The Beginning of Greece
In the beginning of civilization greece was really a lot of "colonies" some were on the mainland and there were a couple that were on Crete, an island near Greece. The first groups of people on Crete were the minoans and the had a monarchy, or a king, who ruled in full power. There were a few natural disasters in the minoan cities and it made it easy for the Myceneans to invade the minoans and therefore the Minoans were destroyed by the Myceneans in 1450BC.The Myceneans also had a king, who was called a wanax. The Mycenean civilization was destroyed around 1200BC, and there are many theories to why it was destroyed, but the true reason is not known.After this Greece went into a dark age, which lasted until around 800BC.In the 800'sBC Greece started to recover and many towns emerged. Each town was ruled by a council of cheiftains or a single man, and each town had a assembly of male citizen's. After a while the power of a single leader was taken over by the power of aristocracy or oligarchies.
The Archiac Age
During this age the city-states expanded and the city-states were ruled by a few aristocrats and the system was called an oligarchy.In some city-states one of the aristocrats would gain the support of the less wealthy citizens and become a tyrant, or an individual leader.The tyrants usually didn't stay in power long and they were followed by oligarchies, but in some states they were followed by a new system of government called democracy, or the rule of the people.
Sparta
The Spartans had a very unusual system of government.There were two kings who had equal power.There were also five men called ephors, they watched the kings and made sure that they followed the rules.Then there was a committee who wrote the laws and were also a form of judges.All the members had to be 60 years or older, and there were 30 men total, whom two were the kings(this does not mean that the kings must be at least 60) they were called the elders.There was also an assembly who voted on the laws that the council wrote by shouting yes or no and whoever shouted the loudest won.Sparta was later ruled by oligarchies.
Athens
The athenians were ruled by nine archons who were aristocrats that managed the everyday life of the city and were elected by aristocrats.Solon was elected archon and made reforms to the city and put them on a path to democracy.After the changes made from cleisthenes the democracy was reached in the 5th century BC.Then in 404BC athens had a tyranny/oligarchy/aristocracy and was ruled by a group of spartans who were called the 30 tyrants, but their rule was pushed away by the athenians.The people once again had a democracy, until greece was conquered by macedon and then again by rome, in which case they were controlled by a single leader and had a tyranny.
