The Necessity of Roles in Ancient Athens
The dramatic growth of ancient Athens from a powerful polis to an Aegean Empire was a result of the hierarchy in ancient Athens. The roles of the people played a big part in this advancement. Therefore, the roles in ancient Athens were very structured and rigid. The male citizens worked very hard politically, while they left the women with the task of bearing children, and the slaves with the backbreaking physical work that allowed the city to function.
In ancient Athens, men held all the important positions in society and ran the government. Accordingly, they spent very little time at their home. Within the class of male citizens there were small classes based on wealth. “Many Athenian farmers found themselves sold into slavery when they were unable to repay the loans they had borrowed from their aristocratic neighbors, pledging themselves as collateral,” (Spielvogel 66). The small farmers and aristocrats were on the opposite ends of social class spectrum. However, both of them still had more rights than the richest women or slaves, at least until the farmers were turned into slaves themselves. The men had many more rights than the women and slaves, and did much less manual work than them. It was exceedingly unfair. “The Greek city-state was, above all, a male community: only adult male citizens took part in public life. In Athens, this meant the exclusion of women, slaves, and foreign residents,” (Spielvogel 83). The fact that only males could participate in public life depicts how the men were prominent in society. Everything was centered around them and they got all the credit for running the city while the slaves worked tirelessly behind the scenes. The jobs and responsibilities of ...
... middle of paper ...
... pretty well in ancient Athens, it was still a bad political example considering men were the only people with rights. Without the slaves, the city of Athens would have fallen apart because the men couldn’t have kept the city together without them.
In conclusion, there were many vital roles important in keeping Athens such a wealthy and well-functioning city. Athens wouldn’t have been complete without the roles of the men, women, or slaves, despite the fact that the men had jobs much easier and more interesting than those of the women or slaves. The male citizens, highest on the totem pole, ran the city; the women had no rights and were rarely seen outside of the house; while slaves were of the lowest class, varied in jobs, and did the dirty work for the city. Most actions of the slaves and women functioned around the male citizens and what their desires acquired.
The effects of this go far beyond the imbalance of military power between Athens and her tributaries, however. The Old Oligarch lists four main areas where the existence of the Empire benefits the common people of Athens, thus giving impetus to radicalize democracy and justify the expansion and strengthening of the Empire, and giving is reason to find an ongoing justification for its existence. The first is the building of the disproportionately large Athenian navy. Second is the overall flattening of the Athenian social pyramid, raising the relative status of the lowest classes of society, and exemplified by the way that Athens becomes a magnet for aliens to live and work, and gives unusual freedom and opportunity to slaves. Third is that the allies are compelled to have their court cases tried in Athenian courts, bringing both prestige and financial reward to Athens. Finally, the centralizing effect of these things, and the obvious maritime nature of the Empire, make Athens a trading center, m...
In Cole's discussion of Aristotle's beliefs of gender and class of free and non free citizens, she is emphasizing those men posses practical reasoning. In having these virtues, males are allowed to make any and all decisions for his slaves, wives, and children, because it was said none of them have the ability to make choices themselves, so Aristotle thought. He remains stubborn in the notion that classic Greek males did these acts because the pressure of excellence. "The well-being of the state depends on their achieving their own specific excellence, but that excellence or virtue is defined in relation to the male who direct them and whose interests they serve," (Sterba 80). I think Aristotle to be correct, because of certain kinds of social pressures, you are only to serve the culture to which you honor traditions.
Spartan women were allowed to own and control land. “Yet it does seem to be the case that Spartan daughters received as dowries one-half the amount of their parents’ property that their brothers received as inheritance.” (Pomeroy, Sarah B., Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. "Becoming a Spartan Woman." Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 143. Print) Whereas Athenian women only received one-sixth the amount that their brothers inherited. Spartan women inherited three times as more than their Athenian sisters. Spartan women were also allowed and even encouraged to be educated, whereas the education of Athenian girls was almost nonexistent. In Athens the majority of girls “… received merely a basic training in how to run the household, generally from their mothers. Girls may even have been discouraged from becoming literate in order to keep them “unspoiled.”( Garland, Robert. "The People." Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. 103. Print.) Whereas in Sparta the girls were educated at the state’s expense. “Specific lines of development were prescribed for Spartan girls as much as they were for boys. The educational system for girls was also organized according to age classes. (Pomeroy, Sarah B., Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. "Becoming a Spartan Woman." Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 141. Print) Spartan women were also allowed more freedoms in the way that they dressed than their Athenian counterparts. “In earlier times Athenian women wore the peplos, a long heavy woolen garment which revealed little of the figure beneath. In the middle of the sixth century B.C., the peplos was replaced by a lighter and finer garment made of linen called
In Athens, women had no rights at all. The men would run the town, and women were left at home to keep the house clean and take care of children. If these ranks of society suddenly went away in these two Greek city-states, no one would know what to do. The citizens of Sparta would not know how to harvest fields or run a household because their whole lives were focused on either preparing them to fight in the military or actually going off to war. The Spartan military would probably also not be as strong because all men would not be required to fight.
In ancient Greece, there were clear differences regarding the manner in which men and women should behave. Males were expected to be the dominant sex, ruling over the land and people without any input from females. They were the sole breadwinners for the families and were to be given the utmost respect at all times. In contrast, women were to remain in the shadow of their husbands, not speak up or retaliate in any way, and complete household chores such as cleaning and caring for the children. In fact, they could not sleep in the same room as the men and were rarely allowed to leave the home. If they were to stray from these specific roles, they would face serious consequences and have even more of their little freedom taken away by the males.
Much like world war two when men went away to serve in battle, the women took care of the property and managed the home. Spartan Husbands spent most of their time with other men in the military barracks; since the men were rarely home, the women were free to take charge of almost everything outside of the army (Fleck). Women owned forty percent of land in Spartan society. In comparison, Athenian law did not allow a woman to participate in a business transaction involving anything that’s value exceeded the sum of money equivalent to that needed to feed a family for five to six days. Thus, why Athenian women had no control in owning property. Also, if she wanted to buy groceries at the local market, she would needed the approval of a male guardian (father, brother, husband). An Athenian woman could have owned a slave, yet she would have a lacked the authority to sell them away. This power again was given to the males of the household. She might have had a claim to land as well, yet she would not even have had the right to use it let alone sell it. In ancient Athens, then, it is probably better to speak of rights and not of ownership when it comes to women’s
Unlike other Greek city states, women played an integral role in Spartan society as they were the backbone of the Spartan economic system of inheritance and marriage dowry and they were relied upon to fulfill their main responsibility of producing Spartan warrior sons. These principle economic systems affected wealth distribution among Spartan citizens especially among the Spartan elite class. Spartan women led a completely different life than women in most other ancient Greek city states, as they were depended upon to maintain Spartan social systems. In a society where the state is more involved in home life women had freedom of movement and they were permitted to communicate with men who were not their husbands. Women had domestic responsibilities including the maintenance of homes and farms when the men were on campaign, while the typical Greek female responsibilities such as weaving were delegated to slaves. Girls were raised much like Spartan boys as they were made to go through physical training insuring their success in fulfilling their most important role in society, child-bearing. The few primary sources on Sparta and Spartiate women, namely Aristotle, Plutarch, Herodotus and Xenophon were historians who lived after the prominence of ancient Sparta; therefore, the facts regarding the women’s influence in social, economic and political issues must be carefully interpreted and analysed with help from secondary sources.
Women in Sparta and Athens had vastly different roles which greatly affected their society. Athenian people thought that a woman’s role was to care for the children and look after the house. Athenian women were not allowed to go outside unless they were going to a funeral or visiting a friend otherwise they were not to be seen or heard. Spartan citizens thought that women should be able to hold their own. Spartan women had to be able to hunt, wrestle, and provide for the family. Spartan women could own property and did go to school unlike Athenian women who would stay at home and cook (). Athens used women less in society which made it harder for Athens to evolve because women could have helped further a society with new ideas or perspectives. Sparta was able to advance because Spartan women were able to get many rights, allowing them to have more of a say and start the road to female
Athens was a much more superior polis compared to Sparta because the Athenians invented new ideas and creations that supported the people, such as democracy, the Athenians led the Delian League, and Sparta created the Peloponnesian League after the Athenians created their alliance, and the Athenians changed the ways of their government many times to suit the people, and the Spartans did not.
...imately men were in command in all situations: Ischomachos’s wife says, “For my guarding and distribution of the indoor things would look somewhat ridiculous, I suppose, if it weren’t your concern to bring in something from outside (Oeconomicus, VII 39).” This suggests that even though the wife was the indoor household manager, she was still obeying her husband’s orders that were the driving force of her own agency within the oikos.
Athens was one of the largest Greek city states. (Stockton, 4). It was about one thousand square miles (Stockton, 4). Athens was founded in the 8th century BC (Muller). It was at first ruled by the college of archons. (Muller). After a term of one year, the archons became members of the Council of Elders (Muller). The people had a voice in the popular assembly, the Ekklesia (Muller). However, it did not have real power until 600 BC. By then, it was an established institution of Athens (Muller). It became the central policy making body in the 5th century. There were two main governmental bodies, the Assembly and the Council. (Acropolis). The Assembly was responsible for policy making. (Acropolis) The Council was responsible for administration and implementing the Assembly’s policies. Not everyone could participate in Athenian politics. Slaves, resident aliens, and women were excluded.
...very day citizens. This is drastically different from the means currently used in the United States. Lastly, the fact that only male citizens were allowed to participate in government throughout the duration of the democratic existence in Athens.
My impression regarding the comparison of the likely daily lives of the citizens of Athens and Sparta is that they were two very different things. The differences hold true for men, women and children alike. In this discussion I have focused on the "average" person with the understanding that the roles of people of higher or lower social elevation surely led different lives.
Meyer, Jargen C. “Women in Classical Athens in the Shadow of North-West Europe or in the Light from Istanbul”. Women’s Life in Classical Athens. www.hist.uib.no/antikk/antres/Womens life.htm. Accessed: March 10, 2012
Along with the political system, Athenian civilization was unlike any other city state in ancient Greece at the time. Women, slaves, and foreign residents were treated as second class citizens to Greek males. Women stayed at home to bear the children, and were frowned upon by society if them could not bear a male to carry on the family name. Aristotle wrote about the Athenian’s view on women, claiming “a woman is, as it were, an infertile male. She is a female in fact on account by an inadequacy”. It was common for