Favorite Greek City-state

[Pantagathus]

Phocaea...

[Julius Ratus]

I go with Sparta. I have always loved the Spartans and one only has to read the Moralia and Vita Lycurgus, both by Plutarch, to see that the Spartans had culture. They were known for their singlemindedness and brutal society, but they also exhibit tremendous wit.

[Kosmo]

Outside today Greece there were many city-states. In those of Ionia started the greek science, Ephes was rich, Milet founded many colonies thruout Mediterranean and the Black Sea, Troia was a tourist attraction and Halicarnas was an important city. Rhodes flourished during the hellenistic period and it was the most important trade center of the time, it had a famous rethoric school and his trade law was the base for roman and modern laws.

Colonial city-states often became very important like did Tarent, Syracusa or Cyrene.

[Pertinax]

Corinth, Dalby is irrefutable in his plea to our sensibilities. Also the food in Sparta is lousy, I like black pudding sometimes-but not every day as a staple gruel. Phocaea is to be praised for its excellent perigrinations, but I fear the stay-at-home pleasures win for me.

[Tobias]

I once had to do a history project on either Corinth or Thebes. I chose Thebes, because they seemed more interesting to me at the time. After doing this project, i was always rather hooked on Thebes; the city state that rose up after the Great Pelopponesian Wars and would dominate Greece for a time; the state which had one of the strongest military machines in Greece during it's time of ascendancy, the state that destroyed the Spartans at Leuctra and, on freeing the helots of Sparta, ended Sparta as a power.

 

Thebes may have been a bit traitorous to the other Greeks during the Persian invasion, but on the whole they are a very interesting subject to go into. Thebes is certainly one of my favourite city states.

Edited October 19, 2006 by Tobias

[M. Porcius Cato]

Athens--for all the reasons Perikles gave in his funeral oration.

[miguel]

I go for Athens, no doubt. Beautiful city, it just... I don't have a chance to go there...

But actually Corinth is, though, quite an interesting one. For some reason it reminds me of Paul.

 

And for Sparta, well, nothing to say on this. I remember when I was in junior forms studying Ancient Greek civilization, all I had for Sparta in my mind is battles, fightings and blood.

[The Augusta]

Whenever I think of the Spartans schooling their lads and lasses through gruelling exercise programmes and the like, I cannot help seeing in my mind's eye those horrendous Nazi propaganda films of leggy blonde frauleins lining up to perform their out-of-door aerobics. Another poster above condemend the Spartan society as a nasty totalitarian-type regime, and I would have to agree. But I suppose it produced the level of fantacism necessary to make the last stand at Thermopylae.

 

If I had to choose a state, it would be Athens, for its philosophy, art and its attempt at a true democracy.

[CiceroD]

Was Delphi an actual city-state or was it just the compound for the Oracle?

From All Ive heard it sounds like an ancient Greek Theme Park!