Debates on the concept of synoecism (or synoikism) provide one illustration of this characteristic imaginary.
(1) Isin himself (2002, pages 5-22) also discusses the concept of synoecism at length.
Robert Parker, in "Subjection,
Synoecism and Religious Life," places the role of cults and religion in precisely this world of persistent renegotiations of ethnic identities.
(1) For the Athenians the Prytaneion, or town hall, the office of the city's chief official, symbolized the foundation of Athens as a city-state, its construction forming an integral part of Theseus's legendary synoecism of Attica (Thuc.
According to Thucydides, before the synoecism of Theseus, "the polis was in essence the Acropolis and the part below it facing rather to the south." (161) Thucydides can now be understood to have referred to the city's southeastern quarter, with "below the Acropolis" meaning below the "front" or east of the Acropolis and "rather to the south" meaning the southeast.
It is important to decide whether the
synoecism of New Pleuron occurred from a position of strength or weakness.
Some historians have associated this lowland plain with the territory of Strabo's Larisa (9.5.19), a city that was abandoned at an unknown date in conjunction with the
synoecism of the city of ancient Hierapytna (modern Ierapetra) on the south coast.