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polis
(redirected from Greek city-states)

   Also found in: Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.25 sec.

polis

In ancient Greece, an independent city and its surrounding region under a unified government. A polis might originate from the natural divisions of mountains and sea and from local tribal and cult divisions. Usually the town was walled and contained a citadel on raised ground (acropolis) and a marketplace (agora). Government was centred in the town; usually there was an assembly of citizens, a council, and magistrates. Ideally, all citizens participated in the government and in the cults, as well as in defense and economy. Women, minors, metics, and slaves were not citizens. Hellenism spread many of the institutions into the Middle East. See also Athens; city-state; Sparta; Thebes.



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Throughout the Greek city-states and the Roman Empire, for example, the terms commonly translated as poor (e.
The key to inoculating America against the diseases that infected and destroyed the ancient Greek city-states is to become coroners examining the lifeless bodies of the republics of the past in order to discover the causes of their demise and thereby avoid succumbing to the same maladies.
 
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