Advantages Of Living In Sparta

In many ways, Sparta's weaknesses overweigh the weakness. It’s cruel, sexist, wrong, unfair and not equal. Spartan boys were forced to learn military education and the system was cruel document A Boys were taken at age 8 to 21, document B One garment no shoes starving, Document D basic education was illegal If you never learned math, writing, reading, art, music, science, and history what would it be like?

Athens is more superior than Sparta through, government, economy, and culture. Athens government is a democracy which means all citizens get to take part. In Athens “ all men are on an equality” which means “ Not of the few but of the many” (doc 3 pericles). Every citizen in Athens is allowed to take part in government, even poor citizens. Unlike Sparta, who has an oligarchy, monarchy, and democracy. The Spartan government is made up of kings and elders only. Not everyone gets to participate.

Sparta was a very unique society which could be defined as Utopian Militaristic State. Spartan boys all were devoted their entire lives from an early age to the Spartan army. This heavily militarist society was also unique in terms of women's position in society. They had much more rights and freedoms than other Greek women, but in terms of family life they were not so lucky. Women were living separately from spouse during their whole lives. Their husbands were only coming to home at night, they were secretly removed after a short time. And also they were separated from their sons for military training. Women had to be strong in family and social life. Spartan lawgivers wanted girls to receive a good education in order to prepare them to their womanhood duties.

After an embarrassing defeat at the battle of Hysiai Sparta went through great military change, these changes dramatically changed all other areas of Spartan life, turning Sparta into a military focused state. This militaristic influence impacted greatly on Spartan education, essentially aiming to mass produce the perfect solider. The education and training of Spartan boys aged as young as 7 in the agoge became the crucial

Since Sparta was small, their main way to remain powerful was military strength therefore, their education was based on military disciplines. “A Spartiate’s son was nurtured by his parents only until he was seven years old. At that age he was removed from his family and, from his eighth to his twenty-first year, he was educated by the state according to rigorous [military-like]

I would have preferred to live in Sparta because, Sparta made the men strong and brilliant in the military, they had more freedom for all women, and they accepted homosexuality. Firstly, Spartan boys started their military training at the age of 7. The boys lived together under harsh conditions. They were forced to participate in physical, competitions, given not enough food in order to become excellent at stealing food, among other useful survival skills they needed to know

Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world. Sparta apparently didn’t agree with this statement. Sparta had many weaknesses compared to strengths. To begin with they lacked education in many ways, they had slavery and killed many slaves that could have retaliated ,and their children were very abused and taken from their families at young age to go to training camp for the Army.

In Athen, “Schools taught reading, writing, and mathematics, music, poetry, sport, and gymnastics”. In Sparta, “Boys were taken from parents at age seven and trained in the art of warfare. They were only given a cloak - no shoes or other clothes, and not enough food so they had to steal (to learn survival skills)”. Overall, I think Athens is better and safer to live in then Sparta.

This tradition allowed for a city-state with an exceptional army, women with a substantial amount of liberties, and a gene pool that was superior to those around it. The Spartan way of life was one that focused itself on the importance of a physically strong society, and the people of this city-state went to great lengths to ensure that they maintained this tradition. As a result of this mentality, the authoritative figures of Sparta gave women more freedoms, as society did not see them as inadequate versions of men, but more as the mothers of society, whose job was to be the backbone of the strong Spartan army by birthing and raising robust young men. In fact, this lifestyle was so prevalent and noticeable that soldiers and writers from Athens and other outside lands took notice. Many documents from almost all areas around the Mediterranean Sea demonstrate this, especially in Xenophon’s “The Constitution of Sparta”, which describes the importance of physical ability in Sparta, as written by an Athenian soldier. The people of Sparta preserved this physical superiority in many ways. Boys moved into barracks at the young age of seven to train and become a part of the renowned Spartan army, and mothers abandoned babies with medical issues as soon as possible. This not only ensured that all citizens were able-bodied and working to improve the city-state at all times, but improved the gene pool of the civilization by eliminating any possible genetic disorders with visible phenotypes within the society. All these factors contributed to the health, wellness, and overall success of the Spartan

On the contrary to life of women in Athens, the women of Sparta had considerable freedom. They were allowed to leave their houses when ever they pleased. They were required per the state policy to have education both from physical and educational perspective. The reason for physical education was because they could make and nourish babies that would be healthy for the children to be capable of being good warriors and if the baby was not fit as they would be judged by the elders, as mentioned before they would be left to die outside the city.

First, besides their strong military, Sparta was known for providing women with a decent amount of rights. In these rights, education was provided. According to Plutarch(Document E), women had to be educated and trained in order to produce healthy offspring. Women were trained in many things such as “wrestling running, and throwing the quoit*, and casting the dart”(Document E). These activities were meant to strengthen women in order to produce “healthy and vigorous offspring”(Document E). By producing healthy and vigorous offspring, Sparta had a better chance at winning battles. Therefore, women being provided with an education had highly contributed to the strengths of a Spartan education.

In Sparta the first thing on the list for you to learn is how to become a good soldier until you were 30. So you were kind of the underdog when it came to academics in Sparta so to speak. In a quote from Socrates, “Education is the kindling of a fire, not the filling of a vessel”. Out of this he is basically saying that athenian education leads to better things in life whereas spartan education is just worthwhile for one occasion and is used for military purposes.

One of the main reason why I think that Athens would be a better place to live is because of their education. The boys in Athens do not have any formal education, but they do pick up a trade from their fathers. They are taught gymnastics and wrestling though. This is better than Sparta because they are not taught anything except how to fight. Another reason why Athens would be a better place to live than Sparta is that of their government.

Sparta is an old Greek city, and it was known mostly for its remarkable military. The reason it was known mostly for its military is that at the age of seven boys would start their education, which was not reading and writing but instead it was training and getting physically fit for the military. Even though the military was composed of boys the girls still had to be physically fit. The family life in Sparta was not traditional: they encouraged marriage, but the men were rarely home because they were training.Every newborn baby was inspected in Sparta. If the baby was weak, it was taken away to die. The women in Sparta could be educated unlike a lot of the women in other Greek cities. The fine arts in Sparta were very limited and that is because

Since the beginning of time there has been an inequality between men and women. So this has made me wonder, if given the choice to live in Sparta or Athens as a citizen, what would I choose? Would my citizenship change if I were suddenly a woman? What makes a certain polis better than the other? I believe certain circumstances would make me want to change my citizenship but in my current state of being a male, I would have to choose Athens.