Essays or projects that I am proud of

Sparta is awesome and Athens sucks

Cecelia Steenburgh

Mrs. Ivey

Western Civilizations

20 December 2017

Ancient Athens v.s. Ancient Sparta

Ancient Sparta was a better civilization than Ancient Sparta. Spartans have more freedom and lead better lives. Athens is wealthy and stuck up. Who wants to live in a city where all people care about is how much you know about science or architecture? Not me, that's for sure. Also, Athens is so crowded. And they literally kick people out of the city for being too politically influential. Like what's up with that. Only crazy civilizations do that. Sparta doesn't do that. They try to keep contact with the outside world to a minimum.

Spartans liked to keep to themselves. They liked their privacy. They might have been a bit paranoid about it but they had good reason to. Their neighbors were crazy. Athens gave only the rich people the right to make decisions for the community when they were ruled by an oligarchy. Then Athens developed into a direct democracy. Sparta had an oligarchy and a monarchy. There were two kings who were the major generals in command of the army. Then there were five overseers that ruled over the day to day activities of the citizens. There was also a Council or group of Senators who were the judges and lawmakers. The last in command was the Assembly. Men over thirty years old were the only one allowed to participate, they would shout out their opinions.

Sparta also had higher standards for their citizens. Only people who could track their ancestry all the way back to the beginning of the island was considered a citizen. Sparta had a population of about one-hundred-eight-thousand people. This was made up of men and women citizens, slaves, the semi-enslaved, and visitor to the island. Athens had a much larger population of 140000 to 25000 people. That could be such a hassle when it came to voting and knowing how many people there were actually citizens. Athens just had the simple qualification that if your parents were born in the city you were considered a citizen of Athens.

The education in Sparta was very organized. All girls had a formal education. Boys would also be taught a formal education until they were seven years old and then they would go to a military school and learn how to fight and become warriors. Only the boys in Athens were educated. They were taught language, mathematics, literature, science, and philosophy. Once they beheaded a teacher because they thought he had been teaching their children too much. But then they decided to paint the death of Socrates so everyone would know what happened to him. The little girls in Athens were only ever taught how to take care of children and their houses.

Sparta and Athens had a pretty similar social structure. In Sparta, the Spartiates who were full citizens were on top. Next was the Helots which was the semi and full slaves. Then came the Perioeci, they were foreign people and they were granted most freedoms. Athens system was a bit more complicated in the sense of it having more levels. Aristocrats and soldiers were on the top. The small farmers were on the next level. Then there were the craftsmen. After the craftsmen came the Metics who were the outsiders. On the last level was the slaves. Athens did not treat all of their full citizens the same. The Spartans treated all their full citizens the same, even the women.

The Spartan women were considered to be very open-minded. As I said before they were all granted formal educations. Most women even owned and managed their own properties. The women participated in sporting events. The girls played alongside the boys. The men were often gone because Sparta participated in so many wars so for most of the time the wives were the heads of the household. Athenian women, on the other hand, had no freedom. They were the properties of their husbands. They could not even go to the market outside their house without permission from their spouse. They could not do any sports or go to political assemblies. The women who married into wealthy families lifestyle was at least luxurious.

Athens had a lifestyle based on trade. They used gold, silver, and bronze coins for currency. Sparta had iron bars as their form of currency. Athens also taxed the cities they were allied with. Sparta did not tax their allies. Though Sparta did not have many allies, to begin with. The aristocrats of Athens had a wealthy and luxurious life. The Athenians not in that particular sect of society did not have a nice lifestyle. Spartans discouraged trade. Though they did trade with the Peloponnesian League like the Athenians with their Delian League. The Spartan lifestyle was based on farming and military power. War and winning were the most important to the Spartans. The Islanders had a simple lifestyle. The Athenians loved everything to do with knowledge. They praised art, philosophy, architecture, science, drama, medicine skills, literature, and government. They held all their citizens up to a standard that most couldn't reach. The Spartans had a more egalitarian society and everyone was held to the simple thought that the more things you won or conquested over the better you were.

I mentioned in the previous paragraph that the Spartans highly valued war. Spartan's military was not rivaled by any other in ancient Greece. It was the most feared army. It was mandated that all men would serve from ages seven to sixty, and in all that time they would live together in the barracks. They were served Spartan Broth. Though some men would request to live at home with their wives. The only military section that stood out in Athens was their navy.

That navy helped Athens in making a trade empire. It also gave them access to food from many different civilizations. Athenian people ate luxurious food. Though nowadays some types of meat are seen a delicacy and a special treat, the people who lived in Athens ate very little meat. Spartans, on the other hand, ate mostly meat. Everybody ate the cooks one specialty of Spartan Broth. Spartan Broth is a mixture of pork, salt, blood, and vinegar. Sounds delicious right! (If I had the chance to I would actually try Spartan Broth)

The whole Spartan community sounds way more fun than Athens. They don't pressure their citizens academically. They had an extremely successful military. The women have tons of freedom. That was the most important thing to me when I was deciding which society to live in. Women in ancient times deserve way more than they had. Freedom and rights are the most important thing to me when I read about how a civilization had developed. Ancient Greece has always held my fascination throughout my child and teenage life, doing this essay has opened my eyes to what the civilizations were like. And Ancient Sparta, in my opinion, is a better to live in than Ancient Athens.

Works Cited

PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/educational/lesson1.html.

Ancient Greece - Athens - The British Museum, www.ancientgreece.co.uk/athens/home_set.html.

"The Death of Socrates - Jacques-Louis David (French, Paris 1748–1825 Brussels)." Google Arts & Culture, Google, www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/asset/sAGm14MzWjaN9Q.

History.com Staff. "Sparta." History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/ancienthistory/sparta.

"SPARTA." Sparta - Greatest Military Power of Greece, www.sparta.net/.