New Directions for the Greek City-State, 750–500 B.C.E.

Greek city-states developed three forms of social and political organization based on citizenship: oligarchy, tyranny, and democracy. Sparta provided Greece’s most famous example of an oligarchy, in which a small number of men dominated policymaking in an assembly of male citizens. For a time Corinth had the best-known tyranny, in which one man seized control of the city-state, ruling it for the advantage of his family and loyal supporters, while acknowledging the citizenship of all—thereby distinguishing a tyrant from a king, who ruled over subjects. Athens developed Greece’s best-known democracy. (See “Contrasting Views: Persians Debate Democracy, Oligarchy, and Monarchy.”)

Greeks in the Archaic Age also created new forms of artistic expression and new ways of thought. In this period they developed innovative ways of using reason to understand the physical world, their relations to it, and their relationships with one another. This intellectual innovation laid the foundation for the gradual emergence of scientific thought and logic in Western civilization.