During the Archaic period the Polis, or city-state, was definitely the most characteristic element in Greek political life. But what exactly is a Polis? This is very hard to answer as there were so many different Poleis, each city was different from the other one. In short you could say that it was a collection of oikos (= houses), with a piece of land, and a limited number of citizens. The people could be spread out over several small villages, while the center was formed by a city with an acropolis as main defenses. A more detailed definition can be found in the Politics section.

The word Polis meant at first the same as acropolis, a fortified structure which became later the center of a city. The city which was built around the acropolis was called the astu. However, later on polis replaced both words and it could be translated as city. The city and the lands around it is not always called the same. The Polis Athens for example was situated in Attica, but all the people who lived in this area formed one unity, a state. In this sense a better translation for Polis would be city-state. This translation is nowadays commonly accepted.

After the chaos of the dark ages Hellas finally reached a less restless period. The small tribes settled down in villages. A tribe was built around a king who held all the power. This person was accepted as leader as he was an ancestor of the founder of the tribe. The people had no real power and were only asked for their opinion in very important matters like war. It is clear that there was no individualism, as a tribe depended on its unity. The first group inside a tribe was the family or genos. Each genos was part of a large group which was called the fratria, and these fratrias together formed the phyle, the tribe. These tribes slowly evolved into the famous Poleis.

Reasons for the emergence of the Polis.

One reason is that the Greek naturally have a high sense of individualism. Freedom meant everything for them, and this influenced for quite a large part their whole way of living and thinking. How strange it might seem at first, joining some sort of alliance proved to be a good way to secure their independency. The bigger communities had more power, and other villages and pirates formed no longer a threat for their autonomy. But that was not the only reason for joining a big village. The smaller villages were dominated by families, but these families could not gain the same amount of power in the big villages. There was more room for the individualist. That is why these bigger villages attracted more people, and thus became even bigger and gained more power. Out of these conglomerations of people finally grew a Polis.

Another reason is that there was a repopulation at a very large scale after the collapse of the Mycenaean society as we know. Finally all tribes settled down, and Hellas was divided in four areas, one for each group of Greeks: Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians and Arcadians. Each group spoke its own dialect and had its own form of Greek culture. This gave a feeling of unity among the people, and associations of communities was the simple result. Locally this meant that bigger communities were formed, but at a larger scale this increased the contrast between the different groups of Greeks.

In some occasions a Polis was formed by purposive and organised unification of multiple villages. One example of this process, which is called synoikismos, is Athens. People often believed that this unification was realised by one single person: Athens is supposed to be founded by the hero Theseus according to mythology. In reality was it the result of an evolution which had lasted for several centuries.

Distribution of power.

Whatever the reason might have been, it was the start of many famous cities like Athens, Sparta, Thebe and Corinthe. In the north of Hellas for example were the spread out plains of Thessaly, where the original population was enslaved by the invading tribes, who ruled the land as feudal lords. During the seventh century Thessaly became very powerful, and it even lead a small federation of tribes, which had its centre in the neighbourhood of Thermopylaea. However, soon the power of Thessally decreased, partially because it was isolated from the rest of Hellas by mountains.

More to the south Beotia could be found. In the sixth century an attempt to form a federation of its small cities succeeded. This federation did not last long though, as the inborn desire for total independency was too strong. As history will show later on, was this indeed one of the biggest problems of Hellas: the inability to form a tight unity, even when this could have meant a diversion of an outside threat.

One of the major cities in the Peloponesse was Corinthe. Its trade was mainly focused at the west were it had founded several cities, of which the most well known are Syracuse and Corcyra. Unlike the other Greek cities Corinthe did attempt to keep control over its daughter cities. Around 700 Corinthe controlled the seas. However, not Corinthe, but Sparta would gain supremacy over the Peloponesse.