Development Of Athens And Sparta

Sparta was originally made up of four small villages in Laconia, an area in the southwestern Peloponnesus, until 730 B.C., which is when Sparta began to take over Messenia. Laconians either became periokoi, a name for free people who were not citizens and who were required to pay taxes and perform military service for Sparta, or helots, who were forced to work on farms and as servants of the Spartans. The Messenians became helots by the 7th century, when Sparta took full control of Messenia.

The Spartans turned Sparta into a military state by 6th century B.C. to make sure they would not loose control of what they had succeeded in conquering. Training for the military began at birth when state officials decided whether a baby was fit to live and he would be left to die if they felt that he was not fit for Spartan military life. Between the ages of eight and ten, boys were taken from their mothers to live in barracks for military training. They were taught to be obedient to authority and were exposed to extreme temperatures of hot and cold. The boys received a lack of food and also slept on straw mattresses so they would get used to being uncomfortable. When they reached their teenage years they were given weapons and many of them were accidentally killed during training. At the age of twenty, they became full Spartan soldiers. They were allowed to marry, but had to reside in the barracks until the age of thirty, which is when they also gained the ability to vote. They had to stay in the army until the age of sixty.

The women of Sparta lived at home while their husbands lived in the barracks. This gave them more freedom and greater power in the household compared to women in other city-states, such as Athens. Athenian women were married by fourteen or fifteen and received no form of formal education. They were to remain out of sight unless they were attending a funeral or a festival and they had to be accompanied by a man. Spartan women exercised to stay fit so they would be able to bear and raise healthy sons. They could own property and were encouraged to live a simple life. They did not wear any jewelry or makeup.

Although Spartan women enjoyed much more freedom than the women of Athens, women could not become a citizen in either one of these city-states. Citizenship in both of these city-states followed the same four basic requirements. These included having proof of being a native of the city-state, being male, being at least thirty years of age, and having served in the military of the city-state they resided in at the level of a hoplite or higher. Hoplites were basic soldiers of the Greek army. Every Spartan man was required to serve in the army so all Spartan men fulfilled the last requirement. Athenian men could join the army at any age, which contrasts the way of life of Spartan men, who had no choice but to join by the time they turned twenty. Athenian men were also only part-time soldiers as opposed to Spartans who made a career out of being a soldier.

Sparta had a set democracy. Even though their culture focused on the army, they never lost their democracy. The government was led by a dual kingship. There was a group of five men know as the ephors who ran the day-to-day government of Sparta. The ephors were elected each year. The gerousia was made up of two kings and twenty-eight citizens over the age of sixty. This group of people decided what issues would be presented to the assembly, which consisted of the Spartan citizens who would then vote on these issues. Spartans did not want to have any outside force influence their way of life and they succeeded in keeping the outside world on the outside by isolating Sparta. They kept foreigners from visiting their city-state in fear of them