Garcia

Andy Garcia Mr. Magers AP World History 11 November 2011

Greece and Persia were two different civilizations that were around from one-thousand B.C. to five hundred B.C. While, both may have developed around the same time and era, they both developed very different political systems and where Greece developed into a bunch of city-states, Persia grew and conquered lands to develop into the largest and most diverse empire the world had seen yet. Persia and Greece developed so differently, because of these three main reasons, because of the differences in geography of these two lands, because of the Mediterranean and its easily navigable waters, and because of differences of belief of passion for independency. Geography had much to do with the way these two great civilizations developed. Greece has many natural boundaries which naturally separated different developing cities and states, from unifying completely. Some of these natural boundaries includes, mountainous terrains, and many isolated valleys and many off shore islands, encouraged the formation of several independent local centers of power instead of one all-powerful capital. Persias empire was different, Persia

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started off as many spread out tribes, all of these tribes were known as Iranians because they all spoke the same language and all had similar customs. These different tribes had no natural boundaries to stop them from communicating with one another extensively and since their culture was already similar and their languages were already identical, it only made sense for these tribes to unify and become a united power. Greeces position in the Mediterranean had a lot influence in its development into city states. Instead of conquering neighboring states, they could simply navigate easily to another place using the Mediterranean. Having the Mediterranean so close, gave Greece the power to simply colonize new islands in times of crisis and overpopulation; these new colonies were very wide spread from, Naples in Italy, to Marseilles in France, to Cyrene in Northern Africa. These colonies remained in contact with their mother cities, and acknowledged their blood ties with them, but these colonies eventually ended up acting independently anyway. Persia had no means of easily traveling to new lands, so the Persian empire conquered neighboring civilizations and states, spreading as far west as Greece and as far east as India. Another factor that made Greek develop city-states instead of growing into an empire is the Greek aristocracy. The Greek aristocracy kept permanent monarchies from forming and creating a large powerful capital. Persia, however,

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had an all-powerful king who called all the shots, and most of their kings wanted to conquer more lands and expand their empire even more, to a surplus amount. In conclusion, Greece and Persia developed very differently politically; Because of the differences in geography, Greeces easy access to the Mediterranean Sea, and because of the Greek aristocracy. Persia developed into an incredibly large empire, while Greece developed into smaller, independent citystates.