Spartan Daily Life Essay

Every single class within the Spartan Society was required to play a very crucial role in making sure the warrior state that was Sparta up held its high level of Military Supremacy over other Greek states and any and all potential invaders considering invading Greece. This statement did not exclude female Spartiates who were tasked with creating healthy, strong warriors to keep Sparta the Warrior state alive and thriving. Besides this stereotypical duty tasked to the Spartiate women it was not their only required job within Sparta to make sure it held Military Supremacy. Spartiate women often played a major role in economic, religious and often social aspects of the Spartan Society. Archaeological evidence from ‘Artemis Orthia’ (A Religious Temple) like ‘Statue of a young female athlete’ have supported some of the information given by these ancient sources and supported the sterotype of Spartan women as being highly visible and active within the state compared to their Greek Counterparts.

The freedom and greater respect for Spartan women began at birth with the fact that there were more girls than boys, because they were not victims of the state program of infanticide as was practiced in Athens. There were laws setup that required female infants and children to be given the same care and food as their brothers in contrast to other Greek cities where girls were frequently given less and lower quality food. The reason for this was because it was thought that if the girls had more food then their bodies would be better prepared for producing a healthy child for the Spartan society.

In military training both boys and girls were allowed to attend the training. They learned to wrestling, boxing, and footracing. As stated in History Alive, “the boys did military training in barracks a building where Spartan soldiers would live and train”.  In addition, the training was important to the Spartan’s because they needed to teach the boys to be prepared for upcoming wars and to win those wars. The boys were taught how to read and write but, the Spartan’s didn’t find that important. To be a brave soldier was very important to the Spartan’s. Therefore, being a brave soldier was important because the soldiers had to fight in wars to protect Sparta from invaders who want to destroy Sparta.

During the times of Ancient Greece, two major forms of government existed, democracy and oligarchy. The city-states of Athens and Sparta are the best representatives of democracy and oligarchy, respectively. The focus of the times was directed towards military capabilities, while the Athenians were more interested in comfort and culture. It was the oligarchy in Sparta that put a war-like attitude as its first priority and best met the needs of Ancient Greece. These factors empowered Sparta and led to the development of an authoritative and potent state. Other contrasting issues included women’s rights, social classes, and value of human life.

Sparta was a military-based city-state, on the other hand, Athens was a generous, art based community. Athens was a greater city to live in because they had education privileges, a strong government, and had characteristics for agriculture. One reason Athens was a greater city to live in is because they had many education priviledges. According to the article, “Athens and Sparta,” by Mr. Duckworth, “Unlike Sparta, in Athens, boys were not forced to join the army. As an Athenian, one could pursue several kinds of arts and sciences.

Life in Sparta was oriented around the state. The individual lived and died for the state. Their lives were designed to serve the state from their beginning to the age of sixty. Ironically, this soldier-centered state was the most liberal state with regard to the status of women.

During the early era of the Golden age and late of Classical age of Ancient Greece, from the years 520-321 BC womens roles were significantly different between the two mainly Greek city state Athens and Sparta. These roles that the women presented had huge differences in a way women were portrayed in their societies. Both cities were very different in many ways, the females were raised very differently, and had different duties they had to perform. For example if you commit adultery by Spartan women it was considered tolerated and encourage in their society on the other hand adultery in Athenian women was not even considered and substantially have very few consequences. Unlike the Spartan women Athenian women were treated as unimportant citizens in a lot of ways. They were classified into three different classes. The lowest class which were considered as slaves, the citizen class, and the Hetaerae which were considered as prostitutes, but they were allowed to have education and go to marketplaces, and have rights. With Spartan women they were taught to read and write, also were expected to protect themselves and the children since men were barely around. They were definitely different from other Greek cities and were mainly raised to act as warriors because of the responsibility of owning and protecting their homes. These womens had three considerable lifestyle differences how they were raised , How were their marriages, and what responsibilities they had. These will serve

Sparta was, above all, a military state, and emphasis on military fitness began at birth, imprinted through society and the political system. The education of the Spartan male children prove that the military and war was constantly a huge part of Spartan society, and the laws and systems that Sparta was governed by, only enforced the militaristic attitude into the society of Sparta. That the Spartans needed to be ready for war is proved by the discord between the Spartiate and the helots, who outnumbered and under ranked the Spartans.

Despite Athenian and Spartans being associates of the same influential nation, these two states or ‘Peloi’ and denominations of people in Ancient Greece in (400BC) were substantially different. The women in their own distinct societies endured several problematic issues and experienced inequity, demoralisation and condemnation. The notion of women and their purpose was typically conjectured by men in society, specifically Aristotle who claimed that women brought ‘disorder, were evil, were utterly useless and caused more confusion than the enemy’ . However despite misogynistic, biased and loathsome perspectives of women, both Athenian and Spartan women have all played exceedingly significant roles and contributed substantially to the prosperity of Ancient Greek society in their own inimitable ways.

Sparta was one of the most powerful city-states in Greece and in order to increase a food supply, the Spartans turned to their bordering country Messenia. In the eighth century B.C. the Spartans conquered the Messenians and set up a new type of social system. The Messenians would work the soil to supply the Spartans with the food supply, which would leave the dominating class available for a life of military training. The Messenians outnumbered the Spartans and without a strong hold the lower-class citizens would eventually overtake them by physical force.

Ancient Greece was comprised of small city-states, of which Sparta and Athens were two. Athens was renowned as a center of wisdom and learning. The people of Athens were interested in arts, music, and intellectual pursuits. Sparta, on the other hand, was recognized for its military strength. A Spartan's life was centered on the state, because he lived and died to serve the state. Although the competing city-states of Sparta and Athens were individually different as well as governmentally diverse, they both managed to become dominating powers in Ancient Greece.

Sparta and Athens were the two leading states in Greece. These two states depended from the agriculture and herding which were the basic occupations of free men. Although slavery existed, male slaves were relatively few in number because the source of supply was war prisoners. Usually during these time males were slaughtered rather than taken prisoner. (Ralph 156) While Sparta was becoming a bastion of military repression, Athens was evolving in the direction of true democracy. One explanation for the political differences between Sparta and Athens is that the district of Attica in which Athens was situate was never of an armed invasion. In addition,

The ancient Greeks made city states that functioned as their society. These were small, usually consisting of a population of around eight to ten thousand people. Some of the famous city states are Sparta and Athens. Sparta imposed many tensions on the individual. Sparta was a highly militarized state and would pull the boys away from the family usually around age seven and put them into a state sponsored training regimen that would make them highly skilled warriors. If the boy was unable to complete the training for any reason they were seen as unable to be a Spartan and were usually seen as an outcast and removed from society. The Spartans, just like most other societies in ancient times, valued boys over girls. “Spartan parents often exposed female babies to the elements and leave them to die they also made decisions on male infants testing them and seeing if they would develop into a mature warrior and if not they would face the same fate as females.”1 This

The entire Spartan society revolved around the army, essentially making it the key aspect of Spartan life and culture. The army influenced areas such as education and social structure as well as being the most important defence of Sparta in both combat and reputation.

In no other city-state did women enjoy the same freedom and status as Spartan women. As a military-driven society, the Spartans realized that “regardless of gender all Spartiates had an obligation to serve the militaristic end of Sparta.” With this focus in mind, women were allowed more freedom, rights, and independence. Spartan women were