Everyone seems to be writing about Athens and Sparta and saying nearly the same thing. So let’s look ahead a bit. There is little doubt that the Peloponnesian War ultimately signified the end of the city-state as a creative force which fulfilled the lives of the citizenry whether in Athens or Sparta. Throughout the 5th and 4th centuries, the political history of the Greek world degenerated into oligarchy (forms of government where power and control is focused in the hands of a very small group of people). Athenian direct democracy became a spent force as Athens lost its leadership in the Greek world after its defeat at the hands of the Spartans. But Spartan domination did not last very long. Full of arrogance and pride, Sparta found itself engaged in war after war. The three leading city-states of Athens, Sparta and Thebes traded positions of influence and power, sometimes two states joining against the other for protection. Following the decline of the city-state brings us into the Hellenistic Age.
I was curious, when city-states in Renaissance Italy, or English radicals in the 17th century, or revolutionaries in the North American colonies and France were trying to forge a new identity, why did they look to Sparta as well as the Roman Republic, and NOT to Athens?
Steve