Sparta and Athens!

World History! 9th Grade! Ms Wynne!

SPARTA!
! It was a military state. Sparta was
surrounded by mountains which protected it from invaders.Sparta was the only city state which had a full time army. The Spartan men were well known for being brave and fierce, and they spent their whole lives training and fighting.

Daily Life:!
! Spartans lived in harsh conditions, without luxuries, to ! !
make them tough fighters. Physical training and fitness was considered to be an important part of a Spartan childs education. Girls did not fight in wars but they took part in physical activities because Spartans believed fit and strong women would have healthy babies that would be good soldiers. Boys went to live at an army barracks at the age of 7.

Government:!
! Sparta had its own system of government ! ! ! !
which was very different from the other city states. Rule was shared between TWO kings, the Gerousia(5 men) and the Assembly. 10,000 Homoioi (citizens) 65,000 Periokoi (paid taxes and helped the homoioi) Helots (people from lands conquered and ruled by Sparta who had no rights).

Helots:!
! Spartan citizens were given land which ! !
was farmed for them by the Helots. The Helots were treated as serfs (slaves) and had to give half their crops to their Spartan master. 250,000

Women:!
! Spartan women were taught reading and writing.They were also ! ! ! !
expected to be able to protect themselves. In Athens the education of a girl involved spinning, weaving, and other domestic arts, for a Spartan woman such tasks were relegated to the helots or periokoi. A girl's education was equally as brutal as the men's; many athletic events such as javelin, discus, foot races, and staged battles were also for both sexes. Women in Sparta were not subject to the same training as given by Lycurgus, Spartan women were expected to produce strong and healthy children, and to be loyal to their state. Spartan girls were better fed their Athenian counterparts, and were taught writing, something which Menander (an Athenian) said, "Teaching a woman to read and write? What a terrible thing to do! Like feeding a vile snake on more poison.

Marriage:! ! Marriage for a Spartan woman was a non-ceremonial event.

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The woman was abducted in the night by her suitor, her head was shaved, and she was made to wear men's clothing. From then on she would meet with her husband for almost entirely procreative reasons. Any Spartan man could abduct a wife, which led to a system of polyandry (many husbands, one wife or vice versa) in Sparta. When a child was born, the woman had little to do with the his/ her upbringing, rather nurses handled the child's care (in addition, a female Spartan child was subject to the same tests of strength as a male child.) Spartan women had many rights that other Greek women did not have. They could own and control their own property. They could also take another husband if their first had been away at war for too long. A woman was expected in times of war to overtake her husband's property, and to guard it against invaders and revolts until her husband returned; hence many Spartan women are pictured as warriors.

Athens:!
! At first both Athens and Sparta were ! !
ruled by Kings. Then both were ruled by small groups of powerful people (oligarchies). Later Athens came to be ruled by the people as a democracy whilst Sparta remained an oligarchy.

Athens:!
! Athens was the
most powerful Greek state. It was a city with lots of beautiful public buildings, shops and public baths. The people of Athens lived below the Acropolis (rocky hill).

!
The Parthenon- a temple to the Goddess Athena was on the highest Part of the Acropolis.

Athens:!
! Inside the Parthenon stood a large gold ! !
and ivory statue of Athena. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and war and was the patron of Athens. Legend says that Athene and Poseidon had a contest to have the city named after them. Poseidon promised the riches of the sea, but Athenas gift of an olive tree was to be more valuable so they chose her. Boys went to school, girls were taught at home.

Government in Athens:!
! Athens was ruled by the people as a democracy. The people
of Athens believed that no one group of people should make the laws and so citizens could choose the government officials, and vote for or against new laws. The people of Athens chose their ruler.They held a large meeting on the slopes of a hill in Athens where any citizen could speak, and tell the government what it should be doing. This was called the Assembly, and there had to be at least 6,000 citizens at every Assembly. Athenian democracy was not like modern democracy. Only citizens over 18 could vote. Women, slaves and foreigners could not become citizens. So democracy in Athens meant rule by the men of Athens.

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Slavery in Athens:!
! Slaves made up about a quarter of the !
working population on Athens. Most were people who had been captured in warfare and sold to slave dealers. They were then put on sale in the slave market.

Women in Athens:!
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The status of an Athenian woman in Greek society was minimal. Athenian women were only a small step above slaves by the 5th century BC. From birth a girl was not expected to learn how to read or write, nor was she expected to earn an education.

Athenian women can be classified into three general classes:

1. 2. 3.
The lowest class was the slave women, who carried out more of the menial domestic chores, and helped to raise the children of the wife. The second class was that of the Athenian citizen woman. The third class was known as the Hetaerae. The hetaerae unlike the slaves and the citizens, were much akin to the Geisha's of China. Hetaerae women were given an education in reading, writing, and music, and were allowed into the Agora and other structures which were off limits to citizen and slave women.

Athenian Marriage:! ! Marriages were arranged by the father. When the

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marriage was to take place the girl gave away all of her toys to the temple of Artemis, and her hair was cut. The bride was taught the domestic duties she would perform for the rest of her life by her mother and by slaves. If a wife was widowed it was the duty of the father's brother to find her another husband. A woman could not own property, and was practically an object herself. If the husband died, she vacated the house and went to her father's brother. If the father's brother was killed then the woman became a virtual slave, with minimal rights.

Athenian Women:!
! Athenian women were subject to a life of !
subservience. They were not supposed to leave the house. In general, her main purpose as a wife was to produce healthy children. If women were of so low status in Athens and across Greece, then why were the goddesses worshiped (strong female figures themselves) and so embedded into Greek lives? One theory holds that Greek women held much more power than once thought, in that if the husband did something the women didn't like "domestic retribution" could occur. Similarly women held extremely high posts in the ritual events of Athens.

Houses in Ancient Greece!

! Men and women lived in different parts of the house. !
Women had the back and upstairs part. Most houses in Ancient Greek towns were built from stone or clay. The roofs were covered with tiles, or reeds, and the houses had one or two floors. The floors of the rooms were tiled to keep them cool, although in winter fires in metal baskets were sometimes needed. Larger homes had a kitchen, a room for bathing, a men's dining room, and sometimes a woman's sitting area.The houses were planned around a courtyard, and had high walls and a strong gate. Much of ancient Greek family life centered around the courtyard.