Athens Vs Sparta Research Paper

During the archaic and classical periods (ca 800-323 BCE), Ancient Greece consisted of several hundred poleis or “city states.” Each polis was its own small country. Many of these were no more than small towns or even Villages which controlled sometimes very small territories. At the opposite end of this spectrum were the two largest, most powerful and ultimately most influential Greek city states, Athens and Sparta. Politically, they were opposites of each other.

The city of Athens and its territory of Attica was a cultural and economic powerhouse. Athens was the birthplace of many fundamental aspects of Western civilization, including ethical philosophy and the theater.

However the government and society of its chief rival Sparta was a warrior society of fierce, often unbeatable soldiers, and only warriors participated in political life. Spartan women had a reputation for being as fierce as their men, quite unlike their reclusive, segregated sisters in other Greek poleis. Sparta was an imperial state which subjugated many of its neighbors in the Peloponnesus and turned their populations into a class of virtual slaves called helots. This serf class outnumbered the Spartans many times over, so to keep the helots under control and suppress rebellions, the Spartans organized their entire society along military lines. The sole purpose of a Spartan man was to be a soldier and the only duty of a Spartan woman was to give birth to many more soldiers.

Like most poleis, there was also an assembly of all male citizens, but its powers were relatively weak. True power was in the hands of an “elder council” of men over 60 called the Gerousia and five magistrates called Ephors who were elected annually and served for one year terms in