[dalke]

There was no ancient Greece nation. I suspect you mean it as a placeholder for the Hellenic era, or perhaps the kingdom Macedonia.

But as to the issue, I recently listened to a lecture about the process of deciding what the European nations would be after the First World War. The different nations had wildly different ideas of how to decide what was their national territory and people. The people of Alsace speak German, but the French said (and I paraphrase) "look at their love of wine and joie de vivre - they are French, but were forced to speak German".

Or of a farmer in central Europe, when asked "what are you?" answered "farmer", and then "where are you from?" brought the name of the local town. When asked more insistently, he said "Catholic". The concept of nation made no sense to him.

The concept of nationhood is quite complicated. Is Scotland a nation? India during the British Empire? It's more complicated than I want to get into. But in the context of the tgcordell comment, which tries to connect species imperatives with national competition, I mean to point out that the concept of 'nation' is too new to really have an evolutionary component. (And if it does, it's built on cooperation.)

I don't deny that proxy conflict can be healthy, though proxy conflict in Korea wasn't all that healthy for those involved. Is it possible to determine the healthy conflict beforehand, or is it something that's mostly done after the fact?

[anigbrowl]

placeholder for the Hellenic era

Yes.

I agree with your general points, but while many people would certainly have been unaware of or indifferent to a national concept I think people in cities on major trade routes or in power centers like Rome would certainly have been aware of other places and would have been broadly aware of their own significance (although this awareness was doubtless concentrated among a social, military and business elite).