Data from the "POLIS at Stanford University" website (the Greek Polis and Classical People databases)

The Greek Polis and Classical People databases on which this site is based had their origins in 2005/6, when Josiah Ober (now Professor of Political Science and Classics at Stanford, then a Professor of Classics at Princeton and a fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavior Sciences in Palo Alto) in conjunction with David Teegarden (now a Professor of Classics at University of Buffalo, then a graduate student at Princeton), used the indexes of the Hansen/Nielsen Inventory of Archaic and Classical Greek City-States (Oxford 2005) to create a spreadsheet for about 200 poleis whose size and political history were known. That data was employed (and is discussed in detail) in Ober’s book Democracy and Knowledge (Princeton 2008).

After Ober moved to Stanford in 2006, Tim Johnson (now a Professor at Willamette University, then a graduate student at Stanford) expanded the database to include all 1035 poleis in the Inventory and a number of other variables, taken from the Inventory indices. That data set has been used and adapted by various scholars, including Rob Fleck and Andy Hansen (Economics Department Clemson University). Meanwhile, Ober began a related project with Bailey McRae (then an undergraduate at Stanford), in which entries of persons listed in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd Edition) were entered into a spreadsheet based on places of birth and known employment. That dataset was subsequently revised and cleaned by a team led by Mark Pyzyk (a graduate student at Stanford).

In 2012/13 Johnson’s dataset was revised and cleaned by Ober, with the help of expert advice from Emily Mackil (UC-Berkeley), Matt Simonton (Arizona State University), David Teegarden, and Peter van Alfen (American Numismatic Society). Meanwhile, Maya Krishnan (an undergraduate student at Stanford) built the web-based site that integrates the two datasets, added location information for each polis in the Polis dataset and a number of other places in the Classical world (location information was drawn primarily from the Pleiades Project, revised and cleaned by Ober). Emin Topolavic also contributed to the creation of the site. The site began beta-testing in the autumn of 2013. The current version went live in March 2014.

This project was supported by staff-time and substantial grants from Stanford University and from the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences, Princeton University, the University of Buffalo, and the American Numismatic Society. It is hosted by the Stanford University Library. Each of the people mentioned above was instrumental in the development of the project. We owe special thanks to Mogens H. Hansen and the Copenhagen Polis Center, without whose labor in creating the Inventory, this project would never have been possible.