Polis

The Importance Of The Polis Most Greeks lived in city-states, called poleis. Poleis were a complex community that within them they had temples, theaters, an agora, and several other public buildings. Each poleis was involved in trade, foreign affairs, and had a type of government. Poleis were the center of life for Greeks in Athens and affected their ways of living. As stated, poleis are city-states; each polis is unique from the rest as evidenced by Sparta and Athens. Sparta represented war,…

They were polytheistic. They worshiped the 12 Olympian gods/goddesses and the god of their polis. Greeks were required to go through the rituals and sacrifice to the gods. The reason for them to practice their religion was to live a better life while they’re alive. Greeks didn’t view the death pleasantly. Their mind of unwilling death influenced…

Usually in a polis, the citizens would gather in a "central place to practiced political, social and religious activates" (Spielvogel 59). The city-states of Sparta and Athens were considered rivals in Ancient Greece. They are physically close in proximity to one…

well-organized government system but the positive things about the Roman Empire are that women of have more rights than the Athenians and by having less restriction of citizenship, this allows them to gather many foreigners that may contribute to their polis. but while it has some positive, there some things that are not. While the Athenians had no political parties, the Romans consist of two: the patricians and plebeians. The patricians consist of the wealthy upper class, usually large…

The ancient Greek polis of Athens was a economic, military, and cultural superpower during the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods. With a domain that controlled the cities of Naxos, Carystus in Euboea, and Miletus in Ionia at it’s peak. Their rival, Sparta, a military juggernaut supposedly built on strict military conduct and no comforts. The aim of this essay is to determine just how different and how similar these two poleis are, and to establish how atypical Athens is when compared…

While essentially all of the city-states in ancient Greece acknowledged male love in some form, only pederasty, the love of an older man for a boy, was a commonly accepted from of a homosexual relationship, and was even occasionally encouraged in a polis. Two parties were involved in a pederastic relationship: an erastes, the older male, and an eromenos, his beloved, who was typically an adolescent boy. Pederasty was mutually beneficial and consenting, with both men having their own…

Aristotle disparages democracy, literally as the rule of the people- “Democrats hold that if men are equal by birth, they should have an equal share in office…” (p.102)-as well as, a type of government in which the poor masses have control and use it to serve their own ends. Among forms of majority rule such as democracy, Aristotle prefers the political system that is a constitutional government. Throughout the end of Book III of Aristotle’s Politics, democracy is discussed at length as a…

Greek theater evolved from festivals that honoured the Gods, and myths that the citizens were familiar with. Tragedy was adapted from folk hymns which were dedicated to the God of wine, Dionysus. These folk hymns were known as Dithyrambs and were performed in festivals to celebrate and respect the God (Gerber 13). Since theater was performed for the most sacred and honourable purposes it was treated with high esteem. Attending the theater was a civic duty and the people were paid to see…

status of women in Spartan was unique to Sparta and would have been extremely uncommon in any other Hellenic polis.…

Symposium Plato’s Symposium is a philosophical text about the true nature and purpose of love in 4th century BCE society. Love is analyzed from the perspective of several men at a symposium, and then restated by Plato in his own words and perspective. The symposium consisted of diverse theories of love, which were mostly homosexual between two men, imitating commonality in Greece at this time. Pausanias, one of the attendees of the symposium, argues that love in itself is neither good nor bad…