Polis. The Greeks' greatest accomplishment in the area of politics was the polis (self-governing city-state) itself. It so dominated the lives of the Greeks during the Archaic (700- 480 B.C.E.) and Classical (480-323 B.C.E.) periods that Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers of all time, assumed that a human being was by nature a political animal; the polis was for him the natural way for humans to live. There were hundreds of city-states scattered around what is known today as Greece, as well as the western coast of Turkey, the Black Sea, North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and even southern France.

Environment. As early as 2000 B.C.E., the Greeks settled a mountainous country with a jagged coastline in which arable land was largely confined to limited areas capable of sustaining only small settlements. Mountain passes within Greece were largely impassable, except by foot and pack...