Athens & Sparta

Ancient Greece was comprised of small city-states, of which Sparta and Athens were the two
most powerful, especially during the Golden Age (500-300 BCE). Although these Greek competing
city-states both had ultimate goals, they had vastly different methods in the way they ran their
governments, economic systems, and the treatment of women and slaves.

Under the democracy, Athens entered its Golden Age, becoming a center of wisdom and
learning.The people of Athens were interested in arts, music, and intellectual pursuits. Males were taught
by their mothers at the age of six, they later went on to school where they learned to sing and play the
lyre, at the age of eighteen they began military training. Whereas girls were taught to cook, clean, and
weave so they could be married off at the age of fifteen. Athens was a commercial port and used their
rapid growth of olives and grapes as an advantage, trading with neighboring countries to bring in corn,
grain and other various necessities. Athens, was famed for its navy. While at certain stages, the Athenian
army grew to a monumental strength, almost matching that of the Spartans, was overly inferior. It was the
navy of Athens which allowed it to dominate the alliances of Greek city states, as well as the seas. In
Athens not many people got to vote, for you had to be an upper class male over the age of 30. The
Athenian democracy was not very fair.

Sparta, on the other hand, was recognized for its military strength, their life was centered on the
State, because they lived and died to serve. The Spartans entered their Golden Age with the forming of
their military state. Being a militaristic state, Spartas primary focus was on its land-based army,
composed of armoured hoplites. The Spartan hoplite endured rigorous training from the age of 7, to
become a part of one of the finest type of warriors of the ancient world. It was their education system
known as the agoge which involved harsh training in the wilderness and in barracks, that brought this
widely sought after brilliance on the battlefield. One reason Sparta had such a militaristically based
society was its need to maintain and exercise control of the helots, slaves from Messenia. The helots
greatly outnumbered their Spartan masters, so a check had to be kept on them. The Spartan army became
a formidable power, to ensure no uprisings occurred. An underground organisation known as the
krypteia would conduct regular cleansing of helots. During the Persian Wars, Sparta headed the land
forces operations. Its trained and disciplined troops were willing to fight to the death, as noted in
Thermopylae in 480 BCE, proving to be a near unmatched fighting force until Leuctra. Thus, while
Athens was liberating everyone by becoming a democracy, Sparta was enslaving a large amount of people
for its own benefit. The forming of Sparta's military state changed the Spartan way of life.

While Sparta and Athens both developed formidable land and sea forces at different stages in
their history, each dominated in one particular arm of the military. Generally, it is seen that Sparta had
was hegemon of the land, with its superior troops, whereas Athens had a strong navy, and control of the
sea. These city-states had similarities and differences regarding the status and view of women in society.
Women in Sparta are very typical of what one may have imagined a woman of Sparta to have been like.
They were disallowed from wearing any types of cosmetics or makeup, jewelry was another big no-no
for Spartan women. Women were judged on their physique and physical stature. women were scrutinized
so heavily on their fitness and physical state relates to the Spartans equivalent of the master race
concept, healthy and fit women would produce fit offspring, continuing the military tradition of Sparta.
Unlike women in Athens, they could own land and property, they could also remarry if their husband had
been gone too long. On the contrary, Athenian women were judged heavily on their artificial beauty.
Cosmetics such as lead foundation were common, but unbeknown to them, rather unhealthy. Elaborate
and expensive jewelry, complemented by luscious clothing were worn for seductive, and other purposes.

In summary, Sparta and Athens may have been in great opposition to one other at their peaks
during and around the Golden Age of Greece, but they possessed many parallel relationships in society.
Spartan society and Athenian society had many differences and similarities in terms of various aspects of
everyday life, military, women and other facets.