Sparta And Athens Essay

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Impressions of Athens and Sparta As Greek city-states during the Archaic and Classical periods (800-323 BCE), Spartan and Athenian daily life shared some commonalities and was divergent in other ways. Both societies enjoyed the same mild Mediterranean climate, where snow is limited to mountain ranges and year round humidity is relatively low. Three websites that I visited each described the same style of Greek home, making no distinctions between Sparta and Athens. I found the British Museum’s cut-away view to be the most informative and was surprised at how modern the Greek home design was for the time. Check it out if you’ve not come across this yourself (http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/dailylife/challenge/cha_set.html). For this week’s post, I thought to explore the roles of women, of men and how children were raised and educated. Spartan and Athenian Women Both Spartan and Athenian women were expected to raise their children, oversee their households and were barred from politics. …show more content…

While Athens had its share of military folks, they also had Aristotle and other great thinkers as well as business minds that made Athens’ regional commerce successful by leveraging their maritime power. Athenian boys were taught a wide range of topics to prepare them for future roles in their society. Meanwhile in Sparta, boys (girls as well) were given a quick eugenic fitness text as infants to weed out the weak. At seven years, it was off to Agoge, Spartan’s military factory machine. Spartan soldiers were expected to live in military barracks until age thirty and dine somewhat exclusively within their Syssitia, a military dining club. Where I see Athenian fathers walking home after a day at the Acropolis, perhaps thinking about their next symposium (drinking party), I also see the Athenian father, far from home, weapon in hand, ready to do battle (Brand, n.d.; Halsall, 1999; The Greeks,

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