Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: The World of the Polis

Titel: The World of the Polis

Stichwort: Sympoliteia, Polis - Nationalstaat - germanische Stämme

Kurzinhalt: The strength of the gentilitian sentiment ... were the great obstacles to an evolution of the polis toward a territorial, national state; the opposite of the problem that the Germanic tribes ...

Textausschnitt: 189a The strength of the gentilitian sentiment, and its expansion from the aristocracy to the people, were the great obstacles to an evolution of the polis toward a territorial, national state. Once the gentilitian structure of the polis was fixed the possibilities for the formation of larger units were limited. The problem that faced the city-state, we may say, was the opposite of the problem that the Germanic tribes of the Migration had to solve after their conquest of large Roman provinces. The conquering Germanic tribes started with the possession of a large territory; and they had to organize, administer, and unify its population politically and culturally through centuries until the sentiment of nationhood and the forms of self-government through election and representation had evolved. The polis started with intensive self-consciousness and self-government; and it had to invent the forms that would transcend local institutions and integrate a plurality of poleis into a larger territorial unit. The basic legal form that the polis had at its disposition for this purpose was the sympoliteia, that is, the extension of citizenship to the population of the surrounding countryside or of other poleis. (Fs) (notabene)