Sparta (Eunomia)
Possible Essay Questions
1) Politics: It has been observed by historians that both the Athenian politeia and the Spartan politeia aimed a) to avoid stasis (class conflict, revolution) within their poleis, and b) to limit the power of the aristocrats, but their solutions were radically different. Discuss. In your discussion detail how they differed in their approachs these two issues and attempt to answer why they differed.2) Religion: We have examined how the gods were perceived with respect to justice in the writings dating from the late Dark Age and the Archaic Age of Greece. Discuss for the Classical Age, based on what we have read from Herodotus' and Thucydides' Histories and Sophocles' Oedipus the King.
3) Women: Sparta and Athens, in their solutions to the issues mentioned in 1) above, also went in differing directions with regard to the rights and positions of women in their poleis who were also citizens. Discuss. In your discussion detail how they differ and attempt to answer why they differ. In your discussion also include evidence from Aristophanes' Lysistrata and the funeral oration by Pericles in Thucydides' Histories.