The rise of the
polis seems to have coincided with Greek abandonment of kingship, and its replacement by warrior-aristocracies, and rulers elected by self-governing citizen communities. Greek city-states were governed from a
prytaneion, a building thought to have functioned as a palace under monarchs, and otherwise as an administration centre, with a large reception hall that also housed the sacred "common hearth" of the polity.
Foundation deities The hearth of every
prytaneion and domestic household was sacred to the goddess
Hestia, whose presence and cult within the
prytaneion and households justified the civil, political and religious basis of the city's public life, and the community's decisions concerning treaties, laws, institutions and traditions. In founding a new colony, live embers of Hestia's fire were carried from the parent-
polis to the colonial
prytaneion, where they were used to kindle the new colony's sacred, sacrificial fire. Without an
agora, sacrificial fire, altar and Hestia, there could be no city. This aside,
poleis were largely self-defined; they need not be politically independent, they might use any of various regional
Greek dialects and their size seems to have been an irrelevance to their definition as
poleis, or modern identification as "city-states". Some were enclosed within larger states. Some had only 200-500 male citizens and no more than a few square kilometers of agricultural land. Others were very populous, or became so through confederation, with estimated populations of many thousands, and with lands and influence extending many miles into surrounding countryside, or across the Mediterranean Sea. Land hunger and warfare were endemic. The two largest and most powerful of these states,
Sparta and
Athens, mutually antagonistic for much of their history, both acknowledged the same protective deities. Where Sparta chose conquest and subjection of its Greek-speaking neighbours to the immediate west (see
Mantinea), Athens used her navy to help establish new, colonial
poleis much further afield. Prospective founders of Greek city-states and colonies sought the approval and guidance not only of their "mother city" but of
Apollo, through one or another of his various oracles. Apollo acted as consulting
archegetes (founder) at
Delphi, and among his various functions, he was patron god of colonies, architecture, constitutions and city planning. Greek city-state foundation myths are always tied to a particular place, foundation date and festival, sometimes to a civic ancestor – who might also be a heroic or divinised proto-founder, such as
Heracles – and often, but not always, to a named deity. The problems involved in the identification of patron deities, and of the
poleis as
poleis, can be complex.
H. S. Versnel finds that the "image of gods as city patrons is theoretical rather than evidential". There is no formula that helps differentiate state cults from civic cults, or identify a protective or patron deity of the
poleis within a given local pantheon. "Conversely, some
poleis seem to have had several [patron deities], some to have changed their patron deity over time, and some to have had no patron god or goddess at all." Even Hestia can pose problems in the identification of a
polis; according to Herman-Hansen, most archaeologists have identified as
prytaneion any large, apparently public building containing a hearth, assuming it a sign of Hestia, not a commonplace kitchen utility. Herman-Hansen believe that a complete
prytaneon should surely contain two hearths – one for Hestia and another for cooking at feasts, though no "second hearth" has been found in any building identified as a
prytaneon.
Deities of place Several states or communities might lay claim to the favour of a particular deity; the foundation myth of Athens, whose navy was a major factor in the city's growth and defence, had Athena and
Poseidon, god of the sea, compete in a chariot race for the honour of becoming the patron of Athens. This was not interpreted as conflict between the cults or supporters of the deities concerned; a deity worshipped in one place under a particular epithet could be identified elsewhere by another epithet, referring to the different locations of their temples, or to particular aspects of their divine powers, or effectively, their recognition as a different manifestation of the same deity. Patron gods were a focus in the diplomacy and political life of the
polis; and are sometimes referred to as "poliad" gods in modern scholarship but they were not definitive of a
polis, nor a universal requirement.
Athena and
Apollo, being both powerful and well-equipped to manage and regulate the needs of city-dwellers, are among the most common named patron gods of
poleis. Citizens were acculturated to their unique and distinctive local identity, ancestors, territories, heroes, gods and founding myths. ==Examples==