This is the first lexicon of all identifiable Greek city states of the Archaic and Classical periods (c.650-325 BC). During this time, the eastern Mediterranean was dominated by Greeks who shared an identity based on language, religion, and traditions; however, the Greek world was divided politically into some 1,500 city states, each consisting of an urban center with its immediate hinterland. This book contains descriptions of 1,035 of these city states, organized region by region.

An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by The Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation

History

HANSEN, Mogens Herman

Nielsen, Thomas Heine

Ancient Civilizations

Oxford University Press

From antiquity until the nineteenth century, there have been two types of state: macro-states, each dotted with a number of cities, and regions broken up into city-states, each consisting of an urban center and its hinterland. A region settled with interacting city-states constituted a city-state culture and Polis opens with a description of the concepts of city, state, city-state, and city-state culture, and a survey of the 37 city-state cultures so far identified.   Mogens Herman Hansen provides a thoroughly accessible introduction to the polis (plural: poleis), or ancient Greek city-state, which represents by far the largest of all city-state cultures. He addresses such topics as the emergence of the polis, its size and population, and its political organization, ranging from famous poleis such as Athens and Sparta through more than 1,000 known examples.

Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State

From antiquity until the nineteenth century, there have been two types of state: macro-states, each dotted with a number of cities, and regions broken up into city-states, each consisting of an urban center and its hinterland. A region settled with interacting city-states constituted a city-state culture and Polis opens with a description of the concepts of city, state, city-state, and city-state culture, and a survey of the 37 city-state cultures so far identified. Mogens Herman Hansen provides a thoroughly accessible introduction to the polis (plural: poleis), or ancient Greek city-state, which represents by far the largest of all city-state cultures. He addresses such topics as the emergence of the polis, its size and population, and its political organization, ranging from famous poleis such as Athens and Sparta through more than 1,000 known examples.

POLIS:INTRO TO ANCIENT GREEK CITY-STATE CULTURE PAPER: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State

When democratic rule was ended by the conquering Macedonians in 322, the Athenians had evolved principles and practice of democratic ideology that became the direct inspiration of those liberal ideas cherished by the Western world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Mogens Hansen examines Athenian democracy both as a political system and as an ideology. In describing the former he distinguished between the three major decision-making organs - the Assembly, the Legislators and the Peoples Courts, and the magistrates who were responsible both for preparing the agenda for the legislature and for carrying its decisions into effect. In discussing Athenian democratic ideology Dr Hansen also makes the important distinction between the ideals held by the democrats themselves and those imputed to them by the critics of democracy, principally (and ironically, given that they would barely have survived under any other system) the philosophers. The Athenians conceived liberty both as the ability to participate in the decision-making process, and as the right to live without oppression from the state or other citizens. Equality was conceived not as an equality of nature, but as an equality of opportunity. "The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes" is based on more than 30 years sustained research.

The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology (Ancient World)

Blackwell Pub.

A revised and enlarged translation of the original German edition, this is a study of the people's assembly of classical Athens, which is the best attested example in world history of a direct democracy. Based on the literary sources, on stone inscriptions and on the physical remains of the assembly place, Hansen interprets the assembly in the light of the best modern parallel: the political mass meeting in the smaller Swiss cantons, attended by several thousand citizens. The book describes the ecclesia itself, the debate, the political leaders and groups, and the powers of the Assembly.

The Athenian Assembly: In the Age of Demosthenes (Blackwell Classical Studies)

Americas

The system of government in classical Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BC has provided the world with the most famous and perhaps the most perfect example of direct democracy. When democratic rule was ended by the conquering Macedonians in 322, the Athenians had evolved principles and practice of democratic ideology that became the direct inspiration of those liberal ideas cherished by the Western world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 
Mogens Hansen examines Athenian democracy both as a political system and as an ideology. In describing the former he distinguishes between the three major decision-making organs - the Assembly, the Legislators and the Peoples Courts, and the magistrates who were responsible both for preparing the agenda for the legislature and for carrying its decisions into effect. In discussing Athenian democratic ideology Dr Hansen also makes the important distinction between the ideals held by the democrats themselves and those imputed to them by the critics of democracy, principally (and ironically, given that they would barely have survived under any other system) the philosophers. The Athenians conceived liberty both as the ability to participate in the decision-making process, and as the right to live without oppression from the state or other citizens. Equality was conceived not as an equality of nature, but as an equality of opportunity. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes is based on unrivaled knowledge of the subject, the result of more than thirty years' sustained research.

Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (Ancient World)

Wiley/Blackwell

The Athenian democracy of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. is the most famous and perhaps the most nearly perfect example of direct democracy. Covering the period 403-322 B.C., Mogens Herman Hansen focuses on the crucial last thirty years, which coincided with the political career of Demosthenes. Hansen distinguishes between the city’s seven political institutions: the Assembly, the nomothetai, the People’s Court, the boards of magistrates, the Council of Five Hundred, the Areopagos, and ho boulomenos. He discusses how Athenians conceived liberty both as the ability to participate in the decision-making process and as the right to live without oppression from the state or other citizens.

The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology

University of Oklahoma Press

Although the polis, or city-state, defined the essence of classical Greek civilization, evidence of its most basic characteristics is woefully inadequate. Now a leading scholar in the evaluation of data from the ancient world sheds new light on how those units were constituted.            In a work of cutting-edge research, Mogens Herman Hansen develops a novel method for estimating the overall size and local distribution of the Greek population throughout the ancient world—in both the Greek homeland and its colonies—and explains his reconstruction step by step.  Reflecting the innovative work of the Copenhagen Polis Centre in its 2004 inventory of archaic and classical Greek city-states, Hansen’s book makes it possible for the first time to assess the total population of the ancient Greek world.            For 232 out of circa 1,000 city-states, the size of the urban center can be estimated, and for 636 city-states, we have an idea about the size of the territory. Employing a “shotgun method” Hansen derives approximate population figures and argues that, in the age of Alexander the Great, the population of all the Greek city-states must have totaled some 8-10 million people. His new estimates take into account not only adult male citizens, but all inhabitants—citizens, foreigners, and slaves of both sexes and all ages. In addressing often-conflicting views on estimating populations, their distribution in various regions, and their settlement patterns within individual states, Hansen particularly challenges the long-standing opinion that the majority of ancient Greeks lived a rural life outside of poleis, and he calls for a reconsideration of long-held assumptions about the prevalence of a subsistence economy with little long-distance trade.             Although quantifications of ancient history are never precise, they can provide us with valuable information about ancient societies.  The Shotgun Method is a rigorous evaluation of data that puts antiquity in a new light and provides a new context for understanding many aspects of Greek history.

The Shotgun Method: The Demography of the Ancient Greek City-State Culture (The Fordyce W.Mitchel Memorial Lecture)

University of Missouri

The Shotgun Method: The Demography of the Ancient Greek City-State Culture (Fordyce W. Mitchel Memorial Lecture)

This history of Athenian democracy covers the period 403-322 Bc, and focuses in particular on the crucial last thirty years which coincided with the political career of Demosthenes and ended with his suicide in 322. It examines Athenian democracy both as a political system and as an ideology. In describing the former it distinguishes between the three major decision-making organs (the Assembly,the Legislators and the People's Courts) and the magistrates who were responsible for preparing the agenda for the legislature and also for carrying its decisions into effect. In discussing Athenian democratic ideology, the book also makes the important distinction between the ideals held by the democrats themselves and those imputed to them by the critics of democracy. The Athenians conceived of liberty both as the ability to participate in the decision-making process, and as the privilege to live without oppression from state or other citizens. Equality was not considered as an equality of nature, but as one of opportunity.

Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (BCPaperbacks)

Business & Money

Bristol Classical Press

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Books by HANSEN, Mogens Herman