Altogether there were over 1500 city-states in the Greek world, but some of these would barely qualify as towns in modern terms. Even Athens, by far the largest of all city-states, only contained ...

A final reason behind the development of city-states was the Greek aristocracy, who acted to prevent any permanent monarchies from forming. They defended the political independence of their cities ...

Each city-state ruled itself. They had their own governments, laws and army. Someone living in Sparta would call themselves Spartan first, and Greek second. Famously, the city-states didn’t get ...