Spartan Women During The Peloponnesian War

Men’s feelings inclined much more to the Spartans, especially as they proclaimed themselves the liberators of Hellas. No private or public effort that could help them in speech or action was omitted; each thinking that the cause suffered wherever he could not himself see it. So general was the indignation felt against Athens, whether by those who wished to escape from her empire or were apprehensive of being absorbed by it.

In the ancient Greek world, Spartan women had the most rights and power of all the women during this time. These women were allowed education, becoming a wife was important, they were also depended on to produce strong and healthy offspring, and they were independent. Spartan women were superior compared to any other women of ancient Greece. Women played a huge role in society. To begin, young girls in Sparta had the freedom to mature on their own while growing up.

During The Peloponnesian War, Sparta was able to dominate Athens and win the war. At the war’s conclusion, Athens was left in complete chaos, and Sparta was also weakened. Athens was politically, economically, and militarily affected, while Sparta was only slightly affected politically and militarily. However, with Sparta’s ignorance towards foreign people, the results of the war were worse than the war itself.

To begin, Sparta was huge on their military. Women were fully involved and were given physical training, as their husbands would leave from a young age for years and would only come back to their wives if they were to make a stronger family. Women were there to provide them with their equipment and know how protect their family while their husbands were gone. Unlike Athenian women they had nothing to do with their military. The men only went to the military for two years and then were able to come back which shows us how their military was not a priority to them. Athens was never big on military as Sparta was they were known to rather value philosophy, art, and such.

In this paper, I will analyze and compare roles, rights, and freedom of Athenians and Spartans in Ancient Greece. And I will discuss their positions in society, main obligations, and the way they were treated by men. I will start with analyzing Spartan women, where I will bring arguments

As the social studies textbook says, “Spartan women were raised to be strong and vigorous. They participated in sports....[They] had a good deal of freedom and responsibility...they had greater independence than women in other city states.” When other city states treated women like unequals, Sparta was the one that gave women rights. By giving women the right to participte in sports and get an education, the city-state of Sparta coud ensure that the women could give birth to smart and healthy children.

Every Greek City-State sent soldiers to help calm things down. Athens sent over 5000 soldiers; the Spartans however didn’t allow them into the country because they believed the Athens was going to abuse this chaos and not help. In 449 BCE two members of the Peloponnesian League, Megara and Corinth started fighting. Athens saw this opportunity to gain a strong hold on the mainland, so Athens formed an alliance with Megara.

Sparta’s women were also treated as second to men in some aspects but they had a lot more freedom than many other women in Greece at the time. Sparta and Athens primary goal for women was childbirth. Both city states agreed that women should be able to reproduce. In Sparta this was because they needed boys so

The life of Spartans were rough, they endured harsh lifestyles through hard training, tough childhoods, and they were often at war. Sparta was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece. In antiquity the city-state was known as Lacedaemon, while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.

The Peloponnesian War pitted the Athenians against the Spartans. The Peloponnesians’ were an alliance of city-states controlled by Sparta. These two powerful city-states became locked in a struggle for dominance of the eastern Mediterranean area. The roots of the conflict and in particular this expedition is highly complex. As Thucydides says in his history of the war, the underlying cause was Spartan fear of Athens' expansive power. But, the triggering event was Athens' aggressive behavior towards Corinth, an ally of Sparta.

Throughout the Ancient Greek world, there have been many wars and standoffs. However, there has been only one which changed the course of Greek history forever; the Peloponnesian War. Caused by the growing tension between Athens and Sparta, it came and left, leaving only destruction in its wake. The defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War caused the downfall of Greece, and the end of the Classical Age.

The Peloponnesian War was a civil war that took place between the Greek city-states after the Greeks won the Greco-Persian War. The Peloponnesian League led by Sparta and the Dalian League headed by Athens suffered heavy losses in this war. Athens is even more problematic. At the time, both the Athenian ruler and ecclesia made some mistakes in Plato's view, including the exile of Themistocles. Once a war has occurred, both sides of the confrontation will resort to unscrupulous means for the benefit, so the lies become a tool for evil.

The peloponnesian war occurred in the golden age of greece between athens and sparta. The war was fought over who was going to have the most powerful city. At this point in time, the athenian navy was looking really strong and sparta needed to do something about this so they could regain power. The persians help sparta to fight the athenians and sparta blocks supplies coming into athens.

Just as the men of Sparta had a predetermined job to fulfill for the city-state, the women also had obligations and demands that they had to succeed in. The woman of Sparta were highly educated and athletic. They were given the opportunity to go to school and receive an education in what historians believe subjects such history, music, drama, ready, writing, among other subjects. This gave the women of Sparta an advantage over other women in Greece, because at that the time they are believed to be the only ones attending schools. It was simple logic amongst the Spartans, that a strong Spartan couple would give birth to strong offspring’s. Spartan women were competitive and active. They would participate in competitions such as wrestling, dancing, and singing. Unlike your typical housewife, they did not have to worry about chores because of the helots. The women of Sparta were also trained in combat. They were shown how to defend themselves in case they needed to protect the city-state. Women were looked at to have strong male infants in order to raise them for the military and replace those who were lost in battle. Men were pressured into marriage and having children. They were praised for bringing the city state strong children and ridiculed if they delayed it. If a male was unable or failed to bring in strong children who passed the physical, they had to find a fellow Spartan for help. Married couples usually did not live together, because men had to live in the

Athens and Sparta were both dominant powers in ancient Greece. However, a legendary rivalry existed between the two. When Athens ended its alliance with Corcyra in 433 B.C. and began to surround Potidaea, it threatened Corinth’s position. Sparta feared that Athens was becoming too powerful and tried to avert war. The Spartans believed that peace was possible if the Athenians would revoke measures against Sparta's ally, Megara. The Athenian leader, Pericles, refused to concur with this because Sparta and Athens had earlier agreed that conflicts would be solved by negotiation. If the Athenians would yield to Sparta's request, they would in fact be accepting Sparta’s orders. This was unacceptable, and as a result, war broke out. Athens and its Delian League were attacked by Sparta and its Peloponnesian League. Diodorus mentions that the Spartans did not just declare war, but sought additional support from Persia.