Athens vs Sparta Essay

Athens which is in southern Europe is one of the oldest cities in Ancient Greece. It is believed to have been established in the end of the fourth millennium BC. The name Athens is derived from ancient Greek goddess Athena. Sparta is said to have been founded by Lacedaemon the son of Zeus and Taygete who married Sparta the daughter of Eurotas. Sparta was a city that was on the banks of the River Eurotas in ancient Greece. In the next few paragraph I will compare and contrast a few things between Athens and Sparta. First will be the Government of the two, next will be the religion among both and last will be the lives of the citizens of Athens and Sparta. The Governments of Athens and Sparta were different yet there are a lot of similarities between the two. Both had an assembly whose members were elected and appointed by the people. Sparta had two kings who were the rulers and could only be forced out of office or turn it over by death. In Athens new officials were elected annually by the people. It is said that Athens was the birthplace for democracy because both officials were elected by the people. Spartan had a major focus on training boys to become warriors for the military. Life as an Athenian was different the boys had a choice whether they wanted to join the military or not. I believe this is one the major reasons why Sparta was such a dominant military and later took over Athens. There isn’t a difference between Sparta and Athens when it comes to religion. However there was a different emphasis on the way the religion was practiced. They each worshipped the same gods although some were considered more important than others. The people of Athens highly worshipped Athena where the patron of Sparta was Artemis. Both believed that worshipping the gods would make their everyday lives much better as well as they would be taken care of by the gods after death. The livelihood of the citizens of Sparta and Athens were extremely different.