Talk:List of ancient Greek cities

message: Most of the places on this list were not (and never have been) cities. They were merely villages, towns, (or even hamlets). A much more honest and correct title would beList of ancient Greek cities, towns, and villages   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.81.6.61 (talk) 14:59, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an interesting point. The term city is a representation of ancient Greek polis, the city-state. Every village belonged to a polis, no matter how small. Sometimes we use city-state. Of course our city does not in any way resemble the polis, and if we lived then we would't call them cities. But how are we to translate polis? There is an unbridgeable cultural disconnect. The long-standing convention is to call every polis a city. It is not a dishonety. Rather, city in this context necessarily means something else. The convention is understood in the classics game.Botteville (talk) 14:41, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: We should call them city-states, or simply poleis, since there is already an article on them... The list is indeed deeply flawed as it contains many settlements that were not poleis, and belong to other eras (such as Minoan settlements). I am preparing a revision of the list, that would only contain poleis and be organised geographically.  You can see an excerpt on the Magna Graecia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Graecia#List_of_Hellenic_Poleis_in_Italy T8612 (talk) 14:57, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Mistitled in an inept way

message: What is considered "Ancient", what is considered "Greek" and what is considered "a city"? All of these things affect the scope of this list. For example, Knossos was a center of Minoan culture but I am not sure about later Greek inhabitation. Are Minoan centers considered Greek? What about Mycenaean? Mycenae itself was inhabited by a small population at least until the Persian wars. What is the cutoff date for "Ancient"?
:Ho, ho, ho. Your grandfather is an ancient.Seriously, there is no unambiguous meaning of ancient. It is opposed to modern. I suppose ancient leaves off where mediaeval begins. Classicists have no problem with it.Botteville (talk) 14:50, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, what qualifies as a "city"? Delphi was the site of an oracle, a religious site, not a city in the usual sense. Some islands are included; how do these qualify? Surely Delos was not a normal settlement? I do not argue against inclusion, although a universal list of ancient Greek sites would lack focus, but the scope needs to be understood. Folks at 137 (talk) 08:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

text: No, NOT from mythology, because most of the places listed below were/are actual places. Also, in particular, Troy was not a mythological place, and archaeological diggings have shown that Troy was a real place in Asia Minor.98.81.6.61 (talk) 15:04, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

text: Well, this is very interesting but I don't know why you put it here. If it is your copyright it can't go on WP, and if you donate it to WP you can't put it here as it is off-topic.Botteville (talk) 14:54, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Scope

message: "Greek" is a derogatory term NEVER used in ancient Hellas, not even officially today (see Hellenic Republic. What are today (outside of modern Hellas) called "the ancient Greeks" were Hellenistic tribes who shared a common language and cultural ties. --Nikoz78 (talk) 01:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Your native culture is obviously not English so I will help you out here lest you think you can out-English the English. Hellenese is a neologism you just coined. It is not in general use, so we can't use it. Greek comes from Latin Graeci and has been in English for centuries. The only people I ever saw take offense at it were some not-really-anglicized immigrants from Greece who felt isolated in some prejudicial contexts. And there are those nasty jokes about the Greek wedding. My advice is not to identify with gutter English but hold yourself better than that. If you don't see any problem, most likely there will not be one. Accents are fine in America anyway. We like accents - something new and interesting in the hinterland. You can't use Hellenistic, either. The term is reserved in history for the period of Alexander and after until the Romans. Hellenes is good - the native ancient Greek term for themselves. But in non-scholarly English you would not be understood. The who? I would say, don't tell us what to say, instead find out what we say and accept it. There are of course some exceptions.Botteville (talk) 15:13, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Hellenese not "Greeks"

message: This is obviously a matter of judgement. Apparently if a settlement once spoke Greek then it is in, even though it may not have spoken it long and even though it may have been far from Greece. I'm having more of a problem with Akrotiri, which probably never spoke Greek at any period. The site is now part of Hellas however. What do you think?Botteville (talk) 15:19, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: In case you were talking to me, I will only add the cities listed in the Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis by Mogens Herman Hansen.  There should be separate lists for ancient Minoan and Mycenaean settlements.  You cannot mix different civilisations together. T8612 (talk) 16:11, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: The question of inclusion

message: There is no need for tagging this list as soon as the correspodent articles are fine and sourced.Alexikoua (talk) 17:49, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The main problem of this article is that its scope is not clearly defined. T8612 (talk) 19:06, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Unexaplained tagging