Hoarse voice, the crow tried to sing,Just gonna stand there and watch me burn?After greeting with a salaam, delivering the opening kalima, he said, "Two thousand five hundred years ago, two totally different city-states dominated Greece. Athens was an open society, and Sparta was a closed one. Athens was democratic, and Sparta was ruled by a select few. The differences were many.
Well that's alright, because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry?
Well that's alright, because I love the way you lie *)
Sparta began as a city-state of farmers. As the population grew, Spartans needed more land to farm. To get more, they invaded their neighbors, the Messenians. After a long war, they finally conquered the rich land of Messenia in 715 and made the Messenians their slaves. The Messenians outnumbered the Spartans by 10–1. Treated brutally, the Messenians rose in revolt in 650. It took almost 30 years for the Spartans to put down the revolt.
The revolt changed Sparta forever. Spartans felt that they had to control the Messenians. They saw only one way to do this: They built a strong army, which every male Spartan had to join.
The training lasted almost a lifetime. At birth, unfit babies were left to die. At age 7, boys had to left home and lived in barracks. They underwent training to make them strong and fearless. They made their own clothes and prepared their own meals. They learned how to fend for themselves.
At age 20, they went in the army. For the next 10 years, they remained in barracks as soldiers. They had to get married at 20, but did not live with their wives until age 30. They remained in the army until 60. Older men inspired the younger men. If duty called, they answered. The Spartan army was the fiercest in Greece.
Since the men’s only job was to fight, this left most of the other work to slaves and women. Slaves, and some free non-Spartans, tended the fields and did chores. Because Spartans feared another slave revolt, they did not allow slaves to go out at night With the men away for so long, the women took charge. As in other Greek city-states, they could not vote or hold office. But they could own land and even go to court. Women owned about one-third of Spartan land. They married older than other Greeks. They were known for standing up to their husbands. A famous Greek writer said that “the men of Sparta always obeyed their wives.”
Other Greeks thought Spartan women were shameless. They went out in public, talked with other people, and did not cover their legs. They exercised hard and competed in sports.
Like their husbands, they devoted their lives to Sparta. They wore no jewelry or fancy clothes. They married to have children who would fight for Sparta. It was said that Spartan mothers had a simple message when their sons left for war: “Come home with your shield or upon it.” In other words, return with the army alive or be killed in battle.
Life in Sparta was tough and dull. Even the food tended to be the same day after day. One outsider after tasting Spartan food said, “Now I know why Spartans don’t fear death.”
The government of Sparta consisted of a Council of 30. The council had 28 elders, who served for life, and two kings. The kings led the army. A citizen assembly elected five leaders, called “ephors,” each year. The ephors had total power during their time in office. They could even arrest the kings or elders.
Athens, was different in almost every way. Spartans did as they were told. Athenians loved their freedom. Sparta was ruled by a select few. Athenians were their own rulers. They debated and voted on laws in the Assembly. In their democracy, Athenians had duties. They had to obey the laws, serve in the military, help run the city, pay taxes, and serve on juries. A jury consisted of 500 or more citizens. If an Athenian broke the law or failed to live up to his duties as a citizen, he could be ostracized. This meant that he was forced to leave Athens for 10 years.
The land around Athens was difficult to farm. Athenians grew olive trees and grapes, but had to import food from other places. They built a trading society, selling olives, grapes, wine, pottery, and other goods. Athenians were known as fine craftsmen and artisans. The city of Athens impressed everyone. Its buildings and statues are still admired today.
Homes of the rich had courtyards and large rooms. Most people, however, lived in simple homes. Men spent most of the daylight hours outside the home. They worked. They went to the marketplace. They hung out in the streets. They played sports and talked at the gymnasium. They went to the theater and saw plays. When it got dark, they went home to eat and sleep. Women were expected to stay at home and do housework. They cleaned, cooked, and wove cloth. When a husband had guests, the wife was supposed to disappear into another part of the house. If women ventured out of the house, they covered themselves and wore veils to hide their faces. Rich women seldom left the house. Poorer women had to work outside the home.
Like most of the ancient world, Athens had slaves, who had been captured in wars. About 100,000 men and women slaves made up about a third of the population. Almost every home had at least one slave. The rich might have 50. Even so, other Greeks complained that Athenians treated their slaves as equals. This was not true, but they did treat them better than the Spartans treated their slaves.
Every year, Athenians held many festivals and contests. The rich paid for their cost. One festival honored Dionysus, the god of wine and drinking. Among other merrymaking at this festival, Athenians watched plays and judged which was the best tragedy and comedy. The Theater of Dionysus held 17,000 people. The performers wore large masks and a chorus of actors spoke many lines.As a trading city, Athens sent its men to sea. To protect its ships, it built a navy. In time, it developed into the greatest naval power in Greece. It slowly gained control over other city-states. The Athenians experienced a major setback when a plague broke out in 430 BCE. Between one-third and two-thirds of the Athenian population died, including the prominent general Pericles.
In 431 BCE a war broke out between Athens and Sparta. It was called the Peloponnesian War. This is because Sparta was located on the Peloponnesian Peninsula. If you look at a map of Greece, you will see that the southern part of Greece is attached by a small strip of land. This southern part is called the Peloponnesian Peninsula.
The formation of the Delian League, or Athenian League, in 478 BCE. united several Greek city-states in a military alliance under Athens, ostensibly to guard against revenge attacks from the Persian Empire. In reality, the league also granted increased power and prestige to Athens. The Spartans, meanwhile, were part of the Peloponnesian League (550 BCE- 366 BCE) of city-states. It was only a matter of time before the two powerful leagues collided.
The Great Peloponnesian War, also called the First Peloponnesian War, was the first major scuffle between them. It became a 15-year conflict between Athens and Sparta and their allies. Peace was decreed by the signing of the Thirty Years Treaty in 445 BCE, effective until 437 BCE, when the Peloponnesian War began.
A civil war in the obscure country of Epidamnus led to the involvement of Sparta’s ally, Corinth. When Sparta was brought in to be part of conflict negotiations, Corinth’s longtime enemy Corcyra targeted Epidamnus and seized it in a naval battle. Corinth retreated to rebuild its fleet and plan retaliation.
In 433 BCE, the tension continued to build and Corcyra officially sought Athens’ support by arguing that conflict with Sparta was inevitable and Athens required an alliance with Corcyra to defend itself. The Athenian government debated the suggestion, but its leader Pericles suggested a defensive alliance with Corcya, sending a small number of ships to protect it against Corinthian forces.
All forces met at the Battle of Sybota, in which Corinth, with no support from Sparta, attacked and then retreated at the sight of Athenian ships. Athens, convinced it was about to enter war with Corinth, strengthened its military hold on its various territories in the region to prepare.
Sparta was hesitant to enter the war directly, but was eventually convinced by Corinth to do so, though this was not a popular decision among Sparta’s other allies. A year passed before Sparta took aggressive action. During that time, Sparta sent three delegations to Athens to avoid war, offering proposals that could be viewed as a betrayal of Corinth. These efforts conflicted with Pericles’ agenda and the Athenians rejected peace.
The first 10 years of the conflict are known as “Archidamian War,” after Spartan King Archidamus. The Spartan slogan for that period was “Freedom for the Greeks,” and its stated aim was to liberate the states under Athenian rule by destroying its defenses and dismantling its structure.
As Spartan forces surrounded Athens in a siege, decimating the countryside and farmland, Pericles declined to engage against them near the city’s walls, instead leading naval campaigns elsewhere. He returned to Athens in 430 B.C. as a plague ravaged the city, killing nearly two-thirds of the population. Pericles, following a political uprising that led to his censure, succumbed to the plague in 429 BCE, fracturing the Athenian leadership. Despite this major setback for the Athenians, the Spartans saw only mixed success in their war efforts, and some major losses in western Greece and at sea.
In 423 BCE, both sides signed a treaty known as the Peace of Nicias, named for the Athenian general who engineered it. Meant to last 50 years, it barely survived eight, undermined by conflict and rebellion brought on by various allies.
War reignited decisively around 415 BCE when Athens received a call to help allies in Sicily against invaders from Syracuse, where an Athenian official defected to Sparta, convincing them that Athens was planning to conquer Italy. Sparta sided with Syracuse and defeated the Athenians in a major sea battle.
Athens did not crumble as expected, winning a string of naval victories against Sparta, which sought monetary and weapons support from the Persian Empire. Under the Spartan general Lysander, the war raged for another decade. By in 405 BCE. Lysander decimated the Athenian fleet in battle and then held Athens under siege, forcing it to surrender to Sparta in 404 BCE.
The Peloponnesian War marked the end of the Golden Age of Greece, a change in styles of warfare, and the fall of Athens, once the strongest city-state in Greece. The balance in power in Greece was shifted when Athens was absorbed into the Spartan Empire. It continued to exist under a series of tyrants and then a democracy. Athens lost its dominance in the region to Sparta until both were conquered less than a century later and made part of the kingdom of Macedon.
From the start of the conflict to the outbreak of war between Sparta and Athens, it seemed that there were only these two great powers, but in n fact, the trigger for this war, was a hidden third party. Early in its history, Phoenician merchants from the coast cities of Accent Palestine, came to exploit the markets of Ancient Greece. Sparta resisted these foreigners so they were forced to settle in Athens. Through practices of money lending they built up their economic base, establishing themselves as a prominent merchant class rivalling the landed Greek aristocracy. To conduct the society to their desired objectives, they manipulated the Greek theatre, the most important cultural activity of Ancient Greece, which has been celebrated in the West ever since. Like modern television is used, the theatre was used to inculcate immorality.
Sparta aware of the corruptive influence of these foreigners, and to protect its money standard strongly resisted their penetration. To say something is spartan means that it is conservative or austere, as the Spartans were known for their discipline, trying to keep them from the moral decay that afflicted Athens. These foreign merchants now wanted to practice on Sparta what they had on Athens, this action brought about a war between the two cities, now known as the Peloponnesian Wars."
The crow was silent, then said, "O my brothers and sisters, of course there are still wars like this Sparta and Athens. For us, the war is not an open war, taking up arms and bloodshed, but a war of 'ilm and strategy, by maintaining common sense and nourishing our conscience.
And in closing, always remember that fifteen centuries ago, our beloved Prophet (ﷺ) delivered a shocking message,لَتَتَّبِعُنَّ سَنَنَ الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ شِبْرًا بِشِبْرٍ وَذِرَاعًا بِذِرَاعٍ حَتَّى لَوْ دَخَلُوا فِي جُحْرِ ضَبٍّ لاَتَّبَعْتُمُوهُمْ"You would tread the same path as was trodden by those before you inch by inch and step by step so much so that if they had entered into the hole of the lizard, you would follow them in this also...." [Sahih Muslim]
References :
- Professor Kenneth W. Harl, The Peloponnesian War, The Teaching Company
- Abu Esa Al Kanadi, The Secret World, Maktabah Al Ansaar Publications
- Two Very Different City-States: Sparta and Athens, Constitutional Rights Foundation
- Professor Kenneth W. Harl, The Peloponnesian War, The Teaching Company
- Abu Esa Al Kanadi, The Secret World, Maktabah Al Ansaar Publications
- Two Very Different City-States: Sparta and Athens, Constitutional Rights Foundation
*) Like The Way You Lie written by Alexander Junior Grant, Marshall Bruce Mathers and Holly Brooks
