Dbq Essay On Ancient Greece

732 Words3 Pages

Greece is a land covered by mountains with nothing much else to it yet one of the greatest civilizations ever to exist on this planet. Greece is part of Europe but is made up of more than 6,000 islands as well as a peninsula. Ancient Greeks live over 2500 years ago and considering their geography it is remarkable that they got to the greatness that they did get to. But they could have been even greater if the geography Greece had cooperated with the ancient Greek cities and citizens in the areas of their economy, their social/cultural ways, and their political beliefs. While the economy of ancient Greece was quite good in fact it was hindered by the geography of the region and made it much harder to survive for the Greeks than some other …show more content…

The only thing that grew well in Greece was olives, they were valuable, yes, but also very vulnerable because they relied on just one big export, olive oil and it was easily destroyed by an army that just comes to the outskirts of the city with axes and just cuts down there only export. Also it says in document 1 “one of the worst things one side could do to the other was to cut down its olive trees. So it’s obvious that while the economy of Greece good it could have been great if the geography of Greece was …show more content…

As I said before that mountains cover most of Greece and make it hard for the ancient Greeks to farm anything other than olives, the mountains served and another limitation as well. They essentially blocked them into wherever their city was and thus the city’s were quite isolated from each other. This, in turn, kept them from much contact other than traders, so the city-states in ancient times never formed into one strong nation.
The mountains also forced many cities to turn to the sea to make a living. This made them more vulnerable than they should have been because they traded olive oil for everything they needed to survive. In this way, they were very dependent on the outside world and thus they couldn’t be self-sufficient. This was the case for many of the great Greek cities because they trade for everything based on their situation with their