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Acient Greece

Lecture I
A polis (πόλις, pronunciation [pól.is], ['p''l.ɪs] in English) -- plural: poleis (πόλεις, pronunciation [pól.eːs], ['p''l.eɪz] in English) -- is a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens. When used to describe Classical Athens and its contemporaries, polis is often translated as "city-state."
Synoecism, synoikism or synœcism (Ancient Greek: συνοικισμóς) is the amalgamation of villages and small towns in Ancient Hellas into larger political units such as a single city. It is the process by which democracy in the Ancient Greek world originated and developed. The word itself means "dwelling together" or "to unite together under one capital city". Synœcism is opposed to the Greek word διοικισμóς (dioikismós). [1]
In early Greece, ancient society was split between the "demos", (δημοι, κωμαι); meaning the "country people" or the "country villages" and the "asty" or "polis" (πολις); the seat of the princely (nobility, the gentry, the aristocracy), the sacerdotal and military families. The distinction between the πολις and the δημοι was of great political importance in the ancient states. There was much antagonism between these two bodies; the country and city and where commerce and trade became the dominant cultural and ideological force, it collected many men together promoting larger towns and democracy. In the city states of Classical Greece, synœcism occurred when the "demos" combined, usually by force, with and submerged the "politiea" to form one political union

proxeny (plural proxenies)
1. in Ancient Greece, an arangement whereby a citizen (chosen by the city) hosted foreign ambassadors at his own expense, in return for honorary titles from the state.
If there be near me now a man of the Achaians who dwelleth far up the Ionian sea, he shall not upbraid me : I have faith in my proxeny[...] -- Pindarus.
In Timaeus, Plato describes khôra as a receptacle, a space, or an interval. It is neither being nor nonbeing but an...