Text C. The Greek polis

The most important political contribution of Greek civilization was the invention of democracy in Athens. As with other Greek words, we have no proper equivalent to polis except to render it as "city-state," which says both too much and not enough. The polis was a community of families related by common ancestors a person did not move into or join a city — one was born a member. Those who traveled and lived in cities other than those where they were born were considered resident aliens.

The polis encompassed the farms around it for Greeks preferred to live in the city in close quarters and walk out to their farms, rather than live in isolated farm villas. The polis encompassed the whole communal life of the people, political, cultural, moral, and economic.

To say a polis was a city suggests a size that is too large, for Greeks felt a person ought to be able to cross the entire of the polis on foot in two days. In the Republic Plato described the ideal polis as having 5,000 citizens, and Aristotle wrote in Politics that a person should be able to recognize all the citizens of his polis. Most poleis were roughly this size, although Athens, Syracuse, and Akragas had populations over 20,000. In 430 B.C. the total pop­ulation of the region of Attica including Athens, was roughly 330,000 of which about 15,000 were resident aliens and about 115,000 were slaves in domestic service. Of the remaining 200,000, about 35,000 were male citizens over eighteen and the remainders were women and children.

contribution – вклад

polis – полис

ancestor – предок

resident – житель

alien – чужак

isolate – изолировать

roughly – примерно

row – ряд

erect – возводить

community – населенный пункт, сообщество

Exercise 12. Translate the words:

кирпичная кладка, комната, единица, гончарное изделие, металлическая конструкция, покатая крыша, внутренний, частный дом, облицовывать, производство.

Exercise 13. Note in the texts of this unit:

a. Modal verbs

b. ing-forms

c. ed-forms