Greece in antiquity- this is not one whole state in the understanding of contemporaries. The ancient country consisted of poleis - city-states. They were independent units that considered themselves independent, but if it was necessary to unite against an external enemy, the allies instantly came to each other’s aid.

A special form of organization of economics, law and political relations
Any of the policies consisted of urban development and the territory surrounding it. These were fields of farmland, pastures, farms. They were called "choirs". These mini-states arose according to the unique political, economic and legal views of the Hellenes. At first they fought against the remnants of the primitive system with clan orders. Afterwards, as a result of the growth of commodity-money relations and the division of crafts, agricultural preferences, and social struggle, separate communities arose.
From an economic point of view, the property of farmers belonged both to the community and was of a private nature. Moreover, private property was defined only for full representatives of the policies, which owe their origin. There were few such residents, while the rest were considered incompetent. Among them:

1. Absolutely powerless slaves.
2. Craftsmen.
3. Free traders.
4. Representatives of ethnic groups and foreigners who have few rights.

Wealthy citizens of the city-state were endowed not only with the right of private property and land ownership, but also had slaves. For performing public service and fulfilling their military duties, residents of the policies were paid a salary.
If required, all residents aged 17 to 65 stood up to protect the policies. No matter how many there were, in wartime they represented the people's militia. It included everyone, regardless of social status and income. Only the rich performed higher tasks: they led foot troops with excellent weapons. Poorer representatives of wealthy communities could only dominate over not very well-armed soldiers.
Every resident of the policy was a patriot of his homeland. A special ideology reigned in the city-states. In a political sense, these states were united by one thing: the government consisted of representatives of the public - “apella”. It also included full-fledged residents of the policies, who made up the Areopagus or Senate. There were also elected positions.

These are the "magistrates". The political system of each polis can be equated to a democratic one, since the state was ruled by a popular assembly. However, there were policies that introduced an oligarchic or even tyrannical type of government. This was Sparta. But Athens remained democratic at almost all times, even when under oppression and in complete destruction.

As for the economy, the dominant role was played by territories, the amount of fertile land and livestock. In addition, excellent relations between farmers, traders and artisans made the economy of the policy stronger, from which the state acquired greater independence and influence in the general political arena. Sparta can be considered such a polis. But Corinth, which did not have such a rich chora, belonged rather to the craft and trade varieties of the economic system.

At one time, policies underwent a crisis. For example, when the institution of private property was highly developed, some land owners became completely poor or went bankrupt. This state of affairs is typical for the period of the 5th century. BC. It lasted for about a century.

Draconian methods and reforms of Solon

These were the methods of rule of a certain Dragon Emperor. He issued a set of legislative acts that were extremely cruel. We managed to save only a few names, the essence of which is already clear. Among the draconian methods:

1. Complete patriarchy.
2. The legality of bonded slavery.
3. Possibility of inevitable blood feud.
4. Very high property tax rate.

The council, which essentially ruled Athens, consisted of 400 full citizens. They were given the right to bear arms.
Afterwards there was another important period in the life of Greece - the effect of the new legislation of Solon. This was facilitated by quite revolutionary sentiments among social activists. They almost openly opposed the tribal aristocracy. Prosperous traders and industrialists followed the same example. The revolution happened in the 7th century. BC. Of course, it was more like a banal struggle for power and the desire for a better life for certain segments of the population. As always, the losers were the lower classes.
As a result, the struggle led to Solon entering the political arena. He was elected archon and given exclusive and unique powers. Accordingly, this ruler favored the family aristocracy. A distinctive feature of Solon's innovations was the reform of debt slavery. All debt obligations were cancelled. People in bondage were released, and those who were sold to other countries were returned to their homeland.
The new ruler divided the residents into several categories, depending on their wealth and social status, down to the lowest stratum. Representatives of the first 3 categories had the right to be appointed to government positions. The highest of them were occupied by first-class students. The fourth type of community was included only in the national assembly.
Each policy had a “Council 400”. Meetings were held annually. The representative office consisted of one hundred people from each tribe. Solon also formed a court that could be considered popular, since it included members of all 4 categories. Thus, the clan system was preserved, and the phyla (4 classes) inhabited Athens and other policies. This state order was maintained for 30 years.

Activities of Cleisthenes

If we consider the life of city-states using the example of Athens, it is permissible to say that almost all city-states followed a similar path. Every nation protested against dictatorship and tyranny. Cleisthenes, a fairly distinguished resident of Greece, led one of the trends of populism, which opposed tyrants. As a result, having become a successful politician, this figure seized power.
Thus, the clan system in Greece was practically eliminated. This period dates back to 500 B.C. BC. The division of the population was carried out not by class and economic component, but by territory. The Phils were liquidated. They became territorial phyles. There were 10 of them. Each of them included 3 territories. The population consisted of only 1 third of villagers, the rest were city residents. Demes were also formed - these are even smaller units of a third of phyla. Each deme was headed by a headman.


The policies differed significantly in the number of inhabitants and class composition. The largest of them was Sparta. Over 200 thousand people lived on an area of ​​more than 8,000 square kilometers.
Next in terms of quantitative composition is Attica. Athens had an area of ​​only 2.5 km2, but practically the same population as Sparta - about 150-170 thousand.
There were city-states that were located on only 40 km2, and their population was several hundred people. On average, the territory of the policies in Greece was up to 200 km2, which was inhabited by 15 thousand inhabitants. Only 1-2 thousand could be full-fledged warriors.
It so happened that the policies were very identical in political structure. The people's assembly characterized each of the city-states. People made final decisions, regardless of what rulers or oligarchs inclined them to do. This is how citizens governed their state-polis.
Polis are unique units, known throughout the world for their distinctive traditions. Such city-states existed only in Greek society. And now Greece is divided into provinces, but at the same time it is already a single state.
Polis have always respected the opinion of the majority. The owners of a large amount of land and extensive farming also had a certain weight. Revolutions and almost revolutionary events had no effect on the established order. City-states existed for quite a long time, ingrained in the minds of politicians and ordinary people.

Greek dance Sirtaki

All inclusive in Greece

Some Greek hotels offer an all-inclusive system. Unlike Turkey and Egypt, where All inclusive is available in most hotels, not all Greek hoteliers prefer to implement it at home. Meanwhile, this type of vacation is very profitable for a large number of tourists. This includes three buffet meals a day on site and an excellent selection of drinks.

Polis in Ancient Greece

Plato the great philosopher

Plato is the great philosopher and thinker of antiquity. According to legend, his real name was Aristocles, like the name of his grandfather, and only much later he was nicknamed Plato because of the width (platos) of his shoulders. Plato came from a very noble Athenian family, the ancestor of which was King Codrus. In all likelihood, he was the youngest of four children in the family.

The history of Thebes, one of the oldest cities in Greece, dates back to the heroic period. The “Seven Gates” of Thebes gave Hellas and the whole world the divine heroes Hercules and Dionysus. The names of Cadmus, Zetus and Amphion, Labdacids, Oedipus and many others are intertwined in the so-called Theban cycle of myths - a true treasure of the epic of Ancient Hellas.

Actually, a separate city was called a polis. But an important clarification should be made here: in those years, cities were often actually separate states. The same Phoenician Empire was, in the modern sense of the word, a confederation formed by individual countries that could leave it at any time. In addition, the bulk of the population of the polis was politically active: any free person considered it his duty to participate in voting and in making important government decisions.

All this often resulted in fierce disputes and even fights right on the streets, which is why contemporaries considered the Greeks “eccentric and loud people.” Thus, the polis should be considered a separate, special form of political and social structure. The territory of such a formation was limited not only by the city walls, but also by those lands that the bulk of the population of the policy (that is, people in public service) could protect and cultivate.

Athens

Answering the question of what a polis was in Ancient Greece, the first state that should be considered is Athens. The territory of the Athenian polis occupied the entire Attica peninsula in Central Greece. Athens itself is located in the center of a fertile plain 5 km from the sea.

The dominant position in the new state belonged to the clan nobility. The main government positions were occupied by aristocrats. The highest power belonged to the Areopagus, consisting of representatives of the clan nobility, and the archons - government officials (the head, the high priest, the commander-in-chief, six public judges).

Gradually, the poor members of the community fell open and were forced to take loans from the rich. A debt stone was placed on the borrowers' land. When they could not repay the debt with interest, they lost the land. Those who rented land kept only a sixth of the harvest for themselves, and the rest was given to the owner of the land. The peasants became poor, became debtors, and subsequently turned into slaves.

20 years have passed since the beginning of Solon's reign, and unrest began again in Athens. A relative of Solon, the commander Pisistratus, in 560 BC. e. seized power and began to rule in Athens individually, by force ensuring peace and harmony in the Athenian polis. Thus, tyranny was established in Athens.

The lands of the aristocrats who left the country were distributed among the peasants. For them, the tyrant introduced a tax (a tenth of the harvest), thereby enriching the state treasury. Pisistratus tried to promote the development of agriculture, crafts, trade, and shipbuilding. He began a large construction project in Athens: temples, paths and water pipelines were erected on his orders. Famous artists and poets were invited to the city, the Iliad and Odyssey were written, which by that time were transmitted orally. Actually, it was during the reign of Pisistratus that Athens became the cultural center of Greece. Their naval power began from then on.

How did city-states arise in the first place?

The polis is unique in that it arose at a turning point in ancient history, during the transition from the tribal and communal system to the first “proto-states.” In those early years, the stratification of society began: skilled people preferred to become artisans and sell the results of their labor, rather than give away the goods they created for free. Merchants appeared who knew how to sell handicrafts to other tribes, and a “caste” of warriors who defended those same merchants and the general well-being of all members of this “forerunner of the state” became rigidly isolated.

In general, almost all city-polises of Ancient Greece had a good army, and therefore, if necessary, they could stand up for themselves.

Of course, all these people did not prefer to live in a bare field. Large cities began to quickly emerge and develop. Due to the fact that artisans and landowners, merchants and warriors, scientists and politicians lived within their walls, they were completely self-sufficient. This is how policies arose.

But what was the social structure of such amazing (by modern standards) “cities”? Oddly enough, the bulk of the population of the Greek-style polis was represented by free people, citizens. They participated both in the production of everything necessary (pastoralists, farmers, artisans) and in the defense of their land. The military class defended populated areas from not very dangerous threats, while during times of enemy raids only its inhabitants came out to defend the walls of the policy.

Solon's Laws

In the 8th-7th century BC. e. a certain part of the demos - merchants, owners of workshops and ships, wealthy peasants - became rich. Now they sought to participate in the management of the policy, but were deprived of this right. It was they who launched and led the struggle of the demos against the aristocracy.

In the midst of the turmoil, citizens turned to the Athenian politician Solon, who headed the polis in Ancient Greece - this led to the implementation of several reforms. First of all, he canceled the debts of the Athenians and banned debt slavery. The land plots were returned to the debtors. The Athenians, who were enslaved for debt, were freed. From now on, no Athenian could be a slave!

- (Greek polis - lat. сivitas), city-state, form of socio-economic and political organization of society and state in D... encyclopedic Dictionary

Policy

- English policy document confirming the conclusion of an insurance contract. P. is issued by the insurer to the policyholder after the transaction... Business dictionary

Policy

- M. French insurance certificate... Dahl's Dictionary

Policy

- - originated in Greece ca. 6th century BC civil-democratic form of government, where the power of the c... Philosophical Dictionary

Policy

- (from Greek polis - city-state (1) and from French police - receipt, receipt (2) - English polis(l)/policy(2); German Polis.... Sociological Dictionary

Policy

- - a small city-state and adjacent villages in Ancient Greece.. and 1 more definition Political dictionary

POLICY

- I a, m. City-state in the ancient world (Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome), consisting of the city itself (see METROPOLIA) and the adjacent ne... Dictionary of foreign words

policy

- Genus. p. -sa "insurance certificate". From French 1 role - the same; see Convert. II, 102.. Vasmer's Etymological Dictionary

The archaic period $(VIII-VI $ centuries BC) was marked by the stage of formation of a socially divided society and a polis state. This was a fundamentally different path of development, completely different from the form of state formations of the ancient East, Crete and Achaean Greece, which became an integral feature of ancient life. The period of formation of the policy lasted approximately half a millennium. The process of its disintegration took no less time. The phenomenon of the polis system was the result of the long development of ancient civilization, and its origins should be sought in ancient times, especially the development of the rural community, which consisted in the effective interaction of communal and privately owned economies.

Prerequisites for the formation of the polis system:

1. Compliance with the principle of continuity. Unlike the civilizations of the Ancient East, the Greeks took into account the rich historical experience of previous periods, especially the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization.
2. Mastering iron processing, made it possible to bring society to a qualitatively new stage of industrial relations. More durable iron tools expanded the material capabilities of the Greeks, which created conditions for the expansion of commodity production, which set a rapid pace for economic and social development.
3. Natural conditions of the Balkan Peninsula made it possible to obtain high yields without the use of complex hydraulic structures. Thus, creating favorable conditions for the development of private farms built on the thoughtful exploitation of slave labor with a higher degree of profitability.
4. Calm geopolitical situation. Greece of the archaic period developed without outside interference. Interstate military conflicts in the Ancient East in $I$ thousand BC. prevented the exertion of political and cultural pressure on the emerging ancient civilization.
5. Great Greek Colonization, which became one of the most important factors in the development of the polis phenomenon and its spread throughout the world. It was an effective tool for reducing social tensions, ensuring a balance between the size of the population and the territory they cultivated.

The process of historical development of Hellas took place within the framework of internally united republics, based on the civil society of moderately prosperous farmers. In such state associations, favorable conditions are created for maintaining high rates of economic development, stratification of the social structure, the emergence of more complex and diverse institutions, and the emergence of high culture. The overall result of this process was the emergence of several hundred small state entities with a similar socio-economic structure, principles of political organization of power and a system of spiritual values. It was in the crayfish of the polis system that the Greeks created a unique civilization that enriched the treasury of world culture and secured for itself a worthy place in history.

Note 1

It should be taken into account that the term “polis” among the Greeks meant both a city and a state, therefore the definition “city-state” is often applied to it. This is not entirely correct, since urban settlements did not exist everywhere. For example, Sparta existed as a union of several villages, without having a city formation.

Main features of the policy

Each city-state had its own characteristics. But, at the same time, they all had the following similar features:

• Development plan. The policy had a single Center - a place from which help could be immediately sent to any part of the state. There was a market, temples, a place for holding public meetings and craft workshops. All urban settlements were located on the seashore or close to the coast and necessarily had a harbor or port. The city center could have defensive fortifications. This is where the bulk of the population lived
• Developed trade relations and commodity exchange– the basis for the economic prosperity of a polis state. Villagers brought wine, oil, wool, and in return bought tools, fabrics, and clothing. The commodity economy provided the opportunity for rapid enrichment and the emergence of large-scale land ownership in the countryside and handicraft production in the city.
• The social structure of the policies consisted of three classes: land, trade and craft nobility, free small producers (artisans, traders, farmers), slaves and dependent workers.
• Conflicting nature of ownership, which consisted in the coexistence of such forms as public (policy) and private (individual). Polis carefully oversaw the distribution of the land fund, imposing a land maximum. He supervised the inheritance, limited the right of ownership and disposal of the plot, acted as a guarantor of land ownership up to the allocation of plots to landless citizens from the reserve fund.
• A sharp contrast between the citizens of the polis and non-citizens- metics and slaves. Formally, they were not included in the life of the polis organism, but they actually ensured its existence.

Definition 1

Metek– Not a full-fledged resident, a migrant from another policy.

The core of the social structure was the so-called collective, full citizens - indigenous residents.

Definition 2

Native of the polis– a citizen whose ancestors have lived in the region for several generations. He owned land, participated in public meetings, and had a place in the phalanx of heavily armed hoplites.

1. Democratic, republican form of government, which consisted in absolutely equal participation of citizens in political life. All of them had land plots and were equal to each other. The direct connection between the citizen and the state led to the absence of a bureaucratic apparatus, or to its minimal presence in the polis. The supreme power belonged to the people's assembly of full-fledged citizens, headed by the Council, elected for a certain term. Repeated election to the position was not allowed.
2. Coincidence of political and military organization. A full citizen was also a warrior who provided protection to the polis. The army was a national one, where service was a duty and a privilege.

Orientation towards the “middle class”. The civil society of the policy was heterogeneous. The rapid growth of commodity-money relations led to a rapid stratification of property and, consequently, a weakening of ties between different social strata. The policy tried to maintain the unity of citizens, using a number of measures for this: allocating plots to landless citizens, introducing a landholding maximum, which prevented the concentration of the land fund in a narrow circle of the nobility. Liturgies were imposed on wealthy members of society.

Definition 3

Liturgy- a special tax imposed on wealthy citizens of the policy. Existed in the form of choregy and trihierarchy.

Definition 4

Joregia- a special insurance policy for wealthy citizens who were obliged, during the period of preparation for theatrical performances, to pay for the production of a particular drama, tragedy, comedy and the work of actors.

Definition 5

Trierarchy- a special policy duty for wealthy citizens who were obliged, during the war, to build warships for the policy at their own expense and pay for the crew’s service.

Presence of a common ideology, where the highest value was determined by the policy itself. The concept of a citizen as a free individual, possessing full political rights and the responsibility to protect the state from enemy forces, was formed.

Types of policies

In history, there are several types of policies, which ancient authors divided into three categories according to the form of government: democracy, oligarchy, tyranny.

Modern science takes into account the level of economic relations, distinguishing three groups:

1. Agrarian nature of the economy- an oligarchy dominated here, using the labor of dependent workers, commodity-money relations were poorly developed. Sparta can serve as an example of such a policy.
2. Diversified nature of the economy. These policies had rich and fertile lands. But the imbalance between the size of the land and its fertility necessitated the establishment of colonies and the development of trade and craft production. This was a consequence of the intensive development of commodity-money relations and the widespread use of slave labor. Here citizens led an active social and political life. The most striking examples of this type of policy were Athens, Megara, and Chalkis.
3. Trade and craft nature of the economy. This group included policies with an insufficient amount of fertile land from the very beginning of the archaic period, which determined their exclusively trade and craft character and the weakness of the aristocracy. These policies were the most actively involved in the process of colonization; commodity-money relations developed intensively here. The most striking examples of such formations were Corinth and Aegina.

THE BIRTH OF THE GREEK POLIS

The Archaic era was a unique period in ancient Greek history. In just three centuries, completely new, never before existing types of civilization, society and statehood appeared in Hellas. The starting point of their occurrence is the appearance of the policy. If at the beginning of the archaic period Greece was a country of primitive, economically, politically and culturally underdeveloped tiny rural communities, then by the end of this period it created statehood and became a country of poleis. The civilization of Ancient Greece is, first of all, polis civilization.

In historical literature, a polis is most often defined as a “city-state.” This interpretation can be considered correct with one significant caveat: in connection with the polis, both the concept of “city” and the concept of “state” should be interpreted exclusively in the “ancient” sense. The word “polis” in ancient Greek really means “city,” but not as “a complex of buildings, streets, defensive structures, etc.,” but as “the totality of its free, full-fledged residents - citizens.” Ancient authors by the word “polis” primarily meant urban civic community. At the same time, the word “polis” (and its related term “politaya”) also means a state, but again not in the sense of a certain territory under the control of a certain sovereign power, but in the same sense civil collective, carrying out on his own the management of the territory belonging to him. For the ancient Greeks, a polis abandoned by its citizens could no longer be considered such: this settlement was no longer either a city or a state. But at the same time, say, an army on a campaign could in some situations constitute itself as a polis, since it was a collective of citizens, although at the moment it did not have any territory, not to mention urban buildings.

Thus, the concept of “polis” cannot be unconditionally equated with either the concept of “city” or the concept of “state”. Thus, there were policies in which there were two or more urban centers (although one of them necessarily stood out, playing the role of the capital). There were also (but quite rarely) policies that did not have a city center at all; This is exactly what the polis of Sparta or the Phocidian polis of Ponopius was, in particular, which no one called a city. And yet, despite some shortcomings, the definition of a polis as an urban civil community that constitutes itself as a state seems most preferable to the term “city-state,” since the role of the civil collective was fundamental to the polis type of statehood.

However, in addition to citizens, people who did not enjoy civil rights also lived on the territory of the policy (slaves, foreigners who moved to the policy, women, etc.). They were members of society, but were not part of the civil community or the polis as such.

The category “citizen” (as opposed to the category “subject”, which had long existed in the Ancient East) was of key importance for the entire existence of the polis. The citizen was endowed with a set of inalienable rights and obligations, Moreover, in fact, each of his rights was at the same time a duty. In order to be a citizen, a person had to possess a certain set of necessary characteristics. First of all he had to be personally free. After the polis type of socio-political structure was formed in its final form, the concepts of “citizen” and “slave” became incompatible. Further, only man: polis civilization was built on the primacy of the male part of the population. Women had not only political, but also no (including property) civil rights at all.

The status of a person in pre-capitalist societies was primarily determined by his attitude towards land ownership. Ancient Greece was no exception. The person was considered full citizen insofar as he had land property. These two statuses were, as a rule, inseparable from each other: only a citizen is a landowner and only a landowner can be a citizen. Land ownership in the polis existed simultaneously in two forms - state and private, with state property being primary in relation to private property.

The citizen, i.e., the collective owner of state land, was endowed by the civil community with an individual plot of land on the basis of private property rights, which the man had the right to dispose of at his own discretion. He remained a landowner, even if for some reason he lost his allotment, since the status of a citizen ensured him the right to public, state land on which leased forests, pastures, mines, etc. were located and from the exploitation of which every citizen received his share of the income. In the ancient polis, the political collective of citizens was at the same time a collective of land owners. A personally free, but not a citizen, resident of the policy could never acquire ownership of a land plot, and at the same time the rights of a citizen.

Thus, it was the community, that is, the collective of citizens of the policy, that was the owner of all the land in the state. This form of ownership in which the right of ownership of the main means of production (namely, land in ancient times) in its state (public) and private forms was determined by the status of a citizen and controlled by the civil community is called ancient form of ownership. It should be said that this dual form of ownership is inherent in some inconsistency. After all, a citizen of the polis was the owner of his land, and his private right to land was inalienable only as long as he remained a citizen. As soon as a private owner lost his civil rights (for example, by a court verdict for certain crimes), the policy, on a completely legal basis, deprived a community member of the plot that belonged to him.

A characteristic feature of the policy was that all its citizens had the right to accept participation in government. It is the civilian collective in uniform people's assembly exercised - really or nominally - the highest power in the polis. Polis statehood did not provide for the existence of special government bodies. Polis were states without bureaucracy, and all magistrates(i.e. officials) were chosen by citizens by voting (or by lot, the choice of which was considered a manifestation of the will of the gods). A citizen of the polis could rightfully say about himself that in the 18th century. declared the French king Louis XIV: “The state is me!” But at the same time, a citizen of the polis was a representative of the state not in himself, but only as part of a civil collective. Thus, in the Greek polis, for the first time in world history, a republican statehood, in which society and the state are not separated from each other, but represent a single whole.

The citizen was obliged to participate in the military activities of the policy, that is, to be a member of its military organization. Actually, the army of the polis was militia of citizens - land owners. At the same time, military service, associated with the need to protect the freedom and integrity of the polis, its statehood and laws, as well as the property of members of the civil community, was at the same time not only the duty of a citizen, but also his right, since it was also one of the criteria for civil status. Persons who were not members of the civilian collective were recruited into the army only in cases of extreme necessity.

Thus, in ancient Greece, the concepts of “citizen”, “member of the national assembly”, “bearer of supreme power”, “member of the polis militia” and “land owner” were inextricably linked. All citizens were equal before the law, and the policy guaranteed personal freedom to everyone. This led to the manifestation in a number of policies egalitarian(i.e. equalizing) trends which is natural in conditions of collective government. Thus, in order to maintain equality in the collective, the richest noble citizens were often forced to bear the greatest costs in the interests of society. In fairness, it should be said that in the era of the heyday of the polis, these demands of polis life were met by representatives of the elite with understanding.

Naturally, due to its structure, the Greek polis could only be very small in territory and population. Thus, Sparta (the largest polis in the Greek world in territorial terms), including Messenia, conquered by the Spartans, had an area of ​​8,400 square kilometers and a population of 200-300 thousand people, the Athenian polis - respectively 2,500 square kilometers and 250-350 thousand people. But such large policies were rather exceptions. The territory of most policies did not exceed 200 square kilometers, and the population was 10 thousand people. There were also very small policies with a territory of 30-40 square kilometers, where several hundred people lived. Thus, the typical polis was a tiny state consisting of cities(or town) and rural areas. Most of the residents of such a policy, which could be circumvented in a few hours, knew each other by sight.

The city was the center, the capital of the polis, often (though by no means always) more than half of the state's population lived in it. However, the city has not yet been opposed to the village. Greek polis society is fundamentally different from the societies of many other eras, when the city was the focus of activity only for traders and artisans leading a specific urban lifestyle, and the peasantry inhabited exclusively the countryside. In almost any city of Hellas, a very significant, and sometimes the predominant part of the inhabitants were the same peasants, who daily went from the city to their plots of land on the choir. Thus, each member of the civil collective, no matter what he did (he could be, for example, the owner of a craft workshop, a large wholesale merchant, a professional politician), was at the same time landowner(at least owned a share of public land). And for most citizens, a piece of land was undoubtedly the main means of subsistence.

The main characteristics of the policy are to a certain extent inherent in the “ideal” policy. Of course, given the presence of general trends, the historical development of specific, actually existing policies had its own characteristics.

Sources

Since the archaic era is less covered than subsequent ones in the works of ancient authors, much attention is naturally attracted to the material monuments that have come down from these times, obtained during archaeological excavations. Important information for science was provided by systematic studies by historians of the archaic buildings of Athens (the remains of the ancient temples of the Acropolis, early public buildings on the Agora), and the religious complexes of the largest sanctuaries in Hellas (Delphi, Olympia). Very important results were brought by the study of the territories of those policies that were destroyed back in the archaic era and have not been restored since then: old Smyrna in Asia Minor, Emporion on the island of Chios, etc. Since the oldest layers there were preserved intact, without later inclusions, this greatly facilitates their analysis.

These epigraphs for the archaic era are not of great importance, since writing appeared only recently and the number of inscriptions was still small. However, the earliest Greek inscriptions are extremely interesting due to their rarity and uniqueness. Among the archaic epigraphic monuments are texts of laws (for example, the law of the 6th century BC from the island of Chios contains references to state bodies of a democratic nature), agreements between policies, lists of officials, as well as private inscriptions. For example, in 591 BC. e. Greek mercenary soldiers in Egyptian service during one of their campaigns, while having fun, inscribed their names on the leg of the colossal statue of Ramesses II in Southern Egypt. But even these few pieces of evidence, combined with other types of sources, make it possible to see more clearly the specific realities of that era.

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Chapter I Formation of the Spartan polis

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The formation of the Athenian polis The Athenian region was conquered by a group of Ionian tribes during the general Dorian conquest, who, having assimilated the ancient Aegean civilization, established more neighborly relations with the subject peoples. Settled in the coastal

From the book General History of State and Law. Volume 1 author Omelchenko Oleg Anatolievich

The formation of the Roman polis Ancient Italy, the history of which spans over a thousand years, starting from the middle. 1st millennium BC e., will be associated with the Roman state, in the previous period it represented a kaleidoscope of ethnically different peoples. Active settlement of Italy began in

From the book General History of State and Law. Volume 1 author Omelchenko Oleg Anatolievich

From the polis to the empire. End of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd century. BC e. in the history of Rome was the most important milestone. Firstly, by this time the state-political formation of the Roman polis was completed, and Roman statehood was based on a developed system of institutions of power and

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The birth of the Greek polis, its characteristic features The main form of economic, social, political and ideological organization of ancient Greek society was the polis, the character and features of which determine all the originality and uniqueness

From the book History of the Ancient World [East, Greece, Rome] author Nemirovsky Alexander Arkadevich

Sparta as a type of polis Ancient Sparta was one of the largest policies of Greece in archaic and classical times. The beginning of the formation of the Spartan polis and its statehood dates back to the completion of the Dorian conquest. The Dorian tribes settled on

From the book History of Economics: lecture notes author Shcherbina Lidiya Vladimirovna

2. Economy of the Athenian polis This economy, characterized by small agricultural areas but a fairly high population density, is a type of industrial slave-owning economy. Athens did not have enough of its own grain, and in exchange for grain imports

From the book History of the Ancient World. Volume 2. The Rise of Ancient Societies author Sventsitskaya Irina Sergeevna

Lecture 4: Greece in the archaic period and the creation of the classical Greek polis The so-called archaic period, covering the VIII-VI centuries. BC e., is the beginning of a new important stage in the history of ancient Greece. Over these three centuries, t.s. in a relatively short time

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Characteristic features of the Greek polis The main form of economic, social, political and ideological organization of ancient Greek society was the polis, the character and features of which determine all the originality and uniqueness of the Hellenic

From the book General History [Civilization. Modern concepts. Facts, events] author Dmitrieva Olga Vladimirovna

Sparta as a type of Greek polis Along with Athens, ancient Sparta was one of the largest policies of Greece in archaic and classical times. Just like in Athens, in Sparta there is an ancient form of property as the collective property of fellow citizens -

From the book General History [Civilization. Modern concepts. Facts, events] author Dmitrieva Olga Vladimirovna

The crisis of the Greek classical polis From the end of the 5th century BC. e. The world of Greek city-states is entering a period of protracted crisis. This was not a crisis of the Greek slave system, since slavery continues to develop against the background of the progressive development of the economy and intercity