magistracies)16 and thus allowed it to cultivate local patrons as well as those in Rome. The town council (dēmos) collaborated with the politarchs, who convened town council meetings to keep the peace and make major decisions. We learn of some of the functions of this body in Greek culture from inscriptions. We have one honorific decree in which a dēmos (in this case on Samos in the fourth century B.C.) votes to honor two persons “upon hearing the euaggelia (‘good news’).”17 The status of a free
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