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Ancient Greece wasn’t a single country but a series of self-governing city states. In fact our modern word ‘politics’ comes from ‘polis’, the Greek for ‘city state’. Flourishing in the Archaic Age (c.800BC – 300BC), the city states were founded on the principal of citizenship, with different rights and privileges for male citizens, female citizens, their children, foreign residents and slaves. All male citizens, no matter how poor, had political rights.
Three of the most powerful city states were Athens, Sparta and Corinth. Foremost of these was Athens, the birthplace of culture and democracy and famed throughout the ancient world for its beauty.
Sparta, in the Peloponnese area of southern Greece, was Athens’ arch rival. Sparta was a feared military power with the best infantry in the Greek world. No wonder, since all Spartan boys were taken from their mothers at only seven years old, for 13 years of tough military training. The Spartans rejected culture and beauty for a ‘Spartan’ existence of simplicity and endurance.
Corinth built its wealth on manufacturing and sea-borne trade. It was known throughout the ancient world as a centre of luxury and a playground for the rich, who flocked to visit the sacred prostitutes at the Temple of Aphrodite.
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