Athens had a larger population than Sparta and a diverse economy based on farming, manufacturing, and trade of goods like olive oil, grapes, wine, and pottery. Athens developed a strong democracy in the 5th century BCE that established equality before the law and merit-based political participation. However, Athens' imperial ambitions eventually led to military overreach and its defeat by Sparta, ending the classical period of Athenian power.

3.  Population
Athens:655,780 (796,442 back in 2004)
Sparta: Spartan males we (today) would
consider as small
 Athens never faced the problem of trying
to control a large population of angry and
sometimes violent subjects. This also
explains why Sparta had to remain an
intensely militaristic state.

4.  The economy of Athens was based upon
farming, manufacturing and
trade. Athens and other cities derived
much of their wealth in the trade of
woolen goods, wheat, olive oil, grapes
and wine throughout the Greek
Mediterranean world.

5. Woolen goods
wheat
WINE
Olive oil
grapes

6.  Athenians also manufactured metal
goods, including weapons, and also
pottery which used for the home or to
transport olive oil and other goods from
city to city. Where there is trade, there is
the need for shipbuilding and finances.
 Athens became a center for financial
business--loans and investment,
etc. Athens was also enriched by large
silver mines in its territory which was
worked by huge slave-gangs.

7. POTTERY
Weapons and armors

8.  ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY came to mean
the equality of justice and the equality of
opportunity. The equality of justice was
secured by the jury system, which
ensured that slaves and resident aliens
were represented through their patrons.
 The equality of opportunity did not mean
that every man has the right to
everything. What it did mean is that the
criteria for choosing citizens for office
was merit and efficiency and not wealth.

9.  The political history of Athens in the
classical period is the story of the rise of
its Athenian power, the establishment of
democracy, and its final destruction as a
great power at the hands of the
Spartans.

10.  The politics of Athens centered on
the conflict between the
aristocrats who ruled Athens, and
the common people. As small
farmers began to sell out and lose
out to rich landowners in the 600s
BCE, political tensions rose, and an
aristocratic leader by the name of
Solon attempted in 594 a series of
laws to ease those tensions.

11.  These laws freed all citizens made
slaves by debt, canceled much
of the debt held by common
people, and widened the
eligibility for public office to
citizens of wealth, even if they
were not of noble blood.

12.  It is often said that democracies will seek
peace. That was not true in Athens. The
tyrant Pisistratus and his son built up
Athenian military power, but it was the new
Athenian democracy after Cleisthenes that
aggressively used that power, first in
supporting the revolt of Greek colonies
against their Persian overlords on the Ionian
coast.
 This action provoked a major war with
Persia, and Athens, along with Sparta and
other Greek cities, defeated the Persian
attack both on the land and at sea.

13.  In
the end Athens is
defeated. Its democracy was
temporarily dissolved, and its
imperial ambitions were
ended forever.

14. Thucydides, who
wrote a famous
history of this
war, was an
Athenian
general in the
early phase of
the conflict.