Blog Post #4 The Spartan Way

Visitors to ancient Sparta often heard the story about the boy and the fox cub. It was a story about a Spartan boy who stole a pet fox cub and hid it under its cloak. Most visitor who heard the story thought that the boy's behavior was strange. Sparta's most famous rival was Athens and both city-states shaped the modern world. Athens was the birthplace of democracy, where all full citizens had the right to vote on city matters. Spartans kept few written records and left ruins for historians to study. Almost everything we study and know today is second hand., but we still know that Sparta dominated ancient Greece about 600 B.C. to 371 B.C. leaving and unforgettable mark on history. Almost 10 percent of Spartan men were full citizens and their job was the serves as soldiers in Sparta's army. Sparta's government and strong traditions controlled every aspect of and equal's life. While boys in Athens were given lengthy educations, Spartan boys were taught only the basics of reading and writing. The trainers gave barely enough food to live on, encouraging them to find some other food for themselves. Men became full citizens at age of 30 after that they could vote or hold public office. All Spartans ate their meals at army halls, not with their families.While the main job of Spartan man was to be soldiers, the main job of the Spartan women was to have children and they needed to make them strong for the next army. Spartan women couldn't wear jewelry, perfume or nice clothes.

A quote from the notes I read was in the page 178 of these notes was "All their times was taken up by choral dances, festivals, feasts, hunting expeditions, physical exercise, and conversations." I think that you could learn  from this quote because that after it said free times was made possibly by two groups of conquered peoples. Which were perioeci and helots.

Sean Price. "The Spartan Way." The Ancient World. Print.