Contains 35 articles devoted to different aspects of the Greek polis and is intended not only as a present for Mogens Herman Hansen on his sixtieth birthday, but also as a way of thanking him for his significant contributions to the field of Greek history over the past three decades.

Ten papers, from a conference held at Ohio State University in 1997, reconsider Greek experience and its lessons for later cultures from a variety of perspectives. The contributions reflect in particular the central role of politics and the `Polis', so distinctively and uniquely Greek, in the development of Greek culture. The papers also consider Greek philosophy, drama and the Greek view of the natural and divine world around them and demonstrate the continuing influence of Hellenism by discussing modern adaptations of Greek models. Contributors include Johann Arnason, Cornelius Castoriadis, Vassilis Lambropoulos, Christian Meier, Oswyn Murray, Peter Murphy, Kurt Raaflaub, Louis Ruprecht, Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet.

Contents: F. de Polignac: Repenser la �cit��? Rituels et soci�t� en Gr�ce archa�que � M. H. Hansen: The �Autonomous City-State�. Ancient Fact or Modern Fiction? � M. H. Hansen: Kome. A Study in How the Greeks Designated and Classified Settlements which were not Poleis � T. H. Nielsen: Was Eutaia a Polis? A Note on Xenophon�s Use of the Term Polis in the Hellenika � P. Flensted-Jensen: The Bottiaians and their Poleis � S. G. Miller: Old Metroon and Old Bouleuterion in the Classical Agora of Athens � T. L. Shear, Jr.: Bouleuterion, Metroon and the Archives at Athens � A. Avram: Poleis und Nicht-Poleis im Ersten und Zweiten Attischen Seebund � W. Burkert: Greek Poleis and Civic Cults. Some Further Thoughts � L. Rubinstein: Pausanias as a Source for the Classical Greek Polis

This fresh and thought-provoking book deepens our understanding of the dynamic relationship between the creation of myth and the development of the ancient Greek polis, or city-state, during crucial periods in archaic and classical Greece. Examining the diverse texts which crystallized Greek oral tradition, nine chapters by a multidisciplinary group of scholars focus both on the role of the community as the shaper and transmitter of myth and on the function of myth and ritual in the development of political authority in Greek society. Myth and the Polis draws upon current research in such fields such as ancient history, philology, social anthropology, ethnomusicology, comparative literature, psychoanalysis, folklore, and political theory. Taken together, the essays highlight the continuos struggle of Greek archaic and classical communities to keep their myths "true" in spite of the pull of pan-Hellenism. Shedding new light on the beginnings of Western civilization, Myth and the Polis will be of interest to a wide range of readers, including scholars and students of classics, folklore, myth, and ancient religion, politics, and history.

From antiquity until the nineteenth century, there have been two types of state: macro-states, each dotted with a number of cities, and regions broken up into city-states, each consisting of an urban centre and its hinterland. A region settled with interacting city-states constituted a city-state culture and Polis opens with a description of the concepts of city, state, city-state, and city-state culture, and a survey of the 37 city-state cultures so far identified. Mogens Herman Hansen provides a thoroughly accessible introduction to the polis (plural: poleis), or ancient Greek city-state, which represents by far the largest of all city-state cultures. He addresses such topics as the emergence of the polis, its size and population, and its political organization, ranging from famous poleis such as Athens and Sparta through more than 1,000 known examples.

Aus dem Inhalt: N. Demand: Poleis on Cyprus and Oriental Despotism H. Bowden: The Greek Settlement and Sanctuaries at Naukratis T. H. Nielsen: Was There an Arkadian Confederacy in the Fifth Century B.C.' T. H. Nielsen: A Survey of Dependent Poleis in Classical Arkadia J. Roy: Polis and Tribe in Classical Arkadia A. G. Keen: Were the Boiotian Poleis Autonomoi? M. H. Hansen: Were the Boiotian Poleis Deprived of Their Autonomia During the First and Second Boiotian Federations? A Reply P. Flensted-Jensen/M. H. Hansen: Pseudo-Skylax' Use of the Term Polis M. H. Hansen: City-Ethnics as Evidence for Polis Identity .

"The polis, the dominant political form around which ancient Greeks structured their lives and activities, is perhaps their most fundamental creation and enduring legacy. It was a highly successful form of social organization in which Greek culture thrived, including architecture, literature, and philosophy. In this book, ancient historian John Ma offers a new history of the polis from its origins in the Early Iron Age through its eclipse in Late Antiquity. He aims to answer a few big questions about it-Why did it emerge? What needs did it fulfill? How did it work? In addition, it is often assumed that the polis, along with the concomitant values of democracy and freedom, came to an end with the Classical period. Taking a contrary view, Ma explores how it endured under imperial control (the Persian Achaimenids, the Hellenistic kings, the Roman Empire), as well as why and how it eventually ended. In addressing these questions, Ma examines not only the most well-known ancient city-states like Sparta and Athens but also many lesser-known ones. He shows how complex the relations of power, access, and membership between the city, the territory, and the members of the polis were. Ma also examines the polis's significance as a social form and looks to the people who constitute the polis, from free adult men-stakeholders in institutional power, slaveowners, or heads of households-and elites to women, foreigners, and enslaved peoples, however disempowered. He draws on recent work on gender and slavery to evaluate the place of domination and violence in the polis. In doing so, Ma shows how the composition of the citizen body is both a political and social issue. The powerful combination of central political ideas and conflict around the issues of autonomy and social power led, Ma argues, to a "great convergence" of polis forms, producing a relatively uniform, stable organism, centred on communitarian, democratic forms and bargains between the community and its elites. This convergence led to the diffusion and harmonization of polis forms, both within and beyond the Aegean, and which allowed them to endure for almost a thousand years with an even longer legacy"--

A fourth collection of Papers from the Copenhagen Polis Centre, a collective whose "ulimate aim is to present a new analysis of the Archaic and Classical Greek polis," through various wide-ranging and thematically specific investigations. This volume and the others in the series are released in advance of the publication of a general synthesis of findings, hence the thematic incoherence of the titles contained herein: Polis as the Generic Term for State, Hekataios' Use of the Word Polis in His Periegesis, and A Typology of Dependent Poleis (Mogens Herman Hansen); A Survey of the Major Urban Settlements in the Kimmerian Bosphoros (With a Discussion of Their Status as Poleis ) (Gocha R. Tsetskhladze); Emporion . A Study of the Use and Meaning of the Term in the Archaic and Classical Periods (Mogens Herman Hansen); Colonies and Ports-of-Tradee on the Northern Shores of the Black Sea: Borysthenes, Kremnoi and the "Other Pontic Emporia in Herodotos (John Hind); Some Problems in Polis Identification in the Chalkidic Peninsula (Pernille Flensted-Jensen); Triphylia . An Experiment in Ethnic Construction adn Political Organisation (Thomas Heine Nielsen); The Polis of Asea. A Case-Study of How Archaeology Can expand Our Knowlege of the History of a Polis (Jeanette Forsen and Bjorn Forsen) .

Illumining Isocrates' effort to reformulate sophistic conceptions of rhetoric on the basis of the intellectual and political debates of his time, Poulakos contends that the father of humanistic studies and rival educator of Plato crafted a version of rhetoric that gave the art an important new role in the ethical and political activities of Athens.