Athenian Life Essay

In Athens, there were three groups of people, the slaves, foreigners (which include freed slaves), and Athenian born natives. The slaves were owned by individual Athenian citizens, unlike in Sparta, and they were either skilled or non-skilled. The skilled performed duties like accounts, etc for their Athenian masters while the non-skilled did other duties like work in the silver mines in Attica and they were not valuable compared to the skilled. They were not allowed to participate in politics since they were not citizens. The second group which is foreigners did various jobs as they were skilled in various activities like as merchants, etc. The third group which is the Athenian born natives did various duties like farming, selling the grains, …show more content…
The 300 bushel men were also called the horsemen because they raised horses and provided them for military services. They held minor political offices. The third class was the 200 bushel men who had enough wealth to secure weapons and armor to become hoplite soldiers. They also held minor political offices. The fourth class was the 199 bushel men and lesser who were urban and non-landlord poor. These did duties like as rowers. The women were not allowed to participate in politics and their job was in the house (Brand, P.J., 2010).

While in Sparta, there were Messenian helots and Spartans. The Messenian helots were the slaves and their daily life was as peasant farmers. They farmed the lands and gave half of their produce to the Spartan state as they were owned by the Spartan State as a whole unlike in Athens. This was their main service to the Spartans and they were not considered Spartan citizens regardless of their birthplace. The slaves were not even allowed to participate in politics just like in Athens. The daily life of a Spartan male citizen was being a soldier and used to go or hunting while the women’s job was cooking, having and giving birth to more soldiers,