Sparta and Athens are both major Greek city states. According to Britannica, “a city state is a political system consisting of an independent city having sovereignty over contiguous territory and serving as a center and leader of political, economic, and cultural life.” They were the largest and most important of all the city-states of ancient Greece. Sparta and Athens have some similarities but these similarities are slightly different. These differences are shown best by their government, opinions on slavery, religion, and their currency.
The first way Sparta and Athens are different is their government. Sparta is an oligarchy which is a form of government that a small group of people run. In Sparta it was run by two kings and a small council of elders. Athens, on the other hand, is a direct democracy. A direct democracy is where laws were voted on by all the citizens. While both have citizens of the city-state vote, they are different because Sparta only has a couple people decide and Athens has all the citizens decide.
…show more content…
In Sparta their slaves, or helots, were not given political rights or citizenship, they mainly were farmers. They were also beaten brutally and even killed as part of a graduation thing. The Spartans had to kill a helot to get out of the Agoge, which was their training school. But in Athens their slaves were like pieces of property, so some slaves taught their kids to read and write and were like a part of the family. Sparta and Athens treated their slaves very differently, Sparta would treat them harshly most of the time where Athens would make them do household things like cooking or