The Hello and welcome back to the history of ancient Greece.

Episode 12, oligarchs and heseid.

Last time, we talked about the development of a socio-political structure,

unique to Greece, the Polis and its abstract nature.

This week we will discuss the governmental apparatuses that developed alongside this new political construct.

Because in order for a polis to be strong and to compete successfully against other polis,

it had to create a more powerful and more intrusive central government than it had possessed before unification.

A more complex system of organization and social control was a necessary response to the new conditions of rapidly

growing populations, greater exploitation of the land and resources, increasing productivity and wealth, expanding trade, and more complicated

relations with neighboring states.

Especially pressing was the need for warfare.

Forest population increased and land became scarcer.

Police fought each other over territory.

A more serious business than the raids and counter raids for animals and booty that

characterized the dark age.

Firm control from the center was therefore both necessary and good for the polis as a whole.

The steps that led to the establishment of a polis were the work of a group of nobles that arose

in the 8th century BC. Political Union could not have

occurred unless the local Basilace wished it to be done, as they became the

leaders of the new central governments.

In this way, the development of the Polis

mirrored the development of a new political concept.

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