Up until my senior year of high school, I had certain perceptions of ancient Greece and its city-states, namely Athens and Sparta. At the mention of Athens, my mind would conjure up the image of a scholarly society constantly in intellectual discussions, developing democracy, and following the path of their patron goddess, goddess of wisdom, Athena. Conversely, when I thought of Sparta, I would think of war, blood, and the “This is Sparta” poster hanging in my seventh-grade social studies teacher’s classroom. Essentially, they were polar opposites. These views had been ingrained in me through what I had learned in school, the books I read, and, like the poster in seventh grade, the media I consumed.

My beliefs concerning ancient Greece were called into question when I took my senior year history class. We read “The Ideal and the Reality of Classical Athens” then discussed the reading and lecture in recitation. There, our teacher told us the realities of the poleis.  

In reality, Athens had much more of a war mentality than Sparta. They gave just as much attention to Athena’s militaristic side as they did to her wise side; she was, after all, the goddess of war. The Athenians participated in warfare because they wanted to. They dedicated time and resources to the building of a superior navy and army, and they prided themselves on their military.

Sparta, on the other hand, fought for survival, fighting only when necessary. Unlike the Athenians, they didn’t want to fight. However, this didn’t stop them from creating a powerful military rooted in young people of both binary genders to train.

So, where did mainstream history mix up the war mentalities of the two city-states? The answer lies in who wrote the histories: Athens wrote the history of both Athens and Sparta. They wrote themselves as intellectuals who followed the life of their patron goddess and set themselves above the lowliness of war, only descending to fight when necessary. Then, they wrote of Sparta as savages and bloodthirsty warriors who had little complexity of thought. Unfortunately for the Spartans, that was the history that stuck.

Athens and Sparta have always been sorts of doubles of each other, like flip sides of the same coin. However, due to Athenian scholarship and influence over history, the two-city states also have their own historical doubles. For militaristic, patriarchal Athens, this double is intelligence-centered, democratic, and liberal. For Sparta, their war-reluctant society and greater equality for women were erased and replaced by a city-state that was constantly at war and favored its men.