Among all the city-states of Classical Greece, the most famous are certainly Athens and Sparta. Sometimes allies, often enemies, despite their shared language and culture, these two could not have ...

In Ancient Greece, Athens was known for its philosophers, scientists, and theorists of democracy. Sparta was known for its military prowess, its bravery and its ability to defend itself against ...

Athens and Sparta represented for classical thinkers distinct and opposing regimes. Democratic Athens took pride in its freedom, openness, and accomplishments in the arts and philosophy. Oligarchic ...

In 416 BC in its war against Sparta, Athens instructed the fleet to break the small island of Melos’ alliance with its enemy. The Athenian historian Thucydides constructed the ensuing debate between ...

During the fifth century BC, Athens was a city-state to be reckoned with. Together with Sparta, it was one of the two great ...

Sparta’s check of imperial Athens in the inconclusive so-called First Peloponnesian War (460–445 B.C.) foreshadowed a remarkable subsequent twenty-eight-year growth in Lacedaemonian power and ...

Athens and Sparta represented for classical thinkers distinct and opposing regimes. Democratic Athens took pride in its freedom, openness, and accomplishments in the arts and philosophy. Oligarchic ...

Saul Bellow, in his “To Jerusalem and Back,” wrote approvingly of how Israel was so special a place because it sought simultaneously to be both Sparta and Athens — and largely succeeded at both. That ...