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The Government Structures Of Athens And Sparta

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The Government Structures of Athens and Sparta Athens and Sparta were two large and well-known poleis among hundreds of poleis in ancient Greece at the time of the archaic and classical periods (Brand, 2010). Since those periods, they had different reputations of their own such as Athens for its establishment of the first democratic government and Sparta for its military. Although they were poleis under the name of Ancient Greece, their focus and priorities were different and so did their governmental systems. The right to participate in public life and decision-making in Athens and Sparta was based on citizenship and wealth. Male Athenians over eighteen years of age with both Athenian parents were valid to participate in managing public …show more content…

Among the magistrates of Athens, the Archons led the affairs of public offices but in Sparta, the Kings, the Ephors, and the Gerousia handled the political affairs. Although the Ephors can exert certain authorities on the Assembly’s presidentiality, army composition, and envoys’ affairs, they didn’t interrupt the assembly’s decisions (Thomas, 1974). Moreover, according to Thomas (1974), the members of Gerousia were in charge of the jurisdiction of criminal cases while the kings held less power than the Ephors and the Gerousia in the …show more content…

The difference started with the type of government as the Athenians’ government was the direct democracy and that of the Spartans was the oligarchy. The Athenians were to select magistrates and council members in accordance with the terms but there were two kings, five overseers, and thirty elderly councils in Sparta. The assembly of the Athenians was the one to finalize every political issue and was the most powerful but in Spartan, the council was more powerful than the assembly. This was because all members attending the assembly were able to exercise their rights to approve or reject the proposal in Athens whereas the public office holders of Sparta possessed veto power to expel any

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Unlike the Athenian democratic system the Spartans believed in Oligarchy, meaning ruling by a few. Sparta came to reach the height of it power after defeating rival City Sate, Athens in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) (Bailey). The oligarchy was a governmental system composed by a limited number of elite citizens such as: Ephors, five magistrates with executive and judicial privileges, elected by assembly; two kings, army leaders and chief priests; gerousia, council of thirty elders comprise of men at least sixty tears old, twenty-eight of which were elected by assembly and includes two kings; assembly of citizens, men over thirty years old, they do not vote, but shout acclamations supporting the decisions of the oligarchy above (Bailey). The Spartan governing system led to a military based society where male children from the age of seven would start going to a special educational institution, which was military based. This led to Spartans being warrior like people unlike the Athenians.

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