Download Greek City-States - Mrs. Darling`s Digital Classroom.

Geography Shaped Greece
 Mountains divide the
peninsula into isolated
valleys
 Islands lie beyond the
rugged coast
 Early Greeks formed
small independent citystates isolated from
surrounding areas by
mountains or water
Greek City-States
 Ancient Greece was a collection of Greek city-states
 The ancient Greeks referred to themselves as citizens of
their individual city-states
 Each polis (Greek word for city-state) had its own
personality, goals, laws and customs
 The city-states had many things in common:
 All were polytheistic and believed in the same gods
 Spoke the same language
 All Greeks viewed those who were not Greek as barbaroi
(“barbarians;” non-Greeks) and felt that any Greek was
superior to an outsider
Greek City-States (cont’d)
 Ancient Greeks were extremely loyal to their city-state:
Greeks would not say, "I live in Greece"
 They would say, "I am a Spartan” or "I am Athenian"
 The city-states might band together to fight a common foe,
but they also went to war with each other
 Because Greece was not yet one country, there was no
central government in ancient Greece.
 Each city-state had its own form of government:
 Corinth were ruled by kings
 Sparta were ruled by a small group of men
 Athens experimented with new forms of government

Types of Government
 Four Forms of Government:
Monarchy – rule by a king
 Oligarchy – rule by a small group
 Tyranny – rule by a dictator
 Democracy – rule by the citizens, voting in an assembly

The Polis
 Greek word for city-state
 Made up of major city or
town and surrounding
countryside
 Built on two levels:
 Top level: At top of a
hill stood the acropolis
(“high city;” “edge of the
city”); fort
 Bottom level: Main
city developed on flatter
ground with
marketplace, public
buildings, homes, etc.
The Polis (cont’d)
 Only free male adults
were considered to be
citizens:
 Political rights
 Responsibility to
participate in the
government
 Women and foreigners
had no political rights
 Slaves had no political
rights
STOP!
Read “Athens” handout and answer the
questions
Athens
 Athenians thought of themselves as the shining star of the Greek
city-states
 They were intellectuals and famed for their literature, poetry,
drama, theatre, schools, buildings, and government
Athens (cont’d)
 Athens started as a small
village, home to a tribe of
Ionian people
 It grew rapidly until
Athens was one of the two
most powerful city-states
in the ancient Greek world
Athens (cont’d)
 The Greeks believed that
each city-state in ancient
Greece had a god or a
goddess in charge of it, their
special patron:

For Athens, the patron
was Athena, goddess of
wisdom

Therefore, Athenians put
a great deal of emphasis
on education
Athens (cont’d)
 Most Greek city-states were ruled by kings
 The men of Athens experimented with different types of government, such as
monarchy, aristocracy (rule by the upper class), tyranny, and finally
democracy.
 For about 100 years, Athens was a direct democracy, a government in which
people vote to make their own rules and laws
 This is different from a modern day representative democracy, a government
in which people vote for representatives; The representatives make rules and
laws that govern themselves and the people
STOP!
Read “Democracy” handout and answer
the questions
Sparta
 Sparta began as a small village of Dorian people
 The Dorians were warriors, just like the Spartans
 Sparta’s patron was Aries, the god of war
 The government was run by two kings and a small assembly
(oligarchy)
 The members of the assembly were known as ephors
 Spartans spoke Greek, wrote Greek, thought of themselves as Greeks,
but they were very different from the other Greek city-states due to
isolation, and proud of it
Sparta (cont’d)
 There were three classes of
people in Sparta:
 Citizens
 Non-citizens
 Slaves
 The city-state was
surrounded by land farmed
by the slaves or helots
Spartan Classes
 For the first class, 0nly men born in Sparta were
citizens
 Women were not allowed to become citizens,
however, they were allowed to own land and
businesses, which gave them more freedom than
other Greek city-states
 The second class in Sparta was people who came
from other city-states or civilizations
 They could own businesses, but not become
citizens
 The third class was the helots
Spartan Education
 Sparta’s educational system was certainly very different than
Athens’

The goal of Spartan education was to create a strong warrior

Spartans endured unbelievable pain and hardship to become a
superior Spartan soldier and citizen:
 Boys
were taken away from their parents at age seven
 They
lived a harsh and often brutal life in the soldiers
barracks
 Younger
children were beaten by older children to help
make the younger boys tough and strong
 Children
were often whipped in front of groups of other
Spartans, including their parents, but they were not allowed
to cry out in pain
Spartan Education (cont’d)
 As adults, men did not live with their families
They visited, but lived in the barracks
 Women, unlike women in the rest of Greek world, had a great
deal of freedom
 Women were educated to be fighters and strong child bearers
 Some women became warriors
 Many ran businesses
 They were free to move about
 No great works of art came out of Sparta, but the Spartans, both
men and women, were tough and the other Greeks admired them

Exit Ticket:
Imagine you were living in Ancient Greece…
From what you have learned so far, would you
like to live in Athens or Sparta?
Why?