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Asty ( gr, ἄστυ; ) is an ancient Greek word denoting the physical space of a city or town, especially as opposed to the political concept of a '' polis'', which encompassed the entire territory and citizen body of a city-state. In
Classical Athens The city of Athens ( grc, Ἀθῆναι, ''Athênai'' .tʰɛ̂ː.nai̯ Modern Greek: Αθήναι, ''Athine'' or, more commonly and in singular, Αθήνα, ''Athina'' .'θi.na during the classical period of ancient Greece (480–323 BC) wa ...
, the term was used specifically for the urban ''
demoi In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and ea ...
'' of the
Attica Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Se ...
, as opposed to the inland (''
mesogeia The Mesogeia or Mesogaia ( el, τα Μεσόγεια, η Μεσόγαια/Μεσογαία, "Midlands") is a geographical region of Attica in Greece. History The term designates since antiquity the inland portion of the Attic peninsula. The term a ...
'') and coastal ('' paralia'') ''demoi'' that comprised each of the ten
Attic tribes ''Phyle'' ( gr, φυλή, phulē, "tribe, clan"; pl. ''phylai'', φυλαί; derived from ancient Greek φύεσθαι "to descend, to originate") is an ancient Greek term for tribe or clan. Members of the same ''phyle'' were known as ''symphylet ...
. Despite their name, most of the ''demoi'' of the ''asty'' were rural in character. Comprising about 42 of the 139 ''demoi'' of the Athenian state, they provided about 130 ''bouleutai'' in the 500-strong '' boule''. However, due to their proximity to the city of Athens, they were over-represented in the institutions of the Athenian democracy; in surviving records, the names of the ''bouleutai'' from the ''asty'' are mentioned 1.5 to 2 times as often as those from the rest of Attica.


References

{{reflist Ancient Attica Greek words and phrases