they were decidedly minor players (e.g. Aioleion, Akrothooi, Alapta,
Gigonos, Istasos, Othoros, Pharbelos, Piloros, Pistasos, Pleume). Others
may well have had an ephemeral existence (Aige, Lipaxos). If we com-
pare the namedpoleisin Chalkidike with the 72 listed in Caria, it
becomes clearer that the Athenian Tribute Lists make prominent sites
that might otherwise have disappeared from records.^43 Not allpoleis
listed in theInventorycan realistically be thought of as major towns, let
alone as cities. Although in theory‘everypolistown was the centre of a
polisstate’,^44 the principle needs to be considered in its context. If we
compare the 1,035 place names that are certainly or probably identified
aspoleisbeforec. 330 bcalongside the 2,000 or so urban centres within
the Roman Empire in the second centuryad, when civic populations had
manifestly multiplied, in many cases several times over (if not by an
order of magnitude), then we must admit that many of the kinds of
places referred to in this way were, with few exceptions, modest as
‘urban’units.^45 Similarly, it is unlikely, as Hansen has claimed, that a
third of the population of Greece lived in cities. If we look at comparative
historical data, this proportion was achieved very rarely anywhere in the
world before the nineteenth century.^46
Greek and non-Greek sitesThe‘liminal’areas of mainland Greece pose the more challenging con-
ceptual problem. The editors of theInventoryadmit that there were
‘barbarian’poleis, but rather than seeing the investigation of‘barbarian’
alongside Hellenic‘city-states’as an opportunity to highlight the defin-
ing characteristics that they seek to illuminate, a comparison between(^43) Inventory, nos. 557 (Aineia); 559 (Akanthos); 568 (Dikaia); 584 (Mende); 588
(Olynthos); 620 (Torone); 558 (Aioleion: paying 500dr in three separate years); 560
(Akrothooi: assessed but not listed as an independent tribute payer); 561 (Alapta); 572
(Gigonos); 574 (Istasos, paid 500dr in 422/1bc); 590 (Othoros); 591 (Pharbelos); 593
(Piloros); 594 (Pistasos); 556 (Aige); R. Parker, ClRev 56 (2006) 382 on the relative
distortion created by ATL.
(^44) Inventory, 35.
(^45) Clarysse and Thompson 2006, 2, 95: in the early Ptolemaic period the population of
Arsinoe is estimated at 4,000, thenomeas a whole housing between 85,000 and 90,000
people; the population of Crocodilopolis increased fromc.4,000 in the second half of the
third centurybcto between 27,000 and 46,000 in the High Empire (ibid. 100); see now the
contributions to Bowman and Wilson 2012.
(^46) Maddison 2007, 42–3 and Table 1.7; cf de Callataÿ 2012, 68. Although Maddison’s
discussion of Roman urban populations may not be fully up to date, his international
comparative data are well substantiated.
Herdsmen with golden leaves—narratives and spaces 63