Life in Athens

Spartans were expected to obey their king. But the Greeks who lived in Athens had a different way of doing things. Everyone who lived in Athens had a say in how the city was run, because Athens was a democracy.

So that they could understand how to vote properly, the citizens had to be educated. They needed to know why taxes were important, and whether leaders were good or bad. They had to understand the laws of the city. If they were ignorant, they wouldn’t be able to argue properly about the government of the city. And they wouldn’t be able to make up their minds about how to vote.

So education in Athens looked very different from education in Sparta. The Spartans were expected to obey their king and to fight for him, so they were taught how to be brave, strong, and obedient. But Athenians had to learn about taxes, laws, and government. Athenian boys went to school, just like Spartan boys. But they didn’t learn how to fight. Instead, they were taught how to read and how to write on wax tablets. They learned mathematics, so that they could count and add and subtract. They memorized the poetry of Homer. They learned how to play the flute and the lyre (an ancient Greek instrument that looked like a small harp).

Athenian girls were also different from Spartan girls. Athenian girls were taught to be housewives. Some girls learned how to read and write. But all girls learned, from their mothers, how to be domestic—how to manage a home, sew, raise a garden, take care of children, and manage slaves. Athenian women weren’t allowed to vote. But they were expected to keep their homes running smoothly, while their husbands were away arguing in the forum and voting about laws and leaders.

One of the most famous men in Athens was named Plato. Plato told the Athenians that a democracy had to have educated people in it! If they are ignorant, he said, people who know more than they do will become tyrants and tell them what to do.

Was Plato right?

Well, let’s think about this. Imagine that you’ve never been taught anything about stealing or about ownership. You don’t know that people have a right to own things and to keep them. And no one has ever told you what stealing is. You’re completely ignorant.

Now imagine that you’re on your way to the store with five dollars to buy a LEGO set. Along comes your neighbor. She’s bigger and older than you are, and she decides that she’d really like to have that five dollars.

“Hey!” she says. “Don’t you know that it’s Wednesday?”

“Why is that important?” you say.

“Well,” she says, “on Wednesday, all smaller children are supposed to give their money away to larger children. It’s a law! If you don’t give me your money, you’ll be breaking the law and you’ll go to jail.”

You want to do the right thing. And no one ever taught you that there was no such law! So you hand over your money, and your neighbor walks off with it.

That’s just what Plato meant when he said that ignorant people will always obey tyrants. If you don’t know what the law is, anyone can tell you what to do. The Athenians didn’t want tyrants to be in charge. So they were careful to educate themselves and their children. The Spartans wanted to be strong and victorious, but the Athenians wanted to be wise and educated. These two Greek cities were very different.

Note to Parent: The Greek city-states began to arise in the mid 800s BC/BCE. The Athenian and Spartan lifestyles described here date from the 600s.