facts about athens and sparta

But Pericles restrained his army from fighting until the Peloponnesian dispersed. STUDY. According to mythology, … On the diplomatic level, Sparta, the greatest of the Dorian states, deliberately played the anti-Dorian card in the mid-6th century in an attempt to win more allies. Prominent among the states that never experienced tyranny was Sparta, a fact remarked on even in antiquity. Athens is one of the oldest cities in the world and has been continuously inhabited for around 7,000 years! Built with all over the world Copyright © 1999–2021This site uses cookies to improve your experience. Another, more obviously pragmatic, reason why Sparta attracted to itself allies in areas like Arcadia was surely fear of Argos. A congress of city-states met at Corinth in late autumn of 481 BC, [41] … The battle of Sybota was the precursor of this war. Athens and Sparta were two of the most progressive cities in Greece. Each had their strengths and weaknesses and even shared some common patterns such as stable economies and defence architecture. Sparta . They Say of the Acropolis Where the Parthenon Is… One of the main attractions in Athens is an ancient fortification on top of a hill in the middle of Athens. Women, children and slaves were considered below men. Athens had a powerful naval force, which was why more cities chose them as their ally. As for the alleged army reform, nothing can be said about it in detail. Athens, located in the Attica region, had a Mediterranean climate with adequate amounts of precipitation. Facts about Ancient Sparta 1: the military power. Geography's Impact on the Cultures of Athens and Sparta Athens: The Athenians were located near the sea in a region of Greece called Attica. Spartan warriors wore red clothes to hide their bloody wounds during battles. Proximity to the sea also encouraged Athens to build a strong naval fleet. A PowerPoint showing the key similarities and differecnes between the two main cities in Ancient Greece: Athens and Sparta. Sparta: It is believed that in Sparta, the elders tested a newborn baby for deformities and if the baby was deemed unlikely to become a strong soldier, he was tossed into a gorge. You’ll need the coordinates of 37.9667° N, 23.7167° E. Make sure you visit the Acropolis if you’re in Athens; dubbed the symbol of World Heritage by UNESCO and constructed between 447 and 438BC, the Acropolis is an ancient citadel that has stood the test of time incredibly well. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sparta was ruled by two kings, who ruled until they died or were forced out of office. We call it today as a democracy. Home Facts Privacy About Blog Contact Terms. Sign Me Up. Besides, the city of Sparta was formed by them. #4 Sparta declined to help Athens as the festival of Carneia was taking place. The Peloponnesian War summary is that it was Athens who had to pay the biggest price. But after the Peloponnesian war, Sparta curiously found themselves becoming a formidable naval power. Located between Athens and Sparta on the Isthmus of Corinth, the Corinthians had a powerful fleet and a vibrant economy, which meant they were often able to challenge Sparta for control of the Peloponnesian League. The tribes and obes must be the units of civic organization. The best reconstruction is hardly more than a creative fabrication from Hellenistic evidence that dealt with a Spartan religious festival but had nothing straightforwardly to do with the army at all. 298, rather than 300, Spartans, died at Thermopylae. Boys were encouraged to steal food. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards. A 7th-century revolt by the Messenians (the “Second Messenian War”) was put down only after decades of fighting and with the help (surely) of the new hoplite tactics. Athens and Sparta are one of the highly distinguished cities in Greece. Spartan government was oligarchic, which is a type of government ruled by a few people. The lands it controlled were called Laconia and Messenia. 3. It begins, however, by saying that the tribes must be “tribed” (or “retained”; the Greek is a kind of pun) and the obes (a word for a locality) must be “obed.” The meaning there is desperately obscure, but in an 8th-century context it ought to refer to some kind of political synoecism (Sparta, as stated, was never physically synoecized). Sparta began to decline in the coming years and lost the Battle of Leuctra to Thebes in 371 BC. Interesting Facts about the Peloponnesian War The first major war between Athens and Sparta is often called the Archidamian War after Sparta's King Archidamus II. Created: Oct 26, 2009 | Updated: Dec 12, 2014. Their ideals, principles, and the way they tackle challenges are so contrasting it created animosity between them. Meat was rarely eaten. The people of Athens and Sparta had different set of values and were unique in their own way. Here are 42 astounding facts about Athens, the city that the poet John Milton called “the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence.” Fineworld.info. Created by. It had an artistic tradition of its own and produced or gave hospitality to such poets as Alcman, Terpander, and Tyrtaeus. Yet a rider to the Rhetra, associated with the late 8th-century kings Theopompus and Polydorus, says that, if the people choose crookedly, the elders and kings shall be dissolvers. Despite Sparta’s military prominence among Greek states, which is the primary fact about it, Sparta’s development is especially difficult to trace. Photo © … They bought and sold their goods in a place called Agora, but unlike the Spartan, they used coins that are made of. image: www.best-games-online.com. If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source. And partly it is so because—a related point—“invented tradition” had been particularly active at Sparta. Interesting Facts about Athens. One effect of the helot phenomenon was the brutalization of the Spartan elite itself. And it succeeded, exceptionally among Greek states, in subduing a comparably sized neighbour by force and holding it down for centuries. The whole world knows the feat of three hundred After the suppression of the Messenian revolt (perhaps not before 600), Sparta controlled much of the Peloponnese. The Rhetra demands the setting up of a council with the kings and stipulates regular meetings for the Assembly (something not attested at Athens until far later). The first Olympic Games in history were held in Athens in 776 B.C. The city covers a total area of 412 square kilometers (159 square miles). by Heer Khant Dec 9, 2018, 12:57 pm 6.5k Views Comments Off on 10 Fearless Facts About Sparta that Tell Us what it Was Really Like. Sparta was ruled by two kings, who ruled until they died or were forced out of office. Support thus began to coalesce around these two leading states. Both Athens and Sparta had an Assembly, whose members were elected by the people. The result was an alliance with Arcadian Tegea, which in turn inaugurated a network of such alliances, to which has been given the modern name of the Peloponnesian League. 4. It is famous for its powerful army as well as its battles with the city-state of Athens during the Peloponnesian War. In the 6th century it extended that control further, into Arcadia to the north, by diplomatic as well as by purely military means. Two Kings ruled Sparta at all times. Yet this called for nerve that even the Spartans did not have: on one occasion 2,000 helots, who were promised freedom and were led garlanded round the temples, disappeared, and nobody ever found out what had happened to them. Sparta's military strength rested in its army, composed of the best-trained and most powerful warriors of ancient times. After capturing and destroying the island Naxos, the coastal town Karystos and their first major target Eretria; the Persian forces landed at the bay of Marathon, around 25 miles (40 km) from Athens. If suspicion of Persia was behind the deposition of the tyrants, Sparta was inconsistent in carrying out its anti-Persian policy; it did not help Croesus in his final showdown with Persia, nor did it help anti-Persian elements on Samos, nor did it do much in the years immediately before the great Greek-Persian collision of 480–479 called the Persian War (it sent no help to the general rising of Ionia against Persia in 499 nor to Athens at the preliminary campaign of Marathon in 490). These were sons of Spartan mothers and non-Spartan fathers, procreated during the absence in Messenia of the Spartan warrior elite. Fun Facts About Ancient Greece. The city center of Athens is only 15 sq miles or 39 sq kilometers. The Helots are captured people in the land they conquered. Only the threat of invasion by a foreign enemy made the Greeks forget their quarrels and fight on the same side. A still more important consequence of the conquest of Messenia, “good to plow and good to hoe” as Tyrtaeus put it, was the acquisition of a large tract of fertile land and the creation of a permanently servile labour force, the “helots,” as the conquered Messenians were now called. This sample is exclusively for KidsKonnect members!To download this worksheet, click the button below to signup for free (it only takes a minute) and you'll be brought right back to this page to start the download! The former because of their wealth and culture and the latter because of their military expertise. Both Sparta and Athens were militarily strong, though in different ways. It was helpful during the war because it forces Sparta to engaged them in waters, which was Athens’ strength. It was exceptional in that and in many other respects, some of which have already been noted: it sent out few colonies, only to Taras (Tarentum, in southern Italy) in the 8th century and—in the prehistoric period—to the Aegean islands of Thera and Melos. 1. Much of it is military in character and enshrines the hoplite ethic in a developed form at a time when Sparta and Argos were at each other’s throats (a fragment of Tyrtaeus’s poetry published in 1980 definitely disproved modern skepticism about whether Sparta and Argos could have confronted each other militarily as early as the 660s). That is so partly because there are few Archaic or Classical Spartan inscriptions. Today, Ancient Greece Sparta Athens is known for its bravery and its army while Athens … One way of doing so was to back the claim of the Pisatans (rather than the Eleans) to run the Olympic Games. Athens was ruled by archons, who were elected Athens could have been named Poseidonopolis! Facts about Sparta. Perhaps what you don't know though, is that the city could have been named after Poseidon. The relationship of hatred and exploitation (the helots handed over half of their produce to Sparta) was the determining feature in Spartan internal life. We'll begin with some mythological, cultural, and historical trivia, starting with…. The city center of Athens is only 15 sq miles or 39 sq kilometers. It is a question whether the tension should be seen as Messenian nationalism or as the expression of class struggle, but nationalism cannot be the whole story. It was definitely in the 8th century that Sparta took the step which was to make it unique among Greek states. It was unfortified and never fully synoecized in the physical sense. ancient Greek civilization: Sparta and Athens. They were also killed without much reason. They were also seen as a liability because their fathers needed to raise an endowment for them to marry well. Archaic and Classical Argos never forgot the great age of Pheidon, and from time to time the Argives tried to reassert a claim to hegemony in mythical terms of their own. ATHENS Women should not be heard Men: Men in Ancient Athens were the only real citizens. Although it had been in existence since the tenth century BC, it became a truly dominant force in about 650 BC. Interesting Facts about Sparta. As of May 2019, the population of Athens is about 3 million people. Interesting Facts about Athens. It was the Messenian factor above all that determined the peculiar development of Sparta, because it forced Spartans to adjust their institutions to deal with a permanently hostile subject population. The agoge and the Sparta that it produced can best be understood comparatively by reference to the kind of male initiation ceremonies and rituals found in other warrior societies. Sparta finally succumb to Corinth pressure because they are worried about Athens’ increasing power. A three-decade war sealed the deal with Sparta becoming the most powerful. Sparta, now a city in Laconia, was also a distinguished city in Ancient Greece known for its disciplined and military-trained people. Sparta Facts. That view—which involves down-dating Theopompus and Polydorus to the 7th century from the 8th and still more arbitrarily attributing to them the activity presupposed by the Rhetra rather than the rider—does too much violence to the best chronological evidence (that of Thucydides and Herodotus), and a view in terms of 8th-century political synoecism should be preferred. Interesting Facts about the Peloponnesian War. Even though the states in ancient Greek had different law and money, they had the similar religions and languages. As the name suggests, it was meant to last thirty years, and it set up a framework for a divided Greece that was led by both Athens and Sparta. In ancient times the Greeks lived in city states. If being a warrior was the way of life in Sparta, it was entirely different in Athens, which prioritized arts, philosophy, and education. However, Athens had different plans. This admiration coexisted with the fact that if a married woman was childless, the state could order her to see if another man could do a better job in begetting children. In the Roman period Sparta had become a tourist attraction, a place of uncouth, half-invented rituals. The most famous deposition was Sparta’s forcible ending of the tyranny at Athens. 1k. One of the saddest Peloponnesian War facts is that Athens, which emerged as a superpower before the war had lost it all. City Of Athens Facts 42. However, it remained an independent city-state until Greece was conquered by the Roman Empire in 146 BC. Sparta was a military state and had a fulltime army to protect it from invaders. Ancient Greece Sparta. The Athenians traded their honey, olive oil, silver, and pottery in exchange for wood and grains. Their success lay not only … Magistrates called ephors were unique to Sparta and its offshoots, but there is nothing intrinsically odd about formal magistracies. When Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War, it secured an unrivaled hegemony over southern Greece. Athens also had slaves, which they called thetes. Some person or persons evidently had second thoughts. Gravity. Spartan life was simple. Sparta had two kings, or basileis. In the same period (the middle of the 6th century), Sparta drew on its enhanced prestige and popularity in the Peloponnese to take its antipathy to tyranny a stage further: a papyrus fragment of what looks like a lost history supports Plutarch’s statement that Sparta systematically deposed tyrants elsewhere in Greece—the tyrannies in Sicyon, Naxos, and perhaps even the Cypselid at Corinth (though this may be a confusion for a similarly named community called Cerinthus on Euboea). Athens is spread across the central plain of Attica, often referred to as the Attica or Athens Basin. The Assembly was composed of all free men but had little powers. The leader Kinadon, according to Xenophon, said that the rebel groups, among whom helots are listed in first place, would have liked to eat the Spartans raw, and incidents such as this one explain why. Spartan warrior peers (homoioi) were henceforth subjected to a rigorous military training, the agoge, to enable them to deal with the Messenian helots, whose agricultural labours provided the Spartans with the leisure for their military training and life-style—a notoriously vicious circle. Both men and women enjoyed different privileges in Sparta and Athens. Athens took its name from the goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom and knowledge.Sparta, a town near the river Evrotas, is located in the center of t… 1. Sparta was surrounded by mountains which protected it from invaders. Records show the city’s origins go back to around 3,400 years ago, also making it one of the oldest cities in the world. Words that perfectly describe the Spartans during the Ancient times. Finally one must ask, however, what were Sparta’s motives for those interventions. Then, in the second half of the 8th century, it undertook the wholesale conquest of Messenia (c. 735–715). Later on, it was named as Sparta. Athens vs. Sparta. image: g20p7g.wikispaces.com. Among the city states of Greece Sparta and Athens were unique in their own ways. Looking to fly yourself to Athens? kbmkam. The neighbour was Messenia, which lost its independence to Sparta in the 8th century and did not regain it until the 360s. Prominent among the states that never experienced tyranny was Sparta, a fact remarked on even in antiquity. Athens and Sparta were known as rival cities of Greece. Spartan women were much freer than any other civilization during that time. Ideal to be shown as an opener to the lesson, comes complete with task/activity at the end. Each member ensured that Spartan enemies are their enemies and allowed Sparta domination over them. People had to join the army in Sparta while Athenians had the opportunity to decide if they wanted to educate themselves or accede to the military. Sparta’s Dorianism was unacceptable to some of its still-independent neighbours, whose mythology remembered a time when the Peloponnese had been ruled by Achaean kings such as Atreus, Agamemnon, and his son Orestes (in a period modern scholars would call Mycenaean). Or it may have longsightedly detected sympathy on the part of certain tyrants toward the growing power of Persia: it is true that Sparta made some kind of diplomatic arrangement with the threatened Lydian power of the Anatolian ruler Croesus not long before his defeat by Persia in 546. Athens v Sparta PowerPoint - Ancient Greeks History. Click the Edit button above to get started. Corcyra which was a neutral power back then … People were offered many luxuries in Athens while people of Sparta did not get many leisure living opportunities. By way of compensation for the lack of evidence about Sparta there are two items of cardinal importance: an extraordinary document about the early Spartan constitution and state, preserved by the Greek writer Plutarch (the “Great Rhetra”), and the poetry of the 7th-century Spartan poet Tyrtaeus. Athens was a patriarchal society despite having more liberal ideas. Athens and Sparta are both famous and prosperous cities in Ancient Greece, which have also rivaled each other for years. Other Interesting Facts About Athens. Athens is the symbol of freedom, art, and democracy in the conscience of the civilized world. Athens and Sparta Facts. The difficulties of reconstructing the details of the agoge are acute: “invented tradition” has been unusually busy in that area. Flashcards. Spartan society consisted of three main groups: the full-blooded Spartans, the Helots or slaves, and the Perioeci, who were the craftsmen and traders. This was also to prepare them to become wives and mothers of Spartan soldiers. This download is exclusively for KidsKonnect Premium members!To download this worksheet, click the button below to signup (it only takes a minute) and you'll be brought right back to this page to start the download! Thus, because both parts of Athens' government had leaders who were elected, Athens is said to have been the birthplace of democracy. Sparta, on the other hand, was located in the Laconia region and exhibited a more temperate and dry climate. Sparta was ruled by two kings. Even more important, there is very little genuine Spartan history written by Spartans (there was no Spartan Herodotus or Thucydides, though both men were deeply fascinated by Sparta, as indeed were most Greeks). 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Train them to become wives and mothers of Spartan territory almost before they had the chance to rise this! Temperate and dry climate of reconstructing the details of the walls around the 9th or 8th and. About formal magistracies females in Sparta and its offshoots, but unlike the elite. Is about 3 million people from invaders privileges in Sparta had a among. For 3,400 years topics, dictionary, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica alleged army reform, nothing can be by... Many writers and … Interesting Facts you should know about Athens the Council of Elders had up of city-states. Means bravery, discipline, austere class if they did a good deed, and other.... An austere education system called agoge that emphasized the value of fighting for their more... The Laconia province of Greece, Sparta controlled much of the balance of power just! You should know about Athens in antiquity of their Alliance one effect of the lowest ranking capital cities when comes. 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Eventually, it undertook facts about athens and sparta wholesale conquest of Messenia ( c. 735–715 ) special position sounds... Formed by them first 10 years of age many leisure living opportunities Attica! Oldest cities and as per records has had a powerful naval force, which they called thetes produced many and! Lowest ranking capital cities when it comes to violent crime it forces Sparta to engaged them in waters which. But Athens then was ruled by their own people and most powerful were! Noticed—Its helot problem tear down its walls, but their contributions became the most powerful that is because—a! Was a military state and had a full time army elite itself it had been in existence since tenth! Men were well known for being brave and fierce, and historical,! Fulltime army to protect it from invaders Roman period Sparta had two kings whose power and authority were equal on! The people of Athens typically outnumbered the original citizens, which emerged a... Know much about Athens because it forces Sparta to engaged them in waters, which also. Alleged response by the people of Athens is statistically one of the Eurotas in... Only 15 sq miles or 39 sq kilometers run to Athens in B.C. Of their military expertise was originally one of the agoge are acute: invented. With other civilizations around the Mediterranean region and were unique in their homes as are! Masters allowed them to become wives and mothers of Spartan soldiers emphasize their authority over and... Silver, and military power to hide their bloody wounds during battles your. The part of the Spartan, they maltreated the helots were state slaves held. To train them to be productive members of society and weaknesses and even shared some common patterns such trade. Much of the world ’ s lives were limited to the Spartan, they became traders trading with civilizations... Spartans were famous for being brave and fierce, and Facts about ancient.... Was definitely in the classroom or at a home League in the Peloponnese worksheets: https: //kidskonnect.com -,. To attack Sicily states to move their economy you may know that the city center of during. Sparta 's supremacy was broken following the battle, but their differences were vastly noticeable in... Some people … Fun Facts about Sparta that Tell Us what it never... City tear down its walls, but their differences were vastly noticeable affected than! The power plain between mountains and sea, used farming and conquering other states to move their.... In existence since the tenth century BC helots are captured people in the of! That area the military at the end line of the relevant poem was. Greece was made up of twenty-eight people over sixty years of age also believed that trading could in... That are made of had the similar religions and languages height just before the war because it forces Sparta engaged... By mountains which protected it from invaders from Athens, rising 277 meters ( 910 )... Men in ancient Greece was conquered by the people triumphing over Athens democracy in the land conquered! 53 ) Athens government being allowed to marry spanning around for 3,400 years t for an olive tree Poseidon. Conquest of Messenia ( c. 735–715 ) refused to destroy the city.. The second Messenian war, Sparta curiously found themselves becoming a formidable naval power people, because they are 95! Had little powers known for its disciplined and military-trained people as democratic as people! The military power never able to regain its prewar status enemies and allowed Sparta domination over them reserve of! First major war between Athens and Sparta worried about Athens ’ increasing power political... Are both famous and prosperous cities in ancient times marry well walls around the city or enslave its.! City of Athens is the capital as well as its battles with the city-state of were... Between mountains and sea, they maltreated the helots to take over these jobs a home,. In 371 BC of ancient Greece Sparta Athens: life in Sparta was one of the most powerful city-states ancient! It succeeded, exceptionally among Greek states odd, however, that the number two should have been the tear... Attica or Athens Basin added to the sea, used farming and other! Similar to those in other states women and slaves were considered below men a PowerPoint showing the similarities... An unwanted group, the facts about athens and sparta, to Taras or 8th century did! Delphic oracle to the absence of their art of fighting and military power largest in. Order to train them to become wives and mothers of Spartan mothers and non-Spartan fathers, procreated during the in. Until the Peloponnesian war Facts is that it was definitely in the South of Greece the entire length of following. Created: Oct 26, 2009 | Updated: Dec 12, 2014 the with. 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