Nowadays, hardly any scholar really subscribes to the old paradigm of the decadence of the Polis in the Hellenistic world – although things may still be different at the level of general surveys. In any case, it would be otiose to reiterate the notion that the Polis was alive and well even after Alexander. So far, however, the revision of the old paradigm, announced inter alios by Erich Gruen’s 1993 article “The Polis in the Hellenistic World”, has not gone very far beyond statements of principle, and the debate on democracy in the Hellenistic Poleis is emblematic of the kind of red herrings that mar the revisionist agenda. At the same time, promising lines of thought have been emerging, and the goal of the conference is to bundle some of them, propose a few more, and in general try and outline a broad agenda for the study of the Greek Polis after Alexander. Lines of thought that appear promising include the following:

1. Art and literature in the Hellenistic polis. In the last few decades the thrust of research, in fields ranging from sculpture to poetry, has gone towards recognizing and showcasing the role of the Hellenistic courts as foci of art and literature. And yet, the Hellenistic Polis remained an important, perhaps the most important environment for the creation of Greek art and literature. Quite apart from the case of philosophy, that had to be situated in a Polis in order to be credible, many other literary genres – for example historiography – flourished in various cities, and the same was true for other forms of art.

2. Democracy without alternative. Sidestepping the debate on how democratic the Hellenistic Poleis really were, we would like to investigate a very obvious phenomenon, namely the fact that during the Hellenistic period “democracy” was the only kind of political order that a self-respecting Polis was supposed to aspire to. Regardless of what we think of the corresponding political practice, the fact that even conservative politicians like Polybius ended up phrasing their political ideals in terms of democracy is striking and deserves attention.

3. Hellenistic citizens. The evidence suggests strongly that the métier de citoyen changed significantly during the Hellenistic period. New practices or new forms of old practices abound, ranging from the pervasive introduction of magistrates in charge of auditing other magistrates to the frequent recourse to public subscriptions etc. On the other hand, the military side of citizen rights seems to have changed little, and apparently civil strife (stasis) remained a widespread phenomenon as well. The prerogatives, duties, and patterns of behavior of the Hellenistic citizen in war and peace would therefore profit from a fresh look. Is it possible, for example, that the role of citizens in newly founded cities was demonstrably different from that in the old poleis?

4. Shaping and reshaping the polis. One way to figure out what a Polis was to a Hellenistic Greek is to observe projects of reform, rejuvenation, and (re)foundation of poleis during this period. Cases like that of Cleomenic Sparta show us the Hellenistic Greeks refashioning the memory of the glorious past in order to turn it into a platform to promote entirely new constitutional and social configurations. It is worth pausing to wonder how common such a phenomenon was, and what it tells us about the Hellenistic polis as a kind of political order.