Expert: Maria - 8/8/2011

Question
What caused the Greeks to form independent city-states.

Answer
Hello,

What caused the ancient Greeks to form independent city-states was chiefly their individualistic character that led them to often quarrel with each other because their personal interests clashed.
So, the first city-states (πόλεις in ancient Greek, transliterated as “póleis”) being originally fortified sites that provided refuge in war or other emergencies, gradually grew with different traditions, economies and political systems, according to their geographic location , the events of their foundation and the features of their population.

For example, Sparta was a military city-state, very different from Athens where art, intellectual concepts and cultural achievements prevailed over a rigid system of rules in military training which was a distinctive feature of Sparta.

Moreover, while the “pólis” (πόλις Greek for “city-state” ) of Athens set up a limited democracy which however was the first in the world, and encouraged the exploration of many areas of knowledge, Sparta's government was headed by two hereditary kings who were leaders in battle and in religion.

Anyway, in spite of such a militarism, the city-state of  Sparta  was always a local power in Peloponnese, i.e. in  the southernmost part of mainland Greece, but not in the rest of Greece, whereas Athens was the  master of the sea, the leading commercial power, the centre of culture and civilization,  in short the dominant power.


To conclude, ancient Greece was never united, but it was always composed by many city-states, i.e. “political systems consisting of an independent city with sovereignty over a fixed surrounding area for which it served as leader of religious, political, economic, and cultural life” with Athens, Sparta, and Thebes among the most important.

All city-states had collective governments, usually a narrow or broad oligarchy, apart from Athens which is generally considered the birthplace of democracy as well as the source of many of the West's intellectual and artistic conceptions.

So, incapable of forming any lasting union or federation, the city-states and then all Greece eventually fell victim first to the Macedonians in 338 BC and later to the Roman Empire in 146 BC.

As for what someone says, i.e. that the city-states formed  because  of many mountains which made transportation and communication difficult or because of the different Greek tribes that were unable to unify their cultures, this is not true simply because in that case we could say the same for Rome whose geographic location and the features of its population were  the same as in ancient Greece.

Instead, Rome with its sense of unity, hard discipline, warlike spirit, military power, strong love for their homeland, organizing skills, legislative abilities, great art of government and  ability in civil / military engineering succeeded in creating one of the most important empire of the antiquity just thanks to the above peculiarities, since such were the qualities that enabled the Romans to conquer and rule for centuries many different peoples in Italy, Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Best regards,
Maria