Competition And The Pan-Hellenic Identity Between The Greek Poleis Essay

Competition And The Pan-Hellenic Identity Between The Greek Poleis - Essay Example And so as people from elsewhere the world over struggled to consolidate governance under single, unified governments, the Greeks adopted liberalized forms of monarchies, oligarchies, democracies and/or tyrannies, with all systems of governance borrowing heavily from each other. With a background of the Bronze Age that had divided Greece into kingdoms, each with a demarcated territory and own kings claiming to rule under divine authority, the Greek’s Dark Ages destruction of the hitherto existing political order and the devolution of power to minor officials almost on a tribal structure heralded some form of freedom that the Greeks themselves weren’t prepared to give up for whatever reason, thus, the development of the city-states, or the poleis, as a fundamental political unit in the ancient Greek world (Budin 58). So important were the city-states and their newly acquired independence that even though each had independent governance structures, they all struck a workin g relationship that could help them ward off the conquest aspirations of other aggressive neighboring empires.  As the Greeks slowly emerged out of the dark ages, they expanded their world, developing unique versions of communal engagements within their spheres of influence, known as the polis. A polis was generally made up of a major city and the surrounding countryside lands as buffer zones. Typically, the polis was layered into two: the high city [acropolis] built on top of a hill, consisting of marble temples in honor of the different gods and goddesses, and the main city located on the flatter surfaces where market places, public buildings, and people’s homes existed. With populations that were much freer than their predecessors, the triumphs and defeats of the city states was fully the responsibility of the city dwellers, who went ahead to create social identities which differentiated each polis from all others.