George S.K wrote:Seriously now, you can't compare the two systems, even more by modern standards. Those two were tremendously different, and putting them in the same ladder would be plainly wrong.
They both co-existed and fraught each other, so it's like comparing two systems at war. Athenian philosophers compared the two systems, and they often came out in Sparta's favour.
Both systems worked fine, although their constant differences probably got them under the reign of the Roman in the first place. They had proved, through civil wars and such that they both had quite a balanced description, be it democracy or oligarchy of the Spartan militaristic society.
Please note I am using Greek definitions.Sparta was not an oligarchy by the standards of the time, because though the Council of Elders was an oligarchic organisation, other sections of the Spartan constitution where not. The dual Kingship was a (abeit singular) long lasting and stable monarchy, the Apella was democratic and the Ephors Tyrannical. By modern standards Sparta is hard to define too, as it's wealth distribution polices are socialistic but it was also a class soceity in the most extreme sense.
And the Athenian system did not work just as well, it lost the war to Sparta because it spent more time electing it's generals and watching plays than training a decent army! Pure Athenian democracy never recovered from it's defeat by Sparta returning only in nostalgic, watered down and sort lived restorations which generally got squashed by other nations. In the end Sparta was beaten by it's Theben "students", who had been it's former allies.