Athens and Sparta

Two Cities

Greece, a very culturally rich country, had at one point two separate and very different poleis. These two poleis, Athens and Sparta were very developed in politics, culture, arête and education. Athens was a very large city-state consisting of about 40,000 male citizens; the rest of the 350,000 inhabitants consisted of women, children, slaves, and legal aliens. The group of 350,000 could not participate in any lawmaking. Attica was a very close-knit society. The citizens all felt a sense of welcoming hospitality and each and every one of them was deeply involved in politics and cultural life. The gods, hereditary kings, or the priests could not influence politics. Theocracies were heavily dominated by religion leaving no room for rational human based decisions. As a more rational approach to Greek life was taking charge, religion in politics was a thing of the past (Perry, 55).

Even though religion was losing its influence in politics it was not losing its place in Greek life. The peasants relied heavily on the gods to keep close ties to their ancient cults and religious rituals. Military commanders and statesmen still looked to oracles and sacrifices for decision-making. The Greeks still devoted rituals and sacrifices to the gods as an act of patriotism to the god of a city. When rationalism gained great influence in Greek life, religion lived side by side with rationalism. Religious influence was changed in order to go along with rationalism and in turn it became weaker. Religion in politics saw its end when democracy was at its height in the fifth century.

Sparta can be located on the Peloponnesian peninsula. Dorian Greeks settled Sparta and focused its expansion policy on conquering its Peloponnesian neighbors. The Spartans invaded and defeated the Messanians. In Greek tradition, when a land power conquered another city instead of selling or trading off the conquered people, they would keep them as state serfs. These state serfs were...