City-States and Alliances in Ancient Greece. Underlying Reasons of Their Existence and Their Consequences

The ancient Greek world was much troubled and influenced by politics. While other peoples settled to a single form of government, the Greeks were strungling between monarchy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny; and while other peoples were forming empires, the Greek cities usually preferred independence, in the form of a polis, a city-state, and other times preferred to (or were forced to) join some alliances, symmachies. Apart from the several differences that the several cities had, which was one of the reasons why they might wish to stay independent, a number of other reasons did not favor the formation of alliances, leagues, confed­ eracies or empires. On the other hand, Greek cities shared a lot in common, and many other factors did favor the formation of alliances.