LO3, Greece

City-State = Polis

Fortress-Temple precinct = Acropolis

Athens and Sparta each cities of Greece, about the same size as a few United States counties, the population of both town and country ordinarily numbered between a few thousand, Athens may as reached as many as 250,000 thousand people. To the Athenians, the Sparta life was not worth living. One of their favorite jokes was that the life led by Spartans explained their willingness to face death. The Spartans cultivated physical fitness and military courage. Sparta had the more powerful army, and Athenians had a very excellent navy. Together the both of them helped each other out when the enemy came to them and wanted to conquer Greece. The Persian Wars, Darius and later his son Xerxes, sent two expeditions by the land and sea against the mainland Greeks. The Persians lost the first battle at Marathon against the Greeks in 490bc. Ten years later, in a sea battle off the island of Salamis near Athens, the Athenian navy smashed all Persian ships. On land, Spartans forced help up Xerxes army in their renowned suicidal stand at Thermopylae in 480bc. The main body of the Spartans hoplites later routed the Persians in the pivotal land battle of Plataea. But it was Athens that went on to liberate the Greeks of Anatolia from Persian rule and by 445bc the Athenians were controlling the Aegean and parts of the Mediterranean seas. The Greeks and the Persians made peace after the Greeks chased them back into there land and destroyed there bridges over the rivers to Greece.