Athenians

>Athenians
Degererate and liberal, under Pericles
>Spartans
Conservative and stalwart (read: BASED)

Dramatic tensions between left and right have been the generator of political development in the West since the Carlist wars (the first appearnce of 'right' and 'left'), similar to how they did in ancient Hellas.

Is this by design (template to create memed 'arcs' in politics) or simply a coincidence?

Sure 'left' and 'right, 'Athens' and 'Sparta' being the respective poles of political thought is too much of a coincidence

Spartan women had more rights than Athenian women.

If liberalism means self government, then Sparta was more liberal than Athens in the now-classical sense.

Even conservatives do liberalism better than liberals, to run with the anachronism.

Left and right are two archetypal political forces in a republic.

Athens and Sparta were both republics.

Really, any country that actually follows a constitution is going to have political debates over how society should be organized.

>"Should anyone ask me whether I think that the laws of Lycurgus still remain unchanged at this day, I certainly could not say that with any confidence whatever... Yet we need not wonder if these reproaches are levelled at them, since it is manifest that they obey neither their god nor the laws of Lycurgus"

-Xenophon (a Laconophile who fought along Spartans, hanged out with Agesilaus, had his own estate in Sparta, and likely sent his kids through the Spartan education system), Constitution of the Lacedaemonians

It's a meme that the Spartans actually lived an ascetic lifestyle like they professed. They likely did have a very rigorous education and experts at hoplite warfare, but there's countless examples where Spartan individuals are described as indulging in various pleasures of being greedy by non-partisan contemporary writers and subsequent ones. They were like the North Korean elite where they touted their poverty of their nation by saying that they're doing it voluntarily, but in reality, they have a dedicated underclass that's doing all the cultivating and production for them while having no say in running the state, while they--the rulers--secretly participate in various hedonistic luxuries.

Case and point: Cinadon. Or even Lysander--who is if anything responsible for delivering the final blow to the end of the Peloponnesian war--- who barely became a Spartan soldier because his mother wasn't a 'pure 'Spartanite and only got training because of some benevolent sponsor. Same with Gylippus.

Spartans are a bunch of boy-lovers that get their ass kicked by a gaggle of faggots

Is that why Sparta and its culture died out because its demographic was unsustainable?

Sparta became the enemy of all Greeks when they accepted the gold of the Persians.

Greek armours are so fucking awesome

Spartans were notorious for their corruption and love for money. By the end of 5th century they already degenerated into a meme state that got its shit kicked by a bunch of Theban homosexuals.

>tfw can't find PDF of this book I used to read as a kid
hope it's still at home, the artwork was great

Well Athens as the ultimate liberal republic was a hypocritical meme but saying Spartan was this ultimate bad ass manly warrior society is also a massive stretch.

Their military was geared first and foremost in suppressing their slaves and they would fall from demographics in time. And unlike Athens left no meaningful cultural foundation for western society. It would even be a stretch to say they singlehandley saved Greece from the Persians too, since it was the Athenians that ultimately destroyed the fleet and made further operations unwinnable.

To that end, I want to point out that the Persians were justified in even trying to invade Greece, since the Greeks were the shit starters in Ionia.

>Athenians
>degenerate under Pericles

They reached the peak of their power under Pericles and "serious" Greek philosophy (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) came into being in Periclean Athens.

>They were like the North Korean elite

This is going a bit too far. Every ancient source agrees that the Spartans lived harsher, more aesthetic lives than the other Greeks, even if this didn't exactly translate into being harder men, just look Sparta begging for peace after Pylos.

Lysander wasn't exactly a model Spartan when it came to everything other than winning, but Thucydides makes Gylippus to be pretty much perfect, even if that's only to make a contrast with Nicias and Cinadon was pretty much the Spartan Gracchi brothers. Why did you chose them to showcase Spartan hypocrisy?

And the Athenians aren't because they only tried to get gold from the Persians?

Brasidas died too young. He would have raised Athens if he lived 2 more years.

>came into being in Periclean Athens.
Plato wasn't even born when Periclws died. Pericles was cool but he left a trace of demagiges like Alcibiades that doomed Athens forever

>killing infants, forcing children to steal, randomly murdering helots to keep them on check, allying with Persia against Athens when you get jelous of their power is not degenerate

Appearently the worth of a society is determined solely by how good they are at killing people (until the helots who are like 90 percent have enough of their shit, rebel and take over).

I think it gets lost on a lot of people how much unbridled cool shit like these over the top designs can help get kids interested in this subject.

>Athens and Sparta were both republics.

Sparta was diarchy (had two kings).

They weren't both left and right on the political scale. Plus they never went to war over political ideals, but pragmatic concerns of power.

Don't forget Sparta begging Athens (and other greek cities) to help quell Helot revolts because they couldn't do it themselves

>Athens and Sparta were both republics.

Am I being trolled?

Neither were republics.

Athens was a self-professed democracy while actually having many oligarchic elements.

Sparta was a self-professed monarchy while actually having many oligarchic elements, with a hint of democracy at the bottom.

Neither allowed women, slaves, foreigners etc. to vote, so neither were anything close to a republic.

Republic is anything where the head of state or government isn't hereditary position.

So elective monarchies like the HRE are republics? Good to know

Aah but HRE was hereditary position as all the candidates for it were monarchs. There were republican members in HRE but none of their rulers were eligible for HRE.

Yeah, this series kicked so much ass. It was my favourite as a kid. I also had the Odyssey, the Aeneid and one with various greek myths.

>OP: Childish and autistic

...

Just like in Sparta