The Classical World: Greece and Rome · Ages 15–16
Athens and Sparta: Institutions, Ideology, and Sources
Name: Date:
Answer the following questions in complete sentences. For the primary source question, base your conclusion directly on the text provided.
Identify the primary governing body in Athens where all adult male citizens met to vote directly on laws.
Name the enslaved population who farmed the land for Spartan citizens and describe one way Sparta controlled them.
Explain why sea trade was central to the Athenian economy while Sparta prohibited its citizens from engaging in commerce.
Compare the daily education of an Athenian boy from a wealthy family with a Spartan boy enrolled in the agoge.
Read this excerpt from Pericles's Funeral Oration (Thucydides 2.39): 'Our city is open to the world; we never expel a foreigner... We rely not upon secret preparations and deceit so much as on our own courage in action.' How does Pericles use this comparison to justify the Athenian way of life over Sparta's?
Why must modern historians be cautious when reading Plutarch's accounts of early Sparta?
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Identify the primary governing body in Athens where all adult male citizens met to vote directly on laws.
The Assembly (Ekklesia).
Name the enslaved population who farmed the land for Spartan citizens and describe one way Sparta controlled them.
The helots. Sparta controlled them through state intimidation, annual declarations of war against them, and the Krypteia (secret police force of young Spartans).
Explain why sea trade was central to the Athenian economy while Sparta prohibited its citizens from engaging in commerce.
Athens had thin soil, a large urban population, and relied on trade through the port of Piraeus to import grain. Sparta possessed fertile agricultural land worked by helots and deliberately restricted commerce and luxury to keep its citizen elite focused entirely on warfare.
Compare the daily education of an Athenian boy from a wealthy family with a Spartan boy enrolled in the agoge.
An Athenian boy studied reading, writing, music, poetry, and athletics under private tutors chosen by his family. A Spartan boy left home at age seven for the state-run agoge, where he lived in barracks, endured harsh physical discipline, learned military tactics, and practiced survival skills.
Read this excerpt from Pericles's Funeral Oration (Thucydides 2.39): 'Our city is open to the world; we never expel a foreigner... We rely not upon secret preparations and deceit so much as on our own courage in action.' How does Pericles use this comparison to justify the Athenian way of life over Sparta's?
Pericles argues that Athens is superior because its courage comes from voluntary freedom, openness, and civic confidence rather than Sparta's forced discipline, paranoia, and expulsion of foreigners (xenelasia).
Why must modern historians be cautious when reading Plutarch's accounts of early Sparta?
Plutarch lived centuries after the events he described (during the Roman Empire), relied on second-hand sources, and often romanticized Spartan virtue to present moral lessons rather than objective historical facts.