Power In Ancient Greece

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The Power Within: Defining Power in Ancient Greece Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period to the beginning of the Roman conquest. Ancient Greece had developed many philosophies, art, and politics that had spread worldwide. “Ancient Greece was one of the richest civilizations the world has ever seen. Its culture spread as far west as North Africa, Spain, and as far east as India,” (Ross 4). Included in Ancient Greece is the period of Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC. When many poleis had emerged, different cultures and identities had taken form. Characteristics from different city-states shape the people and their morals. Also, the city-states’ environment had determined how and where each polis had dominated power. No individual source of power had ever dominated Greece and come to centralize it. There were two city states, Athens and Sparta, that had dominated greater power in Greece, but both places did not have the same source of power, mainly because their locations had limited them to dominate complete supremacy. Athens had access to the seas and therefore had dominated sea fare with the strongest military fleet while Sparta had become the dominant military land-power, since they had been a militaristic society. Other than geographical power, political power also differentiated between the polis. Each had a very strong sense of individualism, and even when they had bonded for a short period of time, such as during the Persian invasion, they had quickly divided once again. This was because each city-state had their own set of laws and how to be ruled, and they did not find a way to unify with each other. The Ancient Greeks did have other forms of unifications, such as the same religion, language and basic culture, but none of these factors

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