Name: Period:

Athens v. Sparta Documents

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Citizenship in Athens and Sparta

POPULATION / ATHENS
IN 5TH CENTURY B.C.E. / SPARTA
IN 5TH CENTURY B.C.E.
CITIZENS / 165,000 / 32,000
MALE RESIDENTS WITH NO VOTE / 30,000 / 120,000
SLAVES (ATHENS) OR
HELOTS (SPARTA) / 105,000 / 224,000

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Voting Population in Athens

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Background: Women in Athens did not attend school. They were educated at home and spent most of their lives out of the public eye. They were responsible for managing the household and raising children. In this excerpt, the Greek historian Xenophon describes how a husband might respond to his wife asking “How can I remain attractive?”

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Background: A Spartan women’s sole duty was to have as many (preferably male) babies as possible. Girls were trained to be physically fit to survive pregnancies. They were also trained in physical fitness including almost military sorts of exercises.

In Sparta, with their sons and husbands out “playing soldier,” it was left to the women to manage the economic affairs of the household. Women also had the right to divorce their husbands without fear of losing all of their wealth. While other Greeks often praised Sparta’s military culture, they were frequently outraged by the freedoms permitted to Spartan women who went about in public. Even worse, the Spartan ladies were notoriously outspoken and even insolent. Mothers and wives taunted their “weak” or “cowardly” sons and husbands. Some were even reported to have killed their own sons if they had shown fear in battle. The ancient historian Plutarch collected the sayings of Spartan women:

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The design of the Parthenon in Athens (432 B.C.) has continued to influence artists and architects around the world. This temple to Athena was decorated in carved sculptures showing figures in a procession. The figures tried to capture the grace of the idealized human body in motion. The elegance and proportions of the columns have been imitated in many other buildings, including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

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Background: Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BCE. He was a young boy during the Persian War, but later became famous when he wrote the first history of the war in 440 BCE. Today, he is the most commonly used primary source for information on the Battle of Thermopylae. The following is an excerpt from his Histories that describes the end of the Battle of Thermopylae.