The document discusses the emergence of city-states in ancient Greece following a period of darkness. After Dorian invaders defeated the Mycenaeans around 1200 BCE, Greece entered a 400 year dark age where no writing occurred. Around 800 BCE, small villages began banding together to form trading centers called city-states, and hundreds emerged across Greece. Each city-state had its own identity and government, and citizens were fiercely loyal to their own city over any sense of national identity. The Acropolis in Athens housed important temples and monuments.

1. Emergence of the City-
States
Social Studies for 9th E.G.B. | Teacher: Mauricio Torres

2. Background
 Around 1200 BCE, a new
group, the Dorians, came
down from the north.
 The early tribes who lived on
the Greek peninsula never
really had a chance to beat the
Dorians. The Mycenaeans
were great warriors, but they
fought with stone weapons.
The newcomers, the
Dorians, had iron weapons.
The Mycenaeans did not have
a chance of winning against
such superior equipment.

3. The Dark Ages
 Around 1200 BCE, all written records
stop because the Dorians had won.
All written records stopped for about
the next 400 years. For the next 400
years, Greece fell into a dark age.
 A dark age is a period of time in
history that we usually know very little
about because people did not write
things down. But the Greek dark age
was different. We know quite a lot
about this period of time because of
the storytellers.
 The Dark Ages ended, around 800
BCE, with the development of the
Greek city-states.

4. City-States
 After the Greek dark
ages, exciting things began to
happen in ancient Greece.
Villages started to band
together to form strong trading
centers.
A city-state: can be  These groups of villages that
defined as a central city banded together were called
and its surrounding city-states. Soon, hundreds of
villages, which together
follow the same ways of city-states had formed in
life. ancient Greece.

5. Citizenship
“the link between a person and a state or
an association of states”
 In ancient Greece, you had to “earn” your citizenship.
 In Athens, for example, Only adult male Athenian
citizens who had completed their military training as
ephebes had the right to vote.

6. Citizenship
 The ancient Greeks referred to themselves
as citizens of their individual city-states.
Each city-state (polis) had its own
personality, goals, laws and customs.
Ancient Greeks were very loyal to their city-
state.
 But if you asked an ancient Greek where he
was from, he would not say, "I live in
Greece."
 If he was from Sparta, he would say, "I
am a Spartan."
 If he lived in Athens, he would say, "I am
Athenian."
 And so it went. The city-states might band
together to fight a common foe. They also
went to war with each other. Greece was
not yet one country.

7. What was Greece?
 Because Greece was not yet one country, there was no
central government in ancient Greece.
 It was just one big collection of city states with many things
in common:
 They all believed in the same gods.
 They all spoke the same language.
 Each city-state had its own form of government. Some city-
states, like Corinth, were ruled by kings. Some, like Sparta,
were ruled by a small group of men. Others, like Athens,
experimented with new forms of government.

8. Acropolis & Parthenon
 "The term acropolis means upper city
and many of the city states of ancient
Greece are built around an acropolis
where the inhabitants can go as a
place of refuge in times of invasion. It's
for this reason that the most sacred
buildings are usually on the acropolis.
It's the safest most secure place in
town."
 The Acropolis in Athens is perhaps the
most famous. In Athens, as in other
Greek city-states, the ancient
Athenians built temples and moments
on the Acropolis dedicated to Athena
and other ancient Greek gods.
 The Parthenon was built by Pericles in
the 5th century BCE.

9. Ask Yourselves
 Explain:
 What is citizenship and how do you become one?
 What was the importance of the Acropolis?
 Analyze:
 Why was there a period of time called “Dark Ages”?
 Why can’t we say that Greece was not an Empire or State?
 Infer:
 Why did small independent villages band together to form
city-states?

10. The Dorians
 Find out at home more about the Dorians. Use your
own words to build to paragraphs by answering the
following questions:
 Who were they?
 Where did they come from?
 Why are they so important?
 How did they begin the Dark Ages?
 What is their legacy?
 Print it and bring it to school next class.