ABSTRACT
The polis as a whole is embodied in these spaces-agora, assembly and council, symposia, sanctuaries and temples with their festivals, theater-and it is embodied by the citizens engaged in speech and action, seeing and being seen, moving among them. The built city, tactile and visible in its place, and the citizens in it, together are the polis. The polis stands alone, a polity, selfsufficient. But it can be so only by being one among others. The polis is necessarily a plural form. As one among others, each is an individual, part of the larger whole that is Greece. The citizen of a polis is thus placed in a world of individuality; and what individuals perceive around them, things as well as people, are other individuals. One need only think of the position of women and slaves to recognize that this formulation is problematic as applied to ancient Greece. Yet even in this case its force is undeniable, and I will let it stand. Now, with the spaces of the polis in mind, I want to work out more fully the necessary connections between the polis itself, self-sufficiency, individuality, plurality, and limit. This will require more attention to the relations among citizens; and of the relation between citizen and polis. These, in turn, will require some account of the historical development of individuality. At the end of all this, however, we will be back with the necessity of violence in the ethical order of the virtues and its enactment in the tragedy of the polis.
