Compare and Contrast the values, institution, and actions of the city –states of Sparta and Athens. Athens and Sparta are Greece’s most famous city-states. They were both rivals to each other and very powerful. Sparta and Athens were different in social structure, male and female role, cultural values and government. Athens is known for their art, intellect and political influence in the western world.
Classical Greek and Persian Societies Greece and Persia had very similar economies, yet extremely different political traits that helped both societies prosper. The Greek and Persian political systems were immensely different. Their few similarities involved the desire for greatness of their empires. Both Greece and Persia wanted to extend their empires and have the greatest political systems in the world. Another similarity was that they both had separate divisions within the empires Persia had separate satrapies, run by satraps, who were similar to governors.
Centralized vs. decentralized governments are huge differences between these civilizations. Also geography, concept of good citizen, and emphasis on power of man are differences. Both Han and Athens saw social class distinctions as normal. They didn’t think having different levels of social class was anything but customary (document 2 and 3). In documents 2 and 3 you can easily tell that event the population is divided into social class going from the top of the class to the bottom.
Throughout this process of change, Athens held a grip on the moral validity of its actions, due to the aims and practices, especially the oath, of the Delian League. This enabled it to enforce its rule on the other members and use the League for its own purposes, and thus turn the Delian League into an Athenian empire. NOTE that because Thuc thought these were significant, then they probably were! The first of Thucyides’ paradigms is the siege and capture of Eion in 476-75BC. The League’s actions here removed a potentially dangerous base for the Persians.
In Ancient Greece There Was two Major forms of Goverment Obligarchy and Democracy. The city States that best represented each goverment were the Spartans Who Were The Obligarchy goverment and the Athens Who Were The Democracy Goverment. The Athens goverment was fair and Advanced for its time. It did not Meet The needs Of Greeks during the time of military battles. Athens decided to worry more about culture.
The Athenian ownership of the Delos treasury, suppression of revolts as well as the challis decree marks the transformation of the delian league into the Athenian empire. The role of the delian league was to protect those Greek states which had already revolted from Persia and to liberate those still under Persian rule. The league was very active in overthrowing Persian power and consolidating the role of Athens as hegemon’s in the Greek world. It was clear that the alliance was unequal from the beginning because, the leadership was Athenian, they had the largest fleet and they were also superior in resources. This was a result from their successes in the Persian wars, in particular the battle of Salamis.
The major difference being that Athens council of five hundred men were chosen by lottery. Regardless of Athenians reputation of being highly educated, they very well could have been a few Athenians who were not quite suited for the job because of their lack of education. Sparta’s council was composed of the two kings, and 28 citizens over the age of 60. They did not debate, unlike Athens, but with having less people on their council and assembly, they had a more uncomplicated and less confusing way of running their government. Sparta certainly did not give its citizens as much freedom as Athenian government but the fact that they had less people in not only their city, but on their council and assembly, made it an easier and more effective way to run their government in a smaller amount of time.
Greece was divided by mountains plains. In the political system there was no unity or participation when it came to politics. Due to their being no unity or people even tried to come together Greece was conquered in 338 B.C.E. by the Persians. The domination of politics and agitation due to wealth by small groups of families was the approximate cause for the fall of the city-states.
Manning sees two main trends in Ptolemaic scholarship, the optimists who focus on the literary and cultural accomplishments of Alexandria, and the pessimists who point to over-exacting policies of the Ptolemaic fiscal system and its prioritization of the Greek language. This dichotomy arises, according to Manning, because the myopic focus on tax collection produces dualities of success/failure, opportunity/exploitation, Greek/Egyptian. Manning observes that the resulting attempts to characterize Ptolemaic rule through models of despotism, dirigisme, and colonialism have not adequately explained the social dynamics of the Ptolemaic system, especially in rural Egypt. These three prevailing models focus on the ruler and his close (usually Greek) elite, and as such downplay the negotiation between ruler and ruled on lower (or non Greek) levels. In addition, theses models are steeped in the modern colonial and post-colonial experiences and consequently both obscure ancient realities of Greek-Egyptian cooperation and elide the fact that the Ptolemies had no conscious policy of "hellenization."
Both civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome established very well-ordered political practices that significantly influenced the way later governments, such as the ones in Europe and the United States, were organized. The structure of political parties, the formation of divisions within the government, and even politically used words like democracy, monarchy and tyranny all stem from the Romans and Greeks. Even though the Romans adopted several of their political principles from Greece, the number of dissimilarities between the two civilizations were vast. The Greeks and Romans both had political structures that mirrored those of a city-state. Although conversely, the very dissimilar landscape between the two swayed their political growth.