Towns of ancient Greece


The archetypical settlement in ancient Greece was the self-governing city state called the polis, but other types of settlement occurred.

Kome

A kome was typically a village that was also a political unit. The translation is inexact, but according to Thucydides, Sparta, though it was a polis, resembled four unwalled villages. Similarly, a kome could be a neighbourhood within a larger polis or its own rural settlement. Thucydides mused that the polis had developed from the kome.

Katoikia

A katoikia was similar to a polis, typically a military colony, with some municipal institutions, but not those of a full polis. The word derives from the κατοικέω for "to inhabit" and is the cognate of the Latin civitas. In the Classical era, there were few katoikiai; however, with the rise of large centralized empires following the conquests of Alexander the Great, they became the main type of Greek settlement, especially in the newly conquered east. Sometimes these were fortresses, inside a city or in an open position. They were an equivalent of the English idea of a fort.

Colonies

Many of the poleis in ancient Greece established colonies, of which many went on to be fully independent poleis of their own. These include:

Emporia

Within the Greek world, several military establishments resembled civilian towns.