ABSTRACT
Effects of local crises Since the Dark Age, in settling Greece, the Black Sea coasts and Sicily and Italy, the Greeks had developed to a point where the number of self-governing communities forming their world was possibly in excess of 1,000. In mainland and Aegean Greece alone, E. Ruschenbusch calculates, there were about 750 states, over half of them with fewer than 400 adult male citizens.1 He makes no calculation for Italy and Sicily. These communities were generally settled and inhabited in a stable way, though smaller ones were sometimes taken over by larger neighbours;2 and if a community ceased to exist, the direct or indirect cause was usually war.
