Collections: How to Polis, 101, Part I: Component Parts
This is the first of a planned three part look at the structure of the ancient Greek polis, the self-governing ‘city state,’ as part of a larger series on civic governance in the pre-modern world. Since I argued, way back in June of 2019, that a noble house in Game of Thrones was unlikely to have the administrative capacity to run a large city, folks have been asking: well then how were large ancient and medieval cities run? Some ask out of curiosity but a lot of folks because they are worldbuilding for novels or RPGs or just for fun and want to make more realistic towns and town governments. But offering a single, “here is what town government looks like” model isn’t going to work because forms of civic governance can be quite different across time and culture. So instead we’re going over the next several months be taking a few looks at different forms of communal government, starting with the Greek polis. After the polis, we’ll at least take a look at the civic governance of the Roman Republic (a much larger entity than any polis). After that, my hope is to get a few colleagues to perhaps offer similar primers on other forms of civic governance, particularly in the European Middle Ages.
I thus hope this series will speak both to readers who want to better understand ancient forms of civic governance as historical entities for their own sake, but also for the worldbuilders – I know I have quite a few readers who do this – who want to imagine pre-modern civic structures that make sense. At least a little more than the standard ‘this town has one mayor who does everything and one shopkeeper who sells everything.’ And the best way to do that is just to explore how actual civic governance was structured!
