File talk:Map of Archaic Greece (English).jpg

Inaccurate map

According to the data provided from the image's uploader, the map is based on "Data from Grece Archaice [sic] (620-480 Avant J.C.),isbn 978-960-6709-90-6". The ISBN cited by the uploader is assigned to a book published in Greek in 2007 by the Greek daily Kathimerini under the title "Ελλάδα : αρχαϊκή εποχή από τον 7ο έως τον 5ο αιώνα π.Χ.". Despite being published in Greek in 2007, it is a much older book, first published in French by Gallimard in 1968. All three authors of the book are now dead. I am only stating this to indicate that this is an old source published more than 50 years ago during which classical scholars have revised certain positions.

In particular, the map's legend states that the areas covered in red are "city-state [=poleis] areas", while lands in purple are "tribal areas", i.e. lands whose inhabitants were organized in ethne. The problem that arises is that many of the areas covered in purple in the map are actually known today to be lands whose inhabitants were organized and living, in the time period specified in the map's legend, in poleis. It is no indicative that Catherine Morgan in her "Early Greek states beyond the polis" (London: Routledge, 2003) only deals with Thessaly, Phokis, East Lokris, Achaia and Arkadia -- even though the last one is a mixed case as she admits. Setting aside the fact that the division between polis-states and ethnos-states is not a clear-cut one, the greater problem with the map remains that many of the areas in purple could more properly be described as "city-state areas". Indeed, are we not to find a polis in Elis? In Corcyra? Or, what about Sparta? Was it not a polis? Then, how come they are all listed in Mogens H. Hansen's and T. H. Nielsen's Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis? [paged references and quotes available on demand]. In a few words, this map (a) is dated and adopts a crude dichotomy between ethne and poleis, whose application is of questionable value when work of classical scholars published since 1968 is taken into account, and (b) it erroneously depicts as "tribal areas" lands under the control of city-states. Ασμοδαίος (talk) 13:58, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Even aside from the fact that no static map is likely to accurately represent 250 years of major social and political development, this particular map, which suggests that the Pelopponese didn't have poleis in the archaic period, is just wrong – Sparta and Argos are the obvious examples of regional powers which had centred on a polis by the seventh century! Even if we accepted that Laconia was a "tribal area", Sparta itself isn't even marked with a ★ to indicate that a city was there. And Corcyra is a tribal area on this map despite the important colony from Corinth (marked as a city-state)? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:49, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Map is false and should be removed from Wikipedia. T8612 (talk) 15:18, 14 February 2022 (UTC)