Although the city state, as a wholly independent entity with subdivisions of purely internal significance, is represented in Greek literature as the normal and indeed the natural political unit, and the basis of the Common Peace treaties of the fourth century was that every city should be independent (cf. passages 439–46), the political organisation of the Greeks was in fact more complex than that. In this chapter we look first at larger units in which individual city states could be combined. There were federal states, where there was a single organisation for a whole region but the separate cities (or non-urban units) within the region are to be regarded as states in their own right. There were religious unions, where states whose independence was undeniable had joint meetings because of their joint responsibility for a cult centre. Sparta and Athens built up leagues of allies, as a means of extending their power beyond the limits of their own state without theoretically doing away with the freedom and independence of the states which were in fact subjected to them.

This leads us to the other alliances and peace treaties made between Greek states, and especially to the Common Peace treaties of the fourth century, which in theory sought to unite all the Greek states not in subjection to any one state but in respect for the freedom of all.