Athens And Sparta Essay Example

📌Category: Ancient Greece, History
📌Words: 936
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 30 August 2021

The ancient Greek society and civilization were quite impressive while the civilians develop their social, economic, and governance systems as well at the same time with their own studies of life experiencing. Thus, many countries and states around the world were inspired by the governance system of the last ancient Greek society nowadays. Athens and Sparta are the two most famous outstanding renovated cities or polis of ancient Greek with taking their political systems through economic integratory and governance. Today we will get through to the life of Athenians and Spartans to understand how each of that polis obtained the right to participate in public life and make decisions affecting the community as well the public office, rules in brief, and their similarities and differences as well on their governance system.  

Sparta polis was known as a warrior state where their citizens are only two types based on their gender. Where men are supposed to be a warrior and women are supposed to be warrior production and they are governed with a dictatorship. Spartans’ boys have their born duties to be warriors and they must start their training at the age of seven. Both genders have their specific targeted training where boys are trained to be good warriors, girls are trained to be physically fit to survive pregnancies. Spartans’ men at the age between 14 to 20 were required to join the army throughout their life long at the age of 60. The men who physically unfit for warrior defects were killed right on legally due to their lack of possibility to contribute to the state as a warrior through their law enforcement system. The right of Spartans was very limited and it based on their social class and decisions were taken with the elite council were a few elected members of elderlies worries who has survived over their warrior ages or may not. 

Their public office including kings and each from the Aristocratic magnificence wherein their power become restricted whilst it as compared to the Gerousia, a set of aristocratic elders and individuals of the elite council, and the Ephors, a set of elected individuals who could have a one-year lifetime. Gerousia and Ephors were the supreme decision makes in the polis military and war affairs in Sparta. Spartans conquered many of its neighboring polis in the Peloponnesus and converted its polis people into their helots, in modern words, it means war slaves. All free citizens are members of the assembly, and Helots, Periooks, and Spartans who lost their citizenship were expelled from the assembly. At the age of 60s, Aristocratic members of Spartans were eligible to be a Gerousia and the kings were selected from the Gerousia and the Ephors were elected from the members of the Sparta society. 

Athens was known nowadays as a pathway of democratic governance system but there was no Democracy stated at the time when Athens was controlled by the higher aristocrats and the social classes where it comes into a huge handicap of Athens. Aristocrats elected one of their own, Solon, who ended debt slavery and brought back the freedom to many of the debt slaves sold abroad and made illegalization of poor farmers to sell themselves or their land as collateral of loans. Solon provided more power to the wealthy non-aristocratic in the public office and promoting olive oil and pottery business to reform the economy with increasing the gains through those products exports which help Athens economic system grow, but it did not solve the problem of Athens. Another selected aristocrat, Cleisthenes started a social reform by creating a tribe system that includes ten tribes that mingled all the social classes and reformed the legislative council, and chosen free Athenians could revoke the laws imposed with the former. Aristocrats still in control of the political right and ruled with a few, “Oligarchy”, not Democracy where the wealthier ones were considered as ‘500 bushels men’ and the lower classes were ‘199 bushels men’ and the fought in Persia wars was found the wealthier ones were soldiers and the poor one would row the war boat. 

The public office of Athens was controlled by the ten elected aristocrats who were the generals and military members and the next to provide horses to the military and they had lower occupations in the public office. The middle classes could possess weapons and may be elected as minor workers in the public office and right to be a Hoplite soldier. The poor had no right to vote in the assembly as well they have no right to be a solider but to row the ships at war. The migrants, Metics, have no political right but they are subject to taxes on specific occasions. Slaves had no minimal power in Athens and the aristocrats ruled and chosen leaders among themselves most of the time. 

In conclusion, there are some similarities between Athens and Sparta where both are the cities of Greece that brought knowledge of civilian and governance system to the world. Aristocrats are the most rightful persons in both cities’ public offices and both cities ruled by the wealthier class which less powered on the lower classes in political affairs. Both ruling strategies focused on males in their societies and men got more rights compared to the women who were considered second-class citizens and had no right to involved in the community legislative issues. Athens and Sparta had been through several wars, Athens with Persia and Sparta with the neighboring cities and helots. However, Athens has a center of architecture with the famous Parthenon located in the viral mid of the city, but Sparta had no time to consider the architecture where their primary focuses are a war against the neighboring and others. Considerable that Athens was about on the way of democracy, but Sparta was in a dictatorship and a lot of modern world concepts such as philosophy and theater came from Athens but Sparta was an example of the military system. Athens women are less powered in political affairs but they are not threatened as the Spartan women.

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