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Sparta and Athens
The Great Contradiction
• “There was once a Spartan boy who caught a fox
for food. As he prepared to kill, dress and eat it, a
pair of Spartan soldiers approached. It was a
crime for a Spartan boy in training to consume
food beyond his meager rations, so he hid the fox
under his shirt. When the soldiers confronted him,
he refused to admit what he’d done, and instead,
without crying out, he allowed the fox to chew
open his stomach. What a great Spartan he was!”
-ancient Spartan fable
The Greek Polis
• Polis – Greek concept of the city-state
• Loyalty to the polis was held higher than a
pan-Greek identity
• Although all Greeks felt themselves above the
“barbarians” around them, they still believed
their individual polis to be superior to others
The Rise of Athens and Sparta
• Greece declines
– fall of the Mycenaean
• By the fifth century BCE
– Athens and Sparta
– Opposite in almost every
way
– Except for language and
culture
• Conflict would bring about
the decline of both…
Sparta
• Landlocked polis
• located on the Peloponnese
– large peninsula connected
to mainland Greece by a
narrow isthmus
• Protected by mountains and
difficult to reach by sea
• None of the Homeric Sparta
remains in tact – destroyed
by unknown conquerors
Artist’s depiction of ancient Sparta
Early History
• nomadic
• By 700 BCE,
– War to conquest against
the Greek
– Spartans victorious, enslave
Messenians
Messenia
A Military Revolution
• hoplites – foot soldiers with
large shields and spears
marching in unison in lines of
phalanx
– never before tried
– Relied on citizen-soldiers
working together as equals and
relying on one another for
protection
A phalanx
Spartan Dominance
• “helots” – conquered Greeks – as
slave labor
• “Lycurgus” had invented the new
Spartan way
• Based on the belief
– all Spartans were equal
– conformity
– duty to the state were everything
• totalitarian government
Lycurgus
Spartan Government
• Ruled by two Kings
• 5 elected Ephors
– all citizens were part of the
“Assembly”
• Power of elders strictly
enforced
– At age 12, boys forced to
become partners of Spartan
warriors
– Meant to show:
• Full controlled by the state and its
elders, the citizens
King Dorieus of Sparta
Spartan training
– Strongest boys:
• sent into mountains with only
daggers, told to go to
Messenia to declare “war”
on helots
• Could not to return until they
had murdered a helot
– At age 20:
• Spartan men would become
“citizens” and could marry
– Still had to live communally
until 30
Spartan Culture
• Only those that could contribute to the
state valued
– sickly or handicapped babies abandoned
to die
• Discipline valued above all
• Boys began training at 7
–
–
–
–
living in barracks
Not given enough food
instead encouraged to steal
Beaten if not following rules
• State-run education – first in world
– Warriors willing to die for their country
– crush individuality
As Lycurgus said:
“Brief suffering
leads to the joy of
lasting fame.”
Sparta
• Spartans believed suffering
was an integral part of the
path to adulthood
• Women trained as well
– good breeders of soldiers
• Expected to produce healthy
sons for military
•
Had to exercise constantly!
• Obeyed fathers/husbands
• Men were busy with war, so
women ran the estates.
A Spartan woman
Sparta
“Come back with your
shield or come back on it.”
•Extreme xenophobia
•No trade
– no interest in events
outside the territory they
controlled
•Change with the invasion
of the Persians and rise of
another Greek power to
the east
A New Power Emerges
• Attica,
– Known as: Athens
• Named for its patron goddess,
Athena
• Very fertile part of Greece
• close to the sea
• major center of commerce
Attica, Greece
Early Athens
• Initially just a village
• Nobleman named Solon to rule
– Introduces many reforms, gives land to poor
• “Tyrants” begin ruling Athens
– Continued reforms, granted more
rights and expanded citizenship
• Gradually evolve into rule by the
“demos” – the people
– Represents the emergence of
democracy
Solon
Athenian Government
• A tyrant named Pisistratus
expanded the power of the
Assembly, as did
Cleisthenes, later on
• Athens, begins to flourish
as a democracy
–
–
–
–
–
Outlawed “debt” slavery
Citizenship to foreigners
Gave poor rights
Council of 500
Created a legislature
Pericles of Athens
Golden Age of Athens
• A Persian invasion led to the destruction of
Athens
• Athenians were victorious in the end
– emerging more powerful than ever
• Golden age = 460-404 BCE
• Advances in:
– the arts, sciences, architecture
• Athens gains military might
– Possess largest navy in Greek world