The polis was not a state, but rather what the anthropologists call a stateless community. But Moshe Berent, in an article published in 2000 that was based on his PhD thesis, put forward the argument that (p. Nevertheless, modern commentators often interpret the polis as “state”. The difficulty in translating the concept means that it’s often left untranslated. It’s often translated as “city” or “city-state”, but it also includes the community of people who live there. The ancient Greeks had a word that could be used to denote both a city and the people who lived there: polis. decisions are made by “the Athenians”, not “Athens”.
In ancient texts, writers tend to refer to people rather than places: e.g.
Use of the word “nation” here refers simply to a people, not to the modern notion of a nation state. By murdering Athenian leaders and other characters, you lower the “nation power” of the region (either Athenian or Spartan). Last time, we had finally reached the Megarid and were ridding the territory of the Athenians. This article was originally published on the defunct Ancient World Magazine website and is now re-published here.
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