Athens and Sparta

9/16/24

Athens was debatably the most influential polis in Greece. This city-state was the center of learning, philosophy, and science, as well as drama and theater. It is in the region of Attica in the Peloponnese and was the birthplace of some of the most famous people in the ancient world, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Athens was also the founder of the Delian league in 478 B.C., which was created to defend Greece from the Persians, who they’d just had a war with. Given the circumstances, it was more of an empire ruled by the Athenians than an alliance, because the other nations in the league were forced to pay tribute and were not allowed to leave. Some of these nations included Miletus, Naxos, Samos, Aegina, Byzantium, and Halicarnassus. Athens used this tribute to fund their navy, which was already the most powerful in Greece. They were eventually broken up in 404 B.C. by being defeated in the Peloponnesian war by the Peloponnesian league, which was led by Sparta. In the war, the Athenian navy was destroyed and was never the same again.

Ancient Athens was one of the first democracies in history. The Athenians used rocks to vote on laws, a white rock for yes, black for no. However, it was only legal for males to vote, and they had to be eighteen years of age or older and be an Athenian citizen. Despite being the learning center of Greece, education for Athenian girls was not legal and women rarely got out of the house and mostly did chores like cooking and cleaning.

Athens’ economy was dependent on trade and agriculture. The slave population, as in most Greek city-states, did most of the work in the agricultural section, making the famous Athenian olive oil. Athenian craftsmen did the work of making jars, vases, and jewelry. They also carved gemstones and seals for royalty. As you may have assumed, the reason for trading being part of the economy was that Athens was so close to the sea, which gave them access to harbors and over-seas trading routes.

Required military service in Athens was only two years in the ranks of the hoplites, which were men with shields and spears that formed a strong wall of shields and smashed into the enemy. Or they would row in one of Athens' famed triremes, a ship with a bronze ram on the front and three rows of oars. These triremes were the fastest and most formidable in all of Greece, with the ability to go at speeds of nine knots, or ten miles an hour.

Sparta also played a key role in Greece. This was the city-state that defeated the Athenians and held out against Alexander the Great. The average Spartan male’s life was centered around combat and rigorous training, with mandatory military service starting at age seven and ending at sixty, which most men probably would not have gotten to anyway. They had no navy up until the Peloponnesian war, but their army was the best and most feared in Greece. There are stories of the brutal training of the Spartans, like the story of a Spartan child who caught and hid a fox in his shirt, and when the superior called him to attention, he stood through what his elder had to say while the fox ate a hole through his middle. These extraordinary tales tell us of the strict training that they had to endure, and the level of discipline they had.

The Spartans were a force to be reckoned with, as they defeated the famous city-state of Athens and even resisted the Romans in 192 B.C. for a time. Almost every man that did not fight was a helot. Helots were slaves that did all the agricultural work in Sparta and mostly consisted of the populations of the territories that had been conquered by Sparta. Despite the sizable number of helots, revolts were rare due to fear of Spartan retaliation. However, it remained a significant issue for Sparta, so it required its allies to pledge assistance in the case of a revolt.

Sparta was the creator and leader of the Peloponnesian league, also called the Lacedemonians and their allies. The Peloponnesian league was a powerful alliance between nearly every city in the Peloponnese with Sparta in the 6th century B.C. These included Corinth, Tegea, Sicyon, Mantinea, and some city-states outside the Peloponnese, such as Megara and Thebes. This league was created for two reasons, the first being to oppose Argos, and the second being to oppose the Delian league, which was led by Athens. This led to a conflict between the two leagues called the Peloponnesian war, in which the Spartan allies complained about Athens imposing trade sanctions and blocking magistrates from them. Athens held out against them, but when Athens decided to defend an ally in Sicily, the Athenian assembly decided to conquer Sicily itself. Sparta was an ally of the attacking state, and in 415 they came and defeated the Athenians, destroyed their navy, and sold the survivors into slavery. This was a huge blow to Athens and almost ended the war, except that Athens had saved one hundred ships and a sum of money, to be used only as a last resort. During this time Athens had a short-lived Oligarchical revolution in 411. Athens won multiple victories in a row, but after an incident involving six generals being executed for not being able to save men stranded at sea, they were defeated and lost the Dardanelles, or the Hellespont, which was where Athens’ grain came from. After a year-long siege, Athens finally surrendered in 404 B.C., its navy destroyed, and its walls torn down. After the war, Sparta put Athens into its own league and took over its allies, taking all the tribute for itself and effectively replacing the Athenian empire with a Spartan one.

In 378 B.C, the Athenian polis along with Thebes, Corinth, and Argos, and backed by the Persian empire revolted and broke away from the Spartan alliance network. After multiple victories by Athens, Persia imposed the Peace of Antalcidas which gave Persia control of all the cities in Asia minor, as well as Cyprus. Persia also assured the autonomy of all the other Greek polis except for Lemnos, Scyros, and Imbros, which were to belong to Athens. In 371, Thebes left the league to start its own, inciting others to do the same. Although this second Athenian league was much better than the original Delian league, revolts popped up all over, and the Social War started in 357 B.C. in which Chios, Rhodes, Kos, and Byzantium fought Athens. It ended in the collapse of the Second Athenian league and Athens’ superiority.

Sparta was ruled by an oligarchy, which means rule by the few. In the Spartan oligarchy, there were two kings, a group of twenty-eight elders called the Gerousia, and five magistrates called the ephors. The two kings had military, judicial, and religious powers, although in time their influence was reduced, and they acted mostly as figureheads and generals. The Gerousia and ephors dealt with civil and criminal cases, and as the kings gradually lost power, the ephors took control of foreign policy affairs.

In conclusion, we are still pulling wisdom and learning things from these events that happened over two and a half thousand years ago. We can apply the teachings of Socrates to our lives and take time to reflect on our lives each day, and how to better use logic from the great philosopher Aristotle. Greek writings such as the Odyssey laid the foundation for modern poetry and are still being modeled after today. Sparta’s battle strategies used in the Peloponnesian war, at least in some part, are still being applied. Even Athens’ form of government that they created is still widespread all over the world, in some of the most prosperous countries. Athens and Sparta didn’t just influence the ancient world, their choices, inventions, and ideas still affect us today.