Sparta & AthensSparta and Athens so close yet so different. Since the beging of these two great citystates everyone has been fascinated by the similarities, but more by the differences. This essay will tell more about the differences than the similarities.
I’ll start with the similarities. Sparta and Athens are alike in few ways one was is in there class of social groups. Sparta has citizens first, then neighbors second, and helots at the bottom. As Athens also starts with citizens first, then metics second, and slaves last.
Although they differ in the jobs are pretty much the same. They also had overseers/rulers who surved one year terms. Spartas name for them was ephors and Athens name for them was archons. Another thing that they had incommon was the early govenment of Athens which was the “Age of Kings” and the government of Sparta which also had kings. The more topic with more to talk about would be the differences. The greatest differences would be in govenment and way of life.
The way of life in Sparta was very much for military where all men in citizen class were to be taken at the age of seven and start training in the military whereas the Athenians were more for education and a healthy body. The governments near the end were extermily different in that Athens had almost a full democracy which was brought up by five leaders who refomed Athens to a democracy. Draco started by getting a code of laws. Then Solon abolished enslavement for dept. Pisistratus abolished landowning requirement for citizenship and divided up the estates among the landless peasents.
Cleisthenes abolished class divisions based on wealth and broadened the Assembly member ship also established a council of 500. Lastly Periclies opened offices to all citzens and provided that officeholders be paid. On the other hand the Spatrans were still militaryistic there government concisted of an Assembly, Council of Elders and two ceremonial kings. In conclusion I would like to say I have learned much more about Athens and Sparta exspecially about the birth of democracy.
In my opion I would have picked Athens over Sparta any day like they say “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword”.
