Sparta Vs Athenian Democracy

In classical Greece, the different Greek city-states had different forms of government. The city-state of Sparta had an authoritarian government in which it enforced military participation for all males and only the elite class could gain power in the government. Athens, on the other hand, had a democratic government that allowed everyone to be able to participate in its government, despite class standing and did not put their focus on defending the city. The totalitarian government in Sparta resulted in the focus being on building a distinguished military and not on the lives of the people there, while the Athenian democratic government resulted in the city-state being rich in different cultures and gave more freedom to its citizens.

They had all boys taken away from their family at age seven and trained in athletics and military arts and at age twenty they were forced to stay in barracks until the age of thirty. From an early age male children were stripped of their freedom and forced to receive laborious training and be in the military. They were deprived of growing up surrounded by a loving family and of starting their own family before the age of thirty. Fathers were not allowed to bring up children the way they wanted as the government had strict plans on how each individual was to be brought up. At the age of thirty they were finally free to leave the military and live with their wives, but still had strict rules that they had to follow. Sparta also had a bias against foreigners and only after their military training was complete at age thirty was a man allowed to become a citizen if he was not a slave or

It had a democratic government that held everyone equal under the law. In Thucydides’ citing of a funeral oration by Athenian leader Pericles, which glorified Athenian soldiers that died in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta, he highlighted how much better their form of government was compared to others. He stated, “Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people.” Athens’ democratic government allowed everyone to be able to participate in the government. The Areopagus governed it, which was a council of nobles and were the true masters of the state. They elected nine magistrates, called archons, who joined them after their year in office. They then had a broad-based citizens’ assembly that had little power but still represented the four tribes into which the inhabitants were traditionally