The Ancient Greek city-state. The polis may have first emerged in the 8th century bc as a reaction to the rule of the early “kings”. There were several hundred poleis in ancient Greece, many very small. Each consisted of a single walled town surrounded by countryside, which might include villages. At its centre was the citadel and the agora (the marketplace). In the Athenian democracy, which exemplified the polis in its highest form, power lay only in the hands of the citizen body, from which, for instance, women, resident foreigners, and slaves were excluded. Freedom, self-reliance, and autonomy were the ideals of the polis, but these aspirations were responsible for the innumerable wars between the Greek poleis. Even temporary unity in the face of a foreign invader, whether Persian or Macedonian, was very hard to achieve. The rise of the Hellenistic kingdoms at the end of the 4th century bc limited the power of the polis.