Ancient Greece was not one country. It was hundreds of city-states: each a city with its own farms around it, its own laws and its own army. They shared a language, gods and the Olympic Games, first held in 776 BC, when wars stopped so athletes could travel safely to Olympia.
Key idea
In Athens, from about 508 BC, citizens met on a hillside and voted on laws themselves: a democracy, "rule by the people." Sparta was ruled by two kings and a council, and every boy trained to be a soldier from the age of seven. Athens loved art, plays and learning; Sparta prized discipline and courage.
In 490 BC the mighty Persian Empire invaded Greece. The Athenians won a surprise victory at Marathon. Ten years later the Persians came back. At the narrow pass of Thermopylae, King Leonidas and his Spartans held them off for three days, and then the Athenian navy beat the Persian fleet at Salamis. Greece stayed free.
| Athens | Sparta | |
|---|---|---|
| Government | democracy: citizens voted | two kings and a council |
| Boys | school: reading, music, sport | army training from age 7 |
| Known for | plays, temples, thinkers | discipline, a strong army |
Worked example: Who voted?
Could every person living in Athens vote in the assembly?
- Only free men whose parents were Athenian citizens could vote.
- Women, enslaved people and foreigners living in Athens could not.
Answer: No, only male citizens. Still, it was a bold new idea: ordinary citizens deciding together.
Common mistake
Thinking Athens and Sparta were always friends. They fought together against Persia, then fought each other in the long Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BC).
Try it at home
- Hold a family assembly, Athenian style. Choose a question (What should we have for dinner on Friday?), let everyone speak, then vote with a show of hands.
- Hold mini Olympic Games in the yard: a running race, a long jump and a throwing contest with a soft ball. The winners get a crown of leaves, as at Olympia.
Going further. Read the stories of Solon, Leonidas and Pericles in Famous Men of Greece. Play Thermopylae. See Marathon and Thermopylae and Salamis on the Timeline, and the young readers' path of Herodotus: The Histories, who told the story of the Persian Wars.