The aristocratic regimes which generally governed the poleis were threatened by the new-found wealth of merchants, who in turn desired political power.

In other Greek cities ( poleis ), foreign residents were few, with the exception of cosmopolitan Corinth, of which however we do not know their legal status.

He was unfortunately deterred by unpleasant news from Epicydidas that the mainland Greek poleis were starting war once again.

Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.

While Athens and Sparta were busy fighting each other, Thebes resumed her campaigns against the autonomous pro-Spartan Boeotian poleis.

Ptolemy named nine principal poleis or towns belonging to the Brigantes, these were:

The Greek cities ( poleis ) on the coast of Illyria were systematically attacked and perhaps already conquered by Agron's forces.

Many of these poleis were oligarchies.

These colonies were not provinces of the poleis from which they came but independent cities entirely, who traced their heritage back to a mother polis within Greece proper.

From the beginning of the 6th century BC, many changes in the social structure and government of Greece were formalized in order to administer to the growing needs of the poleis.

Their villages were described as poleis by Herodotus ( VII, 234 ), Xenophon ( Hellenica, VI, 5, 21 ) and Thucydides ( V, 54, 1 ).

Local notables were often based in urban-like settlements, although contemporary historians often did not recognize them as poleis ( because they were not self-ruled but under the rule of a " King ").

Athens emerged in the 7th century BC, like many other poleis, with a dominating powerful aristocracy.

Unlike most other Greeks of this time, who lived in or around city-states, the inhabitants of Epirus lived in small villages and their way of life was foreign to that of the poleis of southern Greece.

The ancient Greeks didn't always refer to Athens, Sparta, Thebes and other poleis as such ; they often spoke instead of the Athenians, Lacedaemonians, Thebans and so on.

** Citizens of other poleis who chose to reside elsewhere ( the metics, μέτοικοι, métoikoi, literally " transdwellers "): though free-born and possessing full rights in their place of origin, had full legal rights but no political rights in their place of residence.

During the negotiations, however, Agesilaus refused to allow the Thebans to represent all of Boeotia, maintaining that other Boeotian poleis should be treated independent of Thebes.

Spartans sent an ultimatum demanding that Thebes grant autonomy to the other Boeotian poleis.

He also tempted Artaphernes by adding that capturing the island would place other poleis of the Cyclades under his control, which would serve as a base for attacking Euboea.

These tyrants, a Greek word meaning " unrightful ruler ", tended to set up dictatorships within the poleis, raise armies, and attack other poleis to expand their influence.

The independence of the poleis was fiercely defended ; unification was something rarely contemplated by the ancient Greeks.

Even after Philip II of Macedon ' conquered ' the heartlands of ancient Greece, he did not attempt to annex the territory, or unify it into a new province, but simply compelled most of the poleis to join his own Corinthian League.

Historical examples include the oldest known Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia and Ur, the Phoenician cities of Canaan ( such as Tyre and Sidon ), the Berber city-states of the Garamantes, the city-states of ancient Greece ( the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth ), the Roman Republic which grew from a city-state into a great power, the Maya of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica ( including sites such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Palenque and El Mirador ), the central Asian cities along the Silk Road, Venice, Croatian city-state of Ragusa ( Dubrovnik ) and many others.

A polemarch ( from, polemarchos ) was a senior military title in various ancient Greek city states ( poleis ).

The generation following Herodotus witnessed a spate of local histories of the individual city-states ( poleis ), written by the first of the local historians who employed the written archives of city and sanctuary.

It was fought between the important poleis ( city-states ) of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea.

Ancient Greece consisted of several hundred more or less independent city-states ( poleis ).

Even when, during the second Persian invasion of Greece, a group of city-states allied themselves to defend Greece, the vast majority of poleis remained neutral, and after the Persian defeat, the allies quickly returned to infighting.

He renewed former connections with some southern Greek city-states ( poleis ).

Synoecism or synecism ( ;, sunoikismos, ), also spelled synoikism ( ), was originally the amalgamation of villages in Ancient Greece into poleis, or city-states.

The exceptional success of the move to colonize the rest of the Mediterranean happened in harmony with a consolidation of the Greek poleis into cohesive city-states with social and political order.

Instead the poleis grouped themselves into leagues, membership of which was in a constant state of flux.

1200 BC – 800 BC ) are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean Palatial civilization around 1200 BC, to the first signs of the Greek poleis in the 9th century BC.

The sharing of power among powerful families occurred in many poleis, which saw oligarchies established.

By contrast, the alluvial plains of Lower Macedonia and Pelagonia favored the development of a native aristocracy with a wealth which at times surpassed the classical Greek poleis.

Isca Dumnoniorum originated with a settlement that developed around the Roman fortress of the Legio II Augusta and is one of the four poleis ( cities ) attributed to the tribe by Ptolemy.

More unusual committees abound at the collegiate level ; for instance, a college conference may simulate the Greco-Persian Wars via a committee of the Greek poleis, have a committee simulating the National Football League's annual owners meeting, as held at George Mason University MUN in 2009, or even have a committee simulating President David Palmer's cabinet from the TV show 24, simulated by the University of Pennsylvania Model UN Conference in 2007 .< ref >

Inevitably smaller poleis might be dominated by larger neighbours, but conquest or direct rule by another city-state appears to have been quite rare.

Later in the Classical period, the leagues would become fewer and larger, be dominated by one city ( particularly Athens, Sparta and Thebes ); and often poleis would be compelled to join under threat of war ( or as part of a peace treaty ).

Inevitably, the domination of politics and concomitant aggregation of wealth by small groups of families was apt to cause social unrest in many poleis.

The last institution commemorating the old Greek poleis was the Panhellenion established by Hadrian.

Epaminondas insulted Agesilaus by replying that he will agree to let Boeotian poleis sign independent of Thebes if Agesilaus agrees to let the Laconian poleis sign independent of Sparta.

It is likely that Greece during this period was divided into independent regions organized by kinship groups and the oikoi or households, the origins of the later poleis.

From 1st century AD, and until the invasion of Avars in 558, the Romans had established cities ( poleis ), military camps and some stations for the veterans and for the colons ( apoikion ) sent by the emperors.

In the poleis, the synoikistes was the person who, according to local tradition, performed the synoikismos, either through his personal influence or by conquest, and subsequently was worshipped as a demi-god.

The promotion of heterosexuality above everything else can, by his account, only lead to a comparatively lonely society, where social interactions and culture on a larger scale ( as in the Greek poleis ) is mostly missing.

It is one of the four poleis ( cities ) attributed to the Dumnonii by Ptolemy in his Geography of the 2nd century, and is also named in the late-second century Antonine Itinerary where it appears as the southern terminus of Iter XV, on the Fosse Way.

However, the war exhausted both poleis and Sparta was in turn humbled by Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC.