Sparta Vs. Athen
Spartans left their houses when they were young children, at the age of seven. if a child was born sickly or deformed, they killed it. From a young age to adult hood they trained all sorts of physical war activities, in a place called "AGOGE". they just wanted to toughen up their bodies, and be ready for war as well.Their were no physically weak Spartans men or women, when they had a serious injury that is when they got released form the palace. Their membership would automatically be revoked. They only kept men who were capable of defending their country in a time of need. They called them hoplites. Hoplites were no ordinary people, they serves time in favored of their county. They were patriots as you would call them today. In time to go to war, they wore big bronze metal around their chest. they served with one thing in mind. “polis” meaning law in English. Sparta had slaves, if you were an immigrant or one of the few men who did not go to training when the government called. you were government owned. Only women were allowed to stay home and take care of the kids. Women were legally protected by the law,Polis.They were two kinds of slaves: private slaves and public slaves. Private slaves were owned by individuals, they perform chores like cleaning the house, cooking all sorts of errands around the house, Individuals could sleep with their slaves whatever they did though they could not abuse their slaves physically. They were treated like property. And they did not abuse their poperties for long time use. Public slaves, these slaves were government owned. They performed chores like cleaning churches, they did some community services, the government did not care about public slaves, they were like homeless people, they did not shelter them, public slaves were treated worse than private owned ones. Like this philosopher Eristotle from sparta said it best in 328 B.C. “ a slave is a slave no matter what he does”.
Spartans political structure was led by the best, they had what they called the “oligarchy” they had two kings alternating powers. Back and forth. and these five, old, male called the "EPHORS" were there to consult the king of what he should be doing for the country. The spartans were real spirittual, they believed in this divine word called the ORACLE. oracle was a real person, it was this woman who lived in a palace of APPOLO. in this location called DELPHI. she would sit on the fire and whisper out words. and that was believed to be the spirits from the god. Now because the Spartans overemphasized their physical abilities, they were real competitive. They believed that no one could beat them in a war. They favored a god named NIKE. This god was a god of victory, whenever they wanted to win a war, they called upon him. Of course they worshipped other gods too. Like ARES, the god of brutality, and misery. This god enjoyed war choes. And ZEUS was a god of craftsmen, the god of beauty crafted objects. The god of justice. This god was worshipped at a time of accusation. Alone with a god of life, god DELPHI. And they worshipped DIONYSUS was a god of wine , the god of intoxication , the god of drunken choes. Especially, they worshipped him at a time of parties where alcohol beverage drinks were involves. He was believed to be the reason behind the fights that went on around that time. He was the god of theater too. Then they worshipped a god called APPOLO the god of music, he was believed of helping people relax after a hard, long day. A god of thunder, lightening and rain was controlled by the god called POSEIDON. This god was real important to the farmers at a time of harvest. They called on him in a time when they needed rain to fall and water their plants. And they were HERMES, this god was a messenger of ZEUS. He was also known as a god of foot race.because he was always on his feet all day delivering messages to ZEUS. And he was also refered to as the god of fortune, because every lucky event, he was in the area. All this gods were worshipped throught the greece nation.
Basically back the nation greece was divided into numeroous city states. that hated one another and Sparta and Athen was a perfect example of these rival city states. In the second century, Spartans were the most powerful city in Greece because of their political structure and their powerful army. But in time that changed, Around fifth century, Athen a city of Greece proved themselves to be as powerful as Sparta, maybe even better. By that time Athen was more powerful than Spartan, it had the best political structure. athen had a democracy instead of the oloigarchy. Athen had a lot of philosophers but Sparta had a few. Their were this philosopher from athen his name was Socrates, Socrates taught the oracle divine word to the people. He did not have a class or anything, he did not write his ideas down. He only relied upon talking to people and getting them to follow his way of thinking. His student was a man called plato. Socrates went on quest all over the nation, trying to find man who was wiser than he was. All he found was that no man was wiser than he was, and his best friend went to the god of life. God Delphi, trying to find out that he was telling them the truth. God DELPHI confirmed his word that Socrates was the wisest of all. Because he went on that quest harassing people. Three men from Sparta accused him for teaching the wrong oracle. His accusers were mytus, anytus and lycon. Long story short he was sentenced to death.Athens political structure was like this, even if you were doing the right deed and you were bothering people. then you wrong for doing right. And people were right to accuse you. That is how their democracy worked. For example this man Socrates was a man of god, he went all over the nation spreading his knowledge along with oracle, but because he was doing it bringing names to his country, he was crucified.
The oracle was constitute of men over the age of eighteen to speak in the oracle but women were not allowed to speak of political issues, only men of age eighteen and up. They had to speak of their callings like a carpenter could not speak on craftsmen behalf. They had a complete democracy. Every men had the right to say what is on his minds. Athenians were much wiser than the Spartans. Instead of toughening up their bodies like Spartans did. Athenians practiced for Olympics games and every body was qualify to participate. The Olympics games covered games like running, jumping playing all sorts of competitive games. these olympic games were started around 700 b.c. olympic games were a religious festival.
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