Chapter+Four-Two+Ancient+Cities+follow+diverse+paths


 * Chapter Four-Two ancient cities follow diverse paths: **
 * Greece was a land made up of nearly 200 city-states. All independent, with their own governments, trades, and lifestyles. Two of these city-states stood out from all the rest: Sparta and Athens.
 * Sparta was the largest of all the city-states. It also had one of the armies. Their government was created by a man named Lycurgus around 600 B.C. It was made up of two kings, 28 men in a council, and 5 men meant for overseers. They had serfs as their laborers, who were people conquered by Sparta's army. Their daily lifestyle was cruel, and brutal. All male babies would be thoroughly inspected, then if weak, would be thrown to their deaths in a mountain ravine. When the boys turn 12, they would go to a harsh camp, then at age 20 the boys would join an army squad. The women's main job was to bear more warriors. Spartans were described as soulless soldiers.
 * Athens are known for their artists, philosophers, writers and teachers. A few of their most famous Athens include Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Herodotus, and Sophocles. The Athens had trial and error governments, much like the other city-states. They had kings, a small period of democracy, then were ruled by three dictators. When one died, the other two began to fight for power. Cleisthenes finally won after two years of fighting for power when he told the Athen people he would bring reforms, and he did. Citizens that were both free and men had rights. When a league was made to keep an enemy away, the Persians, from Greece, Athens was in charge. Before you know it, they had taken over the entire league, increasing their empire. As there empire continued to grow, so did the worries of other nearby city-states.
 * There was one city called Aegean who was part of both Greece and Persians. When they tried to rebel against the Persians, two Greece city-states helped out: Athens and Eretria, but Aegean failed to brake free. The Persian king wanted to take revenge on the helping city-states, and finally did, seven years after the rebellion. But failed when a storm caused his ships to sink. They tried twice more. First, the took Eretria, but failed to defeat Athens. When they tried yet again, they came much closer, but still failed to completely take over.
 * In 431 B.C. multiple city-states declared war against the Athens, among these city-states was Sparta and Cornith. At first, the Athens stuck to what they knew, defense, but took a bold move and started offense, which did not turn out so well. By 404 B.C. Sparta defeated Athens. Sparta was the strongest city-state, but it was still falling apart. Their military and their lifestyles were not how they started out as. They were defeated by Thebes in 371 B.C.
 * Greece was conquered in 338 B.C. by a Greece city-state known as Macedon.