Sparta Speech

・How did people in Athens and Sparta obtain the right to participate in public life and make decisions affecting the community? In Athens case, its citizens, consisted of all adult male, 20 years and older, participated in their government. Additionally, it doesn't include the economic condition. Pericles, a democratic leader insisted the importance of the service to the city state, therefore though the poor, if he satisfies to be called the citizen, it can join to participate in.

My objective for this week’s learning journal is to demonstrate why I believe Sparta would be the best polis of choice for me to live in.

The most distinctive feature of Greek political culture lay in the extent of popular participation in political life that occurred within the city-states. This participation was based on the unique ideas of “citizenship,” of free people running the affairs of state, and of equality for all citizens before the law. Political participation in Greek city-states was much wider than in Persia, but it varied considerably between city-states and over time. Early in Greek history, only the wealthy and wellborn had the rights of full citizenship, but middle- and lower-class men gradually obtained these rights in some city-states.

During the times of Ancient Greece, two major forms of government existed, democracy and oligarchy. The city-states of Athens and Sparta are the best representatives of democracy and oligarchy, respectively. The focus of the times was directed towards military capabilities, while the Athenians were more interested in comfort and culture. It was the oligarchy in Sparta that put a war-like attitude as its first priority and best met the needs of Ancient Greece. These factors empowered Sparta and led to the development of an authoritative and potent state. Other contrasting issues included women’s rights, social classes, and value of human life.

Were the people better served by the democracy in Athens or the oligarchy of Sparta?

The ruler of Athens, Pericles (495-429 BCE) convinced the Athenians to rebuild the Acropolis instead of leaving it in ruin as a reminder of the price of war. (Sayre 58) From the rebuilding of Acropolis came the Golden Age. Pericles thought that by rebuilding the Acropolis, it could stand as a memorial to the Persian War and to Athena, the patron of the Athenian people. Phidias was a sculptor whom Pericles placed in charge of the sculptural program for the new buildings of Acropolis. Pericles very much wanted Athens to be the leading example for Greece. He was very proud of the men who had fallen in their battles of the Peloponnesian War, even writing a speech for them.

Athens and Sparta were two powerful city-states, different from each other where Athenian democracy focused on economic advancement, while Sparta oligarchy focused on military force. Democracy is a system of government where citizens have the right to vote, whereas oligarchy is a system of government where only a group of people is in control and only their opinion or decision that were taken into consideration. Leading to the thesis statement that people are better served by Athenian democracy than the Spartan oligarchy, supported in three evidence points. Firstly, Athenian democracy allowed citizens participation in government that gave them freedom to vote and take part in legislation. Secondly, the Athenian government provided Athenian men better education, by being taught how to read and write to reach their academic advancement. Lastly, the Athenian democracy’s contribution to Athens military advancement that protected its citizens.

Classical Sparta Page 1 Samantha Elliott Ancient Sparta was an interesting time, one that’s like no other. There were many key components of Sparta and the Spartans that stood out to make it unique. The first unique trait of Sparta was; “Sparta was one of the most efficient and strongest of the Leading Greek city states in its time”(“Spartan Warriors.” Ancient Warriors.) regarding its military.

The speech wins the people in the crowd over with a sense of pride over Athens. Their democratic republic was a unique government for their time, and Pericles takes advantage of his words by proclaiming, “Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves.” This statement reminds the people of Athens that their community is different than the surrounding nations, and that they should be proud of where they have gotten. A hint of direction comes into play, though, when Pericles goes on to say, “If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences…nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.” Comparing this statement to the laws of the Spartans, it increases even further the sense of patriotism that Pericles is trying to raise within the crowd. With the Spartans government being very

On the topic of governmental standpoints Sparta was an oligarchy whereas Athens was a democracy. An oligarchy is a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique (Dictionary.com). Sparta’s government was set up into four branches: two co-kings, Gerontes or Gerousia, Ephors, and Appella or Demos. The co-kings were of two different family lines of limited hereditary monarchs who were kept in check by the other parts of government as well as by each other. One of the two kings was the commander in chief of the army. Gerontes were a council of 30 consisting of the 2 co-kings plus 28 others each were rich elders of noble birth. They would hold office for the rest of their life after being elected by the people. Gerontes acted as advising body and court of criminal justice in which

Introduction Athens and Sparta were two of the largest, most powerful, and most influential cities of Ancient Greece. They may have both been big and historically well revered, but their societies were structured and ruled very differently. This difference is especially true politically speaking. (Athens & Sparta: Democracy vs. Dictatorship, 2016) Sparta was very focused on growing and maintaining a strong army, in efforts to ward off any uprising from their rule over the Helots.

Felix presented a speech titled, A Spartan Life, an amazing analogy comparing the courageous conquest of the Spartans in the 480 b.c. Battle of Thermopylae to the everyday adversity in the lives of those living with hemophilia. Whether you’re forced to comply with insurance companies dictating your choices or forced to comply with the Persian King Xerxes, the message is all in all the same: Be brave and stand strong in your convictions even in times of agonizing adversity.

The history of Sparta was the great exception to the political evolution of the city-states. Despite the fact that Spartans in the end were all Greek, Sparta failed to ever move in the direction of democratic rule. Instead, its government evolved into something more closely resembling a modern day dictatorship. If the Spartans had followed the other Greek city-states in their political practices they might have been able to avoid their own downfall and could have even become stronger.

Supposedly formed by Lycurgus, the government in Sparta is very unique in that it is an Oligarchy; combining monarchy, aristocracy and democracy.

The first section of this piece will attempt to explore the conflicts that occurred between the aristocrats and the peasants in Solon’s Athens on the basis of land and slavery, and the solutions that Solon posed in the form of laws, as well as the effects that they had on the citizens of the time. There were city of Athens was divided into three parts; there was the Hill, the Plain, and the Shore (Plutarch: Solon, 54). Each division contained it’s own people with different political views. The Hill supported an extreme democracy, whereas the Plain supported an extreme oligarchy, and the Shore wanted a government that wasn’t quite an oligarchy, and wasn’t quite a democracy. The Shore wanted a government that was modeled after, and was a mix of both democracy and oligarchy (Plutarch: Solon 54). The presence of this third party made it very difficult for either extreme party to rise above the other (Plutarch: Solon 54). The land quality of the peasants was very poor and it was located in the barren part of the city, however the rich owned vast amounts of good quality land (Trumbach). It was very common to find peasants in debt to the aristocrats because of their bad quality land. Many times, commoners would cultivate on the land owned by the aristocrats, and pay them one-sixth of the produce that was harvested (Plutarch: Solon, 54). It was also apparent that peasants would use themselves as collateral, and were often seized as debt slaves by their