Examination Of Sparta's Strong Army example essay topic

Weak babies left to die and military training starting at age seven. Sounds like a horrible and unfair way of life. But in Sparta this was all done for good reasoning. Sparta was a very militaristic city-state therefore things such as leaving weak babies to die and starting military training at age seven made Sparta the strongest military force around. Close by this strong, patriotic city-state was the beautiful Athens where individual freedom was strongly practiced. They had democracy, beautiful buildings and many philosophers.

Where would have been the better place to live, Sparta or Athens? An examination of a very strong army, an oligarchy type of government, and the equality of women and men will show that Sparta was a better place to live. In 620 B.C. E, the Messenia ns rebelled against the laid back Spartans. Sparta was successful in the end but not without using all the brute force they had. From then on, Sparta decided that if they were to defeat any other rebelling armies, they would have to devote all of their time to training a strong army.

With a force never larger than eight thousand men, they had the strongest army around because of the extensive training each soldier went through. At age seven, each Spartan boy was taking from their home and brought to schools where their rigorous training began. When the Spartan warriors were between the ages of twenty and thirty was when they showed off their treacherous training in the military barracks. In fact, Sparta over powered the Athenians when they came face to face on the battlefield. Thus proving that Sparta's army was more powerful than the Athenian army and therefore making Sparta a safer and more secure place to live. In the times of Sparta and Athens, there were three types of government, the monarchy type, which was the normal system of rule and had a king as the leader, the democracy type, which meant the people voted whom they want as their leader, and the oligarchy type which, when translated means "the few to rule".

Athenians were very strong believers in democracy because they felt that democracy was the fair way that their city-state should be run. Sparta, however; were strong believers in oligarchy which probably made them the strong militaristic city-state that they were. With more members of government to vote on issues of the city-state, there was a better chance that if a member of society were to express an issue that their issue would be considered as a result, the more members in the government, the more time there was to adhere to issues and although Athens government was voted in, they may not have been the best because they had only one person seeing to issues where as the oligarchy government had many. It is a known fact that throughout history, women were never treated as equals to men until the 1970's though it is recorded that Spartan women were cherished and treated just the same, if not better, than the Spartan males.

The women were thought so highly upon because they were the ones that held the key to their successful army. Women were child bearers and the more women there were in Sparta, the more babies they could have, and the more babies their were the more man power they had out on the battlefield. Women in Sparta were the crucial part to the circle of life in Sparta which was very important to their army and they were recognized for this. Whereas Athenian women had no power what soever when it came to anything. Sure they lived in a democratic society but they were not able vote such as the men did. An examination of Sparta's strong army, an oligarchy form of government and the equality of women to men in Spartan society has shown that Sparta was indeed a better place to live than Athens.

Although Athens had many good factors supporting their free way of life, Sparta offered a secure, well governed and equal lifestyle. Athenians were free to do whatever they wished while Spartans were being extensively trained on how to be the perfect Spartan warriors. Even with all known historical facts, it still remains an individual's choice to decide which was the better society to live in. Always keeping in mind that in order to win, one must lose.