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What Do We Mean By Polis?

1. Polis: A definition
In ancient Greece, the polis (city-state) was a community, a territory and a
political organization. According to Aristotle the polis is first and foremost a
partnership (koinonia): human beings are social animals, and are naturally
driven to form increasingly complex social groups to satisfy their increasingly
complex needs. The household (oikia) is the most elementary form of social
organization and serves the purpose of satisfying the most essential necessities:
to provide for the daily needs of its members and continue the species. The next
stage is for a group of households to form a choma (village, settlement), and
move together beyond daily survival. Freed from the urge to provide for their
elementary necessities, men were naturally driven to seek the means not only to
live, but to live well, and so began to merge groups of chomai to create larger and
more complex communities. The polis is therefore a community formed from a
group of pre-existing chomai with the purpose of improving the life standards
of its members. If all men, as Aristotle famously says, are political animals, the
Greeks have developed the natural instinct to live in society into an elaborate
science, and perhaps an art [a-c]. As the philosopher proudly states, the polis
was the quintessentially Greek form of political organization, as well as the most
perfect of them all. Just as the territory of Greece was conveniently located in a
milder, temperate region between Europe and Asia, the Greek nation combined
the sense of liberty of those living north of them and the intellectual disposition
of those living south. The polis was the most excellent product of this perfect
blend: a well-organized society where citizens could live in freedom [d].
If the polis is a community, the politeia is the set of norms regulating the life
of this community. Now, since not all residents of a polis are members of it at
the same degree, the most important norms of a politeia concern who is entitled
to be a citizen (polites) and to partake of the juridical and political functions