S02E13: Athens, Sparta, and Classical Greece

By the 8^th century BCE the city states of Greece had arisen to their classical age and began shaping the direction of western civilization. As a scattered collection of individual powers, shared cultural attributes force historians to consider the inhabitants of the Greek mainland to be one society governed by the same world view. While having a great deal in common, the Classical Greeks often battled one another and divided their loyalties between the two superpowers of the age, the Athenians of Attica and the Spartans on the Peloponnesus. On this episode we discuss the emergence of Classical Greece and the rivalry of Athens and Sparta.