The period from approximately 1100 to 800 BCE is known as the Greek Dark Ages. While this period of Greek civilization pales in comparison to later Greek civilizations, it was responsible for the rise of larger political groups that grew out of the tribal and clan groups of the Dark Ages. At the same time trade began to flourish in Greek society. Greek marketplaces, villages and communities began to form into larger groups for purposes of defense from enemies. Fortifications for common use were erected and political groups began to develop that whose authority was centralized and ruled over a single or specific city. These city-states or polis were a political innovation of the Greeks, one whose structures and forms of rule would greatly influence the European world. In The Rise of the West, author William H. McNeill (1995) calls the polis “the master institution of Greek civilization” (193).
The city-state was not a large enterprise. Most of them were small and this permitted the Greeks to experiment with a variety of political forms. From democracy to monarchy, this period of experimentation provided later civilizations with most of their political structures. The first Greek city-states operated as monarchies. These monarchies were ruled by a king based on hereditary. During the 700s, however, many Greeks began to resent rule by Kingship and many of these “governments” were overthrown. The city-state grew from the need of the Greeks to organize and effective basis of social and political cohesion that would protect them in a foreign and hostile environment. Geography influenced the formation of small city-states because of the mountainous terrain. The isolated nature of the city-states lent them an autonomy they desired. As King and Washburn (1997) argue, the Greek democratic city-states “resisted institutionalizing channels of communication because they understood that control of information could lead ...