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Compare And Contrast Athens And Spartan Society

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Introduction Athens and Spartan culture was believed to be two polar opposites- but were they really? In our text this week we studied the two societies, and while there were many blatant differences, many similarities existed behind closed doors. The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways the two societies took part in public life, who held public office, the rules of voting the elected officials, and finally the governmental structures. Public Life Participation/Decisions Affecting the Community Let’s first examine participation in public life in Athens. While Athens liked to boast of a democratic society, it was still broken down into three classes. The rich were considered the upper-class farmers, the moderate-income makers were the shop keeps and tradesmen, and the poorest of the poor were the men who owned no land to their name and farmed worthless land. This class society is very similar to modern day rich, middle class, and poverty. While the text points out, the people of Athens found themselves all to be above the slave class, yet this didn’t earn them all the same social or political loftiness (Brad, n.d). Once again, it is shocking to think Athens the first democracy, still allowed for discrimination of slaves and what they referred to as “Metics” (foreigners to the country). These class systems and enslavement didn’t always lead to the democratic lifestyle portrayed. This lead to the decisions for the community to still be made

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