Why couldn't the ancient Greeks establish a nation?

As the Greek city-states co-existed, China was also in a period of near-war for hegemony among the princes.

Of the hundreds of city-states in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta were always the most powerful. The naval power of Athens was much stronger than that of the other city-states, while Sparta prevailed with a large army. Although these two city-states were extremely powerful, they were still unable to unify the Greek peninsula.

Why didn't Athens and Sparta wipe out other countries and unify the Greek peninsula?

During the development of human civilization, many civilizations originating from the great rivers - river valley civilization have been formed. However, the ancient Greek civilization was not like the great civilizations, it belonged to the marine civilization.

The topography of the Greek peninsula is extremely complicated with 80% hills, plains only 20%, and plains land in general is barren, not conducive to agricultural development. Such a natural environment is not conducive to the formation of civilization.

However, the three-sided Greek peninsula is surrounded by the sea and has many islands in the sea, which is convenient for the development of sea transportation, the ancient Greeks based on advanced maritime technology considered the Mediterranean Hai is their main operating position. They crossed the Mediterranean by boat south to ancient Egypt, where the first human civilization was born, and across the Mediterranean east to the Babylonian sphere of influence.

The ancient Greeks absorbed the fruits of two great civilizations through maritime trade and exchange. Around the 20th century BC, the ancient Greek civilization was born on the Mediterranean island of Crete.

Numerous mountain ranges and rivers cut the Greek peninsula into relatively closed plains. The fragmented terrain makes transportation on the peninsula very inconvenient and not conducive to people's communication, while the numerous islands in the Mediterranean are conducive to the development of foreign trade.

Colony of Ancient Greece.

Influenced by this special natural condition, hundreds of city-states large and small appeared on the Greek peninsula in the 8th century BC. These city-states are usually concentrated in one town and are surrounded by several rural areas, and are small in size. Most city states have an area of ​​50-100 square kilometers.

City states vary in size and population. Most states have only a few thousand people. In these small (city-states) countries, there are two giants, Athens and Sparta. Athens covers more than 2,000 square kilometers, and Sparta covers 8,400 square kilometers, and both have populations in the hundreds of thousands.

Ancient Greek city-states often used iron implements in agriculture, and the use of iron tools increased food production. The economic model of small farmers is self-sufficient to meet the needs of the city - the country "small country, few people".

Furthermore, through reforms, the city-states granted the citizens of the city certain rights, such as the right to vote and the right to self-suffrage for the citizens of Athens. In this way, citizens' recognition of the city-state is increased, and individual citizens are closely linked to the city-state.

The city-states gave the citizens of the city certain rights.

In the eyes of the ancient Greeks, they considered blood relations extremely important, each Greek city-state had its own patron god, such as Athens, the goddess Athena.

Not only do countries have different beliefs, but their currencies and units of measure are also inconsistent. Coupled with the fact that many city-states were interested in foreign trade, there was little exchange between the city-states. Although the different city-states spoke the same language, they did not form a consensus among "people of the same race".

Among the hundreds of city-states in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta were always in absolute dominance. Although Athens was mountainous and had a small land area, its location near the Aegean Sea to the south and east was favorable for maritime trade. To maintain foreign trade, Athens greatly developed its navy, which was much stronger than the other city-states.

The development of a commodity economy and foreign trade made the Athenians relatively prosperous. Athens' democratic system also fostered the emergence of a spirit of openness and freedom, which made the Athens relatively prosperous. Athens' culture flourished and became the center of cultural exchange in ancient Greece.

However, the strength of the navy could not offset the limitations brought about by economic policies. The emphasis on foreign trade also severed economic ties with other cities on the peninsula. This defect made it difficult for Athens to unify the city-states. In addition, Athens' army was not strong enough and was not able to unify the peninsula.

Athens' army was not strong enough and was not able to unify the peninsula.

The situation in Sparta was in contrast to the situation in Athens. Sparta is located at the southernmost point of the peninsula, although near the sea, Sparta focuses more on building an army. Spartan boys undergo rigorous military training from an early age, and young men officially become soldiers at the age of 20. With rigorous military training, Sparta formed a powerful army that dominated southern Greece for many years.

Sparta also formed a military alliance in 546 BC but it was still somewhat loose and although Sparta was one of the largest and most populous of all the city-states, it was not. ambition to unify the Greek peninsula.

In the alliance, although Sparta was able to convene the meeting of all member states and act as commander-in-chief of allied forces during the war, the alliance states had internal problems. ministries are independent and have equal voting power on matters of peace and war concerning the entire alliance. And they always follow the principle that the minority obeys the majority. Due to the long-standing military focus, Sparta's culture, education and economy are relatively backward, and it is difficult to influence other city-states. The inherent defects of Athens and Sparta, along with the dissension of the city-states, made the road to ancient Greece unification extremely difficult.

The ancient Greeks worshiped city-state freedom and opposed imperial ideology

The ancient Greeks worshiped city-state freedom and opposed imperial ideology. In the eyes of citizens of different states, the independence of the city comes first. The fervor for the independence and freedom of the city-states caused people in all the states to strongly hate outsiders, and even consider those outside the city-states as enemies.

So, even though all the states are ethnically and linguistically similar, they cannot become a unified country.

Possibly because they lived in peacetime, Athens and Sparta failed to realize that the many city-states were actually the same nation and had no sense of Greek unity; however, when the alien Persians invaded, they failed to arouse the ancient Greeks' call for unity.

When the city-state system of Greece was thriving, a huge empire - Persia arose in its east. The Persians founded the Persian dynasty in 550 BC, and successively waged wars against the Greek city-states. In 490 BC, Darius I of Persia sent an army to attack the Greek city-states again.

The Persians founded the Persian dynasty in 550 BC

The Persian soldiers divided into two groups, crossed the Turkish Strait to conquer Thrace and Macedonia from north to south; and an attack to the west, conquering the Ionian region (now the southwest coast of Turkey).

The Greek city-states invaded by Persia eventually realized that the city-states that spoke the same language were actually of the same race, and that the Persians were the foreigners. So they turned to Athens and Sparta for help.

Road map for the Persian invasion.

Sparta believed that the invading Persian position did not threaten her. Moreover, Sparta was trying to find a way to make Athens and Persia both lose and reap the benefits of them, so they did not participate in this war.

Athens sent troops to aid the invaded nations. In 490 BC, the Persians and Athenians met at the Plains of Marathon, eventually Athens annihilated 6,400 Persians at the cost of 192 deaths. After the war, Persia chose to withdraw in the face of domestic unrest. Athens' victory in this battle greatly increased their prestige and political influence with the city-states.

Persia temporarily withdrew its troops but still did not give up its intention to invade Greece, 10 years later, it sent another 300,000 troops and 1,000 warships to invade. During this war, the Persian army was stronger than ever, and the Greek states felt severely threatened.

To maintain the independence and freedom of the city-state, Athens and Sparta united to form an anti-Persian alliance. The two great powers merged their advantages, navy and army, and became the mainstay of resistance to Persia. In the battle at Thermopylae Pass, 300 Spartans exchanged their lives for nearly 20,000 casualties in Persia.

The Athens Navy took advantage of the flexibility of the warships to inflict heavy damage on the Persian Navy, and most of the ships of the Persian Navy were destroyed. As a result, Persia was forced to withdraw its troops from the Greek peninsula. The Greek city-states won the Second Greco-Persian War.

The Greco-Persian War was a perfect example of cooperation between Athens and Sparta, and it was also a period of unprecedented cooperation between the Greek city-states. Although the war made the Greek nations realize that they were of the same race, the city-states' demands for freedom and independence were much higher than their understanding of unity.

Therefore, after winning against the pressure of foreign enemies, the states still adhered to the principle of 'city-states first'. Because of their independence and sovereignty, they resolutely resisted hegemonism. imperialism and ideology, eventually leading to internal struggle.

The power and exploitation of Athens caused discontent among other cities.

The Greek city-states only repelled the Persian invasion, but did not completely eliminate the Persian threat. To continue fighting Persia, in 478 BC, more than 150 city-states north of the Greek peninsula formed the Delian League.

Thanks to its strong power, Athens forced the city-states that joined the alliance to become its vassals. Athens moved the coffers of the alliance back to its own country, severely suppressed the cities that had announced their withdrawal from the union, and demanded that the Allies use Athens' currency, etc., the Delian League became its own property. Athens, and the "Athenian Empire" was initially formed.

The power and exploitation of Athens caused discontent among other cities. The dispute between the imperialist ideology of Athens and the city-state ideology led by Sparta eventually developed into a melee between the Greek city-states.

450 years ago, the city-state led by Athens and Sparta had a conflict that lasted 6 years, this war is known as the "Peloponnesian War" in history. Because neither side can eliminated the other, and eventually the two sides held a peace negotiation.

However, this good period did not last long, and war broke out again between Athens and Sparta in 431 BC. At the beginning of the war, Athens and its allies used their naval superiority to attack Sparta, while Sparta and its allies used the superiority of their land armies against them. The advantages and disadvantages of both sides are clear, so, after many years of inconclusive war, the war once again reached a stalemate.

In 412 BC, Persia officially intervened in the war, Persia actively supported Sparta's naval development. The Spartan Navy defeated the Athenian Navy in 405 BC at the Helles Strait. Of the 170 ships of the Athenian Navy that took part, only nine remained intact.

Persia actively supported Sparta's naval development.

In 404 BC, Athens was defeated and forced to dissolve the Delian League. Athens and its allied city-states accepted Sparta's leadership, and Sparta became hegemonic over all of Greece.

After the war, the Spartans collected tribute from the cities of the Delian League and established a new political regime to replace democracy. Sparta's policy again led to constant wars in Greece and severely weakened the power of the Greek city-state.

In the event that Greece was constantly in conflict and its power was weakened, Persia, which profited from these wars, acted as a mediator and arbiter. In 387 BC, the city-states signed an agreement at the request of Persia. The agreement not only ensured that all Greek cities enjoyed autonomy, but also provided that once a city-state was at war, Persia could intervene.

All the Greek states accepted the arbitration of Persia. This reconciliation claimed that city-state standardism had defeated the idea of ​​imperial unity, and that Athens and Sparta had completely withdrawn from the task of uniting Greece.

In the end, the heavy responsibility of the unification of Greece fell on the shoulders of the Macedonians in the north. The Macedonians had long been on the fringes of Greek culture, economically and culturally relatively backward, and were referred to by the Greeks as "barbarians". Macedonia took advantage of the decline of city-states such as Athens and Sparta to learn more advanced Greek culture and begin the process of "Hellenization".

Under the leadership of Alexander the Great, after Macedonia unified Greece in 337 BC, Alexander continued to expand abroad, after 10 years of war, he established a huge empire spanning 3 continents of Asia, Europe and Africa.