Athens & Sparta

1 Athens & Sparta : Democracy vs. Dictatorship Dr. Peter J. Brand During the archaic and classical periods (ca 800-323 BCE), Ancient greece consisted of several hundred poleis1 or city states. Each polis was its own small country. Many of these were no more than small towns or even villages which controlled sometimes very small territories. At the opposite end of this spectrum were the two largest, most powerful and ultimately most influential Greek city states, Athens and Sparta . Politically, they were polar opposites of each other. The city of Athens and its territory of Attica was a cultural and economic powerhouse. Athens was the birthplace of many fundamental aspects of Western civilization, including ethical philosophy and the theater. The Parthenon and its iconic temple to the goddess Athena are the cornerstones of Western architecture. But it is in the political realm that modern civilization owes much to Athens , for it was here that democracy was born.

peninsula of southern Greece. The Laconian plain was large and agriculturally rich, and was separated from neighboring regions by tall mountains. In the classical period, Sparta itself was never a large city like Athens. Instead, its “urban core” consisted of a clump of four villages. The Spartans were warriors,

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  Thane, Classical, Greece, Sparta, Athens amp sparta

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