The Importance Of Arete In Ancient Greece

Athens and Sparta were two major city-states in old Greek. We review their governance and compare them for their similarities and differences.

Athens, located in southern Greece, experienced an expansion in culture and education during the years between the Persian War and Peloponnesian War (477-431 BC) which set the stage for future expansions of culture in civilizations like Ancient Rome and Europe during the Renaissance. Although Athens was very prosperous, innovative and ruled by strong leaders during their Golden Age, they still didn’t have a perfect government or social structure which puts into question how successful this period actually was.

Democratic regimes have an interesting mix of features. Some of these features seem to be contradictory while others are complementary. Democracies tend to be liberal in their orientation and as a result, they tend to become more and more immoral. The ancient city of Corinth is a great example of this. The city was liberal and wealthy, but with all of that came a flood of immorality. There also tends to be an instability that is built into this regime because when the demos rule they do so through their passions. When the passions of the people and rulers vacillate there tends to be great instability. We observe this in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, where he records how the people of Athens in one moment love and adore Pericles and in the next they turn on him. Democracies tend to follow the passions of the people, one moment the people want to go in one direction or to follow after one leader and in the next moment they turn.

Failure during the Peloponnesian War caused Greeks to question democracy and traditional Greek values. Plato disagreed with the way the state was run, especially after Athens’ loss at war. He discusses the meaning of justice and outlines how the ideal state should be governed in The Republic. He believes that the ideal state should be governed by a class of guardian rulers, who were trained as philosopher-kings. These rulers are the only members of society who could understand the Form of the Good and would be able to rule justly and logically. The rest of society would be made up of the class of warriors and the class of producers. With each member of society performing his own duty according to his class, and with rulers embracing the true Forms, peace and cooperation would be

The Democracy of Athens meant that the people rule themselves. It was easy for the Athenians to see who the people are due to the population number at the time. Therefore, they could easily make decisions. The biggest difference between Athenian democracy and almost all other democracies is that the Athenians had a direct democracy rather than being representative. The city-state of Athens, 5th century Athens to be precise, is the inventor and first practitioner of democracy. One of the earliest known democracies was in Athens, a city-state in southern, ancient Greece. In Athens, the ruler Draco tried to make many reforms in the city state. Draco organized laws by putting them in a written code, letting everyone know what the laws were and

One of the many states of Greece, ancient Athens, was indeed not truly democratic as a result of not even using the essentials of democracy that is used today, “Thus, by our standards, it was oligarchy, not democracy.¨(Document D), therefore ancient Athens was not using democracy as their form of government, they were using oligarchy,another form of government in which a small group of people has power and control, as their form of government instead of democracy.

Equally, hard workers have brought Athens power just as much as hereditary leaders. According to Document B all citizens should be allowed to speak their opinion and have a share in election because of the hard work they do to make the city powerful. Athenians allowed poor and common men to win a position in government which was a transition from the wealthy having power to everyone having power. Election by lottery allowed everyone to voice their differences and come to an agreement, and it made Athenians stronger. All citizens play a role in the city that they

Though this may seem like an idealized system, Pericles resembles the approach of modern society. Democracy favors the many instead of the few and Pericles believes justice is achieved when citizens follow those laws in which they have the freedom to participate in public life. Pericles notes, “We alone do good to our neighbors not upon a calculation of interest, but in the confidence of freedom and in a frank and fearless spirit.” The difference between Socrates and Pericles is that Socrates believes citizens have an obligation to participate in politics; whereas Pericles states that there is freedom to participate in public life and behave as a free and tolerant state as long as there is respect for authority and the

An oligarchy system was adopted in Sparta. In the oligarchy system, few people has the power to rule. Sparta also had an assembly just like Athens, but the main decisions were taken by the “Council of Elders” with two kings and twenty-eight other men as its members. The two kings where born within the royal family while the twenty-eight man where elected by the assembly. For men to be elected to the Council of Elders, they had to be at least 60 years old and approaching from a noble family. The Council of Elders had a magnificent and immense power within the Sparta’s. It prepared the laws for the assembly to vote on, and it had the power to eradicate any unwanted law. Furthermore, once the laws were elected and confirmed, they served for life. The Ephors, a group of officials, decided on criminal cases with the council of elders .

Classical Athens and Han China are different from each other by its size and scope, the types of government, and how philosophers influence their societies. Athens was located in modern-day Greece next to the Mediterranean Sea. China was located in East Asia next to the Pacific Ocean.

Compare and contrast monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy as forms of government in Ancient Greek city-states.

by existing societies. In greece, most notably in Athens, a form a government never seen before was put

The differences between government, the role of women, and the education status of Athens and Sparta led to similar yet very different societies residing in the same area; therefor I will deconstruct these issues using an analytical comparative framework. In, Athens and Sparta, it shows all the differences between the Athenians and the Spartans. Although the two City States shared a common heritage, their differences grew so large in their own minds that they were ultimately willing to engage in a life-and-death struggle to support their separate realities (Spielvogel). The outcome of their differences made the entire Greek world a loser (Spielvogel).

Both speeches has the basic idea of a “government of the people.” In Abraham Lincoln’s speech titled “Gettysburg Address,” he tells his audience that the government should be “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Likewise, in the speech addressed as “Funeral Oration,” Pericles, a Greek political leader in the B.C. period, states, “Our constitution is called a democracy, because power rests in the hands not of the few but of the many.” Both leaders clearly know the characteristics of a traditional democracy. Despite Lincoln’s speech possibly being the most famous speech in America, Pericles’ speech has the most irresistible effect because it includes a detailed sequence of how the citizens of a democratic country

in the more advanced areas of Greece, economically and socially speaking” (“Greek Administration”, 1988). The polis was a way of the Greeks finding a way to organize themselves into a society, becoming more civilized. According to Greek Administration, “In its fundamental essence it was never conceived as an extent of territory, although its boundaries could be drawn on a map, but rather as a group of citizens feeling themselves bound together under the rule of law” (“Greek Administration, 1988). In terms that are more familiar to the way we teach history today in our society, the polis is what we would call a city-state, each individual polis being its own city-state, acting almost like a small country. According to Nardo, “Although all Greeks, the residents of the various poleis developed differing local governments and customs as well as different forms of currency” (Nardo, 2007). Viewing each polis as a separate country from the others would eventually lead to conflict, seeing as some poleis were bound to eventually begin to view themselves as superior to the other poleis. According to Nardo, “Indeed, they thought of