Greed In Ancient Greece

In the famous words of one Allan Poe E., ‘the glory that was once Greece’ did not live for as long many would have expected it to. In fact, mighty Greece only survived for a short while and remained confined to a geographically minute area. As of the 5th Century BC, mighty Greece was primarily Athens. The state as a whole was Attica but Athens was its driving force at the time. To many, Athens was the “eye” of Greece based on it being a rich artistic hub and highly democratic (Brody et al., 2009). It was by far the main city-state. City-states were basically geographically-based political units. Other city states at the time included Sparta, Thessalonica, Corinth and Thebes to name just but a few. Each city-state looked for a means of accumulating wealth and power in a bid to rise over the rest. Athens succeeded the most in this particularly after its dominance during the Battle of Salamis, where not only did it defeat the Persians but also …show more content…
At its time of dominance, Athens only looked for more territories to conquer so as to expand its borders as well as accumulate as much wealth as it could. This in itself shows a lack of leadership skills among the Athens’ elite. Rather than coming up with a means of bringing all city-states together to form one solid Greece that can stand against all potential external threats, Athens as a leading state proved to be highly self-centered.
The case was similar for Sparta. Though not as strong and wealthy as Athens, this state was highly influential and had a number of subject city-states under it. Sparta experienced political stability. Its constitution had a number of oligarchic as well as democratic elements. However, the city-state was highly totalitarian. It was against their constitution to have visitors from abroad or visit foreigners abroad. They were known to be highly