Athens and Sparta
During the Lyric Age (800-500B.C.), the Greeks expanded geographically, artistically, and politically. The revival of literacy there was a literary flowering where poets began to break away from the heroic tradition and write about their own lives. It was during this time that Sparta and Athens rose to prominence, the two antipodal city-states of Greek society. Here I will explore the contrasting governments, attitudes towards women, values, and education systems of the two city-states, Athens and Sparta. In Athens the pressing economic and social problems led to the creation of government by democracy. Four rulers, Draco, Solon, Pisistratus, and Cleithenes, greatly influenced the political development of Athens. However, Athenian democracy cannot really be called a true democracy since there were several flaws in the government and the way in which it functioned. Upper class male citizens over the age of thirty were the only Athenians who held any right to vote. The democracy in Athens consisted of an executive, legislative, and judicial branch. Together, nine anchors, a Council of five hundred, an Assembly, and a court chosen by lot governed the city-state with limited power. The Assembly was made up of five hundred men w
When Spartan boys turned seven years old they began training for the military, and they ceased their training at the age of twenty-four when they became frontline soldiers. Lastly came the slaves who were a necessity to Athens and dependent on their master. While trade was a necessity in Athens, there was a law in Sparta that banned all foreign trade and foreign traveling. In battle Spartans were supposed the stand and die rather than retreat. It was controlled by an oligarchy in which the power was held by a group of five men called ephors. The government in Sparta followed a very different coarse than that of the Athenians. For there was an extreme inequality amongst them, and their state was overloaded with a multitude of indigent and necessitous persons, while its whole wealth had centered upon a very few. The Spartan system was generally admired by other Greeks as it instilled in society the civic virtues of dedication to the state and a code of moral conduct. Women in Sparta had much more freedom than many other Greek women. Where Athens nurtured the individual, Sparta quelled it. In the military school they lived in barracks and were taught discipline and survival skills and underwent tough physical and military training. ho were chosen from a list of those who were eligible to serve on the council. The education was physical, not academic. The helots (slaves) supported the Spartans economic needs by working the land and harvesting the crops. All branches of the government were capable of vetoing one another.
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