Ancient Greece Research Paper

Greece was the birthplace of Western Civilization because its culture became the embodiment for the other western civilizations. The tale of the ancient Greek civilization showed an immense painful history of foreign supremacy. But their civilization was built on solid foundation and led by powerful leaders that created values, norms and customs that are still being practiced and observed by many modern societies. This is the reason why the Greek civilization continued to flourish, remembered, celebrated throughout the entire world. One of the factors that can be considered as an important part of the Greek civilization development is the geography. The geography of Greece had a very overwhelming impact on every aspect like its political, cultural,
Ancient Greece consisted of hundreds of small islands and mainland regions that covered across the Aegean, Mediterranean and Ionian seas. As the climate during the ancient times was arid and difficult to work with, whereas the coastal climate was mild, many communities formed and shaped the coastal regions. Due to Greece's land being rocky, most of the cities were scattered and became provincial. Ancient Greece can be found at the tip of Balcan peninsula in Southwestern Europe. It is basically surrounded by three seas: in the south is the Mediterranean Sea; Ionian Sea in the west; and the Aegean Sea in the east. The Corint Gulf is the connection between the separate region of the Peloponnesus, which is the southern tip of Greece, and Africa. The Greek mainland is a peninsula which extends into the Mediterranean Sea. The core of ancient Greece is consisted of mountainous and rocky lands. The Pindus Mountain, runs down the Middle of the Balkan Peninsula and is considered as the dominant range. Greece is a tactical location for empire building because it served as the crossroads between three different locations of the world, namely, Africa, Asia and
Greece is a mountainous society. Almost 70 to 80 percent of Greece is covered and dominated with mountains. The advantage of the mountains is that they contributed to the preservation of the purity of Greek culture. Because of the mountains, inhabitants of ancient Greek civilization were secluded to their area resulting to rare interactions with other cultures. One bad effect of this geographical feature is that it served as a natural barrier which acted like walls separating different communities. It hindered communication among communities and slowed down the introduction of new ideas and technology. It also obstructed the development of a unified system of government. The Greeks ingenious solution to this problem is to developed the polis or the city-state. The creation of the city-states indicates the start of Greek's classical age because the emergence of the polis started the numerous great achievements of the civilization. It also proved that democratic government works better in smaller states. Every polis has its own government and laws and it helped promote people's participation in political affairs. It also provided protection and security to the inhabitants. Because states are smaller, the demands and needs of the people were easily reflected in the laws and policies that the government established. Another disadvantage of this geographical feature is that only few lands were dedicated to farming. Few small