A8.+Describe+the+political+structures+of+the+major+early+civilizations,+Greece+and+Rome

​​​​Greece spread out. The polis were independent from each other and were independent. This sometimes caused conflicts between the city-states.
 * The Greeks had many city-states (Polis), which allowed the power in the government to be


 * Each polis contained three "groups": 1. citizens, these were adult males who were involved with business or commerce. 2. free people, which included women and children, they had no political rights. 3. noncitizens (slaves - one third of Athens population)
 * The natural borders in the country were the borders of the city-states within it.
 * Some of the city-states developed into monarchies, many of these monarchies fell into the hands of military generals and or politicians, called tyrants.
 * The most important city-states were Sparta (agricultural and highly militaristic region) a nd Athens (political, very cultural, and commercial center) who had different political styles which helped the other city-states make their decisions.
 * The city-states were constantly fighting against each other, until the Persians came and invaded Greece, a group of the city-states got together to defend Greece; this was an alliance called the Delian League.
 * Overtime the smaller city-states grouped together so they would not be taken over by one of the larger city-states.
 * As a side-note, Athens was the first to practice a direct democracy. [[image:http://www.deviantart.com/download/65413869/Spartan_Nutrition_Logo_0202742_by_we_are_spartans.jpg width="142" height="218" align="center"]]

__Rome__
 * Rome was founded as a monarchy; many of the first kings of Rome were Etruscans.
 * In 509 B.C.E the Romans deposed the last Etruscan king and replaced the monarchy with an aristocratic republic.
 * At the heart of the cities the Romans built a forum, or the political and civic center of the city. [[image:http://www.wordinfo.info/words/images/Eng-hist-4-Celts-Romans.gif]]
 * The Romans instituted a republican constitution that entrusted executive responsibilities to two consuls who had civil and military power. These consuls were elected by an assembly dominated by aristocrats and wealthy classes. These wealthy classes were know as patricians
 * In contrast to the patricians were the plebeians who were all other free men
 * Two distinct government groups: 1. Senate - this included patrician families. 2. Assembly - initially made up of patricians but later plebeians were included.
 * The expansion of the Republic was enforced by the Roman military.
 * The expansion of the Republic spread throughout the Mediterranean sea by military force.
 * The laws of Rome were also codified: Twelve Tables of Rome. They protected individual rights, too.

Edited by: Nicole Davies, Glory Norman, Chad Mata Edited by: Mady Maio- some punctuation, capitalization, and spelling errors, Connor Wade, Dakota Ringer