City-States of Greece: Sparta and Athens

Ancient Greece territory had easy access to water since it was located on the peninsula and its land shaft consist of the mountains. Greece territory was divided into sperate regions by mountains which led to the creation of city-states. Since it was difficult to travel through mountains which resulted in having less interaction between regions, each city-state became to own its own culture, lifestyle and governance structure. Unlike other civilizations, Greece city-states were developed independently and protected during war by their people. Because of their independent development, each city-state differs quietly from others in terms of community culture such as farming, trading, military, and in terms of governance such as monarchies, democracies, oligarchy and militaristic governance. In this paper, we will analyze and compare two different city-state which are Sparta and Athens.

Sparta city sate was a military community and it was ruled by two kings who did not have any blood bonds with each other. The reason for having two kings was when one of the kings attended the military campaign and leading the army, another one should lead and maintain the polis. Like other civilizations kings’ roles were hereditary. However, kings played symbolic characteristics since the government was ruled by the council called gerousia. The council analyzed the issues and decided which should be open for voting that was considered with the power of shouting. In my point of view, we can consider Sparta with an oligarchy government structure since it was ruled by a council, however, we can also see the characteristics of monarchy and democracy because of having kings and decision-making of some minor issues by voting method. Sparta differed from other polises of Greece for its outstanding military power and soldiers. The city-state had harsh laws for the whole community to make them became strong soldiers. Thus, the whole community had a harsh lifestyle. Children got military lessons from an early age. Boys at age seven were isolated from their families and got training in special military barracks in Sparta. They exercised the whole day, eat a small portion of food and punished in case of their unsatisfactory behavior. These trainings last till the boy get in his 30 years and during these years he must live far from his family. Even during these years, he cannot get married.

Only after accomplishing the military training he can have marriage. In my perspective liberty for male Spartans was diminished compared with others as there was only one choice for boys which is to become a soldier. Not only boys but also girls should do daily exercises, be strong and healthy to give birth to a healthy child and take care of the city-state when boys are in the army. Sparta city-state includes not only its people but also brought one from other regions. These people have freedom to some extent like getting married to Spartans, however, they were not considered as equal as Spartans. Their main role is to provide Sparta with food and accomplish labor works like household, helper. Although there was a distinction between brought ones and Spartans, Sparta society did not create hierarchy. People’s status was not measured based on their wealth but instead, they got important social status when had military success. Since Sparta was the city-state with more free rights, this reflected itself on the women's status in society. In Sparta society, women had more rights and freedoms compared with others. Even though women cannot vote but they had a right to own land by heritage. They can become wealthy when their husband was killed in the war and all the property automatically passed to the women. Women have freedom of traveling around alone, participate in athletics and enjoy drinking wine together with men in the ceremonies. Thus, we can conclude that Sparta was an ideal region for foreigners and women to live freely as they got more freedom and own more rights.

Athens city-state was famous for its focus on education. Here people were busy with art, philosophy, science, history, etc. This city-state created lots of well know writers, historians, thinkers to our modern day. Socrates, Herodotus, and Hippocrates, Phidias were the philosophy, history, medicine, and art instructors respectively. Taking into consideration Athenians’ high interests in intelligence, we can understand why the military was not powerful there as it was never the priority. Athens built thousands of statues, temples which described their beauty understandings. In my opinion, Athenians' advancement in the educational sphere was because of its regional location. The landscape was not suitable for agriculture that’s resulted in less farming and cultivation work, so they had more time to enhance themselves in other fields. Additional, this also led them to became sophisticated in trade as they had to find out ways to reinforce its economy. They had a sophisticated trading system with other Greece city-states. As a result of the combination of these two factors; education and trading, they became the dominant economic power of Greece. Although Athens considered their governance as a democracy which is allowing citizens to vote and participate in state decision-making procedures, only male members over the age of 18 of city-states who were locals, born within the Athens, can make decisions and vote.

Women had no right to take part in public life, own land and walk in the city by themselves without man accompany. Women’s considered important role model only at home. Their duty was limited to bringing up their children and taking care of household works. Thus, it is important for women also to get the education to be intellectual to raise their children properly. However, they did not receive full education like men. Not only men had social status, they, especially political members of the state, also owned the majority of the wealth of the city. This wealth mainly came from maritime trade and they were monopolized by aristocracy members. As a result of the combination of wealth on the hand of the minority, debt was given to other members of societies by them which make the majority became debt slaveries of the minorities. By this inequality occurred between the members of the city-state based on wealth status and complex hierarchy became visible. According to the above analysis, I can assume that Athens applied a limited version of democracy which enabled male members of society to participate in state affairs and gave liberty to the men since they had more freedom compared with other polises of Greece.

To conclude, instead of having a centralized state, small city-states with their different governance strategy formed the political order of Greece. Each city-state had their unique communities and differs from others based on their lifestyle, governance structure, etc. Sparta and Athens were the main city-states of Greece that differs from each other greatly. Although Sparta had a military focus society where it was important to be physically strong, In Athens, the main focus was on education and being intellectual. Additionally, social hierarchy in Sparta was not as complex as Athens. In Athens, a few members of aristocracy own the wealth and it resulted in making other members of society in dept to them. Another difference between these two states was the freedom given to women even though in both city-states, women cannot participate in voting or decision-making procedure of state affairs. Although women in Sparta can own equity, walk freely within the city-state, in Athens women cannot walk without male companion and own any equity. However, in both, the community culture applied to women too, even though it is not advanced. For example, women in Sparta should also be physically strong and do some mandatory everyday exercises and like in Athens women should get primary education to become intellectual.