Ancient Athens vs. Sparta: Civilizations Compared

Introduction

Ancient Athens and ancient Sparta were both Greek city-states, but they were two very different civilizations in spite of the fact that they existed in close proximity to one another. Athens was known as the seat of culture and learning in the ancient world, and Spartan culture was often ridiculed by Athenians because it was far more focused on sports, physicality, and military discipline. The Spartans and the Athenians were frequently at war with one another, but on some occasions they worked together against a common enemy, as they did against ancient Persia.

The Athenian playwright Aristophanes wrote about the differences between the two civilizations in his famous comedy Lysistrata, in which the Spartan women and the Athenian women work together to deprive their men of sex so that the men will stop fighting their wars with one another. The play was a success because of its social commentary on the times: the two civilizations were always fighting each other when not fighting the Persians, and the idea of Athenian women and Spartan women uniting for a common aim was so ludicrous it made Aristophanes' audience laugh.

In reality, Spartan civilization would eventually conquer Athenian civilization, which had grown weak through corruption. After all, its leaders put to death their most famous philosopher and teacher, Socrates, simply because he was teaching the youth to ask questions and think critically — and they viewed that as a threat to their authority. This paper examines the differences and similarities of the two civilizations and argues that, despite their geographical nearness, they were far more different than they were alike.

Key Differences Between Athens and Sparta

Although both civilizations owned slaves, slavery in Athens was much less harsh than it was in Sparta (PBS). It was often remarked that one could not even tell much of a difference between who was a slave and who was a free man in Athens. In Sparta, this was not the case at all. There were actually more slaves in Sparta than there were free men, and those slaves were not treated with much respect. As Herodotus points out, in the fifth century BC at the time of the Battle of Plataea, there were seven slaves for every Spartan man. That ratio explains why there was a great slave revolt in Sparta and why the Spartans lived in constant fear of losing control of their enslaved population.

The slaves in Sparta were called helots, and they constituted an essentially captive, oppressed people whom the Spartans struggled to control. The Spartans would abuse them, wage war on them, slaughter them, and beat them into subjugation routinely. The relationship between the Spartans and the helots was one of perpetual tension: the Spartans always carried their spears and never fully relaxed outside the home, for fear of being attacked. This insecurity was one reason the Spartans placed such heavy emphasis on physical fitness and conditioning. The fact that the helots considerably outnumbered the free Spartan population and harbored deep resentment was the primary source of Spartan unease.

In Athens, there was no such discomfort. Slaves were not routinely mistreated or abused as they were in Sparta, and Athens placed greater value on human life generally. In Sparta, if a child was born with a defect, it would be killed, as the Spartans despised weakness and regarded any physically impaired individual as a threat to their civilization's strength. Athens made no similar claim to such cruelty.

The two civilizations also had different forms of government. Athens was the seat of democracy. Sparta was an oligarchy, ruled by a few powerful families. Athens prided itself on civic duty — on the role of the individual to vote for leaders, sit on juries, and participate in the governance of society. Sparta had no such system. In Sparta, civic duty consisted of training and preparing for military combat, which was required from age 7 all the way through age 60 (Diffen). Sparta was far more focused on brute physicality than on education or philosophy. If the most important thing for Athenians was to be intelligent, cultured, artistic, and philosophical, the most important thing for Spartans was to be courageous and brave in battle (Christesen).

Another major difference concerned the role of women. In Athens, women had almost no public role in society. They were not educated in schools and rarely left the home except to attend certain civic events. Athenian men did everything in society — they voted, received education, ran the government, conducted commerce, and trained for the military. Women held an entirely domestic role. In Sparta, however, the situation was quite different. Sparta was in many respects informally led by its women, as Redfield points out: women dominated, and men obeyed. Figueira notes that "Spartan gynecocracy appears most clearly in women's influence on male upbringing and masculine comportment" (265). Spartan women were deeply concerned with safety and security, and their influence directed Spartan civilization to focus almost exclusively on battle readiness.

Women in Sparta did not nurture their children in the way women in Athens did. It was typical for Spartan babies to be raised "without swaddling cloths around their limbs" (Lefkowitz and Fant 87). By practicing a hard life from infancy, children were raised to be "not fussy about food, and not scared of the dark or afraid to be left alone, and free of ignoble irritability and whining" (Lefkowitz and Fant 87). Spartan women did not seek comforts or extravagances for themselves or their children. They pushed the men to be harder and tougher than all others, and thus women in Sparta held an extremely influential role in shaping their civilization.

Why the Differences Arose

One reason differences arose between the two civilizations was geographical. Sparta was entirely landlocked and surrounded by hills. It was not easily accessible and therefore attracted few visitors or traders. Sparta had a much smaller population than Athens as a result. Athens, by contrast, was a major port city located on the Mediterranean coast, so it flourished through access to water, trade, and a constant flow of people. Athens had a population nearly ten times the size of Sparta's.

Athens was also oriented toward freedom more than toward security. Great philosophers had laid the foundations for democracy there, and this inspired people throughout the region to travel to Athens to learn and study. Athens had great artists who created beautiful sculptures; it celebrated the dramatic works of poets and playwrights; and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were central to Athenian cultural life and were frequently memorized. Athens was, in short, an attractive destination for anyone interested in culture. Sparta, constantly worried about its own defenses and the helots who outnumbered it, gave outsiders little reason to visit. Much of the Greek-speaking world viewed the Spartans as backwards and barbaric — but Sparta simply had different priorities. Athens could afford to focus on the finer things in life, as it had a flourishing economy and deep democratic and philosophical traditions. Sparta's concerns never changed over the centuries: it was always focused on its own survival and on maximizing its military toughness.

Yet Sparta was also supportive of other states in that it would lend its military when needed. It had no real interest in expanding its territory and harbored no grand ambitions of conquest — its sole aim was to be the strongest. Athens, having grown prosperous, was interested in expansion and became increasingly aggressive toward other states. So long as Athens held the strongest navy, it could manage this ambition well. But when Sparta developed a navy of its own, it removed the main strategic advantage Athens held, and Athens' military was no match for Sparta thereafter.

Conclusion

Civilizations are sometimes understood in terms of empire, but as the case of Athens and Sparta shows, civilization can also be understood in small terms, because it is fundamentally about how closed or open a system is. Athens was very open, as a major trade destination. Sparta was very closed, as a landlocked and inward-looking society. Each faced different concerns and held different values. They were close neighbors, but they were exceedingly different in terms of culture and in what their primary social goals were. Geography, economic structure, and the particular pressures each civilization faced drove them apart far more than their shared language, religion, or Greek identity could bring them together.

Works Cited

Christesen, P. "Athletics and Social Order in Sparta in the Classical Period." Classical Antiquity 31 (2012): 193–255.

Diffen. "Athens vs. Sparta." https://www.diffen.com/difference/Athens_vs_Sparta

Figueira, T. "Gynecocracy: How Women Policed Masculine Behavior in Archaic and Classical Sparta." In Powell, A. and Hodkinson, S. (eds.), Sparta: The Body Politic. Swansea, 2010: 265–96.

Herodotus. Histories. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126

Lefkowitz, M. and Fant, M. B. Women's Life in Greece and Rome. 2nd ed. Baltimore, 1992.

PBS. "The Populace of Athens — Slaves." https://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/32b.html

Racine, F. "Cosmopolis: Imagining Community in Late Classical Athens and the Early Roman Empire." Classical Review 63, no. 1 (2013): 90.

Redfield, J. "The Women of Sparta." Classical Journal 73 (1977): 146–61.