Out of the immediate military reach of the great empires of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria and Persia lay the Aegean coast (now western Turkey), the Aegean islands and the valleys of the hilly Greek peninsula beyond. The communities here developed their own small economies and benefited from the cultural and technological advances of the big empires while remaining politically independent.

The island of Crete had a flourishing Bronze Age civilization as early as 2000 BC, probably as a result of its position on the sea route between the wheat-producing lands on the Black Sea and Egypt. Cretan (sometimes also known as Minoan) art was both decorative and elegant, and flourished until around 1400 BC. Unlike the art of the old empires, which was primarily religious or political and concerned with glorifying the gods and the rulers, it focused on the decorative forms of nature in the form of graceful athletes and dancers. Although there were strong religious elements in the work, artists seemed preoccupied with the creation of beauty for its own sake rather than religion.

Cretan architecture, with its air of stylish luxury, gives the same impression. It remained as a characteristic of the Classical architecture which flourished round the shores and islands of the Aegean in the succeeding age. From around 1400 BC the mainland states were under the control of the Mycenaeans, who created an architecture that was both monumental and sophisticated, and which showed great engineering skill. Their work was a forerunner of Greek Classical architecture.

The continuity of architectural development in the Aegean was interrupted by a series of catastrophes. Crete vanished as the dominant power, perhaps partly the result of earthquakes, and waves of invasions by peoples from the north followed. The invaders, who established themselves in central Greece, were known as the Dorians while on the peninsula of Attica (the state of Athens), on the islands and on the Turkish coast, the original inhabitants, known as Ionians, generally prevailed. They all spoke Greek, worshipped the same gods and participated in the development of an Iron Age culture which in the succeeding centuries produced Classical art and architecture.

By the 6th century BC, just across the Aegean in central Italy, the Etruscans were producing architecture in some ways similar to the Dorian, or Doric, builders of central Greece. Building largely in wood and baked clay, using stone only for foundations, their temples possessed individual features which were to contribute in the future to the essential character of Roman, as distinct from Greek, architecture. The Etruscans used the arch freely and their temples were built to be seen from the front only: a form that was less sculptural than that of Classical Greek architecture but more dramatic. This distinction between the architecture of the Greek and Italian peninsulas remained into the centuries that followed.