To define the Greek city, it is necessary to have in memory three essential components of them:
- The city is initially a group of free men, and they are well men in opposition to the women. Only these men have the political rights; they constitute a community. When they founded their many colonies out of Greece during 8th, 7th and 6th front centuries J. - C., it was indeed part of the city, its citizens and its rules of organization, which left to settle overseas.

- The city, it is then the city, indicated by the word asty, in opposition to the countryside. The city with its civic and religious buildings, installed in places chosen very precisely.

- The city, it is finally the territory around the city, the countryside (will chôra), more or less vast, meticulously occupied and marked out. It is this countryside which by its ground makes the citizens.

This city-countryside unit is more or less strictly delimited, the borders of the city, its limits, its borders are always the city and is not completely any more the city, it is a disputed and asserted zone, a badly defined zone and source all at the same time worship and combat.

The city

The city (asty) is opposed to the countryside (will chôra). It is the space built in opposition to cultivated space. It composes only one element of the territory of the city. It comprises usually a certain number of quite specific places answering the functions policy, soldier, nun, economic. She is surrounded by protective ramparts. It is of course Athens which offers, at the time traditional, the example more developed Greek city.

The Agora
It is the place of the market, the meeting place. The assembly of the citizens can meet specific fault of place there. Temples and furnace bridges, sanctuaries are found there. The political buildings are not distant. In Athens, the Agora is the center of the city, surrounded by gantries. The city shelters the public buildings and policies: the seat of the Council, courts, gymnasia, palestres, the theater.

The acropolis
It is the high city. Built on a height, it overhangs the remainder of the city, shelters the sanctuaries, sometimes most important, and offers a refuge where necessary. In certain cities, the acropolis is installed on a very high hill, moved away and difficult of access as to Argos or Corinthe; sometimes the city proposes two acropolises: Argos still, or Mégare.

The countryside

The countryside (will chôra), it is the more or less vast territory which surrounds the city. Will chôra is opposed to the asty and supplements at the same time it: in fact the two space elements, actually indissociable compose the territory of the city. In will chôra are the cultivated grounds, the agricultural farms and other buildings. But it is not a deserted space for as much, the villages are numerous there. It thus shelters a very significant part of the population of the city.

It is thus the space par excellence of the agricultural activity, that of the world of the peasants who have and plow the ground, sow and collect what makes live (partly) the city. The small farmer, in Athens in particular, incarnates the ideal-type of the “peasant-owner-citizen”. Very attached to this ground that they have, these peasants - georgoi or agroikoi - form without any doubt a very great majority of the population and remain installed in their villages to which they are particularly attached, like Aristophane writes it: “I have the city of horror and cries my village” (“Acharniens”, towards 33-36). But a clear evolution takes place with leaving the 6th century and one sees appearing the managers who manage fields of more or less large size on behalf of rich owners remained downtown.

Will chôra is traversed by the patrols of beautiful young men, during what corresponds to their military service. These beautiful young men are confined in many forts, constructions military which strew will chôra it and which are essential in the event of attack to ensure the protection of the city and to offer a first refuge to the citizens.

In Athens the civic territory is rigorously organized since the reforms of Clisthène. It is divided into three areas: the city (asty), i.e. Athens itself, the coast (paralia) and interior of the grounds (mésogée). The basic unit of cutting, that in which the people recognize themselves and identify, it is the dème, the village with its own territory, its own institutions (assembled dème). Each dème indicates a precise number representatives with the ball. The trytties are regroupings of dèmes, nonhomogeneous to allow the bursting of local solidarity and to ensure relative “a mixture” of the citizens. The tribes are formed by the addition of three trytties: one of the city, one of the coast, one of the interior. It is the tribe which appoints the magistrates. As there were ten tribes, the number of magistrates is always a multiple of ten: 6 ' 000 héliastes, 500 bouleutes, 10 prytanes, 10 strategists, 10 archontes. This structure of the Athenian tribes is specific, Clisthène having wanted to avoid tribes in clannish matter, usual in the Greek world.

Borders of the city

The parts furthest away from the center of the city form the eschatai. Extreme places of the territory, borders of the city, they are beyond the cultivated grounds, the zone actually occupied by the men. They are the areas “with the end”, “the end, “”. Make high hills or mountains, they are covered with forests or are occupied by marshes. They sometimes not very accessible, are left to the use of the shepherds, the loggers or the coalmen. These dubious areas, at a little fuzzy borders, are a zone of hunting, the privileged field of Artémis. One finds there also the sanctuaries extra urban of the city. Places of wild, limiting spaces of civilized space, they form what one can name a “anthropological border of the city”; the political border, it, marked by terminals, the hermai - surmounted quadrangular pillars of a head of the Hermes god - is beyond. It is also the disputed area, asserted by the neighbors, object of the wars and place of the engagements.

The social body

The Greek city is defined initially as a community of free men. Let us add that the whole of the population is distributed according to several types of divisions and various legal statuses. Most important of these divisions is that which exists between freedom and not-freedom, between freedom and slavery. One can say that all the social body is determined by this distinction. But of other cuts intervene which bring into play the political rights and especially the level of richness.

The “best constitution”

The Greek city is before a whole group of free men organized “politically” on a territory. Those sought since the origins and through many conflicts, which they called “best the politéia possible”, i.e. the best political regime, which we name the constitution. The constitutions multiplied in the various cities and each one finally could be made proud of its legislator, more or less mythical, and dedicate a true worship to him. These constitutions ensured more or less largely the access of the citizens the exercise of the political rights, and their participation in the public life.

It is in better known Athens , cité la, than developed at the 5th front century J. - C. a particular form of constitution, the democracy: the word is made of two Greek words dêmos and cratos meaning people and power. The democracy, it is the power exerted by the people. This shape of political organization caused deep debates as of Antiquity. But it should not be forgotten that Athens constitutes only one “brilliant exception”. All the Greek cities are not built on its model.

The assembly
In Athens, the assembly, the ecclésia, was opened all to the citizens. She met on the hill of Pnyx, in the south-west of the Agora, especially arranged for this purpose. The ordinary meetings were envisaged approximately 40 times per annum (three to four times by prytanie). The discussions between historians relate to the frequentation of the ecclésia: one has little very precise information, but it is estimated commonly that approximately 6 ' 000 people took part in it. The archeologists showed in addition that the refittings of Pnyx at the end of the 4th front century J. - C. allowed the arrival of 13 ' 000 people.

But if the ecclésia had in Athens its own place of meeting, it could also meet elsewhere, on the Agora - as it was the case in the beginning - in a theater or even in any other place as shows it celebrates it episode of the revolt of the sailors and soldiers with Samos in 411 av. J. - C. which joined together the assembly in the island to relieve their strategists (general) favorable to the oligarchs who had seized the power in Athens. The roles of the ecclésia were multiple: to vote the decrees and the laws, to elect the magistrates, to decide introduction of new worships, to discuss the financial questions, to allot honorary rewards or to vote ostracism, etc the right to speak free and equal for all the speakers, was controlled thanks to the clocks to water (clepsydras).

The Council (swell)
It is the deliberative council which ensures the good performance of the whole of the system. It is composed of 500 members, 50 per tribe. The delegation of each tribe functions in turn, during one 10th of the year, like office of the Council (prytanie). These 500 bouleutes are drawn with the fate each year among the candidates and on the lists in each dème. Two conditions to be bouleute: to be at least 30 years old and to have never been it before. The bouleutes lent oath at the time of their entry in load and they sat at the bouleuterion, a building located at the south of the Agora.

The role of the Council initially consisted in preparing the bills and decrees voted by the ecclésia: probouleumata. It had even the initiative of these projects. Then it is in front of it that the magistrates were to present themselves to their entry in load and especially to give an account of their activity to their exit of load. It had wide judicial powers thus.

Magistrates
In Athens, the true Directorate of Political Affairs of the city is carried out by the various magistrates. They are indicated for one one year duration, either by drawing lot, or by election for the most important magistrates, in particular the military commanders (strategists, cf below). Certain magistratures are renewable.

Strategists
They form a college of ten (one by tribe) and belong obligatorily to the first class poll-tax based; they are elected and renewable. Thus Périclès, the most famous Athenian politician of the 5th century before J. - C. was regularly re-elected strategist from 445 to 429, date of its death. The strategists direct the army but at the 5th century, they are not that generals, they are also and especially politicians. Evolutions of the 4th century before J. - C. will lock up them in this military role and some ended up specializing (strategist of the hoplites, strategist of the territory, Pirée, etc).

Archontes
Magistrates of aristocratic origin, they are most important before the democratic reforms. In Athens, they are ten: theeponymous one which gives its name to the year, the archonte-king, which chairs the learned assembly, the polémarque one (nominal chief of the army), six thesmothètes (guards of the laws), the secretary. In the democratic city, they lost to be able to them and of their prestige and do not deal any more but with legal or religious tasks. Since 486 av. J. - C., they are drawn with the fate and in 456, the third class of the taxable quota their is open.

The learned assembly
It is the former aristocratic council of the city. He sits at Athens on the hill of the god Arès (Areios pagos in Greek, from where its name). The hill is located at the south of the Agora between the Acropolis and Pnyx. It is formed by old the archontes left load and which is indicated with life. There are approximately 150 aréopagites. The reform of Ephialte in 461 av. J. - C. removed its political powers with the learned assembly and it preserved only one secondary legal role. However it appears like a kind of moral authority. The learned assembly finds a certain gloss with the end of the democracy after 322 av. J. - C.