City-state in the context of "Ancient Carthage"

Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Sea of Crete and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean basin, spanning thousands of islands and nine traditional geographic regions. It has a population of over 10 million. Athens is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki, Patras and Heraclion.

Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilisation and the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, theatre, and the Olympic Games. The Ancient Greeks were organised into independent city-states, or poleis (singular polis), that spanned the Mediterranean and Black seas. Philip II of Macedon united most of present-day Greece in the fourth century BC, with his son Alexander the Great conquering much of the known ancient world from the Near East to northwestern India. The subsequent Hellenistic period saw the height of Greek culture and influence in antiquity. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC and became an integral part of the Roman Empire and its continuation, the Byzantine Empire, where Greek culture and language were dominant. The Greek Orthodox Church, which emerged in the first century AD, helped shape modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox world.

Classical Athens, known contemporaneously simply as Athens (Ancient Greek: Ἀθῆναι, Athênai [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯]; Modern Greek: Αθήναι, Athine [aˈθine]), was the major urban centre of the notable polis (city-state) of the same name during the classical period (480–323 BC) of ancient Greece, located in Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Isagoras. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions, it remained in place for 180 years, until 322 BC (amid the aftermath of the Lamian War). The peak of Athenian hegemony was achieved during the Age of Pericles in the 440s and 430s BC.

In the classical period, Athens was a centre for the arts, learning, and philosophy, and it was the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Aristophanes, Sophocles, and many other prominent philosophers, writers, and politicians of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and as the birthplace of democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then-known European continent.

Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, and focusing on supporting liberty, equality, and security. Although Athens is the most familiar of the democratic city-states in ancient Greece, it was not the only one, nor was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar democratic constitutions before Athens. By the late 4th century BC, as many as half of the over one thousand existing Greek cities might have been democracies. Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not a metic, woman or slave). Adult male citizens probably constituted no more than 30 percent of the total adult population.

Solon (in 594 BC), Cleisthenes (in 508–07 BC), and Ephialtes (in 462 BC) contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Cleisthenes broke up the unlimited power of the nobility by organizing citizens into ten groups based on where they lived, rather than on their wealth. The longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles. After his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolutions in 411 and 404 BC, towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides; the most detailed accounts of the system are of this fourth-century modification, rather than the Periclean system. Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but how close they were to the original forms of democracy is debated.

Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the state was known as Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων, Lakedaímōn), while "Sparta" referred to its capital, a group of villages in the valley of the Evrotas River in Laconia, in southeastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become one of the major military powers in Greece, a status it retained until 371 BC.

Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), from which it emerged victorious after the Battle of Aegospotami. Thebes' victory over Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended Spartan hegemony and freed Messenia from Spartan rule; the loss of the slave labor this region provided sent the city into terminal decline as a military power, though it retained its independence until its forcible integration into the Achaean League in 192 BC. The city recovered some autonomy after the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC and became a tourist destination during the Roman era, restoring some measure of prosperity. However, Sparta was sacked in 396 AD by the Visigothic king Alaric, and underwent a long period of decline into the medieval period, when much of its population relocated to Mystras. Modern Sparta is a provincial town and the seat of the Laconia regional administration.

Hegemony (/hɛˈdʒɛməni/ , UK also /hɪˈɡɛməni/, US also /ˈhɛdʒəmoʊni/) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states, either regional or global.

In Ancient Greece (ca. 8th BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the hegemon city-state over other city-states. In the 19th century, hegemony denoted the "social or cultural predominance or ascendancy; predominance by one group within a society or milieu" and "a group or regime which exerts undue influence within a society".

A microstate or ministate is a sovereign state having a very small population or land area, usually both. However, the meanings of "state" and "very small" are not well-defined in international law. Some recent attempts to define microstates have focused on identifying qualitative features that are linked to their size and population, such as partial delegation of their sovereignty to larger states, such as for international defense.

Commonly accepted examples of microstates include five historic European microstates: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City. Malta and Luxembourg are sometimes included in that list but are generally considered too populous to be genuine microstates. Other examples are small, isolated island states in the Pacific Ocean: Nauru, Palau, Niue, Cook Islands and Tuvalu. Some small Caribbean countries such as Saint Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines may be considered microstates by some but are often not included due to them being grouped together as small island countries. Singapore and Bahrain are sometimes considered microstates but some argue are too populous, self reliant or powerful to be considered true microstates and their island status can play an important factor too.The smallest political entity recognized as a sovereign state is Vatican City, with fewer than 1,000 residents and an area of only 49 hectares (120 acres). Some microstates – such as Singapore, Monaco and Vatican City – are city-states consisting of a single municipality.

37°54′19″N 22°52′49″E / 37.9053455°N 22.8801924°E / 37.9053455; 22.8801924

Corinth (/ˈkɒrɪnθ/ KORR-inth; Ancient Greek: Κόρινθος Kórinthos; Doric Greek: Ϙόρινθος Qórinthos; Latin: Corinthus) was a city-state (polis) on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnese peninsula to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta. The modern city of Corinth is located approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northeast of the ancient ruins. Since 1896, systematic archaeological investigations of the Corinth Excavations by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens have revealed large parts of the ancient city, and recent excavations conducted by the Greek Ministry of Culture have brought to light important new facets of antiquity.

The founding of Rome was a prehistoric event or process later greatly embellished by Roman historians and poets. Archaeological evidence indicates that Rome developed from the gradual union of several hilltop villages during the Final Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Prehistoric habitation of the Italian Peninsula occurred by 48,000 years ago, with the area of Rome being settled by around 1600 BC. Some evidence on the Capitoline Hill possibly dates as early as c. 1700 BC and the nearby valley that later housed the Roman Forum had a developed necropolis by at least 1000 BC. The combination of the hilltop settlements into a single polity by the later 8th century BC was probably influenced by the trend for city-state formation emerging from ancient Greece.

Roman myth held that their city was founded by Romulus, son of the war god Mars and the Vestal virgin Rhea Silvia, fallen princess of Alba Longa and descendant of Aeneas of Troy. Exposed on the Tiber river, Romulus and his twin Remus were suckled by a she-wolf at the Lupercal before being raised by the shepherd Faustulus, taking revenge on their usurping great-uncle Amulius, and restoring Alba Longa to their grandfather Numitor. The brothers then decided to establish a new town but quarrelled over some details, ending with Remus's murder and the establishment of Rome on the Palatine Hill. The year of the supposed founding was variously computed by ancient historians, but the two dates seeming to be officially sanctioned were the Varronian chronology's 753 BC (used by Claudius's Secular Games and Hadrian's Romaea) and the adjacent year of 752 BC (used by the Fasti and the Secular Games of Antoninus Pius and Philip I). Despite known errors in Varro's calculations, it is the 753 BC date that continues to form the basis for most modern calculations of the AUC calendar era.

The Athenian coup of 411 BC was the result of a revolution that took place during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The coup overthrew the democratic government of ancient Athens and replaced it with a short-lived oligarchy known as the Four Hundred.

In the wake of the financial crisis caused by the failed Sicilian Expedition of the Athenian military in 413 BC, some high-status Athenian men, who had disliked the broad-based democracy of the city-state for a long time, sought to establish an oligarchy of the elite. They believed that they could manage foreign, fiscal, and war policies better than the existing government.