This study does not aspire to explore and enumerate the many and varied personifications of the city or the related "bodily" metaphors that one may encounter in ancient Greek literature. After all, from a certain point onward, listing similar examples would lack meaning.

What primarily interests us is to investigate the origins of the "bodily" metaphor of the city (and related concepts), to collect and mainly interpret the initial cases of the relevant metaphors and personifications.

Consequently, the research will be limited to Homer, Hesiod, and Solon because here, at the beginnings of Greek and European literature, the idea of the living city (or state) appears for the first time and here, after this metaphor passes through various stages, it will be completed and solidified into a full poetic and rhetorical form.

Of course, as the reader can easily ascertain, there are numerous references to later authors in order to substantiate our positions. However, where the work attempts to exhaust its subject is with the three aforementioned poets.

[Excerpt from the text of the preface]