How Did Sparta Change

As humanity has progressed throughout history, there have been a number of times in which the interest and involvement of politics has changed. As we look back we can see that as the eras changed, interests of the people changed as well. One example of this is during the time of the Ancient Greeks. At this point in Western Civilization one polis by the name of Athens located on the coast of the Aegean Sea felt that political participation was a key factor in everyday life. Unfortunately not all Greek city-states were on the same page as the Athenians. While Athens took pride in their democratic elections, their assembly and their Council, other city-states such as Sparta took a much more different approach. Sparta was a society in which
While this system helped Sparta become the military powerhouse it was in ancient times, it did not help them create an environment in which a complex political system could grow. The Spartans decided to opt for a political system that was stable and a system that protected the people of Sparta. By using oligarchy as their form of government, the Spartans let the powerful few rule which stagnated the role of the everyday citizen in politics. Now those few powerful people controlled every aspect of life in Sparta. Even though Sparta did not have a government that thrived on the participation of its peoples, Sparta did have one unique characteristic that the other city-states did not have. Spartan women had a status of power and respect that was not seen in the ancient world. Spartan women were given almost the same rights as their male counter parts. The women were taught to read and wright, they were allowed to participate in sports, and Spartan women even had the ability to own land in society. Even though they had all these rights, Athenians still participated more in government. This is shown by the way Athens ran its government. An example of this is
As the age of the Greeks was coming to an end, a small kingdom in central Italy was gaining power and growing. During this time, Rome was not yet the Rome as we know it today. In 753 BCE the Kingdom of Rome was founded on a hill top right next to the Tiber River. This kingdom lasted for around 200 years until in 509 BCE when the people of Rome overthrew the king and created a republic. Like the Athenians, the Romans also showed pride in their participation in government. However unlike the Athenians the Romans set up a republic in which the people of Rome voted for representatives and those reps then discussed, voted and participated in the government. This in turn meant that political participation in Rome was less direct than it had been in their Greek counterparts but, this in no way stopped the Romans from participation in politics. The Romans believed in one very important virtue. This virtue was called gravitas and it represented the Roman’s seriousness and importance it put toward aspects of life, one of which was politics. The Romans felt that being involved in government was a civil duty that all Romans must know about it. The people of Rome felt this way because they did not want to revert back to the time when they were ruled by kings. Unfortunately the era of the republic began to fall as a cycle of violence ensued. Rome was in constant chaos at this time and as shown throughout