polis

Playwrights addressed the polis not by dramatizing current events but by recasting tales from the mythological and historic past to sharpen critical thinking on contemporary concerns.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2025

They were woven into the fabric of a democratic polis.

From Salon ● Apr. 13, 2025

Now protected by their own walls, and in possession of all the civic tools needed to form their own polis, the Helots were liberated from Spartan tyranny at long last.

From Slate ● Jan. 16, 2024

But thanks to the new ideas from the colonies, the common people, or kakoi, began demanding land and a voice in the governing of the polis.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

One of the few local documents to survive from this time, the so-called Constitution of Cyrene, prescribes the kind of political machinery one might expect in a wholly independent polis.

From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro

Greek colonies far from Greece were as important as the older poleis in Greece itself, since they created a common Greek civilization across the entire Mediterranean world.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020

In 499 BCE several Ionian Greek poleis rose against the Persians and successfully secured Athenian aid.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020

The poleis also invented institutions that united the cities culturally, despite their political independence, the most important of which was the Panhellenic games.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020

Open war finally broke out between the two cities in 431 BCE after two of their respective allied poleis started a conflict and Athens tried to influence the political decisions of Spartan allies.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020

The Hellenic municipalities were developments from the poleis, or city-states, which existed prior to the Roman conquest in Greece and the Hellenized areas of Asia and Africa.

From A History of Rome to 565 A. D. by Arthur Edward Romilly Boak