A History of Ancient Greece City-states

A History of Ancient Greek City-States

By Mr Ghaz, January 8, 2011

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A History of Ancient Greek City-States

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Ancient Greece was fragmented into several hundred autonomous, and often warring, city-states. This division arose in part from the landscape since much of the mainland is riven by mountains the population was dispersed over this terrain and throughout the 100 or more inhabited island.

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Two main forms of political organization evolved within this fragmented land, the ethnos (people) and the polis (city-state). And ethnos consisted of a population scattered over an extensive territory in villages loosely bound by political affiliations – this type of tribal organization was common in northern and western Greece (for example, the Thessalians, Epirots, and Aetolians) and in parts of the Peloponnese (Arcadians, Achaeans). A polis was an autonomous political community of people living in a territory that included both a rural area with villages and ( usually) a more built-up urban center called an astu (town). The conventional translation of polis as “city-state” is more abstract than the Greek term., which refers as much to the people as to the place – the Greeks always spoke of “the Corinthians” or “the Thebans,” rather than “Corinth” or “Thebes.” The majority of poleis were quite small, with citizen populations in the hundreds rather than the thousands and territories of less than 40 square miles (100sq km): the vast territories of Athens (1,000 square miles; 2,600sq km) and Sparta (more than 2,000 square miles; 5,200 sq km) were exceptional.

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