Answer: The mountains, which served as natural barriers and boundaries, dictated the political character of Greece. From early times the Greeks lived in independent communities isolated from one another by the landscape. Later these communities were organized into poleis or city-states. The mountains prevented large-scale farming and impelled the Greeks to look beyond their borders to new lands where fertile soil was more abundant.
It is said that the "mountains" played an important role to the early Greek civilization. It kept the<em> city-states or regions </em>separate from one another. Every city state was originally ruled by a king; however, over the course of years, different government forms emerged. The two most popular city-states were Sparta and Athens. Athens incorporated direct democracy into their political system. This allowed all the males in the region to have a right in the making of the laws.
