliens or metics, and slaves), who, in fact, formed the majority. The polis, therefore, was a corporation of citizens who all ideally participated in its government, religious cults, defense, and economic welfare and who obeyed its sacred and customary laws (nomoi). The Greeks thought that only such a way of life made a man free; Aristotle defined the ideal man as a zOon politikon (a living being who was a citizen of a polis).
The polis was governed by an assembly of citizens, a council, and magistrates. The predominant institution depended on the particular constitutional form of each polis; in many, as in Athens in the 5th century ac, the constitution evolved from a more restricted participation to virtual full control by the entire citizen body. In the Athenian democracy all’ citizens constituted the Ecclesia (Assembly), which monitered all actions and decisions of the Boule (Council) and the magistrates, who had no authority beyond the specific decrees of the Ecclesia. Only the laws served as a guide for and check on the policies of the Assembly. Yet certam individual citizens, like Pericles, exerted great influence on the formation of policy. From the 4th century BC into Hellenistic times the polis declined as the matrix of Greek politics, partly because of the abuses of democracy, but especially because of the domination of the Macedonian kings. Internal struggles continued, and sometimes oligarchies were reinstituted. Yet some poleis (e.g., Athens) maintained a high level of intellectual and cultural life even into Roman times.
In the new cities founded by the Hellenistic monarchs throughout the east, the inhabitants were Greek immigrants and Greek-acculturated natives; thus their cities were institutional descendants of the older Greek poleis. Yet the ideal and practice of full citizen rule was curtailed by monarchical domination.
