The formation of City-States

These are all names of regions of Greece, during the Archaic and Classical Eras. Sparta was the most powerful city-state throughout much of Greek history, with the notable exception of the Classical Era (when Athens was dominant). Sparta is part of the region of southwestern Greece called Laconia.

The Bacchiads were a ruling family that controlled the oligarchy of Corinth during the Archaic era. They ruled during the eighth and seventh centuries and presided over a prolonged period of growth and prosperity in Corinth. Corinth, perfectly situated to take advantage of Mediterranean trade, became the wealthiest city-state in Greece and founded several overseas colonies. Nonetheless, the brutal rule of the Bacchiads encouraged the rise of the tyrant and populist Cypselus to power.

The ancient Greeks, be they from Sparta, Athens, Thebes, or Ionia, saw themselves as part of one larger community — the community of Greek people. Although the city-states they lived in were geographically isolated from one another, the Greeks still felt a shared heritage and identity. This is primarily because they all spoke (discounting regional variations) the same language and practiced the same religion.

All of these ancient city-states were controlled by the Dorian Greeks, except Thebes, which was controlled by the Aeolic Greeks. The ancient Greeks were subdivided into several distinct ethnicities, including the Dorians, the Ionians, the Aeolics, and the Achaeans.

Greece is an extremely mountainous land. The Greek people might have lived in relative close proximity to one another, but their city-states and small communities were isolated from each other by immense geographical barriers. These mountains, present throughout mainland Greece, kept city-states distinct from one another and led to the development of unique city-state cultures. These geographic barriers also discouraged the formation of a single Greek Empire and allowed city-states to grow strong and independent.

Around 750 BCE, the Dark Ages were drawing to an end in Greece and city-states were beginning to coalesce and organize themselves as distinct polities.

During the formation of Greek city-state identity, many of them embraced an individual God as the patron God of their city. Most famously, Athens embraced Athena as their patron. Interestingly, Athena was also the patron God of Athens’ great classical era rival, Sparta.

The Spartans tended to credit one man with the founding of their city and with the creation of their legal and social codes. That man was Lycurgus, and he probably lived in the ninth or tenth century BCE. Whether he actually founded the city of Sparta seems unlikely, but it is probable that a single individual did provide the foundation for Sparta’s social code of behavior sometime in the ninth century.

Ephesus and Miletus are two of the more important city-states located in Ionia. Ionia is the name usually given to the region of coastal Anatolia that was inhabited by Greek speaking people during the Archaic Era. The Ionians made notable contributions to the development of philosophy, poetry, and mathematics.

The four main ethnic identities in ancient Greece were the Ionians, the Dorians, the Aeolians, and the Achaeans. Historians disagree strongly over how distinct these ethnic identities were and how important they were in they way Greeks saw themselves - some historians believe that ethnic tensions were the primary reason why the Peloponnesian War broke out.