The Greeks in Bactria and India c9.s1.38

c9.s1.38

The aim of every military colony was to become a full *polis*, which in the East meant a city, not necessarily of Greek nationality, but of Greek organisation and civic forms; there was a steady upward growth of the colony into the *polis*, and it was this which before the end of the second century B.C. had filled Asia with ‘Greek’ cities. It is difficult to define the minimum distinction between a military colony and a *polis*; the real matter was the greater autonomy of the latter. The wall was there in any case. It may I think be taken that, to constitute a place a *polis*, there would have to be, at the least, a Council, an Assembly, a division of the Greek population into tribes with consequent rotation of prytanies⁶ and the other phenomena of that division, an elected magistracy, and almost certainly a gymnasium (p. 17). How the change-over from military colony to *polis* took place is not known.⁷ There were cases where the king of set purpose enlarged some colony and formally made it a *polis*, but usually the settlement itself must have outgrown the *koinon* form and petitioned for the change: mere permission from the king probably sufficed, but was certainly needed (p. 31).