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Archaic and Classical Greece refers to the city-states that flourished from roughly 800 to 323 BCE. Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and others developed distinct politics, colonies, art, and philosophy. This era produced democracy, drama, history writing, and the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars.
Athens and Sparta led rival alliances and eventually exhausted each other. Philip II of Macedon then conquered Greece, and his son Alexander carried Greek culture across Asia. The city-state system never regained full independence.