Copenhagen Polis Centre

About the centre:

The Danish National Research Foundation has set up, with effect from October 1993, the Copenhagen Polis Centre. The Centre's primary aim is to produce a comprehensive inventory of all archaic and classical poleis, including colonies, attested in contemporary sources. This inventory, accompanied by an in-depth analysis of the origin, nature and development of the polis, will be published by Oxford University Press. The Centre also plans a series of annual conferences, each devoted to a specific topic or type of source for the study of the polis. Under its director, Dr. Mogens Herman Hansen, the Centre is based at the University of Copenhagen; co-director is Dr. Simon Hornblower, UCL.

Research Programme

It is our aim to conduct a broad range of investigations into the ancient Greek city-state, based on an inventory of all known poleis of the archaic and classical periods. Discussions of the origin and nature of the Greek polis are regularly based on (conflicting) modern definitions of what a polis is or ought to be, blended with the ancient definitions to be found in, especially, Aristotle's Politics . Our intention, instead, is to focus on the ancient evidence for individual city-states by collecting detailed information about all the communities actually called polis in sources of the period ca. 600 B.C. to 323 B.C. The inventory will include a minimum of 800 Hellenic communities located in Hellas itself or founded as colonies along the coasts of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Such a comprehensive inventory of all attested poleis will, we believe, provide us with a much more solid basis for studies of the origin, development and nature of the Greek polis, as well as for a major study of the ancient Greek polis compared with city-states in other cultures and periods.

The Concept of the City-State

Our ultimate objective will be to make a survey, for the first time ever, of other cultures in which city-states are found and to come to a better understanding of the concept of the city-state in a larger context.

Apart from the Greek city-states we will include the following examples. The oldest known city-states are the Sumerian between 3500 and 2300 B.C., of which Uruk, Ur and Lagash were the most significant. In the course of the twelfth century B.C. a number of city-states were formed along the Phoenician coast, notably Byblos, Sidon and Tyros in the homeland and later Carthage in North Africa. The Etruscan people were divided into 12 city-states (e.g. Caere, Tarquinia and Vulci) until they were absorbed by the Romans in the 3rd cent. B.C. Rome itself was originally one of several city-states in Latium. In the high Middle Ages northern Italy was fragmented into city-states with Florence, Milan and Venice vying for the primacy. The major cities in Provence, viz., Avignon, Arles, Marseilles and Toulouse were city-states for about a century until they were subdued by the king and the aristocracy ca. 1230. At the same time there existed seven free Swiss cities that were obviously city-states, and most members of the Hanseatic League were city-states from the foundation of Lùbeck in 1159 to the last Hansetag in 1669. If we pass outside our own cultural sphere we find city-states in Africa south of the Sahara and east of the Niger, on the vast pastoral plain, where between ca. 1450 and 1804 the Hausa were organized into seven larger and several smaller city-states. Other examples are the five Mzap cities in southern Algeria founded between 1011 and 1053, and the South-East Asian cities between ca. 1450 and 1700, e.g. Melaka, Jakarta and Makasar, called negeri, a Sanskrit word for city which has passed into modern Malay in the sense of state.

On the other hand, we are sceptical about the following examples and cannot accept them without further investigation: the Chinese »city-states« in the kingdom of Cheng in the 6th century B.C.; the Celtic towns in central Europe during the La Tène III Period (2nd-1st cent. B.C.); the Viking »city-states« in southern Russia between ca. 700 and 1050 (e.g. Novgorod and Kiev) as well as in Ireland in the tenth century (e.g. Limerick, Cork and Dublin); and the poorly attested »city-states« in Mexico under the Toltecs and Chichimecans from 1000 to 1300. Other examples fall outside what we will call a »city-state culture« (see infra): the urbanisation of the Indus valley in the 3rd millenium B.C. did not result in the formation of city-states but of two large capitals Harappaand Mohenjo-Daro, each controlling a number of small towns, and at the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C. Assur was hardly a »city-state« but the capital of an empire which controlled a cluster of dependent colonies around Kanesh in Anatolia. Finally, in medieval and early modern Germany some eighty Reichsstädte were dotted about amongst the principalities and episcopal states, but did not constitute a single territory and were, in principle, imperial cities; otherwise, however, they meet many of the criteria that define a city-state. A final warning: we do not claim that our list is exhaustive and may add other examples. In addition to all the regions split up into city-states there are quite a few examples of isolated city-states. Amsterdam, for instance, was an oversized city-state from 1579 to the end of the 18th century. After the suppression during the Renaissance of all the other north Italian city-states, Venice was still a city-state until 1797. Danzig was a city-state between World War I and II. And today Bremen, Hamburg and Hong Kong are still in some sense city-states. But in our times there is no longer any part of the world where a cluster of city-states can be found.

On the basis of the evidence listed above we make a preliminary distinction between city-state and city-state culture, and we suggest that city-states in city-state cultures share all or at least most of the following characteristics.

(1) A large region is inhabited by people who speak the same language and share a common culture. (2) During a lengthy period the region is split up into a large number of small political communities of a common type, which today we call »city-states«. (3) The city-state period is almost always preceded by a pre-state period, and followed by a period in which the region is united and forms one or at most a few political communities. (As far as is known, there is only one attested example of a region that twice in world history has been split up into city-states, namely Tuscany). (4) City-states grow up in a period in which the region prospers and hardly ever arise in a period of decline, by disintegration of a larger political unit. (5) The emergence of a city-state culture coincides with the urbanisation of the region but, conversely, it is only in some cultures that urbanisation leads to the formation of city-states. (6) City-state cultures are transformed and sometimes even disappear when a neighbouring region grows to become a Great Power which then comes to control or even conquers the city-state region. (7) Political institutions are highly developed and centralized. (Bi-central city-states are extremelyrare). (8) The political, economic and religious centre of the city-state is a conurbation, and as a rule each city-state contains only one conurbation of significant size. (9) The conurbation is surrounded by a hinterland ideally (but rarely actually) large enough to supply the population with foodstuffs. (10) The city-states within a region vary considerably in size, both geographically and demographically, but none is so powerful that it can conquer the others permanently and transform the region into one political unit (the exception is Rome). (11) War between city-states is endemic, but at the same time there is always considerable economic and cultural interaction, which crosses all frontiers. (12) The city-state is a political community but not necessarily an independent community. There are innumerable examples of semi-dependent or dependent city-states whose political institutions are in control of local affairs but have no autonomy as regards foreign policy, defence and tribute to be paid to an neighbouring overlord or a hegemonic city-state within the region. (13) A central aspect in the concept of the city-state is the citizens' consciousness of being members of a politically privileged group, as opposed to others who merely inhabit the city-state's territory. (14) City-state cultures are found in regions that are very different both geographically and ecologically, and in some cases the city-states are not concentrated in a region but dotted along the coasts so that all communication is exclusively by sea. Explanations of the formation of the city-state within a region that focus narrowly on environment are bound to fail.

Models used in the analysis of the ancient Greek City-state

Turning from the city-state in general to the ancient Greek polis in particular, the point of departure for our project is partly some flaws in the prevailing models used to explain the polis, and partly the fact that these models have no solid empirical basis.

In Anglophone scholarship » Peer Polity Interaction« has become a popular model used in analyses of city-states. This approach has resulted in some excellent studies. For the Greek polis, however, the model rests on the questionable assumption that poleis were by definition autonomous. Also, the model must be criticized for underrating the importance of the hierarchical structure of poleis and the importance of external change, i.e. changes in a region caused by influence fromneighbouring regions. More specifically, the model does not take into account that the breakdown of city-state culture in a region is caused in almost all cases, ancient Greece included, by the region's being conquered or at least dominated by a neighbouring region.

According to a prevailing French analysis of the polis, religion is seen as the very centre of the Greek polis. In 1984 François de Polignac demonstrated that many major early archaic sanctuaries were located not in, but between, what later became urban centres and that in such sanctuaries the cult was often shared by a number of neighbouring cities. But this important observation does not support the view that cult was the most important single factor in the formation of the polis. On the contrary, the inference to be drawn is rather that it must have been the rise of the polis that brought an end to the earlier joint ownership of cult centres located between cities. Second, the French model does not do sufficient justice to the fact that maintenance of sanctuaries in ancient Greece was commonly split up into administration (entrusted to popularly elected magistrates), and acts of cult (performed by priests who were not magistrates). Third, not only citizens but also women, metics and slaves were permitted to participate in many cults; and cults of goddesses were in the hands of priestesses. Thus, if we focus on religion as the main force in the formation of the polis, women, metics and slaves ought to have been members of the polis, yet our sources show that as a political community the polis was essentially a male society of citizensonly, to the exclusion of women, foreigners and slaves.

In our analysis of the polis we want to emphasize the secular rather than the religious aspects of the city-state and to study the hierarchy both internally within a polis (the subdivision of the population into citizens, foreigners and slaves) and externally between poleis (where a distinction must be made between dependencies, constituent states, members of an alliance, independent political communities, hegemonial powers, and even whole federations that are conceived of as poleis subdivided into other poleis, each of which may again dominate smaller poleis within their territory).

The Analytical Inventory of Attested Poleis

In the archaic and classical periods Greece was divided into at least 750 poleis, and to this figure must be added some 500 colonies founded round the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. But no one has ever investigated how many poleis there were and which settlements were actually poleis. For Hellas itself an ultrashort preliminary study by Ruschenbusch from 1977 breaks new ground, but it is very sketchy and often controversial. For the colonies there is no comprehensive study at all. As a foundation for all our investigations of the polis we will create an inventory of all poleis, based on attestations in contemporary sources (and not on modern historians' conflicting definitions of what a polis is). The inventory will cover the period ca. 600-323 B.C. It will be introduced by an analysis and classification of the various types of source that allow us to include or exclude a given locality.

The inventory itself will take the form of a list, organized region by region, of those 800 or more localities that are attested as poleis in archaic and classical sources (plus a check-list of some 500 other localities that can be assumed to be poleis but for which the contemporary sources do not provide us with explicit evidence). Each entry will include references to the source(s) where the locality is explicitly called a polis, either in the sense of »city« or »state« or both. There will be a reference to discussions of the location of the polis, and thereafter the entry will give information about whether the polis in question had walls, a bouleuterion, a prytaneion, a mint; which type of constitution it had, whether it was a member of a federal state or a league etc. In the case of colonies also: when they were founded and by whom etc. Each entry will run from a few lines to half a page or so. (Entries on Athens, Sparta and a few other major poleis can be kept comparatively short. What matters is to give information about all the other poleis). The inventory will be augmented by a number of maps, one for each region (Arkadia, Argolis, Sicily etc.) and one general map for the entire Mediterranean region, from Gibraltar to the east coast of the Black Sea.

The inventory of all attested poleis will be used to present a new picture of the ancient Greek city-state and to question and revise the following six accepted beliefs. (1) The polis was formed before colonization i.e. before the mid 8th century B.C., and the emergence of the polis was one of the factors behind the success of colonization. (2) In the archaic and classical periods the concept of the polis was closely linked with the concept of political independence ( autonomia), and cities subject to other cities were not poleis in the true sense of the term. (3) When the term polis denotes a town it must be distinguished from polis in the sense of »political community« , and »city-state« is a misleading rendering of polis since polis in the sense of »political community« was not necessarily centred on a conurbation. (4) The polis was a typically Greek form of society and is often opposed to barbarian peoples and nations (called ethne). (5) Right from the early archaic age it was the polis, not the region, that was the basic political unit. (6) The great age of the Greek polis was the archaic and classical periods, and the »independent polis« declined and disappeared in the second half of the 4th century B.C. in consequence of Philip II's and Alexander the Great's conquests.

I t is our intention, on all six points, to test and, where necessary, to modify the traditional view.

Re (1) The Emergence of the Polis. The accepted view, that the formation of the polis precedes colonization, is not based on solid evidence, but few have dared to advocate the opposite hypothesis: that the polis emerged or at least developed in consequence of colonization, and that it is the emergence of the polis in the colonies that influenced the homeland. Urbanisation, the splitting up of the population into citizens and foreigners, and the conscious introduction of political institutions are features that are central to the concept of the polis, and all may have developed in the colonies before they became prominent in Hellas itself. Furthermore, it is worth noting e.g. that Achaia in the northern Peloponnese was very active in colonisation in the 8th century, but did not develop poleis internally until much later, probably not before the 6th century.

Re (2) The »Autonomous Polis «. An initial inspection of the sources does not support modern historians' belief that autonomia was an essential aspect of the concept of the polis. To the Greeks the polis was a (small) community of citizens united in having common political institutions. Whether or not decisions about e.g. foreign policy and defence were made by the citizens themselves or by a dominating neighbour was of course a matter of great importance, but losing its autonomy did not affect a community's identity as a polis as long as its political institutions (housed in a bouleuterion and a prytaneion etc.) were allowed to survive and work. In the sources the concept of hypekooi poleis (subject poleis) is amply attested. Consequently a polis joining a confederation or subjected to a hegemonic power was a polislike the independent communities.

Re (3) Polis in the sense of »Town« and in the sense of »Political Commu-nity«. In the Archaic period there are examples of poleis whose political centre was not a conurbation, e.g. Elis which apparently, before the synoikism of 471, had its prytaneion and bouleuterion in Olympia. But in the classical period every known polis seems to have been centred on a conurbation (walled or unwalled), and whenever the term polis is used in the sense of conurbation it denotes a town which was also the political centre of a polis in the sense of political community. Thus, in this period »city-state« is an adequate rendering of polis.

Re (4) Hellenic versus Barbarian Poleis. Apart from Aristotle, most Greeks believed that many of their neighbours lived in poleis more or less as they did themselves. Admittedly the barbarian poleis were not considered autonomous, but that applied to many Greek poleis as well. The evidence for barbarian poleis has been almost completely neglected. It must now be collected and analysed.

Re (5) Region versus Polis. Hellas was divided into a number of regions: Achaia, Arkadia, Phokis, Boiotia etc. It is a remarkable fact that the federal states formed in the classical and hellenistic periods almost always follow the regional pattern, i.e the Arkadian Confederacy, the Boiotian Confederacy etc. The division into regions can be traced back to the archaic period and even earlier (geometric pottery styles seem to follow regional lines). The relation between polis and region in the archaic and early classical periods, though discussed by 19th century scholars, is a neglected problem that deserves thorough investigation.

Re (6) The Decline of the »Independent« Polis. There is no historical atlas which includes a map of Greece ca. 350 B.C. showing which poleis were still independent and which had become dependencies, either by being dominated by one of the hegemonic cities or the King of Persia or by being a member of a confederation. Such a map would reveal that when Macedon under Philip II began to manifest itself as a great power, the independent city-state was no longer the typical form of polis. What disappeared with the rise of Macedon in the second half of the 4th century was not the polis but the hegemonic polis such as Athens, Sparta or Thebes. The other poleis could not tell the difference between being dominated by Athens or the king of Persia and being dominated by the king of Macedon or some other Hellenistic monarch. Thus the polis (the small political community of citizens living in or around an urban centre and united in running its political institutions) survived the end of the classical period, whereas the independent polis had declined long before the defeat at Chaironeia.

Re the symposia: There will be no symposium in 1997 and the Polis Centre's fifth symposium has been scheduled for March 1998. It will be organised by Thomas Heine Nielsen and its theme will be the region Arkadia and the Arkadian poleis.

Re A. The Concept of the City-State: A comparative study of altogether sixteen city-state cultures will be the theme of a sixth symposion, scheduled for August 1998. A paper on each of the sixteen city-state cultures will be drawn up by a specialist and circulated among the participants half a year in advance of the symposium. The acts will be published by the Royal Danish Academy. Our investigations have led to the exclusion of at least one civilisation provisionally included in the research programme (Northern China in the 6th-5th cent. B.C) but also to the inclusion of several others, viz., the Maya civilisation in the classical period ca. 500-900, the viking city-states in Ireland ca. 830-1171, the medieval city-states in Provence in the 12th cent., and the Aztekes ca. 1350-1500.

Re C. The Analytical Inventory of Attested Poleis. One of the main objectives of the CPC is to build up an inventory of (a) every single archaic and classical settlement which is explicitly called polis in contemporary sources and (b) every single archaic and classical settlement which meets a number of essential characteristics which in contemporary sources are associated with settlements actually called polis.

In the 1993 research programme I envisaged that the inventory would be drawn up by the five members of the PC, viz. David Whitehead and myself assisted by our three research students Pernille Flensted-Jensen, Thomas Heine-Nielsen and Lene Rubinstein. The plan was to record a few essential characteristics for each polis and, whenever necessary, to consult experts. The final publication was planned as a volume of ca. 480 pages, of which the inventory would fill some 250 pages. In December 1993 I signed a contract with Oxford University Press about the publication of a volume as described above.

This plan was soon replaced by a much more ambitious scheme, viz., to subdivide Greece and the Mediterranean world into regions and to assign each region to an internationally acknowledged expert who would then provide the Polis Centre with a chapter consisting of two parts (a) a short description of the region and its settlement pattern followed by an alfabetical list of all identifiable poleis within the region. Between the autumn of 1993 and the spring of 1996 I recruited twenty-nine scholars from nine different countries, and the Polis Centre has thereby created a high-powered international team of ancient historians and archaeologists. Almost everybody I asked accepted the invitation.I could not, of course, afford to pay them for their contribution, but I offered them participation in two symposia in Copenhagen with everything paid plus the privilege of being a member of the team and of becoming a co-author of the OUP publication.

In the revised plan I am responsible for the description of all poleis in the regions Attika, Boiotia and East Lokris. My chapter on Boiotia was finished by early 1996 and, to ensure uniformity, a version published in Acts 3 (1996) 78-116 (see infra page 9) is meant to serve as a model for all who work with the inventory. A list of all the collaborators and of the regions assigned to each collaborator is appended to this report, see enclosures nos. 2-3.

The Polis Centre's team of experts will produce a detailed and authoritative inventory of some 700 pages instead of the inventory of some 250 pages envisaged in the original research plan. Consequently I resumed negotiations with OUP and had the Polis Centre's contract changed from one volume of ca. 480 pages to two volumes of some 900 pages. Also David Whitehead, who had left the project, was replaced by Dr. Simon Hornblower as co-editor of the inventory and co-author of the analytical introduction.

In August 1995 collaboration was established between the CPC and The Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, Chapel Hill NC, USA, directed by Professor Richard Talbert. The Atlas Project has promised to provide the CPC with all maps and information about the location of all the settlements we have classified as poleis, whereas the scholars who work for the CPC will referee the maps drawn up by the Atlas Project and provide information about site-classification.

The original plan was to have the OUP volume finished by the summer of 1998, but due to the expansion of the project I have had to revise the schedule. All collaborators will submit their chapters in the course of 1997 and 1998 and we cannot expect to have the publication completed before the year 2000, cf. infra.

A brief survey of the more important results of the research conducted in the Copenhagen Polis Centre is best presented as a number of theses with reference to the publication(s) in which the issues at stake have been discussed and the theses have been advanced.

(1) We have introduced and defined "city-state culture" as a concept to be distinguished from the concept of city-state; and we intend to present a survey of all known city-state cultures in world history. By a city-state culture we understand the culture of a large region whose inhabitants share language,religion, traditions etc; the region constitutes a social and economic entity, but politically it is broken up into a large number of small communities each centred on a city. To be excluded from the concept of city-state culture are isolated city-states which do not form an integrated part of a city-state culture (many of the Medieval German Reichsstädte), as well as cities which form a cultural and economic network without being self-governing political entities (e.g. the so-called Assyrian city-states). _ Papers 1 (1994) 10-13.

(2) In our study of the ancient Greek city-state culture we have emphasised the necessity of distinguishing between (a) the ancient Greeks' understanding of their own settlement pattern and political system, and (b) modern historians' analysis of the ancient Greek settlement pattern and political system. When investigating the Greeks' perception of their social and political organisation we focus upon the Greek term polis as attested in archaic and classical sources, whereas we restrict the concept of the city-state to our modern analysis of ancient Greek society. The analysis is thrown into perspective by comparing the concept of polis as found in the sources with the concept of city-state as found in modern historical accounts. Many modern historians, however, are not sufficiently aware of the distinction between (a) and (b). They use the term polis synonymously with the term city-state and accordingly they erroneously transfer characteristics of the more general concept of city-state to the ancient concept of polis, cf. (10) infra. _ Acts 3 (1996) 7-34, especially 7-9.

(3) Studying the concept of polis we conduct two separate investigations, one of the intension and one of the extension of the term. (a) All attestations of the term polis and its derivatives are collected and analysed in order to determine the intension of the term (what is a polis?) (b) all attestations of the term polis applied to a named and identifiable community are collected in order to determine the extension of the term (the total number of archaic and classical poleis). This second investigation is the foundation for our inventory of all communities which are actually called polis by the Greeks. Third, the results of (a) and (b) are compared in order to describe and define the concept of polis in the archaic and classical Periods. Acts 3 (1996) 7-34, especially 9-14. The inventory will be the first documented survey of the number and identity of ancient Greek poleis in the archaic and classical periods, and it will enable historians to compare e.g. Plato's and Aristotle's general view of the polis and their ideas about what a polis ought to be with what a polis actually was. _ Papers 1 (1994) 14-5, Acts 3 (1996) 55-62, 73-116.

(4) Our investigation comprises the archaic and classical periods, i.e. the period from ca. 600 B.C. (when our sources begin) to 323 B.C. (when Alexander's conquest of the East led to the foundation of several hundred new poleis). Ourinvestigation is based on contemporary sources and later sources are only used if the information is explicitly restrospective and, accordingly, based on lost archaic and classical sources. We thereby avoid the all too common anachronistic use of e.g Pausanias' understanding of what a polis is, or Strabo's classification of named urban settlements as either poleis or komai. _ Papers 1 (1994) 14-5, Acts 3 (1996) 55-62, 73-116.

(5) It is well known that the term polis had four different meanings, (a) stronghold, (b) town, (c) territory and (d) state. Our analysis shows that (a) is archaic and rare and that (c) is rare as the principal meaning and not very common as a connotation. The two important senses are (b) and (d) which are both very common and often indistinguishable. The common view is that polis in the sense of town is often used about urban centres which were not poleis in the sense of being city-states. Our examination of the sources disproves the orthodoxy and shows instead what we have called the Lex Hafniensis de Civitate: in archaic and classical sources the term polis used in the sense of "town" is not applied to any urban centre but only to a town which was also the political centre of a polis. Thus, the term polis had two different meanings, "town" and "state", but even when it is used in the sense of town its denotation seems almost invariably to be what the Greeks called polis in the sense of a koinonia politon politeias and what we today call a city-state. _ Acts 3 (1996) 25-34.

(6) In a number of studies on individual authors we have demonstrated that the term polis is used much more consistently in our sources than previously believed, and that the site-classifications found in archaic and classical literary and epigraphical sources must be taken seriously and cannot just be brushed aside as unreliable whenever it suits a modern historian to question a settlement's status as polis. _ Acts 2 (1995) 39-45; Acts 3 (1996) 39-54; Papers 2 (1995) 83-102, 128-32; Papers 3 (1996) 127-67; forthcoming study in Papers 4 (1997) on Hekataios.

(7) W e have demonstrated the close connection between town and state in the concept of polis: every polis in the sense of town was the political centre of a polis in the sense of state (the Lex Hafniensis) but, conversely, every polis in the sense of state was centred on a polis in the sense of town. (The only exceptions to this rule are a few occurrences of the term polis used to denote large nations [such as Macedon] or even empires [such as Persia]). The common view that there were quite a few poleis without an urban centre has no foundation in the sources of the late archaic and classical periods, and it cannot even be convincingly demonstrated for the early archaic period (a fact, however, which may be due to the lack of sources). _ Acts 1 (1993) 13-6, forthcomingin Acts 4 (1997).

(8) Modern historians disagree about whom of the inhabitants of a community to include or exclude in the concept of polis. On the basis of Arist. Pol. Books 1 and 3 we have shown that the Greeks themselves had two different views of this issue according to whether they saw the polis as a political community or as a social and economic community. When the term polis is attested in the sense of state the focus is upon the political institutions and the polis is seen as a community of adult male citizens from which women, free foreigners and slaves are excluded. In this context the "atom" of the polis is the citizen ( polites). When the term polis is used in the sense of town the focus is upon the economic and social aspects of the community and the polis comprises all inhabitants: citizens, free foreigners and slaves of both sexes and all ages. The "atom" of the polis is the household ( oikia). _ Acts 1 (1993) 16-18; R. Wallace & E. Harris (eds.), Transitions to Empire (Norman 1996) 195-210.

(9) Modern archaeological analysis of the settlement pattern of ancient Greece is based on a three-tier hierarchy: (a) first-order settlements: (towns/cities), (b) second-order settlements (villages/hamlets) and (c) third-order settlements (isolated farmsteads); the fundamental distinction is between nucleated settlement (a + b) and dispersed settlement (c). We have shown that the Greeks had a clear terminology for (a), namely: polis, polisma, or asty; a defective terminology for (b) namely kome or, to some extent, demos, but no terminology for (c); the fundamental distinction was between polis (a) and chora or ge (b + c). To conclude: the Greek emphasised the polis and the distinction between polis and chora, but they had a defective perception of the settlement pattern and showed little interest in whether settlement in the chora was nucleated or dispersed. _ Forthcoming in Acts 4 (1997).

(10) In most modern accounts of ancient Greek society independence (often equated with autonomy) is singled out as the most important defining characteristic of the polis, and the ancient concept of autonomia is equated with the modern concept of autonomy without any thought for the fact that the modern concept covers everything from true independence to a very restricted form of self-government (Cf. e.g. Gaza and Jericho after 1993). Our sources show, however, that in some periods more than half the poleis were dependencies without autonomia. In reply to the "peer polity interaction" model of the polis we have emphasised the hierarchical structure of the polis culture, and in opposition to the view that all poleis were autonomous we have developed the concept of the dependent polis. We have dissociated the concept of polis both from the ancient concept of autonomia and from the modern concepts of indpendence and autonomy. We hold that the concept of autonomiabecomes linked to the concept of polis in the course of the fourth century only, and that the history of the autonomos polis does not end ca. 338 B.C. On the contrary, that is in fact where it begins, viz. after autonomia had lost its origininal meaning of full self-government and could be taken to signify municipal self-government only. _ Acts 1 (1993) 18-20; Papers 2 (1995) 21-43.

(11) We hold that of all western peoples the Greeks are unique in having used hereditary surnames as a sign of political status, primarily as an indicator of a person's status as citizen of a polis. Furthermore, instead of the prevailing defective terminology: ethnic (indicating affiliation with either a region or a polis) and demotic (indicating membership of a municipality and used in this narrow sense about citizens of Athens, Eretria, Rhodes and a few other places), we propose to distinguish between regional ethnics (indicating affiliation with a whole ethnos), city-ethnics (used externally to indicate membership of a polis) and sub-ethnics (indicating affiliation with a phyle or a demos or a kome or a phratria etc. and used internally to indicate membership of a polis). Apart from the term polis itself, the attestation of a city-ethnic or a sub-ethnic is one of the best criteria for identifying a community as a polis. _ Papers 3 (1996) 169-96.

(12) Any small urban centre which is not a polis is traditionally classified as a kome (in Athens and a few other poleis as a demos). This model implies that in classical Greece there must have been thousands of komai in addition to the hundreds of poleis. But whereas over 300 urban centres are explicitly called polis in our sources, there are only some 30 known localities which are explicitly called kome in archaic and classical texts. The identification of all the other small nucleated settlements as komai is either without any foundation in our sources or based upon an anachronistic projection back into the classical period of the terminology found in Strabo and Pausanias. In contemporary sources komai are only attested in some regions and mostly in the socio-economic sense. Argos and Mantineia are the only unquestionable attestations of kome used constitutionally as the designation of a civic subdivision of a polis. _ Papers 2 (1995) 45-81.

(13) There was virtually no monumental political architecture before the Hellenistic period. The palaces which many modern historians ascribe to the tyrants of the archaic period are presently without support in written or archaeological evidence. Prytaneia and bouleuteria were mostly plain buildings of modest dimensions and cheap materials. The people's assembly was convened either in the agora or in a theatre, connected with a sanctuary constructed primarily for dramatic performances etc. Genuine ekklesiasteria areexceptional. Dikasteria met in the agora or in buildings erected for other purposes (e.g. stoai). Down to the second half of the fourth century B.C. virtually all monumental architecture is sacred and, consequently, it is extremely difficult from remains of buildings alone to determine whether or not a nucleated settlement was a polis (with a prytaneion and a bouleuterion) or some kind of second-order settlement. _ Papers 1 (1994) 23-90.

_ In addition to the above (selected) discoveries, all made in the Polis Centre itself, important progress has been made by all the scholars who have been invited to contribute to Acts 1-3 and Papers 1-3. As regards polis religion, for example, Walter Burkert has advocated a new fundamental tripartition of the relationship between polis and cults: (a) the polis makes use of religion, (b) the polis makes decisions about religion and (c) the polis makes religion. _ Papers 2 (1995) 201-10; and the concept of a specific patron divinity has been studied by Susan Cole, who shows that some poleis had no patron god or goddess at all whereas others had several simultaneously. _ Acts 2 (1995) 292-325. _ Paula Perlman has demonstrated the importance of the theorodokoi for polis identification. _ Acts 2 (1995) 113-70; Jonathan Hall and Catherine Morgan have shown that polis formation in the region Achaia took place over two hundred years after the foundation of the Achaian poleis in South Italy. _ Acts 3 (1996).

    RESEARCH PROGRAMME FOR THE YEARS 1998-2003

By the redefinition of the scope of the inventory and by the recruiting of twenty-nine experts to assist the original group of five collaborators, see supra page 7, the Polis Centre's research programme has grown to almost twice its original size. Next, by September 1998 we will have held six symposia instead of the five that were scheduled, and we will have published (probably) five volumes in our Papers series, which were not part of the original plan. Furthermore, I would like to stress that the Copenhagen Polis Centre is the smallest of all the centres established by the Danish National Research Foundation, and I happen to be the only senior scholar on the pay roll. I have had much more support and assistance than I could have expected (and even hoped for) from my two brilliant research students, but the fact remains that on the senior side I have had to run the project single-handed. Apart from editing Papers Vol 1, David Whitehead has made virtually no contribution to the project since the autumn of 1993, and Simon Hornblower, who has replaced DW as a co-editor and co-author of the OUP publication, will not be active until the members of the team begin to submit their chapters, that is from February 1997 onwards. Let me add that - as in David Whitehead's case - Simon Hornblower is not on the Centre's pay roll. He volunteers like all the members of the team recruited by me sincethe autumn of 1993; and although his expertise will be invaluable, his work with the project will only be part-time.

The result is that it is impossible for the centre to have the OUP publication and Acts vol. 5-6 completed when our five years expire. As pointed out above, I estimate that it will take another two years, i.e. until the autumn of 2000, before the enlarged research programme has been implemented. For this period it may be necessary to obtain sabbatical leave for Simon Hornblower by paying others to undertake his teaching obligations at Oxford University for one or two terms.

Our project is susceptible to a rule that goes for every team of scholars, viz. that it is no stronger than the weakest link of the chain. Thus, we have had to consider the following possibilities: what will happen (a) if some of the contributors do not respect their deadline and submit their chapters, say, half a year later than scheduled? or (b) if, because of illness or unforeseen obligations, they do not submit their chapters at all? or (c) if what they submit does not live up to expectation?

Re (a): some contributors have already finished their chapters and the deadlines stretch over almost two years so that, throughout 1997 and 1998, the staff of the Polis Centre will continuously have plenty of material to edit. The sequence in which the various parts are received and edited is of little consequence for the end product. Accordingly, we can expect to have the inventory ready ca. one month after the last chapter has been submitted in its final form. Furthermore, in the revised research plan we have already taken it into account that some of the chapters may be submitted even up to a year after the deadline.

Re (b): Missing (or seriously defective) contributions will be replaced by the members of the Polis Centre assisted by other scholars. For practically every region we are in a position to establish contact with alternative experts, whom we can approach and ask to assist us. In the revised time schedule we calculate with the possibility that 3-4 chapters will be missing. By far the most difficult region to reconstruct would be the poleis in the Pontic Region, but we are confident that the troika drawing up this important part of the inventory will complete their chapters in due time and that we will be pleased with what they submit.

Re (c): chapters which are essentially good but not quite satisfactory will be refereed by other experts whose report will enable the authors as well as the staff of the Polis Centre to bring the contributions up to standard.

Let me add that our work during the first three and a half years has given us reason to be optimistic: the Polis Centre has a very good reputation for getting its collaborators to submit their contributions with a minimum of delay and for getting the papers published. Volumes 1-3 of Acts have been published, and Volume 4 will be published, within one year of the symposium. So far only onecontributor out of thirty-two has caused serious difficulties.

For the remaining three years of the next five year period we suggest the following research programme.

On the basis of the inventory and the new aspects of the concept of polis clarified by our analyses of the inventory a number of issues have to be studied or re-studied. We present here three of the most urgent problems which we will take up and suggest here some guidelines for their investigation.

Numerous books and articles have been written about how poleis emerged by colonisation of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea region, by synoikism (Rhodes in 408), by metoikism (Phokaia-Elea in ca. 540) and by second-order settlements growing into full-scale cities with self-government (Achaian poleis in the early and Aitolian in the late 5th cent.). The opposite phenomenon, namely the disappearance of poleis, is an important issue too, but one of the neglected problems of Greek history. To date not a single comprehensive study has been devoted to the problem of how a settlement lost its identity as a polis. Our inventory is an ideal basis for such an investigation and we suggest the following (provisional) typology: (A) a polis disappears as a political community (but may persist as a settlement); (B) a polis disappears both as a political and as an urban centre by the population being killed, moved or sold into slavery, an annihilation of the polis sometimes combined with the physical destruction of the urban centre. The following variants are frequently attested: (1). destruction by which all inhabitants are killed and/or sold into slavery ( andrapodismos). Examples: Olynthos in 348, Melos in 416, Skione in 421. (2). The whole population of a polis is moved by force to another polis. Examples: the inhabitants of Megara Hyblaia were moved to Syracuse in 483 (without any resettlement); the inhabitants of Kamarina were moved to Syracuse in 484, but Kamarina was refounded as a polis in ca. 461. (3). The population of a polis is dispersed over a number of villages ( dioikismos). Example: Smyrna in ca. 545, Mantinea in 385, the Phokian polei s in 346. (4). A polis disappears when the whole population emigrates and founds a polis in a different place. Example: in ca. 650 the Kolophonians moved their polis from Ionia in Asia Minor to Siris in southern Italy. (5). A polis disappears by the whole population joining in a synoikism of another polis. Example: in BoiotiaSkolos, Skaphai, Hysiai, Erythrai are synoikised with Thebes in ca. 431. (6). A polis has its status changed from polis to kome, vel sim. Example: Mykene in ca. 468 B.C. (7). A polis disappears because of a cataclysm or a similar catastrophe. Example: Helike in 373.

Two of the most wide-ranging results of the Polis Centre's research have been (a) to dissociate the concept of polis from the concepts of independence and autonomia and (b) to introduce the concept of the dependent polis. This concept, however, is very complex: dependent poleis existed in many different shapes and sizes, and certain types of dependent polis were common in some regions but virtually non-existent in others. So far, we have isolated the following 14 different types of dependency: (1) A polis situated inside the territory of a larger polis, e.g. Mykalessos inside Tanagra (Boiotia). (2a) A polis in the peraia controlled by an island, e.g. the Aktaiai poleis controlled by Mytilene, or, conversely, (2b) an island controlled by a mainland polis, e.g. Kaudos controlled by Gortyn. (3) An emporion organized as a polis d ependent on a larger polis, e.g. the Thasian emporia on the coast of Thrace, or on a non-Greek overlord, e.g. Naukratis in Egypt. (4) A colony being a polis dependent on its mother-city, e.g. the Korinthian colonies Ambrakia, Anaktorion, Apollonia, Chalkis, Leukas, Molykrion and Sollion, of which Ambrakia may serve as an example. (5) An Athenian klerouchy, e.g. Hephaistia and Myrine on Lemnos. (6) A perioikic polis in Lakonia, e.g. Kythera. (7) A polis which is a member of a hegemonic federation, e.g. Orchomenos which regained its autonomia in 395 when it broke away from the Boiotian Federation. (8) A polis which is a member of a hegemonic league ( symmachia) which has developed into an "empire" ( arche) , e.g. the hypekooi poleis in the Delian League. (9) A polis which persists as a polis after a sympoliteia with another polis , e.g. Helisson after its sympoliteia with Mantineia. (10) A polis which, together with other poleis, makes up a "tribal state," e.g. the Mainalian polis Pallantion in Arkadia. (11) A polis which is controlled by an empire/kingdom e.g. the poleis in Ionia ruled by the Persian king from ca. 540 to the 470s and again from the King's Peace of 386 to Alexander's conquest of Asia Minor in 334. (12) A polis founded as a fortress, e.g. Mesambria, a Samothracian teichos on the Thracian coast, or Kasmenai a Syracusan fortress west of Akrai. (13) A major port of an inland polis, e.g. Notion, the port of Kolophon. (14) A polis which is at the same time a civic subdivision of another polis, e.g. Koresia on Keos which is a phyle of Kartheia, Dystos which is a demos of Eretria . _ There is, of course, a considerable overlap between the different types.

Having established the concept of the dependent polis, and having disposed of independence as the essential criterion for distinguishing a polis from a municipality, we have to address the following question: if many poleis were dependencies what was then the difference between a polis and a civic sub-division, such as a demos, a kome, a phratria, a phyle etc.? Our investigations point to the following similarities and differences between civic subdivisions and poleis (independent poleis as well as dependencies).

Like a polis (dependent or independent) a civic subdivision could have its own temples, including a theatre, its own cults and its own festivals. It had its own assembly, in which both laws ( nomoi) and decrees ( psephismata) could be passed and taxes and liturgies imposed; there were separate local magistrates and a local court. But, in contradistinction to a polis (dependent or independent), a civic subdivision had no prytaneion, no bouleuterion and no boule; its members were citizens of the polis of which the subdivision was a part, and were not citizens of the civic subdivision as such; a local assembly had no right to pass citizenship decrees and proxeny decrees; and a local court could impose fines but was not empowered to pass a sentence of death or exile. A civic subdivision did not have its own coins, and it had no right to enter into relations with foreign states. The members of a civic subdivision might form a unit of the army of the polis, but would not operate as a separate army.

The concept of the dependent polis is closely related to the concept of the hegemonic polis, i.e. the polis which attempted to dominate and often to conquer its neighbouring poleis. It is well known that the principal hegemonic poleis were Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Argos, but on the basis of the inventory we suggest a new analysis and typology of the relation between hegemonic and dependent poleis.

I. Large poleis often attempt to dominate (or conquer) their neighbours. We find it useful to distinguish between two types of expansion, one more and one less ambitious: (A). One major polis attempts to dominate an entire region (or island). Examples: Athens/Attica, Thebes/Boiotia, Sparta/Lakonia, Elis/Elis, Opous/East Lokris, Mytilene/Lesbos (in 428), Syracuse/Sicily, Olynthos/ Chalkidike. (B). One major polis attempts to dominate its smaller neighbouring poleis, but stops short of an attempt to dominate a whole region (or island). Examples: Argos, Mantineia, Eretria, Gortyn, Tanagra, Thespiai, etc.

II. Domination is exercised (or attempted) in a number of different ways, andwe suggest to distinguish between at least four models: (1). To turn the small neighbouring poleis into municipalities (civic subdivisions). Examples: Athens, Eretria. (2). To turn the small neighbouring poleis into dependent poleis: Examples: Sparta, Elis, Mantineia, Tanagra, Gortyn. (3). To force the small neighbouring poleis to join a confederacy. Examples: Thebes (esp. in the 5th cent.), Olynthos (esp. in the 4th cent.), Mytilene in 428. (4). To obliterate the small neighbouring poleis by conquest followed by andrapodismos, or exile, or enforced synoikismos of the population. Examples: Syracuse (esp. in the 5th cent.), Thebes (esp. in the 4th cent.).

When applied to e.g. Argos the above model suggests the following analysis: Re (A-B): Argos obviously succeeded in conquering and dominating all other poleis in the Argive plain, but there is no indication in the sources that Argos ever attempted to conquer all the poleis in Akte and thus to transform Argolis into one large polis in the same way as Athens came to dominate Attika and Sparta came to dominate Lakonia. Especially the poleis in Akte (Epidauros, Troizen, Hermione and Halieis) remained independent of Argos and there was no Argive attempt to conquer these poleis or to force them into subjection. In this context, however, it is worth noticing that Argolis was not a region in the same sense as Arkadia or Phokis or Aitolia. The toponym Argolis never developed an ethnic, a linguistic observation which matches the fact that the inhabitants of Argolis never developed the sense of national or rather "regional" feeling attested among the Boiotians, the Arkadians, the Phokians etc., and that may be the reason why Argos did not have as its ultimate goal to conquer and dominate all the poleis in Argolis.

Re (1-4): It is true that several of the archaic poleis re-appear later as Argive subdivisions (e.g. Mykene), but in the early archaic period Argos annihilated Nauplia (perhaps conquered only in the 5th cent. see Hall) and Asine, and in the classical period they exposed Mykene to andrapodismos and drove the Tirynthians into exile. Similarly, Orneai, which the Spartans had settled with Argive refugees, was re-conquered and destroyed by the Argives in 416/5.

The inventory of archaic and classical poleis ought, ideally, to be supplemented with an inventory of all Hellenistic poleis, comprising both the polis in Greece, the old colonies in the west and north, and all the new cities in the east. To build up such an inventory would be an even greater task than composing the inventory of archaic and classical poleis. It will be an obvious task for the Polis Centre if the National Research Foundation contemplates to allow some of thecentres to have a third period of five years from 2003-08. We plan, instead, as one of our projects for the years 2000-2003 to investigate a selected number of Hellenistic poleis. A comparison between our inventory of poleis from ca. 600 to 323 B.C and a (selected) inventory of Hellenistic poleis will make it possible, for the first time, we believe, to identify and study the differences between the classical and the Hellenistic polis:

The archaic and classical polis was (a) a political organisation centred on institutions such as an assembly ( ekklesia), a council ( boule), lawcourts ( dikasteria), and magistrates ( archai). (b) It was a military organisation whose backbone was the citizen army of hoplites. (c) It was a religious organisation possessing a number of civic cults which were polis-specific in the sense that e.g. Athena Polias in Athens was not felt to be the same divinity as Athena Polias in Argos, and Apollon on Delos was not the same Apollon as Apollon Daphnephoros in Eretria. (d) It was an economic organisation the principal characteristic of which was the citizens' sole right to own landed property: each citizen was supposed to possess a plot of land ( chorion) in the country-side and/or a house ( oikia) in the town. (e) Finally, it was a social organisation and state organised contests in sport, music and drama loomed large in community life. Sparta excepted, the polis did not provide schools and educational institutions apart from the gymnasia (and sometimes a hippodrome) but many poleis had theatres built for entertainments such as music, dance, drama and recitals of both poetry and prose.

In the Hellenistic period important changes of the polis and its institutions can be traced in all five fields of activity: (a) Most Hellenistic poleis are in some sense democracies, though immensely powerful monarchs are the most obvious new feature of the Hellenistic political scene. Autonomia (now in the sense of restricted self-government), often combined with eleutheria and demokratia, become the prevailing political ideals cherished by the citizens of the Greek poleis. (b) By the emergence of royal armies of mercenaries the polis loses its character of being a warrier band of hoplites. (c) The polis-specific civic cults are supplemented with new cults which are common to many poleis, e.g. the cult of the monarch and several oriental cults such as that of Kybele or Isis and Osiris. (d) Whereas economic associations are virtually unknown in the archaic and classical periods, they become increasingly well attested in Hellenistic documents. (e) Alongside the traditional political institutions the ephebeia housed in a gymnasion grows up as the most important civic organisation. It soon loses is original purpose of being a centre for military training of the young and becomes a broader educational institution for the Greek citizen population.

Each of these five topics ought to be the theme of a symposion, organised precisely like the symposia held in the years 1994-6. The acts of these symposia will be published either by the Royal Danish Academy or, if the Academy cannot afford the cost of publication any longer, by Brill in Leiden, who recently asked the Polis Centre whether we would like to have (some of) our volumes published with them. Again, each of these topics will be studied in a number of articles to be published by Steiner Verlag in Stuttgart as future volumes of Papers.

These five projects will (more than) fill the three remaining years, and more projects could easily be added; but let me emphasise that it would be premature in January 1997 to lay down too narrowly defined investigations which are supposed to be based on data not fully available before the end of 1998.

Finally, we intend to write a book of 3-400 pages, intended for specialists as well as for scholars in other fields. This book will present the results of the Polis Centre's research in the form of a new general account of the Greek polis both as a type of state and as an urban centre. One introductory chapter will be devoted to the concept of polis versus the concept of city-state and the concept of city-state versus the concept of city-state culture. Another chapter will consist of a survey of the similarities and differences between the Ancient Greek city-state culture and other city-state cultures. A third chapter will treat differences and similarities between the ancient concept of polis and the modern concept of state. The format of the book will be similar to the book I wrote after twenty years' work on the Athenian democracy, viz. M.H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (Oxford 1991).

Let me, as an example, offer one specimen of what this book will include: in their discussions of the concept of state modern political scientists tend to link the concept of state to the concepts of sovereignty and independence and to believe that, in principle, all states are equally states. They thereby ignore all the member states of federal states, which nevertheless in many important respects are states and are called states. Thus, if the most essential characteristics of a state are a defined territory, a juridically defined population and a sovereign legislature, then member states of federations are essentially states. Consequently, like the ancient concept of polis, the modern concept of state is hierarchical, and much more so than political scientists would like to admit. But while the dependent polis existed in a great variation of types in ancient Greece, the state hierarchy in the modern world has until recently been kept at two fairly distinct levels: independent states and member states of federations. In recent years however, the two-tier hierarchy seems to break down and intermediate forms to develop, just as in ancient Greece: the members of EU, for example, are no longer sovereign states in the orthodox sense; norare they sovereign members of an alliance of states; nor are they member states of a federation. A new fluent concept of state is developing, one in which sovereignty and independence are concepts that have to be either redefined or dissociated from the concept of state. A new parallel between the concepts of polis and state is growing up, one which did not exist a few decades ago, but one which might be of importance in our re-evaluation of the concept of state in the years to come.