Sparta and Athens are, in different ways,…
657 BCE to 646 BCE
Sparta and Athens are, in different ways, among those Greek polities that are in the process of building states that includes wider sectors of society in their political activity than had any previous society, and the basis of democracy is laid.
Athens becomes the largest polis, combining several regions of the peninsula of Attica, whose huge size and favorable configuration makes it unusual by any standards among Greek poleis.
Its territory is far larger than that of Corinth or Megara; while Boeotia, though in control of a comparable area, resorts to the federal principle as a way of imposing unity.
Like Corinth but unlike Thebes (the greatest city of Classical Boeotia), Athens has a splendid acropolis (citadel) that had its own water supply, a natural advantage making for early political centralization.
Moreover, Athens is protected by four mountain systems offering a first line of defense.
Second, Attica has a very long coastline jutting into the Aegean, a feature that invites it to become a maritime power (one may contrast it with Sparta, whose port of Gythion is far away to the south).
This in turn is to compel Athens to import quantities of the shipbuilding timber it lacks, a major factor in Athenian imperial thinking.
Third, although Attica is rich in certain natural resources, such as precious metal for coinage—the silver of the Laurium mines in the east of Attica—and marble for building, its soil, suitable though it is for olive growing, is thin by comparison with that of Thessaly or Boeotia.
This means that when Athens' territory became more densely populated after the post-Mycenaean depopulation, which had affected all Greece, it had to look for outside sources of grain, and, to secure those sources, it had to act imperialistically.