Editing Polis (section)

==Definition==
The word ''polis'' is used in the first known work of Greek literature, the ''[[Iliad]]'', up to 350 times.<ref>{{cite web | title=Word frequency information for πόλις | website=Perseus Digital Library | publisher=Tufts University | access-date=1 May 2023 |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/wordfreq?lookup=po/lis&lang=greek&sort=max}}</ref>{{refn|group=lower-alpha|In Perseus' software to calculate the frequencies there is a margin of error of interpretation. The "maximum" interpretation takes every possibility as "polis".}} The few hundred ancient Greek classical works online at the [[Perseus Digital Library]] use the word thousands of times. The most frequent use is [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]], an ancient historian, with a maximum of 2,943. A study of inscriptions found 1,450 that used polis before 300 BC, 425 Athenian, and 1,025 from the rest of the range of poleis. There was no difference in meaning between literary and inscriptional usages.<ref>{{cite book | author1=Flensted-Jensen, P. | author2=Hansen, M. H. | author3=Nielsen, E. H. | title=Further Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis | chapter=The Use of the Word Polis in Inscriptions | page=161 | location=Stuttgart | publisher=Steiner | year=1993}}</ref>

Polis became loaded with many incidental meanings.<ref>{{harvnb|Hansen|2004|pp=39–46}}</ref> The major meanings are 'state' and 'community'.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | title=πόλις | encyclopedia=A Greek-English Lexicon |author1=Liddell | author2=Scott | publisher=Perseus Digital Library |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*p%3Aentry+group%3D162%3Aentry%3Dpo%2Flis}}</ref> The theoretical study of the polis extends as far back as the beginning of Greek literature, when the works of Homer and Hesiod in places try to portray an ideal state. The study took a great leap forward when Plato and the academy in general undertook to define what is meant by the good, or ideal, polis.

[[Plato]] analyzes the polis in the ''[[Republic (Plato)|Republic]]'', the Greek title of which, {{lang|grc|Πολιτεία}} ({{tlit|grc|[[politeia]]}}), itself derives from the word ''polis''. The best form of government of the polis for Plato is the one that leads to the common good. The [[philosopher king]] is the best ruler because, as a philosopher, he is acquainted with the [[Form of the Good]]. In Plato's analogy of the [[ship of state]], the philosopher king steers the polis, as if she were a ship, in the best direction.

[[File:The Republic - Gemma augustea.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Cameo depiction of the ideal polis on the [[Gemma Augustea]]. The upper scene depicts the philosopher-king and other savants and warriors, while the lower scene depicts the people.]]
Books II–IV of ''The Republic'' are concerned with Plato addressing the makeup of an ideal polis. In ''The Republic'', Socrates is concerned with the two underlying principles of any society: mutual needs and differences in aptitude. Starting from these two principles, Socrates deals with the economic structure of an ideal polis. According to Plato, there are five main economic classes of any polis: producers, merchants, sailors/shipowners, retail traders, and wage earners. Along with the two principles and five economic classes, there are four virtues. The four virtues of a "just city" are wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. With all of these principles, classes, and virtues, it was believed that a "just city" (polis) would exist.

Breaking away from Plato and the academy, a teacher there, Aristotle, founded his own school, the Lyceum, a university. One of its strongest curricula was political science, which Aristotle invented. He dispatched students over the world of the polis to study the society and government of individual poleis and bring the information back to the document, placing the document in a political science section of the library. Only two documents have survived, ''Politics'' and ''Athenian Constitution''. These are a part of any political science curriculum today.

Both major ancient Greek philosophers were concerned with elucidating an existing aspect of the society in which they lived, the polis. Plato was more interested in the ideal; Aristotle, the real. Both had a certain view of what the polis was; that is, a conceptual model. All models must be tested, by definition. Aristotle, of course, could send direct observers. The only way to know a polis now is through a study of ancient literature (philology), and to some extent archaeology. There are thousands of pages of writing and certainly thousands of sites. The problem is to know what information to select for a model and what to neglect as probably irrelevant.

Classical studies of the last few hundred years have been relatively stable in their views of the polis, relying basically on just a few models: the concept of a city-state, and Fustel de Coulange's model of the ancient city. However, no model ever seems to resolve all the paradoxes or provide for every newly considered instance. The question is not whether poleis can be found to fit a particular model (some usually can), but whether the model covers all the poleis, which, apparently, no model ever has, even the ancient ones.<ref>{{harvnb|Sakellariou|1989|pp=27–57|loc=Chapter One: How Can the Polis Be Defined? The Debate}}</ref>{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Sakellariou runs through the various major models stating the pros and cons. Written before the Copenhagen Study, the book expresses dissatisfaction with former approaches to modeling and underscores the need for a wider program of research, which followed a few years later with the 10-year collaborative mission of the University of Copenhagen.}} The re-defining process continues.<ref>{{cite book | last=Davies | first=J.K. | year=1997 | chapter=The Origins of the Greek Polis | editor1=Mitchell, L.G. | editor2=Rhodes, P.J. | title=The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece | page=25 | location=London | publisher=Routledge | quote=regional trajectories of repopulation and development in the Dark Age and after differed so sharply from each other in nature, scale and date that no one model for the ’rise of the polis’ can be valid.}}</ref>

The Copenhagen study rejects either model and proposes instead the microstate. Some scholars are cynical, rejecting the idea that any solution can be found. This argument places polis in the same category of Plato's indefinable abstracts, such as freedom and justice. However, there is a practical freedom and a practical justice, although not theoretically definable, and the ancient authors must mean something consistent when they use the word ''polis''. The problem is to find it.

=== Modern usage ===
The [[Modern Greek]] word {{lang|el|πόλη}} (''polē'') is a direct descendant of the ancient word and roughly means 'city' or an urban place. However, the Ancient Greek term that specifically meant the totality of ''urban'' buildings and spaces was ''[[asty]]'' ({{lang|grc|ἄστυ}}), rather than polis.