City-States
The Standard of Ur, from West Asia (2000 BC)
The first known city-states were in Western
Asia, where there seem to have been many of them throughout the Bronze
Age, sometimes unified under a leader like Sargon
of Akkad, and sometimes not. Uruk is one example of these Sumerian city-states.
These city-states seem to have been ruled by kings,
with councils of noblemen for advisors, as we see in the Epic
of Gilgamesh.
Greek theater at Epidauros (200 BC)
Greece, in the Bronze Age, also was organized into many small city-states, which are listed in Homer's Iliad: Mycenae, Sparta, Pylos, Athens, Corinth, Ithaca, and so on. These also had kings.
At the beginning of the Iron Age, many different people
made new city-states all around the Mediterranean Sea: the Etruscans,
the Romans, the Greeks,
and the Phoenicians. Most
of these were ruled by oligarchies or democracies.
But by about 300 BC, most of the
city-states had been swallowed up into big empires.
It was not until the High Middle Ages, about 1000 AD,
that city-states appeared again in northern
Italy and Spain.
