How Did The Decline Of Sparta

If you’ve heard of Sparta and think it’s fantastic, think again. Sparta was a city state located on a peninsula in southern Greece called the Peloponnese. Sparta was very violent and all they thought about was having the strongest military. The weaknesses of Sparta outweigh the strengths because the Spartans lacked education, boys were taken away from their families at a young age, and they were very abusive.

Sparta vs. Athens To begin with, Athens and Sparta were both famous in antiquity for their legend, cultures and the character of the people. On the one hand, the two poleis share certain obvious affinities, such as language, geographical scope, a common Greek ancestry etc. On the other hand, they were polar opposites in many aspects, from social spheres, political structures, to military might, which I believe there are some hidden depths in these city-states. Hence, let’s look at how did their people obtain the right to participate in public life and make decisions affecting the community, and who held public office first.

Well, first of all the Spartans made decisions by their power. The Spartans were constantly in battle. They obviously took advantage of the Helots and made them their slaves. They were in control and had a higher power in Sparta. The Athenians were democratic. Sparta had set up two Kings for Polis. Although the Spartans were strong, the Gerousia and Ephors were positions they needed to uphold to become political to create any change in society. Yes, the Spartan had a strong military which made for powerful soldiers, but the real control was in the hands of becoming an Ephor, for the non-aristocratic Spartans, (Brand, n.d.). This was the only way those Spartans could be involved in politics. Aristocratic Spartans were Gerousia. This was how

The ancient powerhouse of Greece, Sparta, was a city-state that was based around military. They were known for many reasons and continue to influence history today. The Spartans reached the top of their run of success after defeating the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C). The ideals and morals of the Spartans were based upon loyalty to the military and the entire city-state. Many scholars idolize the Spartans because of the rights that women held and their place in society.

Greeks had conquered the world, so they exported their way of life. But, there are no kingdoms without a king, and with Alexander’s swift and stunning compromise, his empire would crumble almost as quickly as it was built. 404 BC., a long and bloody 27-years’ war has come to an end. Athens is dominated and destroyed

Further alienating Sparta from Athens was their oppositional governmental ideologies of Athenian democracy and Spartan

Athens and Sparta, located between the Aegean and the Ionian Sea, allied with each other in the Greco-Persian war. Due to the advanced and powerful navy of Athens incorporation with the well-built army of Sparta, they gained victory over the Persian Empire. After the victory, Athens gained wealth and dominance over the other Greek societies causing tensions between Sparta. They both share similarities towards their cultural background but had different views in creating an ideal society in addition to their state’s place in the world. Moreover, they differ from the concepts of a well trained or educated society and a well built military, but share similarities in their government format.

Education In Sparta: Did The Strengths Outweigh The Weaknesses? Do you want to be abandoned because you weren 't strong and healthy baby? This would happen if you lived in Sparta. Sparta was never big it was located on peloponnesus peninsula in greece. Sparta government was ruled by two kings and three Ephors, and a Council of Elders this government was called oligarchy meaning it’s ruled by a small group.

History 1421 Week One Written Assignment University of the people Abstract This week, as a prompt for our written assignment we were given five questions relating to the text provided as week one’s reading material, “Athens & Sparta: Democracy vs. Dictatorship” by Dr. Peter J. Brand; how did people in Athens and Sparta obtain the right to participate in public life and make decisions affecting the community, who held public office, what rules governed the selection of public office holders, how were the two city-states similar in their governmental structures, and how did they differ.

The government in ancient Athens was governed by a radical democratic system from 508-322 B.C. and was very different in its size and how the system allowed all males to participate in the government. The Peloponnesian War effected their government when the oligarchy party overthrew the democracy and replaced it with the modern regime of the Five Thousand. Athenians spent almost 100 year fighting to restore democracy and defeat the Spartans and their allies the Persians. Their style of government goes back even before the Peloponnesian War around the time of 620 B.C. Before the Peloponnesian War, there was a man by the name of Draco. Draco gave the people of Athens a law code of which citizens had to listen to.

The Second War began when the Spartan King Archimedes II laid siege to the city of Plataea. The Athenians were able to hold their position until 427 B.C.E., when the city fell. During that time, a revolt by the Spartans as taking place at Mytilene, which put additional pressure on Athens. While they defended and successfully extinguished that revolt, the Athenians made additional progress into Peloponnese, by sea, as well as Italy, by land. Athens’ success eventually ended when they were defeated in an attempt to recover Amphipolis in 422 B.C.E.

Michelle Lai 5402 Global Studies Period 1 10/26/15 Rise to Success The Spartans’ brutal authority over the Messenian helots made them revolt around 650 B.C. Being outnumbered and unprepared, their vulnerability in that situation caused them to focus on strengthening themselves for the rest of their lives. The Spartans became known for their powerful military in Greece from around 600 to 371 B.C. The necessity for strength and stability helped to develop Spartan society.

Athens organized a group of Greek city states into the Delian League and eventually lead and dominated all of the city states in the League. Athens’s military prowess allowed them to look down on the other members of the League and treat them as members of an empire instead of equals. This caused some to view them with hostility which sparked the conflicts between Athens and Sparta that lead to the Peloponnesian War. The direct democracy of Athens wasn’t actually as inclusive and steady as the statement at Pericles 's funeral state, “Our Constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people (Doc C).” In fact, of the 450,000 citizens of Athens in 430 BC, only about 40,000 people had the power to vote.

The real question is were the Greeks very democratic? I really do not think the Greeks were democratic at all. They really didn’t exemplify true qualities of a Democratic City-State. The next few paragraphs will show the reason behind my answer, and how people were treated unfairly. My first reason behind this is the Athenian government only granted citizenship to men who parents were free-born Athenian parents.

Did the strengths in Sparta’s education outweigh its weaknesses? Sparta began as a cluster of houses grouped together near the Evrotas River. Sparta slowly began to grow into a city-state. By 500 BCE, it was the dominant city-state on the Peloponnese. Sparta was able to manage all this with a population of 25,000 and an army of 8,000 men.