Why was Ancient Greece so special?

Ancient Greece was quite unique in the ancient world (and by this, I understand ancient China and India too), because

1) it developed a culture of independent, self-governing city states with a multitude of constitutions ranging from oligarchy to democracy; AFAIK, besides Greece, Rome and Carthage, no major ancient civilization developed strong republican structures: instead, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Central Asia were ruled by monarchs, often backed by priestly caste

and

2) Greece never really united under one leading power. Egypt was united pretty fast, China had large kingdoms fighting each other before being conquered by Qin, Mesopotamia was subject to different empires, as was Persia. Greece however stayed a mass of poleis, hostile to each other, resisted against Macedonian domination and only came to rest after Rome formed the province of Achaia.

So we have to quite unique features of Greece: its political diversity and its fragmentation. How do we explain these features? Sure, the fragmentation certainly influenced the diversity, and the diversity strengthened the fragmentation. However, that doesn't explain why Greece stayed disunited while Italy was unified under Rome, even if both Italy and Greece consisted mainly of city states.

I'm interested in how you explain both phenomena.
Kievan Rus, Ancient Mesopotamia? Doesn´t seem that rare to me.
 
No I'm considering to buy it.
I'd advise it : as you said, it's still partially made of maps (it is an atlas, after all), but a good half is made of explicative text on a given topic (more coherent than the, still good, Kinder-Hilgemann-Menze Atlas). If you bought other Autrement atlases, you'd see what I meant.

It's not as informing as a good ol' historical study, but I really think it's giving a good insight on the period (III BC - VIth AD). Enough, at least, for it get referenced on studies of the periods.
 
I'm a marxist and even I find this part of his historical theories barely worth mention. I specified quasi-marxist because Marx had at least the pretention to pull a class analysis on this, not just go full cultural as a good part of contemporary or even current tenents of this theory.

IIRC, Marx inherited the "oriental despotism" notion from Hegel (who indeed elaborated it, but was hardly its inventor - the concept has fairly deep roots in Western European historiographical tradition, with its basis likely to be found in Machiavelli and harking back to a rethinking of Herodotus' contrastive depiction of Greece and Persia).
 
Not saying that, but it's a matter of fact that an influential culture of democracy emerged in Athens whereas Persia and other oriental (since they are east of Greece) states nearly always prefered some form of monarchy, at least in classical times. That's a reality and my question you all helped me to answer was that why Greece lacked such a monarchy.



Marx didn't really bother to explain what happened in ancient times, and if he did, his explanations were flawed.

Greece did have monarchies, pretty plenty of them actually (tyrannies count as such in my view, except they were more unstable than usual monarchies because of class factors and relative lack of traditional legitimacy). When the Hellenes established huge territorial states, these became absolute palatial monarchies pretty quickly.
Of course, the amount of information Marx had for Antiquity was relatively limited (compared to what we know now). He did a sort of decent stab at Antiquity considering the data he had available at the time and the obvious relative insignificance of the topic for his overall work. Of course little if any of it is tenable today. Nevertheless I believe that some Marxist insights are very useful in understanding the Ancient world. "Oriental despotism" isn't among these. [EDIT: @LSCatilina already said that better than I did].
 
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IIRC, Marx inherited the "oriental despotism" notion from Hegel (who indeed elaborated it, but was hardly its inventor - the concept has fairly deep roots in Western European historiographical tradition, with its basis likely to be found in Machiavelli and harking back to a rethinking of Herodotus' contrastive depiction of Greece and Persia).
Indeed, but Marx and Engels tried to rationalize it into their economical historical model, especially when it came to British colonial policy. British Rule in India, for instance (IIRC) insits that such a production mode leads to a caste society and economical stagnation, with a relative absence of landed property and individual status.
Another issue, which isn't Marx's but rather some interpretators, is to completly forget about economic-social formation, which is a pretty much important concept : mode of productions, for Marx, doesn't exist in a vaacum but arrenged differently depending on situations : a bit like XIXth France preserved a lot of domanial structures and mode of production in countryside, while the dynamis and dominating MP was capitalism.

I tend, with others, to consider it as a particularily flawed (and semi-intuitive) view on a palatial mode of production you could possibly find in most part of Ancient history, such as in Mesopotamia or China, but as well in Mycenean Greece. I'm certain it's a pretty minoritary view, but giving that Marxist schools tend to have not filled the gap between historical and anthropological studies and core philosophical tenents since decades, I'm still pretty confident that it's not totally bollocks : I particularily like, for instance, Darmangeat's Le Communisme Primitif n'est plus ce qu'il était (Primitive Communism isn't what it used to be)

So the whole concept isn't useless (I'd rather agree with Godelier when he talks about a stimulating concept, but relatively useless for analysis), but it doesn't needs so much to be updated, that being wholly replaced while acknowledging some inspiration. AMP tends to be, IMO, the extreme exemple of confusing legality and social reality (but after all, Marx and Engels didn't benefitted from the terashitload of archeological and litterrary analysis we have*) that can be seen (altough on a relatively less important way) with Slavery and Feudal MP**

You know that a marxist concept is flawed when even Soviet historians and politics said "nope, that's dumb".


*And, giving Engels'preface to the Origin, I'd think he would have more or less gladly conceded that his own analyisis should have been changed
** I'd be more comfortable with a new arrangment trough the lines of Palatial and Domanial mode of production which would overlap both, personally, until a "Merchant-Domanial" variant that would characterize, for instance, european Middle-Ages from XIIth onwards overlapping with early Capitalism.

It seems that I've digressed a bit there. Sorry about that.
 
I would have thought that the same reasons that Mycenae did not become an analogue of Babylon (say) also held true as to why "classical" Greece did not see a unification under one ruler - that the states were coastal, with mountains cutting them off in most places from easy access to each other. Obviously places like the Argolid had a large fertile area, but those did tend to fall under one ruler, in time. But whereas Mesopotamia would see city states coalesce into proto-empires due to landward conquest, in Greece it needed the naval element, and even then once dominion is asserted, its a lot harder to keep hold of a dominion, or even a colony, when you have to take an army by fleet there, as to when you could just march across the desert, or the plain.
 
Indeed, but Marx and Engels tried to rationalize it into their economical historical model, especially when it came to British colonial policy. British Rule in India, for instance (IIRC) insits that such a production mode leads to a caste society and economical stagnation, with a relative absence of landed property and individual status.
Another issue, which isn't Marx's but rather some interpretators, is to completly forget about economic-social formation, which is a pretty much important concept : mode of productions, for Marx, doesn't exist in a vaacum but arrenged differently depending on situations : a bit like XIXth France preserved a lot of domanial structures and mode of production in countryside, while the dynamis and dominating MP was capitalism.

I tend, with others, to consider it as a particularily flawed (and semi-intuitive) view on a palatial mode of production you could possibly find in most part of Ancient history, such as in Mesopotamia or China, but as well in Mycenean Greece. I'm certain it's a pretty minoritary view, but giving that Marxist schools tend to have not filled the gap between historical and anthropological studies and core philosophical tenents since decades, I'm still pretty confident that it's not totally bollocks : I particularily like, for instance, Darmangeat's Le Communisme Primitif n'est plus ce qu'il était (Primitive Communism isn't what it used to be)

So the whole concept isn't useless (I'd rather agree with Godelier when he talks about a stimulating concept, but relatively useless for analysis), but it doesn't needs so much to be updated, that being wholly replaced while acknowledging some inspiration. AMP tends to be, IMO, the extreme exemple of confusing legality and social reality (but after all, Marx and Engels didn't benefitted from the terashitload of archeological and litterrary analysis we have*) that can be seen (altough on a relatively less important way) with Slavery and Feudal MP**

You know that a marxist concept is flawed when even Soviet historians and politics said "nope, that's dumb".


*And, giving Engels'preface to the Origin, I'd think he would have more or less gladly conceded that his own analyisis should have been changed
** I'd be more comfortable with a new arrangment trough the lines of Palatial and Domanial mode of production which would overlap both, personally, until a "Merchant-Domanial" variant that would characterize, for instance, european Middle-Ages from XIIth onwards overlapping with early Capitalism.

It seems that I've digressed a bit there. Sorry about that.

Regarding palatial economy, are you familiar with Liverani's approach to Ancient Oriental temple/palace systems? I found it rather enlightening.
 
The Igbo did

Sorry, but I first reas "igloo".

It's not as informing as a good ol' historical study, but I really think it's giving a good insight on the period (III BC - VIth AD). Enough, at least, for it get referenced on studies of the periods.

I don't know, such atlasses tend to take a few examples for important phenomena, for example, they'll say: "Province so-and-so: An example for romanization in the 2nd century". That is always interesting, but I prefer rather thick books (forgot the technical term) dealing with all (geographical) aspects of one subject.

For example, I previously read "Les élections en France à l'époque Napoléonienne" or the rater old book "The Legal Procedure of Cicero's Time" (you see, I prefer a legal approach to history). Such books deal with one subject without concentrating on some examples.
 
Regarding palatial economy, are you familiar with Liverani's approach to Ancient Oriental temple/palace systems? I found it rather enlightening.
Not that I remember : would you be so kind as giving me the sources? So far, I mostly dealt with Collins and such.
 
I don't know, such atlasses tend to take a few examples for important phenomena, for example, they'll say: "Province so-and-so: An example for romanization in the 2nd century". That is always interesting, but I prefer rather thick books (forgot the technical term) dealing with all (geographical) aspects of one subject
It's always hard to not too generalizing of course, but if you search for some insight (which is generally sourced), I think you'd find Autrement's atlases deserving of their reputation of quality (they don't go for a province by province case, for instance, but rather point at general outcomes in western or easter Romania before getting exemples on Gaul or Egypt as they are specific exemples, rather than exemplary ones).

(you see, I prefer a legal approach to history)
It's never a bad idea to look at a legal approach, but it can be misleading as there's always the temptation to confuse a legal situation and the social situation. For instance, it's where the idea of serves as a social class comes from.
 
Not that I remember : would you be so kind as giving me the sources? So far, I mostly dealt with Collins and such.
Liverani, Mario (2014). The Ancient Near East: history, society and economy. London: Routledge.
It is the English translation (from the most recent Italian edition, I suppose) of his work on Ancient Near East. I read it in Italian, on an older edition that does not account for more recent findings. He discusses things like economy and state formation in generally Marxist framework but without generalizing into "modes of production". Rather, he cross-analyzes written sources and archaeological record finely giving a general picture of the socio-economical realtionships. I found this method (which I am not really describing detail here) very interesting and useful. The book is rather bulky but reads very easily. I thought there was a French translation as well, but a quick search bore no fruit.
 
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