Taylor and Francis Morgan, C: Early Greek States Beyond the Polis

The polis has long been conceived as the most advanced form of Greek political society. Yet recent research into how early Greeks used the term show not merely autonomous city states but that communities called polis existed within wider political structures of various kinds. So what "were" the different forms of association experienced by Early Iron Age and Archaic Greeks? Catherine Morgan addresses these and other questions by exploring the archaeological, literary and epigraphical records of central Greece and the northern Peloponnese. What emerges is an unprecedented understanding of the connections between polis identity and other forms and tiers of association, refuting our traditional view of early Greek 'ethnic' groups (ethne) as simple systems based on primitive tribal ties. Clear and direct in style, and with more than eighty photographs, maps and plans, "Early Greek States Beyond the Polis" is widely relevant for the study of Greek history, archaeology and society.