Essay on "Ancient Greek History"

r />

Besides these rules of laws, the hoplite soldier and the phalanx style of war also distinguishes this civilization from others. Hoplite warfare saw Greek soldiers form large boxes of soldiers, armed with long spears and giant shields. This moveable block was then crashed into other phalanxes and fighting ensued. While appearing arcane and limited by today's standards, this was an effective and preferred way of fighting for these people.

Question 2

The Greeks developed city-states, also known as a polis to define their way of life and to express their culture to a proficient degree. These city-states were often small but retained a real sense of self-determination and independence. The polis was organized and managed by often rich and powerful families that passed down from generation to generation.[footnoteRef:2] Even though this appeared as something less than a democracy there were still democratic ideals installed within the polis. [2: Ibid, 33.]

Aristotle developed the idea of the polis as an effective and fair means of governance[footnoteRef:3]. [3: Leonidas Polopulus, Athens, Greece: A City State That Grew From Optimality in the Golden Era. University of Florida, Viewed 19 April 2013.]

Each polis was distinguished from one another as determined by the constituents of that region. The idea of independence played a significant role in the constitution of these city-states. The all male congress that comprised of the leadership of these city-states provided many features to its people not seen in other cultures up to this point in history. Rules and laws were made public and distributed to the people in this system where many differing tribes and were blended together in geographic regions that unified a certain ideal and approach to managing the areas resources, both human and natural.

Since each city-state had its own way of doing things, some developed ideas that had more of an impact than others. Athens, the most significant of the Greek's polis was considered to be the breeding ground of democracy and democratic ideals.[footnoteRef:4] Athenian democracy emphasized justice and equal opportunity in its constitution and provided juries and courts to those who were expected of breaking laws. Wealth was often ignored as power and each individual voice was important and respected in this political organizations. "every polis was different from another. For example, some poleis had different names for the months of the year. Although there were similarities and differences between the city-states, they all made the effort to preserve their own unique identity. What we call the ancient Greek world was really hundreds of independent city-states or poleis. No one polis was a replica of another. Those who lived within the confines of a… READ MORE