Ancient Greece had many poleis, but two widely known were Sparta and Athens. As both civilizations

Twenty years after Ancient Greece sentenced Socrates to death for his philosophical nature, his student Plato wrote a book of arguments, in hopes of returning philosophy to the forefront of Athens’ social and educational sphere and as a scathing reminder for those who forced Socrates to drink hemlock that the early philosopher influenced countless others before his death. Throughout his book, Republic, Plato casts himself as his deceased mentor, Socrates, on a search for the definition of justice. In order to discover the all-encompassing meaning of the essential concept, the philosopher— both the author and the persona he adopts as the protagonist— creates an extended analogy, comparing a person to a city. Within a city, three groups divide all citizens: producers, guardians, and rulers. Strict expectations separate each level from the other, as rulers preside over the two lower classes, guardians protect all of the citizens, and producers act as the city’s carpenters and other craftsmen. A producer cannot jump a level to become a guardian; the city allows no social mobility. After much discussion, Socrates defines justice as, “doing one’s own work and not meddling with what isn’t one’s own” (Plato, The Republic IV 433b) and that, “Meddling and exchange between these three classes… is the greatest harm

“Life at Sparta in several ways resembled that of a military camp,” (Powell 2001, 219). Many laws that Lycurgus proposed revolved around the benefit of the Spartan military. These implementations set by Lycurgus do not give any benefit to the democratic changes occurring in society at the time.

A reading of Thucydides’, Pericles’ Funeral Oration and The Melian Dialogue uncovers both contrasting and comparable viewpoints on Athenian politics, power, aims of war, and empire. Thucydides presents two differing characteristics of Athens, one as the civilizer in Pericles’ funeral oration and the other as an tyrant in the Melian dialogue. In the funeral oration delivered by Pericles during the first year of the war, the Athenian leader emphasizes the idealized personal image of the Athenians in regard to their constitution and good character. Pericles goes on to praise the Athenian democratic institution of Athens that contributes to their cities greatness; in Pericles’s own words, “The Athenian administration favors the many instead of few… they afford equal justice to all of their differences” (112, 2.37). This quote emphasizes the good character of the Athens’ to coax and encourage the Athenians to preserve and better their great empire into the future. On the other hand, in the Melian dialogue, this notion of justice and equality is irrelevant; one, because Athens compared to Melos, is the stronger of the two and thus, is more powerful. Further, Athens, will continue to acquire absolute power and build its empire by conquering Melos and whomever else stands in its way. Through Pericles’ funeral oration and the Melian dialogue, the following conclusions/themes will demonstrate both the changing and somewhat stable nature of Athenian policy with regards to empire,

This allows the rulers to dictate exactly who will serve what purpose in society following the political and economic structure without the individuals questioning the system. Because the strongest and wisest people carry the most power, they will have the ability to make the judgements for assigning citizens to their classes, creating laws, and creating sanctions. Because they’re known to have the best judgement, the things they say and do and are considered the most just, which supports Thrasymacus’ claim that justice is the advantage of the

Cleisthenes created a council that would be easier to handle. He made a democratic constitution because he gave the local parties and clan systems less attention. He also turned Athens into Pro-Spartan by allowing districts to have priority over politics.

Swiss-French writer Benjamin Constant and ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle offer conflicting viewpoints concerning the merits and possibilities of ancient Greek democracy. Aristotle’s political theory attempts to justify his city-state’s political structure by providing a model of the common good, or Chief Aim, his end goal for Athenian democracy. He believed Athenians could reach the Chief Aim as a society by individually learning to be virtuous and then instilling laws and morals based on these ideals. In his lecture, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns, Constant highlights that the individual liberties protected in a modern representative democracy are much more important than the political liberties that one was given in antiquity. Constant illustrates that while some ideas of ancient Greek democracy are precious, Aristotle’s political theory is not an obtainable reality and it was beneficial that modern democracies transitioned to a system that protects individual liberty.

In ancient Greece there were two major polises which allowed the Greek culture to achieve greatness during the 400-500 B.C.E. era. These two polises were Athens and Sparta; both city states differed in many ways before the start of the Persian War. There were low rugged mountains that separated these two city states so communication and travel were difficult. The government of these two city states can be seen as a primary difference between the two. Draco, Solon, Pisistratus, and Cleithenes were four leaders that greatly influenced the political development of Athens. Athens and Sparta differed primarily in their political, social, and economical aspects. But there were other difference that Athens and Sparta share which I will examine in this essay.

“Virtue can only flourish among equals.” - Mary Wollstonecraft. In Athens, all citizens were equal, therefore a strong community thrived. Starting in 500 BCE a new idea of citizenship was starting to form. This idea was used by Athens and Rome, and included giving citizens a balance between rights and responsibilities. This paved the way for modern day citizenship in our countries and many others. Athens had a better system of citizenship because they chose government offices by lottery, to keep a strong democracy they made sure no one had too much power, and citizens in all social classes could participate in government.

Question: How can Socrates find true social justice in his ideal city? What does he expect from true justice, and why does he think his city can uphold it?

There are several factors that need to be considered when evaluating the reliability of Plutarch’s writings about Lycurgus, not least of all the context in which the text was written. First of all, the document describes the Spartan system of government after 650 BCE, while Plutarch himself lived from only 45-125 CE. Thus Plutarch, as with anyone writing a biography many centuries after the death of the subject, based his story completely on second hand evidence that he was unlikely to completely corroborate. Also, it can be reasoned that Plutarch’s opinion of Lycurgus and the Spartan society was highly biased by his own gender and socio-economic status. Plutarch was from a male from very wealthy family, and likely because of this failed to adequately consider the plights of the women and lower class, considering the information from the perspective of the dominant culture. For instance, Plutarch claims that the Spartan women did not mind parading naked with men in a public procession (Plutarch, 2009; 73). However it can be reasonably theorized that this may not be the case because

Some features of the institution of law which we take for granted today, which were absent in ancient Athens, include traits of peace and equality. It is worth noting that Athenians based their daily lives and societal structure off of their values of honour and victory. The desire to achieve these brought out a more aggressive nature in Athenians, as the only way to achieve honour was to achieve victory, which consequently meant a constant inner turmoil for Athens, as David Cohen specifically states in regard to the nature of Athenian men in terms of their desire for victory, “the vice of these men is that their desire for victory or honour is excessive and leads them to commit injustice in pursuit of them.” This is proven to be true through

After reading the story, I can say that I think Lycurgus was creating the most just society that he possibly could in the beginning, but ended up falling off a path towards the middle. When he first succeeds the throne, one of his very first task is to try and balance out the equality of government by adding a senate. He could successfully give equal terms to the king, the democracy, and the 30 senators, so no one power was truly to strong. Also, Lycurgus split up and distributed the land amongst his people, and it was looked at a good reasoning for bring down the crime rate. Now, is when Lycurgus starts to spiral out of control a little bit. First, he outcast the value of gold and silver, and says that Iron is going to be the new currency.

Thracymachus's arguments are realistic cases adjusted to the circumstances of the Greek polis where the dominant imposed their wills by the mere fact of having influences and material resources. This personage visualizes the life in a superficial and worldly way when it responds to Socrates that (P.86 344c) “justice is what is advantageous for the stronger, while injustice is profitable and advantageous for oneself so that the weak will serve the interests of the strong.” However, Socrates made a deeper approach in the human conscience and rejected the worldly pleasures that make a man an empty being and without conscience. Responding (P. 87 345a) “I don’t believe that injustice is more profitable than justice, not even if you should give it

The laws for Athens began with Solon, but perhaps the most influential leader for democracy in Athens was Cleisthenes. In 510 Cleisthenes had managed to get the sons of Peisistratus kicked out of Athens with Spartan help (Demand 157). But now the old internal divisions, which had plagued Athens since Solon's time, reasserted themselves. Herodotus says in his history of Greece that Cleisthenes decided to turn to the people (Herodotus 302). Perhaps he did so solely out of practical political reasons: he needed a powerful force on his side now that the Spartans had turned against him. Although, his major motivation may have been to produce a government that would unify Athenians by all, rich and poor alike. Unity, perhaps, rather democracy, was his immediate goal. But it was democracy that he would prove to be the means to the unification of the people of Athens.

The first section of this piece will attempt to explore the conflicts that occurred between the aristocrats and the peasants in Solon’s Athens on the basis of land and slavery, and the solutions that Solon posed in the form of laws, as well as the effects that they had on the citizens of the time. There were city of Athens was divided into three parts; there was the Hill, the Plain, and the Shore (Plutarch: Solon, 54). Each division contained it’s own people with different political views. The Hill supported an extreme democracy, whereas the Plain supported an extreme oligarchy, and the Shore wanted a government that wasn’t quite an oligarchy, and wasn’t quite a democracy. The Shore wanted a government that was modeled after, and was a mix of both democracy and oligarchy (Plutarch: Solon 54). The presence of this third party made it very difficult for either extreme party to rise above the other (Plutarch: Solon 54). The land quality of the peasants was very poor and it was located in the barren part of the city, however the rich owned vast amounts of good quality land (Trumbach). It was very common to find peasants in debt to the aristocrats because of their bad quality land. Many times, commoners would cultivate on the land owned by the aristocrats, and pay them one-sixth of the produce that was harvested (Plutarch: Solon, 54). It was also apparent that peasants would use themselves as collateral, and were often seized as debt slaves by their