Collections: How to Polis, 101, Part I: Component Parts (acoup.blog)

Bret Devereaux opens a planned multi-part series on the ancient Greek polis by arguing that the polis is best understood through its component parts, chiefly households (oikoi) rather than individuals. He notes that poleis varied widely, with the Copenhagen Polis Centre inventorying just over a thousand archaic and classical examples, most very small. The polis merged households into a single town core, and citizenship was tied to heads of households, so the state protected households from outside threats rather than intervening in relations between household members.